What Can We Learn About True Independence?

Independence is a tricky concept. It conjures the idea of being free to do whatever you want to do. But if your imagination and desires are tainted in a way which keep you from pursuing what is truly good and beautiful and true – specifically what is good and beautiful and true and of a quality that can satisfy a person forever, then the freedom to do whatever you want, to chase whatever deep impulses well up inside of you, would actually be a form of slavery since you are not able to grasp what is good, beautiful and true when measured on an eternal scale.

In Jesus’ third temptation, Satan paraded before Jesus the best and highest of what human ingenuity and civilization could muster, trying to convince Jesus to exercise some freedom to choose beauty that seems very appealing. The offer he made to Jesus was that if Jesus would bow and worship him, Jesus could have custody of all that attractive civilization. Having been in Dubai this winter, our family got to see a slice of the most beautiful things humans can develop. The architecture and technology, the cars and watches for sale (for millions of dollars each), filled our eyes with amazing images. But the things we saw cannot satisfy a soul for eternity. If you spent a thousand years immersed in the wealth of Dubai, I’d venture to say it would come to seem more like hell than heaven, for what satisfies the soul is not any product of human working. What satisfies the soul is the Creator God who is Himself good and true and beautiful, and whose very dim and pale reflection is seen in what humans who are made in His image can create.

If Jesus had given in to the temptation of Satan, what would He have gained? Things that under the shiny cosmetic surface were actually festering with rottenness and destined for destruction. Jesus was looking deeper than the surface of things. By going to the cross and paying the penalty for sinners and then rising from the dead so He could extend new life to believers, He treated the root of the problem. He made sinners (some of them very talented) into new creations, capable of reflecting His own goodness, truth and beauty into eternity.

How did Jesus respond to Satan? He quoted Deuteronomy 6:13 and 10:20 – “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve’” (Matthew 4:10). It is deadly to allow our eyes to lead us to chase after what is cosmetically attractive. Satan associates that with us worshiping him! Instead, we must fix our eyes on the holy God revealed in Scripture, and not split our devotion between Him and any attractive rival. Would you want a heaven filled with flashy, man made things or a heaven shaped by the loving sacrifice of Christ to move undeserving sinners to safety at the price of His own life? Which would satisfy you more?