Week 9 – Jesus Chooses Us

  b. Verses 23-25 

Jesus spent some time in Jerusalem focusing on the people.  He healed the sick, and comforted the sorrowing, but He did not stand up and say that He was the Messiah.  During this time, Jesus was enormously popular and could have easily taken advantage of this fact.  Jesus already knew that people would accept him, but He also knew that many would fall away when He told them what He had to do and the changes that people had to make in their own lives.   

Why didn’t Jesus seize the moment?  Jesus was not living for the temporal world.  He was thinking eternally.  He knew that it didn’t matter in the long run and He was there for a purpose.  He just wanted to love people and help them while he was in Jerusalem.   If he had claimed to be the Messiah by actually saying it and proving it by some even greater sign, then He could have set off a celebration and word would have spread throughout Israel and the world.  It would have been a pointless distraction and would have prolonged or prevented Jesus from accomplishing His actual task of dying on the cross as a payment for all sin.  God placed the responsibility on Jesus.  Jesus could have chosen not to go through with it.  Jesus could have established Himself as King of the world and chosen not to die for our sins, but He didn’t.  Just like we have a choice to accept Him or not, Jesus also had a choice.   

Jesus knew that some people were not believers for the long haul and they just were there for the spectacle.  Jesus never asked anyone to believe in Him unless they fully understood what that would mean.  Also, Jesus did not need to prove to Himself the hearts of men, he already knew their hearts.   

I think that Jesus could have taken advantage of His popularity and still found a way to accomplish His task in the end.  Why didn’t He?  He really reveals his heart.  Jesus has a heart for us and He would rather spend time helping and ministering to people than being hailed as an earthly king or something.  In other words, He isn’t in it for the fame; He’s in it for us.  

Question:  Have you ever had someone give up something in order to help you, like Jesus gave up the glory of the moment to be able to be close to the people and minister to them?  Have you given up something to help someone else?  What did it reveal to you about God and His heart for you?