“Blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds
of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets
who were before you.”
“Truth
without love is too hard; love without truth is too soft”
-John
Stott
This is what
separates the Christian from the blindness of optimism or pessimism.
We are not a people with the luxury of a pre-fabricated response to
everything, God asks us to use the mind and the Spirit He's given us
to discern.
You may have heard
the phrase “Hope for the best and plan for the worst;”Jesus calls
His followers to seek first the things of God (Matthew 6:33), though
never forget this regularly conflicts with the world's “common
sense” and can lead to our peril.
At the writing and
reading of these words, there are individuals all over the world,
caged in cells, awaiting certain death, their crime: loving Jesus
and sharing His teachings with others. We must not forget our
persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in our prayers. They are
the ones who many times pay the ultimate price for following Jesus to
the cross.
Jesus explains
here, to His disciples, that He is not providing them a five step
plan on How to Quickly Rise in Popularity and Offend the Least People
Possible. He is offering them God's Truth, that remains true
regardless of what others think. What Jesus is not asking us to do is
be belligerent and purposely offensive.
Let's clear up
another misconception: Christians are not to seek controversy and
contempt with society at large. Anyone with a significant amount of
time in the faith can likely relate a story in which followers of
Christ have chosen to demonize a specific class of people or specific
action (“Those [fill in the blank] are taking over, [fill in the
blank] is the top problem of this country”). What results is
monsters in our mind that were once people, the delineation is
important, because monsters can't be reasoned with.
No, there are no
monsters on earth, just sinners, none of us worse than the other. We
don't need to make up enemies to fight, for our war is not with flesh
and blood but against the powers of spiritual darkness(Ephesians
6:12). We hate and can be completely disgusted by what people do, but
our quarrel is not with them, but the darkness driving them. This is
why the light we carry as believers is so important, as we will soon
see later on in Matthew 5.
Questions:
- How can the follower of Christ best keep themselves from demonizing others?
- Earlier, Christ tells us
to be peacemakers,yet follows up with telling us persecution is a
likelihood in our lives. How do you reconcile that?
- How can followers of Christ dialogue responsibly and yet truthfully with those they disagree?
- Is there an example in your life that illustrates this?
No comments:
Post a Comment