01/29/2025
Yesterday we gave thought to wounding Jesus, but today we will look at this in a different light... do we persecute Him? On the road to Damascus, Saul didn't understand what was happening to him. Who was speaking to him? So He asked, and Jesus told him. Do we know who speaks to us? What are our motives in serving God? Is our desire to solely elevate Him, or to gain some of the praise of others for ourselves? As we read today’s opening verses let's ask ourselves... do we have love? Do we serve Him with the motivation of God's love first?
“And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”
Acts 26:15 KJV
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV
If we are haughty towards those who have not met Jesus, what chance have they of seeing Jesus Christ in us? Have we promoted the gospel, or just our own desire to be better than those we wish to proselytize? Are we wanting others to join us in Christ, or for them to see us as holier than they are? Oswald Chambers puts it this way...
"Have I been persecuting Jesus by a zealous determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty and yet have hurt Him in doing it, I may be sure it was not my duty, because it has not fostered the meek and quiet spirit, but the spirit of self-satisfaction." - Oswald Chambers
Our mission in spreading the gospel, the realization of God's love for man, is to speak and demonstrate His love and character to those who haven't, can't, or don't, see Him. To reveal Him through our walk with Him is by far the most wonderful and fulfilling vocation in this life... it is His will manifest in us.
“I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.”
Psalms 40:8-10 KJV
We should teach the gospel openly, and in love. When we deliver it through bitter lips and past an unloving heart, we persecute the very one whose life, death, resurrection, and teaching we intended to reveal. When we look down on the sinner as though he were undeserving of redemption or didn't possess the ability to walk in faith as we do... we persecute Jesus. When we work in jobs of faith and yet live beneath our aspirations of righteousness, unable to embrace the unconverted that wait just outside redemption's door, we persecute Christ. How can we do these things and not hear the voice of Christ as He says this about conviction...
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds."”
Matthew 11:19 ESV
If we feel above the sinner that we seek to lead to Christ we have failed Jesus. If we can't hold the hands that once sinned and pray them clean in love, we have fallen ill in our faith. If we harm a brother in Christ in our attempt to appear pious, we have lost all righteousness. In all of these things and more we have persecuted Jesus, and although we feel self-righteous and uplifted, Jesus will one day say of us...
“And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Matthew 7:23 KJV
Are we speaking the gospel, forgiving the sinners, feeding those who know not Christ, and doing all of the other things that Jesus did? Are we able to do this with loving kindness, and demonstrate the power of grace to the world? Are we proclaiming our true faith and belief to the world, or are we just another lost soul who is persecuting Jesus? Let’s knock and ask that Jesus would abide in us for all to see and partake of, and pray that our hearts will always be opened by grace as His was.
““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?””
Matthew 7:7-9 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for drawing me to your Son Jesus, lift my heart towards those who need your compassion most, and teach me to show them the same mercy that you gave to me in your Son. Lord, don't let a pretense of piety rise up in me to shroud your desire that I deliver the Gospel of Christ to those who need it desperately. Lead me Father as I seek an open heart and to offer an expression of the same love and mercy that you show me every day. Lord God, I pray that my actions of faith will be pure and that I will never persecute your Son Jesus through their insincerity. Give me always the warmth and kindness that will encourage the seeker to open himself to you, and teach me to place my hand atop the dirty hands of sin as the sinner confesses and asks for your forgiveness and a cleansing touch. Jesus, fill me with your loving kindness, lead me, and may you never say of me... “I never knew you”. Father… Holy, Holy, Holy are you my God and the source of all love, grace, and kindness that has been poured out on the world. Holy are you who reached out in that love to the world by sending your Son Jesus to be born of a virgin, live, suffer, die, and be resurrected that ALL the world might be saved from sin and death by their belief in Him and you. How great you are, and how glorious your countenance that is shown to the world through us your children. Hear us as we pray today that we be transformed in Jesus to be your emissaries to the fallen. We pray also that you be pleased with us Father, not by our religious intentions, but in the love and goodness that radiates from us through our true belief in you, and Jesus Christ. Circumcise our hearts of men and leave only your divine heart in their place. We pray all of this in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Amen, Amen, Amen
“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
Matthew 7:22-23 ESV
“And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.””
Matthew 5:2,8 ESV
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.””
Matthew 5:13-16 ESV
Rich Forbes