KILLING CHRIST

Leviticus 27:14- Numbers 1:54; Mark 11:1-26; Psalm 46:1-11; Proverbs 10:23

 “When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace.  He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”  When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him.”  

“Be still, and know that I am God!  I will be honored by every nation.  I will be honored throughout the world.”

 “Doing wrong is fun for a fool,
but living wisely brings pleasure to the sensible.”

We cannot compartmentalize the Spirit.  Jesus will not tolerate competition.  Even our views on religion itself are subject to His clarification or purging.  When the Spirit begins our renovation, nothing is off limits.  His goal is to make everything sacred, holy to God.  Those of us who are just looking for a light religious dusting may come to resent His greater efforts.

At this point, we have a choice.  Either actively accept His Lordship more fully, or reject Him (whether intentionally or by default doesn’t matter).  There is no middle ground, no compromise.  Any failure to follow His lead is, by definition, a rejection.  The Spirit neither takes nor accepts prisoners. 

Consider honestly how we sometimes resent the ability of others to navigate their lives without a moral compass.  Especially when we see their profiteering, the fun they are having outside God’s boundaries, we can get jealous.  We may want to nudge the Spirit a little to the left of the center of our lives.  But we cannot “nudge” the Spirit out of the way.  There is only following, or not.  If we want to rejoin the party of the lost, we should not be surprised when inspiration dies and we begin to lose ourselves in our old – or some bad, new – ways.

I wrestle with intentional disobedience every single day.  God wants me to let something go; I hang on for dear life.  The Spirit says change; I like things as they are.  Christ says stay put and be quiet; I make noise and move.  This is not passive sin by omission. It’s enemy action.  I am a Christian, no longer enslaved to sin.  So, if I am still sinning, I better own the fact that I am doing so willingly.  This is a startling, uncomfortable word.  Still, the Bible is absolutely clear that we have been set free from the power of sin.  If we don’t have to do it, then, we must be choosing to do it. 

The good news is that in the power of Christ, we can also choose not to do it.  Oh, and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  We may lose a few battles, but if we keep our fundamental allegiance to Jesus and work to give His Spirit free reign in our lives rather than squelch Him, ultimate victory will be His, and ours.