August 14, 2024
Passage Read: Mark 15-16
Meditation Verse: 15:10
Thought
Not everyone who serves God actually knows or cares about what God desires. The chief priests, the Sanhedrin, the scribes, all of these should have known God best and understood all He was doing. But instead, when Jesus came teaching and performing miracles, they became jealous of Him and plotted to kill Him. They should have rejoiced! But they were part of the problem. They were the reason Jesus was needed. They had distorted and obscured God's Word so that few could understand the truth about Him. They were causing people to stumble in sin, they were teaching the people to overlook sin and live for their own desires. So of course they couldn't recognize that Jesus was God's anointed king, or rather, they knew and determined to rid the earth of Him, so that they could maintain their grip on power.
Application
Some of the worst enemies of true followers of Jesus are certain Christian leaders and experts. The power of their influence and position, the need to prove they are worthy of honor by coming up with new things or justifying the waywardness of believers, draws their heart away from undivided devotion to the Lord. They forget that their responsibility is first to God, then to the people. They forget that they are to be servants of Christ, not lords of men. So that those who earnestly seek the Lord and call people back to a right understanding of the Scriptures become a threat to those false teachers and leaders. They are envious of those who challenge their monopoly on power and authority, and they seek to discredit them and destroy their influence, if not their lives. Pilate, an unbeliever, would have released Jesus. He didn't care what Jesus did or taught; he saw no threat in Jesus. But the religious leaders, the "believers," had to kill Him, because He showed them their sin. If I'm committed to knowing God's Word in truth, the people from whom I can expect the most opposition are other Christian leaders, those who are lukewarm or cold.