Three Things.
I am not telling you anything you do not already know or believe.
Rather I want to affirm in you those things we talked about the other day that you do need to focus on.
Jesus first.
Not popular media Jesus, or some western Jesus, or church Jesus.
But Jesus as he presents himself in the gospels.
Read the gospels, daily. Get the audio gospel in a few different versions. Watch The Chosen. It’s got some funny cultural quirks in it but overall it’s a good telling of Jesus.
At any time in our lives, there is no way forward without Jesus at the center. The simplest way we get to learn to hear God talking to us is to read the words Jesus said 2000 years ago.
As we read or listen to the words Jesus said in the gospels, any words that resonate with us are God talking to us. We need to practice this, reading the gospels, letting God know what we think, telling him what is happening in our lives, and then expecting some answers, even answers that ask of us things we don’t want to do or face. And then doing what we have heard. It is no good being hearers of the words of Jesus and then not doers of the words of Jesus.
This brings us to the second thing.
Humility.
God loves us just where we are, unconditionally. God loves us too much to leave us where we are. We do not lose ourselves when God calls us to gentleness, or humility, or trains us in new ways. Our egos fight this, our self-justification fights this. When we are renewed in our thinking, to take on Jesus’ teachings, simple things like do to others as you would have them do to you, love your enemies and pray for them, (and do it), don’t even be angry, (that is a hard one, to let go of anger.)
But when we do these things we become the best version of who we are.
God calls us to walk humbly with him, not merely because he says he is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble, but when we have a stiff neck when we are unyielding, we do not know when we are right and where we are wrong, and we will lead ourselves to our own harm.
God is trying to protect us from ourselves, that is why he calls us to humility. We all need to grow in Jesus and be changed into his likeness, and this only happens through humility. We need to learn to admit that even when we are right in a thing, we only see it, in part. No one is 100% innocent, but then neither are we 100% wrong. This is also why being gracious is needed.
God is gracious to us, we need to be gracious to others. This is not us letting them walk all over us, but it is giving them the benefit of the doubt, and this leads to the last point
Act, don't react.
When someone does us wrong, doing wrong back is reacting.
It is not reacting to speak the truth unless speaking the truth was done to harm them or justify ourselves.
If we are being transformed to be like Jesus, his acceptance of us is enough. This is hard and goes against the natural instincts of our egos, but this is what dying to ourselves means, we don’t become less, we become more of who we really are, in the image of the character of Jesus.
When we react, we become entangled in the plans of the one making us react.
Jesus never reacted, he was always proactive. The religious leaders had no control over him, no matter how hard they tried. From when they called him a bastard, (for the religious leaders had found out that Mary had been pregnant before she was married), to when he cleared the merchants from the temple with a whip. From when he wrote in the sand concerning the woman caught in the very act of adultery (funny, where was the man), to being on the cross and saying, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus only ever acted, he never reacted.
John 8:39
39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would[c] do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
John 8:1
1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Matthew 21
12 And Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13 And He *said to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”
14 And those who were blind and those who limped came to Him in the temple area, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple area, “[f]Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant, 16 and they said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus *said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” 17 And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Luke 23
33 And when they came to the place called [n]The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. 34 [[o]But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”] And they cast lots, dividing His garments among themselves. 35 And the people stood by, watching. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the [p]Christ of God, His Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers also ridiculed Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” 38 Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”