Hard Things Jesus Said: Would We Have Walked Away?
Jesus said some hard things. Would we have thought of Jesus as a novelty and enjoyed His company and teachings until things became “real”? Or would we have truly loved Him and understood that His words were true and life? Just what would we have done? Consider each of these hard sayings. How would you have reacted? Listening to Jesus, we would have heard him say the following: · Love your enemies. Matthew 5:43-47 · Turn the other cheek. Matthew 5:38-42 · God and Money: You can’t serve both. Matthew 6:24 · Only a few find the gateway to life: Matthew 7:13-14 · You must deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23-25 · To be His disciple, you must love Jesus more than anyone else and more than your own life. Luke 14:26-27 · Jesus is the only way to God. John 14:6 · Take sin seriously. Matthew 18:9 · Be perfect. Matthew 5:48 · Being angry is the same as murder. Matthew 5:22 · Jesus came to divide. Luke 12:51-53 · If you don’t follow Jesus, then you are against Him. Matthew 12:30 · If you don’t acknowledge Jesus, He won’t acknowledge you before God. Matthew 10:32-33 · You’re forgiven; now stop sinning. John 8:10-11 Many Disciples Desert Jesus Many disciples deserted Jesus after hearing His words set out in John 6:53-59 53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. What did Jesus mean when He declared that He was “the bread of life” and that one must “eat his flesh and drink His blood” to have eternal life? Were these words meant to be discerned spiritually or literally? Jesus explains in John 8:47 that those who don’t belong to God can’t hear God. Paul in 1st Corinthians 2:14 echoes this when he says that those “who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit.” He says that “It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.” Perhaps those followers who walked away left because they didn’t truly belong to God. Jesus’ Words: Spirit and Life Jesus said that the words He spoke were “spirit and life”; they were truths from God’s Spirit. To those who did not belong to God, Jesus’ words sounded foolish and were not understandable. But to those like Peter, who belonged to God, His words were discerned spiritually and gave eternal life. Whether or not we would have believed Jesus’ words 2,000 years ago is impossible to know. What we do know is that His truths never change. Many things Jesus says require us to step away from ourselves and step towards God in faith. We can trust that what God says is true and although His words may at first seem counter to what we know, when we believe, these words prove powerful and living and true. Prayer: Thank you that Your words are spirit and life. Thank you that we can speak those words confidently, knowing that they are true and they never change. Lord, although I may not always understand, today I choose to step towards you in faith. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
5 Things To Make You Think
I heard a pastor mention these statements; they caught my attention. I have been thinking them out. There is WAY more information that needs to be said about each one, but I’m just going to give you a tidbit about each statement. Church needs to be churchie again, it’s time for church to be church again… We need to go back to the basics. What is going back to the basics mean? Us humans are the church. The church is NOT just a building we have a service at. I believe it means we go back to see what the Bible says the basics are. A few commandments come to mind… John 15:12 “So this is my command: Love each other deeply, as much as I have loved you.” TPT Another Version: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” NASB Another Verse: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13:34 NKJV Another commandment is found in Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” So part of the going back to the basics are: We need to love one another as He loves us! We need to go make disciples! They are looking for Supernatural, but when the Supernatural is taken out of the church- they go looking for it somewhere else. What is supernatural in the church? Holy Spirit, signs, and wonders. In John 4:48 it says: “Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”” Romans 15:19: “In mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” Jesus did miracles during his time on earth. Now, with the Holy Spirit living IN us on earth, we can do miracles too. Holy Spirit is an AMAZING person to learn about. That’s a blog/teaching in itself. If you want to read about Holy Spirit, He is ALL through the Bible, but Jesus talks about Holy Spirit in John 14, 15, 16 before Jesus ascends to the heavens to be with His Father. You may ask how people are looking for the Supernatural. Witchcraft is just ONE of the perverted versions of Holy Spirit. There are so many, many more things that are supernatural on the negative side. There are people looking for something different which is why they come to Church, but if the church isn’t different then why come? They want a change. The Bible talks about not conforming to this world, we are to be set apart. Rom 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:2 NKJV Why are our churches (us) conforming? Why are our churches (us) being deceived? To answer the 2 questions above; I personally believe because they are missing the intimacy with Holy Spirit. They aren’t in tune to the truth of the Bible and they don’t have ALL their armor on. We have an assignment- but our assignment has issues. Jesus didn’t let the issues stop him. Jesus did what His Father told him to do Jesus preached, He healed. When God tells us to talk to somebody, minister to somebody, be a mentor to somebody and that person has issues many of us might stop, think, and tell God “I don’t think so”. You may or may not know what’s going on with them but you can’t let THEIR issue stop you. Jesus told YOU to do it and there is a reason. Jesus, I’m sure was tired and sometimes didn’t want to keep doing what his Father told him to do; which was to preach and heal, make disciples and love, but He did it anyway. I’m sure there were days when He didn’t want to go walking through the city because he knew someone would need something from him, BUT He did it anyway, because he had an assignment that He had to walk it out. Final thoughts: We need to go back to the basics, loving others and making disciples. We need Holy Spirit in our churches. We need to stick to the truth and not conform to this world. We need to follow our assignment ALL the way through no matter the issues. I am going to leave you with this statement! In a broken world, are we really surprised the world is acting like the world?