John 12:36-43
36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’
The Unbelief of the People
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. 37Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. 38This was to fulfil the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah:‘Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ 39And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said, 40‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart,so that they might not look with their eyes, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’ 41Isaiah said this because* he saw his glory and spoke about him. 42Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.
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3 comments:
I am struck by that last sentence...for they loved human glory man than the glory that comes from God. In my car on the way to the church today I was thinking about how many oposing messages there are in the Bible. God loves you so much he sent his only son to die for you and... we are sinful and will never be worthy of God's love. Be in relationship with God through prayer and biblical study and...help the poor, heal the sick, rescue the weary and all for my love's sake. We know that we are to spread the good news of Jesus Christ "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel and...God hardened their hearts against believing.
Part of me thinks the way to engage in the glory of God is to wrestle with these juxtapositions. That God is so much bigger and broader than we can understand that even those the above seem like impossible or at least difficult notions to accomplish simultaneously that we are to live into God's call and continue to wrestle with where it leads us each moment.
One moment I may be called into action another prayer. At any given moment and I am both sinner and saint, and I am called to preach the gospel and called to allow people to find GOd in their own time.
What do you think?
I think it's not supposed to be easy.:-) I think we want it to be easy (preach the gospel once, maybe twice, and everyone will see we are one the right path and follow us; give food to the food pantry one time, hunger will go away and we have shown others what the right way is (and what good people we are in the meantime ;-))I think we are meant to just keep going in the knowledge that there is a greater reward to come, that we should preach the gospel (words and actions) and if anyone is moved by that, fantastic and if not, oh well. But we need to keep plodding along. I once saw a placque that said prayer makes things possible, not easy. I think our faith is like that. Living it out is not easy, we really are just a bunch of sinners who are stumbling along doing the best that we can but if we "reject" human glory, look for the God's glory, preach to hardened hearts, give food to the food pantry, talk to a person in need of an ear, and all the other things we are supposed to do even though we aren't good enough, we will be fine.
I think that part of the reason why the Bible is full of paradoxes is for the purpose of balance. So many things in life require balance to be healthy or and in sync - the food chain (too much or too few of one type of animal and it messes up ecosystems), our bodies (too much or too little of certain foods and we're out of sync).
The same holds true for so much of what is in the Bible - too much reliance on grace and it can lead to license to sin, too much reliance on doing good and it can lead to legalism, etc.
I think the paradoxes are good road maps in life, too. If I find myself leaning a little too much in one direction, that's probably a good indication that I need a little more of the opposite in my life.
I don't know if this is all making sense. Basically I think that God wants us to be balanced, which requires constant adjusting and firing of the synapses as opposed to remaining in one fixed static position or mindset.
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