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Luke 20:45-47
In Luke 19:41-44 Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because the Israelites had turned away from seeking God and His will for their lives. When Jesus arrives in the city, He drives those out of the temple who were buying, selling, and defiling God’s holy place made for worship of Him. Jesus began teaching in the temple daily and giving lessons of the corruptness of the Sadducees, chief priests, and the scribes. Instead of repentance, they hardened their hearts at Jesus and were drawn further away from God because of it. Their focus was not on God but on themselves.
Satan had succeeded in keeping their focus on the sinful nature by trapping them in their own pride and arrogance. In Luke 20:45-47, Jesus specifically calls out the scribes, who were the ones responsible for transcribing the Scripture into new copies to prevent them from being lost forever. They were the ones trained in the ancient language of their ancestors and the professionals of knowing the Scripture. The Israelites needed them to preserve God’s Word. This resulted in self-pride, arrogance, and greed from the scribes. This produced an attitude of “look at me” instead of humility and praise to God for the position that He gave them in preserving His Word.
This is an example of how Satan can utilize a good thing or position we have, to trap us in the sinful nature with pride, arrogance, and self-centeredness.
There is nothing wrong with wearing nice clothes, greeting one another in public, having the best seats at Church or at a banquet, accepting tithes from a widow, or spending a great amount of time in prayer as Jesus speaks of in Luke 20:45-47. The problem arises when we do these things only attention with an attitude of “look at me” or “look at how great I am.” The scribes did these things for just these very reasons with a self-righteous, self-centered attitude that did not focus on being humble toward God’s will for their lives and looking after the needs of others, but in taking advantage of people by extortion (Luke 19:45-46).
Jesus said that we should love God first and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). If we would support one another as much as we try to tear each other down, the world would be a much better place. We can only show this kind of love through salvation in Jesus, seeking God’s will for our lives, and striving each day to follow the things that Jesus teaches us in His Word and through the prompting of His Holy Spirit.
Dear Lord,
You made us in your own image (Genesis 1:27), and we have an earthly desire to be our own god and rule our own world. The sinful nature makes us seek things for our greedy selves, but please help us to overcome the sinful nature with the love of Christ Jesus that we would turn our focus/repent from the ways of the sinful nature and strive each day to follow Your will for our lives. Please speak to our hearts and give us the guidance to be to the praise of Your glory and seek to be compassionate and caring for everyone as Jesus first showed us by His example. Please forgive us when we fail and give us the strength to grow in our relationship with you and with our fellow man. In Jesus name I pray, amen.