When Satan tempted Jesus

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4:1
We can read about the temptations that Jesus faced, and think, ‘That would have been easy for Him, because He is God.’ But the temptations were very real, and Jesus had to resist them as a man – He had to succeed where Adam had failed. Satan brought three temptations against Him; let’s look at them in some detail.
The first temptation was to turn the stones into bread (Matt. 3:3). It was a natural thing to want to do – Jesus had been fasting for forty days, and was hungry. During fasting, after the first few days, hunger goes away. But after about forty days it returns, and it is imperative that one eats at this stage. But Jesus resisted: to turn the stones into bread would be to use His own Divine power to help Himself. Jesus never did this during His earthly life – not at the temptation, and not at the cross.
The second temptation was to throw Himself down from the temple (Matt. 4:5-6). This may seem strange to us – how was this a temptation, on par with the first one? Satan knew that Jesus had come to deliver the people out of spiritual darkness to light. They were lost in sin and He had come to save them. By throwing Himself off the temple, He would certainly create a scene, and since (according to Satan) the angels would prevent Him from injury, this would be a surefire way to gather a following. But it would require Him to force God’s hand, something He was not prepared to do (Matt. 4:7).
The third temptation was to bow down to Satan in order to receive the kingdoms of the world (Matt. 4:8-9). At the time, Satan did have control over the world – the dominion God had given to Adam, had passed to him when Adam sinned. What Satan is offering Jesus is the reward He would receive from dying on the cross, without having to go through with it.
These weren’t the last temptations that Satan offered Jesus. But they show us the depth of commitment He had for us.