Honor
i was thinking about being around in Jesus’ time yesterday. the crazy, wild things that were going on all the time around Jesus. it would have been so exciting, such and adventure to have been able to follow him around. he was like no other rabbi of that day. his theology was new, his ideas were different, and people either loved him or hated him.
to my next point.. this weekend myself and 8 friends went to massanutten ski resort and stayed with my grandparents. like usual, we had a nice little sunday morning service with all of us together. 5 guys, 3 girls, and 4 elderly. grandpa asked me to speak, which is typical, and to have 2 of my friends give a little testimony. it went great, all 3 of us spoke for about 5 minutes or so, then grandpa decided it would be a good idea to have all the kids, and elderly, share what God is doing in their lives. oddly enough there was a very similar statement from each of us. we all stated that our main focus is to put Jesus above everything else in our lives. that we need to stop trying to please ourselves, and instead give everything we have to glorify God.
here is where my thoughts come together.. why is this so hard for us to do in the world today? why is it such a struggle to put Jesus before ourselves? here is what i realized as we were all talking yesterday. back in Jesus’ day it was an absolute honor to be asked by a rabbi to follow him and learn his ways. kids studied their whole lives up until the age of about 16 to be able to follow in a rabbi’s footsteps. when Jesus asked the disciples to follow him, it was an honor. it was not a struggle, or even a hard decision. they immediately dropped what they were doing and went. how come we feel like we are doing Jesus a favor by telling him we will put him first? we are doing nothing for him. we should feel honored to be able to say that we are following Jesus. we are not doing God a favor, but he is doing us the biggest favor that was ever recorded in the history of mankind. maybe, just maybe, if we were to think about this and meditate on what Jesus did for us more often, glorifying him would not seem so difficult.
