St. Matthew 4: 1-11 narrates how the devil tries his best to tempt Jesus. After forty days of fasting, Jesus is tired, hungry and vulnerable. This is seen as the best time to make him succumb to the unreasonable requests of the devil. But Jesus does not give up. Even after a tiring fast his mind is clear and he knows exactly what he is doing. This lent, we also have to learn how to overcome temptations.
As we live in a world which has been taken over by social media, temptations for us also come through and in such media. We get friend requests from fake profiles with nice and even tempting pictures. In a world of isolation, this is a temptation which is difficult to overcome for many. The same method is used for honey traps, where men are lured by tempting profiles into relationships with people who do not exist. This is used to extort money, steal secrets and sensitive information and blackmail people.
Many people fall for such traps without realising what they are doing. The more tempting a profile picture is, the more we should distant ourself from it. In verses 5-7, the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. He is asked to jump as the angels of the Lord will bear him. But Jesus senses the fake nature of the words of the devil.
We fall for fake profiles. We also fall for false requests, seeking of money and wrong information. The person on the other side is someone else and is offering something they don’t have. Yet, we don’t spend any time in thinking before accepting the request and replying to messages. This succumbing to temptation turns out to be a personal loss as there is loss of money, reputation and name.
Lent is a good time to go through our friends list. How many in the list are actual friends? How many are fake and how many are cheating us? An audit during this time will be beneficial, to become sensible like Jesus, and to defend ourself against the temptation of fake profiles and fake requests. Such profiles will only promise and never deliver. We should rather take time to sift through the requests and accept the ones we know, which don’t have strange and beautiful pictures and which are not tempting and luring in any regard. Amen.
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