Well everyone, I just wrote the main post but thought of something else to share, which is something I learned the hard way. And the thing is to figure out and even profess regularly that none of us are Jesus. People say, well, of course we don’t claim that, but actually it is very common to get so carried away with trying to be like Jesus that people can’t admit the gaping difference that accounts for why our faces get ground in the dirt every day by life’s worldly abusers. Example: When I go to the ER for my gallbladder, I don’t say to the guy in a stretcher, “Arise and walk, your sins are forgiven.” I don’t say to a neighbor asking for cereal, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” I don’t say to a lady on the bus, “Your daughter is healed at this very moment.” I mean obviously I am joking, but people’s re-enactments of Jesus’s life go that far off track all the time. Maybe it is a cute blessing for God to see us so weakly imitate our hero like children. But frankly there are many people who get trapped in an acting habit that can only be relieved by secular society. What is a real example, you might ask. Well for one thing, look at our cultural problems. Think of the things some people had to do to survive, while the rest of the insulated church seemed to stay righteous. It’s either sin, or not risking sin enough to reach people. Both things are what I am talking about. And often the exhausted and exasperated people who have to give up on their idealistic Christian ambitions actually are in that moment, more like Christ.
Sunday, November 12, 2023
War and Peace
Hi everyone, every now and then, I think of a post for this blog, even though I already published it as a book. And I want to share something helpful as people prepare to probably fight another war. Here is an interesting verse from when Jesus was about to be crucified: John 17:36:
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
So this usually highlights how Jesus was giving up his life and not fighting back. And it was in fact the most merciful thing ever. We should try to follow Jesus’s example as much as we can.
However this verse says something else that is very interesting to consider, which is that Jesus said his followers would in fact fight if they were defending an earthly kingdom.
Well he says would and not should, but I think he still presents this as an additional example of how much to use force to ensure people’s safety and well being as part of nations and communities. The fact is that we aren’t Jesus, and though we pray and work for God’s will to be on earth as it is in heaven, most of us depend on government, rules, law, and justice of some sort. A lot of us got used to it early in life and assumed we would always be doing mercy work.
But here, with history’s spotlight on his every word, Jesus points out that it is more than appropriate for good people, and followers of Jesus, to use force against threats to their dearest communities, cities, and nations. Our lives are very earthly, no matter how much we overlap with eternity and heaven. There is too much ignorance about this, partially because a lot of us started thinking so much about heaven and hell. But even from that mindset, the teaching is there for people to learn that sometimes force is authorized and consistent with God’s teaching.
A lot of people who think they are above things like the death penalty, jail, cops, and armies, are acutally far, far beneath it, unworthy, and part of the reason bad guys get away with too much every day.