Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
As we studied last week, Jesus confronts, corrects, and counteracts our culture. Luke 10:17-20 records another example of negative cultural influence. Seventy designated disciples returned to Jesus with great excitement, for they had been enabled to cast out demons (verse 17). Certainly their activities were good, but Jesus concluded His response with a necessary reminder: “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (verse 20). A lesson for us is that culture misses what is important and can easily distract us from the same. We are readily drawn to the flashy and the fleshy – yes, even in the church – but Jesus lifts our thoughts from one point in time to all of time, from this temporary earth to His everlasting heaven. Let us be sure that our “names are written in heaven,” and let us then “rejoice.”