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.)
After Jesus gave His disciples the opportunity to be included in the solution to the crowd’s hunger (Mark 8:1-4), He further endeavored to elicit a response of faith from them: “And He asked them, ‘How many loaves have ye?’ And they said, ‘Seven’” (verse 5). Jesus’ ongoing involvement of His followers in His ministry is instructive. It is obvious that Jesus does not need any of us to accomplish His plans. When Peter tried to defend Jesus at His illegal arrest, He said in Matthew 26:53, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions [36,000 – 72,000] angels?” Certainly the holy angels would be better laborers than any of us. Moreover, Jesus, fully God, can accomplish any task by Himself. At the conclusion of the campaign of Armageddon, we read the following in Revelation 19:21: “And the remnant [the unbelievers] were slain with the sword of Him [Who] sat upon the horse, [Whose] sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.” Since the “sword” is symbolic of Jesus’ speech, this verse pictures His complete and immediate victory accomplished solely by the power of His words. He does not need us. Rather, He chooses to include us – a fact which should be a continuing motivation to serve Him loyally.