We cannot see God, but we know he is always near us. He helps us and takes care of us. He always wants us to do the right things so we will be happy. He wants us to come live with him when we die.

We cannot see Satan, but he is alive too. He is very bad. He tries to get us to do bad things. He does not want us to go to heaven when we die. Heaven is a happy place where God lives. Satan wants us to go to a bad place called hell. No one is ever happy in hell because God is never there.

Temptation:

Sometimes we want to do the wrong thing. Wanting to do the wrong thing is called “temptation.”

Sometimes we know to do something good, but we want to just forget about it and not do it. When we feel like not doing something that we know is good that is also temptation.

Temptation is when bad and wrong things look really good to us. Satan tempts us. He hates it when we are good, so he tries to make bad things seem good to us. Sometimes he makes them look so good that we forget what God says and just do the bad thing.

After Jesus was baptized, he went away to the desert to be alone. He decided that he wanted to pray and think about God for 40 days. Jesus did not want to be distracted by anything, so he fasted.

To fast means to not eat so that even our bodies make us think about God every time we feel hungry. Jesus fasted and did not eat for 40 days when he was in the desert.

Satan did not like it because Jesus only thought about God. Satan hated it that Jesus was so good all the time. He decided to tempt Jesus and try to make him do bad things. Satan came to Jesus and tempted him in three ways.

Temptation 1: Satan knew Jesus was really hungry, so he tempted Jesus to use his powers in a selfish way all for himself. Satan said, “If you are really the Son of God then use your special powers to turn these stones into bread.”

Jesus was hungry but he knew that God wanted him to only use his special powers to help people. His power was not just for feeding himself! Jesus wanted to do the right thing. He knew the best way to answer Satan was to use God’s words. Jesus had memorized a lot of scriptures, so he knew exactly which scripture to say to Satan. He said this verse from the Bible, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Temptation 2: Next, Satan took Jesus to Jerusalem to the temple. Both Jesus and Satan knew that the temple was a special place to God.

They stood at the highest point of the temple. Satan wanted to get Jesus to doubt God’s power. He told Jesus that he should give God a test to see if his power worked. Satan told Jesus to jump off the temple and see if God’s angels would catch him.

But Jesus did not need to give God a test. Jesus already knew that God’s power was stronger than anything in the world. Jesus told Satan another Scripture from God’s word. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Temptation 3: You would think that Satan would have learned his lesson, but he REALLY wanted Jesus to mess up. Maybe Satan thought, “If only I can get Jesus to do things MY way, then I will be more important to him than God is.”

So, Satan had one more thing he could do to tempt Jesus. Maybe this time he could get Jesus to sin. Satan took Jesus to the top of a very high mountain. They could see the whole world from the top of the mountain.

So, Satan said, “You say you love all the people of the world. You say you want them to go to heaven. How about a deal? I will help all the people of the world go to heaven if you will just do one simple thing. All you have to do is to bow down and worship me instead of God.”

Do you think Jesus gave in to this temptation? No! Jesus had had enough. He told Satan to go away. Of course he would never worship Satan! Jesus loved God. He would only worship God. Jesus quoted from the Old Testament one more time, “Worship the Lord you God, and serve him only.”

Then Satan left Jesus. Angels came and helped take care of Jesus after that.

Do you think Satan gave up trying to tempt Jesus? No, he did not give up. Over the next 3 years Satan tried again and again to tempt Jesus but Jesus never did wrong.

God understands that temptation is very difficult. It was even hard for Jesus.

Sometimes we are tempted to do the wrong thing too. God understands Satan’s sneaky tricks and he can help us say “no” to temptation. We need to remember God’s true words just like Jesus did.

Scripture Reference: Matthew 4:1-11