Do you remember Martin Scorsese's provocative, perhaps heretical, film, "The Last Temptation of Christ"?

What made the premise so intriguing was the suggestion that the choice Jesus had to make was not so much between Savior and Satan but between messiahship and just being a regular guy with a wife and family, a good job and a decent home.

Not between bad and good but good and better.

Are we not faced with similar decisions every day?

The devil is, I am convinced, not a purveyor of perdition as much as a voice of reason.

"Do this," the voice says, "and life will be easy for you. Do this and don't think about anything else. Do this and forget all that foolishness of serving others, sacrificing your time, giving away your money."

To follow Christ is to leave where we are and venture forth in faith. It is a journey filled with decisions and choices. Filled, I dare say, with temptation. The mark of a maturing spirituality, it seems to me, is the willingness to continue facing up to these alternatives, allowing ourselves to be changed, allowing ourselves to become what God intends us to be.