Jesus Revealed Pt. 8 - What Do You See?Намуна

The Blindness of Tradition  

Thoughts on the Passage

This is one of the most terrible things to hear from Jesus - “my words find no place in you”.

Peter said earlier in Chapter 6, “where else can we go, You have the words of life?”. When we do not understand why Jesus says some things, we can choose to ignore Him, or we can follow His words by faith – and trust Him that His words will lead us well. 

When He says that the words He speaks come from the Father – we trust Him and His words. When He says that the things He does are things the Father has asked Him to do – we follow closely behind Him. When He says that disregarding what He says means that we are listening to the voice of satan – we take that seriously and run away from those paths.

These people put greater trust in their own ability to discern what is right than they do in the words of Jesus. That defines the perspective of a lot of people – both people who reject Jesus and people who claim to follow Jesus. It is a dangerous path.

Jesus says that we are a slave – to either righteousness (and following God) or we are a slave to sin. Believe it.

Jesus says that we will die in our sins if we do not believe in Him. Believe it.

Jesus says that to follow satan means we follow a liar, a thief and a murderer. Believe it.

Jesus says that what we choose to believe determines who our father is. Believe it.

Application

Stop for a moment and evaluate where we draw our wisdom from. Do we trust the words of Jesus? When we do not understand them, do we still trust Jesus? When we are offended by the words of Jesus do we still trust and follow the words of Jesus?

Go back and read Matthew 5-7 - the Sermon on the Mount. These are Jesus’ words to His followers. Find one or two that you struggle with or do not understand and just choose today to follow them.

Time to Pray

Father, I am reading the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 – and I stopped right there. 

Blessed are the merciful – they will be shown mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart – they will see God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – they will be filled.

Father, these are Your words. I follow them, then I acknowledge You as my Father. I choose to be merciful, not have a harsh heart, hunger after righteousness. Strengthen my heart in all of these I pray. In Jesus’ name, Amen.