Friendships will end on this journey. People will expect you to be different, they will bring condemnation on you and try to tell you that you “should” stay in your box and stop causing trouble. People are so comfortable with their box they have for the god they follow that they will start wars, kill people and themselves to protect what keeps them thinking they are righteous enough!
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” – Luke 4:22-24
“Such a good Jewish boy He was too” – “Oh yes I remember Him, didn’t He used to help His father make furniture” – “hey wait a minute, isn’t He the carpenters son and did He just say He is fulfilling prophecy?”
And so goes the buzz saw of gossip and response that no doubt Jesus knew would fill the synagogue! On a personal note let me say that one of the most discouraging things in my life is the thought and idea that many who are closest to me don’t read or listen to what I have to say, in part because its outside of the shoe box of god that they are accustomed to and in part because they can’t receive anything that might challenge that box from a person like me! I have reached a peace with this on most days but at times it is satans greatest tool against me.
The response of Jesus to what He knew would be said and was being said here is interesting because it tells of His Love in a way we don’t often like to think of it – His Love not our own!
His Love is not about a show – it’s about a need! Our need to grow in Faith, Love and a Thankful heart understanding of how much He Loves you!
His Love is not about proving anything – I know people that spend their whole lives trying to prove the god they believe in – that’s god in shoebox thinking and it will steal your Peace! If I have learned anything in my journey it’s this – throw the seeds of Grace and let God tend the garden! Rest in the Faith that He has the results already figured out! REST in the fact that All that needs to be done to make you “Holy as He Is Holy” has already been done, “it’s finished” – just Believe!
His Love is not a one size fits all, always works the same way type thing – Have you been to Capernaum lately? Neither has anyone else – no one is sure where the town was but everyone is sure it is no longer in existence! My point is that His Love which ministered to the radically “bad” people of Capernaum also ministered to the holier than thou people of Jerusalem that were open to it – but His Love cannot minister to anyone that is NOT open to it. Again the path to NOT being open to His Love is trying to cram God in the shoe box of your own design!
Surrender to the Devine Fact that Faith in Him Alone creates Wholeness in you, right Here and right Now – Just as you are and Not as you should be!
