Mark 11:18-19 / Luke 19:47-48…
Favor or flavor…
And he was teaching daily in the temple. He cleansed it, then He healed in it, and now He taught in it. The religious leaders were boiling mad. They had tried to outsmart and outwit Him, and that having failed, they were out to kill Him.
But they did not find anything they could do. It was evident to them that Jesus had power with the people; they were looking on Him as a hero. This meant that while the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, they had to be careful not to start a riot, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.
Jesus was at the height of His popularity for now. There was an excitement about His ministry, but it was mostly a “mob” mentality. The increase of the crowds stirred excitement, but the religious leaders will eventually get the people to turn on Jesus. For all the people were hanging on his words, but they did not do them (Ezekiel 33:30-33 / Mark 4:16-17 / James 1:22).
Many can be stirred to excitement for a moment, yet in the end it is merely an excitement about being a part of the “in crowd”, being at the place where things are “happening.” It is the same today as it was back then; Christians and churches can be swept away with such a mentality.
Are we using church activity as a covering for a life of sin? Are we being transformed, or are we merely excited that our church or doctrine is growing in popularity? Is this thing permanent to you? It does no good if your favor of Jesus is just the flavor of the week.
3 comments:
I agree with this post. The event of Jesus' cleansing of the temple led to a short term uptick in professed piety. This is akin to when a natural disaster is seen as a "wake-up-call" and so the so-called prophetic voices start talking about how we need to all be “doing 2 Chronicles 7:14” if we want to see a revival in the land, for the millionth time. Or some such thing as 9-11-2001 in the USA leads people to put up billboards saying "God Bless America", and "In God We Trust", but it all falls down in a short time.
The presumption here is that God kills 3,000+ people for a neat packaged message about big tent revivals where top dollar motivational speakers can vomit platitudes, people crawling to the alter to “find Jesus” for the 148th time in their life, and make everyone commit the next ten minutes of their life to actually acting like a follower of Christ.
Reality dictates that these “awakenings” in the great USA church culture last about 30 minutes, and then we are in line at McDonalds cussing out the minimum wage earner behind the cash register for forgetting the kid’s small fry.
continued
Maybe we ought to consider what God has to say about genocide in Africa. Mass murder of the unborn in China. Kim Jong-il, Moammar Kadafi, any takers? What does God have to say about that? What does God have to say about anything not adorned with an American Flag and a Jesus Fish? Because American Christian culture is really starting to stink here. If it has anything to do with the price of gas, it is apparently a message from God.
Are we using church activity as a covering for a life of sin? Are we being transformed, or are we merely excited that our church or doctrine is growing in popularity? Is this thing permanent to you? It does no good if your favor of Jesus is just the flavor of the week.
It would be a good thing to ponder this for sure.
Anonymous: I agree wholeheartedly.
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