SPECIAL TO GODJesus began to get used to being followed by crowds. Crowds had become the greater part of his life. They followed him and listened to him when he trod the mountainous areas west of the Galilean Lake Region, sitting out in the sun in their thousands. As he looked out over a vast crowd on one of these occasions, he thought of how it must have been when Moses instructed multitudes of Hebrews just as he was doing, when they wandered in the wilderness. He wanted to give these...
SPECIAL TO GOD
Jesus began to get used to being followed by crowds. Crowds had become the greater part of his life. They followed him and listened to him when he trod the mountainous areas west of the Galilean Lake Region, sitting out in the sun in their thousands. As he looked out over a vast crowd on one of these occasions, he thought of how it must have been when Moses instructed multitudes of Hebrews just as he was doing, when they wandered in the wilderness. He wanted to give these ordinary lives the dignity and meaning that they had been created for.
“Your lives have great meaning. You are special to God” They listened in silence as his voice drifted out to them. Then the silence was broken by a voice shouting back from the crowd.
“There is nothing in life for us. We don’t feel special to God”
Jesus delivered to them the following words of life and blessing that would overcome the poverty in their hearts.
“You are special to God even when you feel you are worth nothing and have nothing. That is when you can trust your Father in heaven and know that you belong in his kingdom and everything in it belongs to you.
You are special to God when you mourn and suffer loss, because when you look to God in your pain and sorrow you will find comfort like you have never found before.
You are special to God when you can humbly accept who you are and what you have. God has laid up in store for the humble so much more than they ever would have expected.
You are special to God when you get a hunger deep inside of you to know God. This is what fulfils a life. It’s your inside world you need to nourish. Then when you look at the outside world you see God in everything.
You are special to God when you find mercy in your heart to cover the weaknesses of others. It is then that you will experience the abundant mercies of God for your own weaknesses.
You are special to God when your heart is an open book for people to see into. It is then that God lets you see into his own heart.
You are special to God when you are at peace with others and help them to be at peace with one another. God will see you as his special child, a true family member.
You are special to God when you are mistreated for wanting to please God. It is then that you embody his kingdom.”
It struck him at that moment that the people must have been hungry, as they had been sitting and listening to him for a long time. He remembered the miraculous manna bread that fell from the skies every day to feed Israel in the desert. He saw himself as being like that bread, as he was now feeding them the truth about Father and the truth behind the Life Commands, but he realized that they needed bread for their stomachs as well, so he asked the disciples to go and arrange food for the people to eat.
“They should have brought their own. It would cost a fortune to buy food for all these people Master,” replied one of the disciples.
“Do any of them have any food at all?” he asked the others.
“Yes, there’s a boy here who has a meal of a few pieces of fish and a couple of loaves of bread,” one of them replied.
“Give it to me,” said Jesus. He knew that words were not always going to teach the disciples about the great heart of God, and He thanked his Father for showing him what he was going to do. Heaven broke in upon the fish and the bread and it multiplied itself over and over again. There was laughter and tears of joy as young and old picnicked like children and marveled at the wonder of a good God. The people were not only fed but there was plenty of food left over. They felt special to God
As more and more miracles occurred and people were healed Jesus’ reputation grew and spread far and wide. He taught in the small and the large synagogues around the Galilean Lake Region and the areas surrounding Jerusalem.
People flocked to the synagogues and followed him out into the fields to hear this greatest teacher and prophet of their time. Many said that he was The Promised One and that he would set up the kingdom of God on the earth. To the Jews this meant an army with a leader sent from heaven that would overthrow the Roman Empire and free them from its oppression over their lives.
All of this excitement and adulation provoked the temple priests and lawgivers into a rage of jealousy and spite. They were frequently amongst the crowds that followed Jesus, waiting for a chance to discredit him and lead the people away from him. There were numerous confrontations between Jesus and the priests and lawgivers. They would try to trap him with difficult questions regarding the Life Commands but Jesus not only answered their questions with powerful words of wisdom and insight, but he also exposed the wickedness in their hearts. He was not afraid to call them hypocrites and to liken their words and their religion to tombs full of dead bones. What they hated most about him was that he acted as if he was God. He called God ‘My Father’ which no-one had ever done before, and he told the people that their sins were forgiven, and only God could do that. They now made this a fight to the death. They knew they would either have to destroy him, or he was going to destroy their religion.
Even the faithful temple worshipers were confused by Jesus going to eat and drink with all kinds of people at Matthew the tax collector’s Inn, where Matthew exacted tolls upon merchants and travelers coming into Jerusalem. The unrest that all of this caused was not lost upon the leaders of the Roman citizens and the military, who had to keep law and order in the entire region.
Among those that gathered at the inn was a man called Lazarus, a man respected by all, and one whom Jesus came to like and admire as an upright man. On one occasion Lazarus invited the people there to a gathering at his own home, where his two sisters would provide catering and hospitality. Lazarus had been waiting to talk to Jesus, and at the first opportunity, he drew him aside and led off the conversation with a direct and personal challenge.
“Jesus, I have some difficulty in understanding the way you seem to put things in riddles when you talk. I mean no disrespect, but you very often do just what we do not expect, and you do things in a way that other teachers or prophets would not do.”
“Like what?” replied Jesus.
“Well, you do a miracle that glorifies your heavenly Father, and then you tell people not to tell anybody. You have done wonders that would earn you a seat on the Empire senate, like feeding thousands of people with a few scraps of food, which you have done more than once. No one will forget the marriage feast of your cousin’s friend, where they ran out of wine, and you provided more wine for the guests than they had started with. I’ve heard the wine was the best that anyone has ever tasted. These things are unprecedented and yet you don’t take credit for them.”
“Go on” said Jesus.
“You say things like 'Lose your life and you will find it' and other things like that.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes…um…you say we must become as children, in order to enter into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Why do you say things like that, why do you turn our lives, our world, upside down, and expect us to understand?”
“Yes I know, my friend, but believe me, I am not really turning things upside down. I am turning them the right way up, so that people can find the true meaning of life. If I take glory for the miracles that I do then they lose their true meaning, but when I do them for Father's glory they have an entirely different meaning. What gives meaning to the things that I do is sharing the experience of doing them with Father. He guides me in these things and I trust him totally.”
“I …I think I understand. This is so different to what we have been taught in the temple. I do now believe that my life has real meaning, not that I am anyone special in any way at all, but I feel such a peace about leaving everything in Father’s hands, my family, my work, my health, my very life itself.
Jesus felt a powerful presence of Holy Spirit in the words his friend had spoken
“I know you understand my friend.”
Jesus felt in his heart that God had something very special in store for his friend.
