Seeds for 08/09/2023 - Matthew 10:34-39
Scripture: 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Observation: Jesus is the “Prince of Peace,” right? And, “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” according to Paul.
We saw earlier in this chapter that Christianity is about covenant relationship, not transactional religion. In other words, faithfulness to promises within the context of relationship. There’s a proper prioritization of loyalties. I’ve made promises to my wife that supersede most obligations to my kids, barring emergencies or extenuating circumstances. In fact, the most healthy thing for my kids is to be one notch below my wife is the loyalty pecking order. When we put second-order loyalties ahead of first-order loyalties, both go sideways and are poorly served.
This is exactly the case with Jesus. He presses the point in the sternest of language. Perhaps He needs us take us aback so we don’t sleepwalk through the message. He is to be put first in our lives. Unfortunately, this will not always be received well. In some cases, putting Jesus first will provoke outright hostility. This doesn’t nullify His point in the least, but instead illustrates that some folks are so far from understanding His primacy, they are willing to fight over it.
For the believer, however, Jesus is not and cannot be related to as one among many other commitments in our lives. This places ourselves or someone/something else in the center. But if we imagine Jesus as the sun in the solar system of our lives, and we center ourselves in Him, then we have that which has the greatest gravitational pull in His proper place and holding everything else in it’s proper orbit. So, to play out the analogy one step further, placing things or relationships other than Jesus in center position means having something without adequate gravitational pull trying to organize our lives. That’s why things get wobbly at best with a counterfeit sun and downright chaotic at worst. We’ve all been there, right?
So, how to ensure that Jesus is in His rightful place? Take up your cross and follow. Lose your life in Him in order to find it. These sound like awfully desperate measures, but then, this is our souls we are talking about.
Application:
What in your life slides into center position that you must deliberately displace in favor of Jesus?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Jesus, be my unrivaled center, this and every day. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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if we imagine Jesus as the sun in the solar system of our lives, and we center ourselves in Him, then we have that which has the greatest gravitational pull in His proper place and holding everything else in it’s proper orbit. I LIKE THIS!