My grandma sent me two binders that contained Sunday school lessons written by her father, my great-granddad, Clodius McCollum. I've been reading through it today and came across this one which was only a page.
Painting, "Christ Tempted by Satan" by Georg Cornicelius.
In the original of this wonderful painting the eyes are red, with lack of sleep, not black, as they appear in the reproductions. His hair is a bit disheveled by the wind, because for days now, He has not thought of food, or sleep, or His personal appearance. And while His face rests upon His right hand, as one often instinctively does in deep thoughts, His left hand has gripped His wrist with muscular tension that indicates something of the intensity of His inner absorbing struggle.
If thou art the Messiah, is the problem that Jesus took with Him when He was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for self-discovery and self mastery, following that unusual experience as His Baptism when a voice out of Heaven said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased"
"Some one has said that "character is what you are when you are dead sure no one else is looking". The bitterest battles are fought, won or lost, within personality and not outside of it. Like Jesus, all of us fight our greatest battles with the evil forces that are all about us, alone, and within our own inner selves.
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