Tag Archives: Disrespect

Day 31: Why We Should Listen to Jesus

John 3:31-36 : “He who comes from above is above all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard, of that he testifies; and no one receives his witness. He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for God gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand. One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Here we read more of John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus. This is still in response to those who were saying that Jesus was getting more disciples than John. John says that whatever Jesus says is more important than anything anyone else would say. He explains that this is because Jesus is the only one who came from Heaven and can talk about heavenly things based on his first-hand experience.

John was a major prophet. Here John is saying that no one other than Jesus can come close to His importance. This is important to consider because some people try to compare Jesus to men. Once again, Christianity spoken of here as an exclusive religion. It doesn’t allow anyone to be on the same level as Jesus. He is God’s only Son.

John also mentioned that no one was accepting His message. He explained that God gave Jesus a limitless supply of the Holy Spirit and that He had put “all things” in His hands. This is an extreme situation. Jesus deserves to be treated as the most important person ever to come to earth, but men are not even listening to Him at all. Perhaps it will comfort you that Jesus went through this and felt what it was like to not be treated as He really deserved.

Then John repeats Jesus’ message that anyone who believes on Jesus has everlasting life but anyone who doesn’t will not only not get life, he will get God’s wrath instead. These wonderful and fearful words are repeated in John in the following references: John 3:16; 3:18; 5:24. There is life to those who believe and wrath for those who don’t. It is easy to see why this message was repeated. Hell is no place for anyone but that is exactly where the Bible says we will be going if we don’t believe in Jesus. It is important that everyone hears these words and understands that it is Jesus who says them and He was like no other person who ever came to this world.

Day 30
Day 32

Day 7: Unrecognized

John 1:10 : He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him.

When we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate what should have been celebrated when it actually happened. The one through whom the whole world was made came to earth. It says here that “He was in the world.” This is an amazing thing that the one who created us was in the world with us as one of us.

Although God told some shepherds and some wise men from far away were watching, most people didn’t know that anything happened. Jesus was unrecognized. It is pretty obvious by the fact that he had to be born with the animals. This disrespect and disregard was common in Jesus’ life as John mentioned earlier. God had prophesied that he would be coming into the world. We know that this is true because the wise men from far away were expecting him. Some believe these wise men were those who learned from Daniel when he was alive in Babylon many years earlier.

We have already heard that John the Baptist was there to tell people who Jesus was. But there were two others who were expecting Him that we are told about in Luke. When Jesus was taken to the temple for circumcision as Jews were required to do, these two individuals were ready and waiting in expectation.

One of them was named Simeon. He was there in the temple and was “looking forward to Israel’s consolation.” The other was Anna. I encourage you to look up Luke 2 in your Bible and read it for yourself.

Both of these people were used to spending time in the temple. They expected big things from God. I am not saying that we should spend all our days at Church. We should be aware that the Church building is no temple. The Bible says that God now lives in the temple of our hearts and that we will live together with Him in his temple, but what is important is that these followers of God were doing exactly what God wanted them to do and they were really ready for Him unlike most others.

We can take a lesson from this. Jesus says that he is coming to take those of us who believe in Him to Heaven to live with Him. Lord willing, we will study more about this when we get to it in John 14:1-4. We should be living in expectation and doing things that are good in because He is coming again soon. When He comes next time, He comes to take us to be with Him where He is and that is something we should be watching for because we really believe.

Day 6
Day 8