What We Can Learn From Jesus Christ

    No matter whether we're a participating Christian or not, almost everyone in the modern world has heard the name of Jesus Christ. But who is He? Why is He so important to so many people? Jesus was a great leader, teacher, and - one of the most influential titles to me - friend. I want to share a quick story about Jesus when He was about 30 years old and why it's important to me and, hopefully, you. (This story is told mostly through my own words, but it still gets the important messages across).

    Jesus had gone to the wilderness and fasted for 40 days. While there the devil came to Him and tried tempting Jesus three times. The first time the devil told Jesus "You must be really hungry. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread so you can eat." Jesus replied to the devil, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." He did not fall to the first temptation of the devil.

    The devil came to Jesus a second time and told Him, "Let's go to the top of the tower. If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off. Angels will catch you and you will be protected." Again, Jesus denied the temptation and told the devil, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."

    Once more for the third time, the devil told Jesus, "If you worship me, I will give you everything." Jesus exclaimed, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve." The devil left Jesus for a while after that. Jesus was successful in resisting all three temptations. 

There can be many lessons learned from this story, but one I want to talk about is the understanding Jesus had of who He was. In the first two temptations, the devil had said "IF you be the Son of God..." because I think he was trying to get Jesus to doubt who He truly was. I believe that humans have amazing potential to do great things, just like Jesus did. If we ever feel like we aren't good enough, or have low self-worth, we can know that those thoughts do not define reality. While those thoughts can be hard to ignore, they do not define who we are. We are so much greater than we realize.