Our Lord will continue to teach us to trust him for the rest of our lives. So we shouldn’t be surprised when we encounter the next situation we need to trust him in.
2. Jesus teaches his disciples to delight in him.
Remember when Satan took Jesus up on a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor and tried to get him to delight in them? If he tempted Jesus like this he will certainly tempt us to delight in this world and its “glories” as well.
There is a beautiful neighborhood near mine that I often walk through. Huge beautiful homes – mansions. Perfectly landscaped lawns. At times I have been tempted to be envious of those folks. Which is crazy, because God has blessed my wife and I with a comfortable older home on a quiet street with great neighbors. And I would not want to have to maintain those mansions. Yet I can still be tempted to envy.
But God tells us:
Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day. Proverbs 23:17
Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. PSALM 37:4
All the delights, wonders, beauties and joys in the universe are but dust compared to the infinite splendor, glory and joy in Jesus. The first second of looking upon his glorious face in heaven will make us forget every pleasure we knew in this life.
Adam and Eve got in trouble when Satan got them to look at the “desirable“fruit God had forbidden them to eat.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. GENESIS 3:6
Jesus teaches his disciples to delight in him and not the delights of this world.
3. Jesus teaches his disciples to be humble.
The afflictions God takes us through reveal how weak we are. How much we need him. Jesus is the ultimate example of humility. Though he was God he humbled himself and took on human weakness.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. PHILIPPIANS 2:3-8
Jesus humbled himself. And he tells his disciples to humble themselves
