In Matthew 4:1-11, Christ fasts for forty days and forty nights. After his fast, He is tempted by Satan.
Satan is a master of temptation; he knows that for a temptation to be effective, it must entice the person with something that they want. He is also the master of lies, and promises to immediately give a prize that would otherwise require patience and sacrifice.
First temptation - stones to bread
Satan’s first temptation for Christ was to turn stones into bread to satiate his hunger. After forty days of fasting, we know that Christ was struggling with hunger (Matthew 4.2). Satan’s temptation is straightforward, and he offers Christ a way to immediately satiate that hunger by abusing His power. Christ rebukes him with a scripture.
Second temptation - saving Himself from mortal danger
Christ is then carried by the Spirit to Jerusalem and placed on a pinnacle of the temple. Satan appears and tempts Christ to throw Himself from the temple and prove that angels would protect Him. Christ, of course, rebukes him. This raises an interesting question, though: why had the Spirit carried Christ there, and why was this a powerful temptation from Satan?
We know that Christ did not have all knowledge of his role when He was born, but that He learned through revelation. This forty-day fast was right before Christ began His mortal ministry. If Satan was tempting Christ to save Himself from mortal danger, Christ may have been learning from the Spirit about the sacrifice He was going to have to make at the end of His ministry.
Third temptation - kingdoms and glory
Finally, the Spirit carries Christ to a mountain to look upon all the kingdoms of the world. Satan tempts him and promises to immediately deliver all of these kingdoms and their glory to Christ if He worships him. Christ, of course, denies Satan’s offer.
Again, what would make this an effective temptation, and why would the Spirit show this to Christ? If Christ were presumably learning about His ministry and His calling, the Spirit could be showing Him the people of the world that He would affect with His ministry. Satan’s temptation was an offer to gain influence and power over all of these people immediately instead of only helping them through His ministry. We also know that Christ offered all glory to His Father and didn’t take any on Himself during His ministry, so this was an offer of glory and power from Satan.
Sin is tempting
If there’s a lesson we can take from Christ’s temptations, it’s that the temptations we are presented with won’t be baseless. They won’t be easy to avoid, because they’ll be rooted in some need or want or pain that we have. However, by following Christ’s example, we can overcome those temptations by focusing on God and the promises He has made.