It's appalling that the Jews chose Caesar over their king. Yes, they were disappointed that He hadn't come tor the purpose they had hoped, but their disappointment was the result of their misguided expectations, not that Jesus had fallen short. They simply didn't understand Him or his mission. Good lesson for us in those times when we may feel disappointed in Jesus when things go wrong in our lives. If we are disappointed in Him, it is because we have put our own desires ahead of His and the remedy is to try to understand and to align our desires with His.
Thank you for this beautiful explanation Heidi!
You mentioned that by being selfish we can crucify God with our hearts, thoughts and actions. This is so true. The ultimate act of selflessness is to sacrifice for others. This is what Jesus did. Sacrificed himself for us. However, we are like Burger King. We think we can have everything our way.
I also love how you mentioned Jesus addressed compassion towards before he spoke of what happened to himself.
This ties into being selfless. Unless we too, crucify and surrender self we won’t be able to truly show compassion to others
Heidi, I agree with Adrian..it was a beautiful reading. In fact, after I listened, my first reaction was "Wow....I'm so moved, I don't know if I can even respond." It took me a while to sort things out. Very nice job.
Great thoughts Heidi. I missed this yesterday. This was packed with much to digest. Psalm 22 also prophetically gave the suffering of Jesus similar to Isaiah 53. While I love the Psalms and Isaiah, I notice that I often avoid these 2 passages because it causes me to have to look at my own sinfulness and what sin was responsible for on the cross. Sin is a mean taskmaster and if we allow it to rule us and not submit to the authority of God, we will pay heavy consequences and even if we escape the final consequences of death, we still pay a price on a daily basis if we do not submit to the Lordship of Jesus. We will serve one or the other; that is, we will serve Jesus and reap the daily blessing of His guidance and provision through the day and eternal life in heaven with the Lord or we serve our carnal natures and reap the negative consequences of living outside of God's will and risk the ultimate consequence of separation from God for eternity. So we crucify the desires of our flesh or we participate in the guilt and cause of the crucifixion of Jesus. Ouch!
A further thought: it is almost as if we crucify Jesus again when we sin or return to our sinful ways. Keeping the crucifixion fresh in our minds, can help us to avoid the ways of our sinful nature, the tyranny of the flesh. We should ask ourselves when making these choices if we want to participate in adding more stripes to the back of Jesus or if we want to participate in driving another nail in Him or pushing the thorns again upon His head. If not, then the crucifixion that must take place is the crucifixion of our flesh - our sinful nature, dying to ourselves daily and taking up our cross and following Him.
5 Comments
It's appalling that the Jews chose Caesar over their king. Yes, they were disappointed that He hadn't come tor the purpose they had hoped, but their disappointment was the result of their misguided expectations, not that Jesus had fallen short. They simply didn't understand Him or his mission. Good lesson for us in those times when we may feel disappointed in Jesus when things go wrong in our lives. If we are disappointed in Him, it is because we have put our own desires ahead of His and the remedy is to try to understand and to align our desires with His.
Thank you for this beautiful explanation Heidi!
You mentioned that by being selfish we can crucify God with our hearts, thoughts and actions. This is so true. The ultimate act of selflessness is to sacrifice for others. This is what Jesus did. Sacrificed himself for us. However, we are like Burger King. We think we can have everything our way.
I also love how you mentioned Jesus addressed compassion towards before he spoke of what happened to himself.
This ties into being selfless. Unless we too, crucify and surrender self we won’t be able to truly show compassion to others
“Jesus help us follow your model.”
Heidi, I agree with Adrian..it was a beautiful reading. In fact, after I listened, my first reaction was "Wow....I'm so moved, I don't know if I can even respond." It took me a while to sort things out. Very nice job.
Great thoughts Heidi. I missed this yesterday. This was packed with much to digest. Psalm 22 also prophetically gave the suffering of Jesus similar to Isaiah 53. While I love the Psalms and Isaiah, I notice that I often avoid these 2 passages because it causes me to have to look at my own sinfulness and what sin was responsible for on the cross. Sin is a mean taskmaster and if we allow it to rule us and not submit to the authority of God, we will pay heavy consequences and even if we escape the final consequences of death, we still pay a price on a daily basis if we do not submit to the Lordship of Jesus. We will serve one or the other; that is, we will serve Jesus and reap the daily blessing of His guidance and provision through the day and eternal life in heaven with the Lord or we serve our carnal natures and reap the negative consequences of living outside of God's will and risk the ultimate consequence of separation from God for eternity. So we crucify the desires of our flesh or we participate in the guilt and cause of the crucifixion of Jesus. Ouch!
A further thought: it is almost as if we crucify Jesus again when we sin or return to our sinful ways. Keeping the crucifixion fresh in our minds, can help us to avoid the ways of our sinful nature, the tyranny of the flesh. We should ask ourselves when making these choices if we want to participate in adding more stripes to the back of Jesus or if we want to participate in driving another nail in Him or pushing the thorns again upon His head. If not, then the crucifixion that must take place is the crucifixion of our flesh - our sinful nature, dying to ourselves daily and taking up our cross and following Him.