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.)
Jesus continued His refutation of the heresy of the hypocritical (and hypercritical) religious leaders in Mark 6:14-17: “And when He had called all the people unto Him, He said unto them, ‘Hearken unto Me every one of you, and understand: there is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.’” Jesus is not saying here that drugs or other poisons are not dangerous. There are many such things that are harmful and even lethal. His teaching must be placed in the immediate context. Thus, He is saying that the legalistic leaders were wasting their time on ritual washings when they instead should have been taking care of their parents (verses 8-13). Their external scruples could not cover nor clean their internal selfishness and stubbornness. It is obvious to anyone that blatant, defiant sin leads us away from God. Based on Jesus’ words, it should also become obvious to us that we can be led away from Him by the man-made rules of even ostensibly religious people.