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.)
The one word in Mark 10:29-31 that we have not considered is “persecutions” (verse 30). In the midst of Jesus’ promises of blessings in the present and in the future, He also promises that Christians will experience special hardship precisely because they have chosen to follow Jesus. Later, the night before His death on the Cross, He spoke forthrightly on this issue: “Remember the word that I said unto you, ‘The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you’” (John 15:20a). Certainly Jesus did not deserve even the tiniest bit of persecution, for He did only good wherever He went: He “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed” (Acts 10:38). Even the cynical pagan Pontius Pilate proclaimed, after he had thoroughly evaluated the evidence presented by Jesus’ enemies, “Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined Him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things where of ye accuse Him” (Luke 23:14). In the next verse, Pilate added this statement about wicked Herod: “No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto Him.” Thus, two powerful leaders, charged with finding something wrong in Jesus, could not. As disciples of Jesus, we are following Him to “eternal life” (Mark 10:30) in heaven. We are also following Him into persecution.