Passion Week: Monday Devotional Mar 26th, 2018   [viewed 27 times]

(Photo: Pixabay)

 

Monday is the beginning of Passion Week after a very busy day for Jesus on Palm Sunday. He spent the night in Bethany and upon arising in the morning He was hungry. On the way back to the temple in Jerusalem, He comes across a fig tree that has no figs on it. Jesus actually curses the fig tree (Matthew 21:18-19; Mark 11:11-18). This is a representation of the people of God who are supposed to be bearing the fruit of the truth and revelation of God to the world and there is none. The tree withers and that is the condition of any church that puts other things in front of one of our main purposes to be witnessing and sharing the gospel with the world!

 

On Palm Sunday, Jesus had gone into the temple and cleansed it by overturning the tables and seeking to clear all of the religious activity and rituals so the court of the gentiles and women would be available for real ministry to the hurting and to the world. Because these matters for the Jews had become so important, they set the tables and businesses up again by Monday afternoon to resume the “normal” religious business going on.

 

When Jesus comes back to the temple, He once again is full of righteous indignation because they really have allowed their religiousness to over-ride the essential commandments of God to minister and reveal God to all. He turns over the tables again, really disrupting the religious norm!

 

There are too many Christians and churches today that are more interested in their “religious norms” that they have set up rather than making reaching people for Christ and ministering to them a priority. It is not supposed to be “us four and no more” at all. This is the same as what was happening in the temple, and it resulted in the Lord being furious with these religious leaders.

 

Their responses to Jesus were to hate Him, demonized Him, and seek to kill Him to get Him out of the way! This is still carried on by religious leaders when the truth of God’s priorities is proclaimed and held on to by the faithful today (Mark 11:15-18).

 

In the gospel of John, we see Jesus allowing some Greeks who desired to meet with Him as well as others come to listen to Him speak. Again, Jesus’ message is for everyone. Jesus understands that even with the clarity of His message to the people, there are many who do not believe. Some do but many do not.

 

The hardness of hearts and the unwillingness to surrender our heart and mind to Jesus will keep us away from Him and keep us from experiencing the wonderful life He has come to offer us.

 

The real lesson here is at any time we can turn away or back away from Christ and His teachings. We can stop surrendering to Him in our hearts and then we too become alienated from Him and the intimate work of His Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. We become cold and distant often times not even realizing how far we have drifted from Jesus and His precious church! (John12:20-50)

 

As evening begins to come, Jesus and His disciples return to Bethany (Mark 11:19)

 

(Dr. Paul Evans is the founder of Grace Christian Worldwide Ministries.)