Choices

February 23, 2012

The Life of Jesus; read today: Robbers mock Jesus; Matthew 27:44, Mark 15:32; Luke 23:39


ESV: Luke 23:39. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!

How hard it must have been for Jesus. He come to seek the lost and save them. Now He is on the cross as are two real thieves. I assume they would be the type Jesus was sent to.
They are telling Him to save them. He has a choice, save them or save mankind.

A class I have been in this week has been on prodigal children.  Sometimes tough choices have to be made. In helping a prodigal child you can hurt them. To give in to their needs can be the worst thing you can do.  You do not give them the choice to fix themselves.

Jesus could have done the thing they had asked. He would have ruined our chance of salvation. He also would have removed their choice to ask for forgiveness.

When offered choices I need stop and think about them them. Often the choice I will have to make is an uncomfortable one. I need to learn to make the tough choices. Jesus did.



Read for next time: One robber rebukes the other; Luke 23:40-41

I can not do it myself

February 17, 2012

The Life of Jesus; read today: Multitudes mock Jesus; Matthew 27:39-43; Mark 15:29-32; Luke 23:35-37

On Wednesday nights at the church I attend we have a self-help group running for people who have co-dependency issues.  One thing that I have learned from them is that a person can not help themselves get out of their addictions.  Nor can you help anyone else out of their addictions.  If you try, you run the risk of becoming codependent and having an addiction to trying to fix them. 

The only way one can come out of those addictions to recognize that they can not do it in their own strength.  As I have gone through this program, I have had to say that I am powerless in myself, that I can not break the chains. However, if I turn acknowledge that I have the problem, and turn to God for help (a higher power as some organizations say), then God can help me through the problems.  To put it bluntly, I can not save myself. 

ESV: Mark 15:31. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others; he cannot save himself.

Here is a man who could save Himself.  Jesus had not only the power to come off that cross, but since He had not sinned, He should not have been up there and had the right to do so. If He had done so I would still be in my co-dependent state.  I could not save my self, I had to have God do it for me by having His Son die for me.  For years I tried to do things in my own power, until I realized that I could never do it for myself, I had to have help.


Read for next time: Robbers mock Jesus; Matthew 27:44, Mark 15:32; Luke 23:39