Walk
Away
See
to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this
world rather than on Christ. – Colossians 2:8
What do you
believe? Why? It’s easy to throw out Jesus’ name. It isn’t so easy to truly
believe what He says.
Jesus looked
around and saw the good in people who perhaps hadn’t live an exemplary life.
And He saw the evil among the religious elite who were so busy following their
own manmade rules that they missed the Messiah.
A major
topic nowadays involves all the available jobs and the mistaken belief that
people simply won’t work. Yeah. I know. Some people truly are lazy and refuse
to work. But that’s not true of everyone. In fact, it’s not true of anyone that
I personally know. How about you?
I know
people who can’t work right now because of illness. Cancer is a horrible
disease. So is Covid. Should those people be condemned for not being able to
work right now? What about the widow struggling to care for a sick child? Is
she a deadbeat because she refuses to place her disease-ridden child in a
daycare?
Where do we
draw the line between laziness and despair? How do we fairly judge between the
worthy and unworthy? We don’t. It’s not our job or our place. Jesus said to
love everyone. He flatly stated to do good to the poor. He never once said to hoard
your earthly treasures and condemn people who aren’t exactly like you. But we
do it anyway.
I expect
that from people who don’t know Jesus. How could they possibly understand Jesus’
love for the poor and downtrodden? They don’t realize the need to do good to
others. But people of faith? People who proclaim Jesus as LORD and Savior? Those
putdowns sting because they reveal a heart distanced from God.
None of us
get it all right or all wrong. We don’t. We’re all guilty of derogatory comments
we shouldn’t make, of judgements we have no place pronouncing. The challenge
for us is to walk away when someone says something that doesn’t come from Jesus
– especially when it’s something we really want to believe.
No comments:
Post a Comment