aw-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 hypercritical eyes of the Pharisees were ever narrowed at Jesus as we find in Mark 2:23-24: “And it came to pass, that He went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and His disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto Him, ‘Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?’” As the following verses demonstrate, the premise of this question was flawed, and Jesus answers in some detail. The Jewish Sabbath was and is our Saturday. Sunday became the Christian day of worship because Jesus rose from the dead on “the first day of the week” (Acts 20:7 indicates that this change took place early in the history of the Church; see also I Corinthians 16:2). The command of Exodus 20:8 to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” is the only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated in the New Testament, but the principle of a day set aside for worship remains. For example, Hebrews 10:25a speaks of “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.” It is clear that Jesus loves our day of worship. May we find ourselves loving it as well, as part of our growing love for Him.