The beginning of Christ Jesus' momentous ministry was heralded by God's statement of a glorious fact: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Matt. 3:17 In varying manner all four Gospels relate this revelation of the name and nature of the Messiah.
Yet, immediately after recording this complete acknowledgment, the Gospels read that Jesus was led into the wilderness, where temptations arose aiming to disprove his identity and pervert his mission. Matthew and Luke give the details of these temptations. Such suggestions beset each individual in his journey from sense to Soul. In the Glossary of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives this definition: "Wilderness. Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." Science and Health, p. 597
How often, just after our own vision of the Christ has been especially clear, some insidious suggestion has claimed to place us in the wilderness of doubt and darkness! But Jesus met every temptation with prompt and powerful repudiation. When problems present themselves as activities of our own consciousness, we frequently find that these are the temptations that most need to be faced and refuted.
