Good Morning Friends,
"As he approached Jerusalem and saw the
city, he wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day
what would bring you peace -- but now it is hidden from your eyes.'" (Luke
19:41-42)
Jesus expressed a similar sentiment about the
people of Jerusalem a little earlier in His life, recorded in Matthew's Gospel,
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to
you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." (Matthew 23:37)
The Jews, His own people, largely rejected
Jesus. That's especially true of the people of Jerusalem, the educated,
religious leaders of His day. They saw what Jesus did and could not explain it.
They heard what He taught and could not refute it. Still, they could not or
would not believe. To believe in Jesus would have meant to leave behind their
positions and privileges and all that they had given their lives to. That would
have cost too much, they enjoyed their lives too much to see them so radically
changed.
It is so easy to get caught up in doing life
the way we've always done life and miss what God is saying and doing around us
and wants to do in us. We get comfortable with life the way we know it, and that’s
true even if our lives have problems. It is easier to keep walking the same
familiar road than to make a U-turn and take a new path.
Jesus offered peace to the people of Jerusalem.
He offered to take them in under His protection. They weren’t willing to leave
what they knew behind, even for what Jesus offered!
I don't ever want to become so deaf that I fail
to hear God's voice. I don’t want to be so blind that I fail to see the new
places He wants to take me. I don’t want to be so comfortable that I’m
unwilling to follow the Lord.
His, by Grace, Steve
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