3. That the highest opposition which Jesus met with was not inconsistent with "his" loving those who opposed him, and with his seeking to do them good." - Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Amen. James and John thought they calling for fire from heaven from a place of proper love for Jesus but like Jeremiah reminds us, the heart is wickedly deceitful. They knew not that they were truly motivated by a lust for revenge. They were offended. They felt aggrieved and they were going to set it right. They were motivated by an improper opposition to their fellow man. It was not true righteous zeal at all. Jesus is rebuking them by saying they need to examine their spirit because if they did, they would find their true motivation lying beneath the veneer of self-righteousness they were operating under. We forget, as the Sons of Thunder did that day, that no matter how high the opposition Jesus faces, He never failed to love them. They were included in the people He knew He was going to die for. In the end, He only wanted what was best for them, you, and me.
Now overlay these scriptures and interpretations upon this fabricated offense from Paris. Perhaps many in the church who have been so outraged genuinely think they are coming from a place of love for Jesus but scripturally, we know this is not correct. Our deceitful heart lies to us about the offense and blames the people who need the love of Christ. The judgment that we are trying to visit upon them is not ours to wield. We have been told by political operatives and politicians that we should be offended. We have been sold a bill of goods by NAR grievance merchants. I am sorry but our motivation is pure carnality. Pure revenge. Pure bias. The people we have been conditioned to loathe are our fellow man and we should not so quickly forget that our position was once theirs but thankfully people still preached the gospel to us. Thankfully they did not actively try to call down heavenly fire upon us. If we dig deep, underneath the dominionist sermons and NAR twitter feeds that we allow to feed us, we would find that we are not really doing any of this for Jesus. How weak is the God you claim to serve that He needs you to defend Him? The people you think were somehow mocking you, deserve the same love that Christ displayed to the Samaritan village that day because He died for them too. We are still in the age of grace, yet we act without a sliver of it. Christ is coming back but until then, He still only wants what is best for you, me and the very people we are told are somehow beyond redemption.
Stop being offended beloved. Offense only serves the enemy. God did not ask us to defend His honor. He did not tell us to call fire from heaven down upon people we already have bias against, just because they are not where we are in terms of salvation. You are being used. You are being manipulated. There is nothing new under the sun. What happened yesterday is the same as the day before and the day after. People are lost and act like it. Like the Samaritans before them, they reject Jesus. The truly sad thing is that one the reasons is because we act like the Sons of Thunder. We act as if the fact that they are lost surprises us, offends us, and angers us. We know not what spirit we are of because our deceitful hearts have convinced us that we have righteous anger. We do not anymore than James and John did that day. We have bias. We have hatred. We have victimization. We have those things because we have bought them from the grievance merchants we allow into our lives. It is time we stop buying what they are selling.
Reverend Anthony Wade - July 28, 2024
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