You Sound Like Him

"When your heart is to be merciful and not critical, you sound like Him."

“Commit yourselves fully to the Lord’s cause and glorify him by promoting the good news about God, and don’t get diverted into politics: whether seeking to change rulers, or governors, or judges who have been appointed to punish the guilty and reward those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:13-14, Remedy)

Don’t elevate politics above “love one another.” Don’t let strife, argument, arrogance, education, or even personal experience cause you to choose offense over peace. Don’t mix worship of God with defense of God. He does not need defending. Don’t make prophecy, meant to encourage believers (1 Corinthians 14:3), into hateful proclamations. Or doom-and-gloom.

Jesus was King of Kings yet submitted Himself to the Roman government in what was a mock trial that Pilate himself saw through. Pilate declared Jesus innocent then bowed to the will of the people (Luke 23:4). Jesus didn’t argue (Mark 15:5). Neither did an in-love-with-Jesus Paul. He used his Roman citizenship to gain a moment with Caeser and did not rail against him (Acts 22:27). On another day, he and Barnabas found themselves in an open prison, an earthquake having unlocked the doors (Acts 16:26), yet they did not flee, and the Roman centurion who guarded them, as well as his family, were saved. The apostle Peter said to pray for government leaders, knowing they would end his life cruelly. Jesus had prophesied it (John 21:18).

We’ve resorted to mocking, to doing back at them what they do to us, and this does not resemble Jesus at all. There is a difference between being called into the arena of politics, as some are called to do, and mocking and deriding it. The soldiers mocked Jesus. He did not mock them. He died for them, and one saw Him in His crucifixion and declared Him God (Matthew 27:54). Do you know that one revelation was precious to Him and to the Father who sent Him? God values all life. He works to reveal Himself to those who don’t know Him. This is why Jesus came. And we’re back to my previous post (God Knows Best) where I pointed out all those who accepted Jesus after the Spirit worked in them for years. When you can look at that person who is so very far from God and you love them, you have God’s perspective. When your heart is to be merciful and not critical, you sound like Him. To be like Jesus we are never tempted to hate, it is far from and not even in our thinking.

“Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:54)

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com