Thomas added his weight to Timothy’s against the glass door of the restaurant where we were standing watching the birds outside while their mom gathered her things. The look that danced behind his eyes just before Thomas pressed the palms of both hands against the glass let me know this was sort of an experiment, one that did not need repeating. Before I could drop my trash into the bin by the door, Timothy was catapulted by sheer momentum across the narrow sidewalk toward the parking lot and an approaching car. My longer stride caught up to him easily enough and as I scooped him up, I turned to take Thomas by the hand. “Please don’t ever open a door for brother,” I warned sternly enough to hold his attention. “We need to wait here for Mom.” I never expected the four year old to be watching out for his younger sibling. No child needs to shoulder the weight of that responsibility.
In Genesis, we read how God ordained family, beginning with a father and mother, commanding them to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. They were entrusted with the care and keeping of children resulting from their union and with training them in the ways of the Lord down through their generations. It did not take many chapters for humanity to go awry. Cain, in anger, killed Abel. His reply when confronted by God echoes through the millennia.
“Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
And he said, “I do not know.
Am I my brother’s keeper?””
Genesis 4:9 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/gen.4.9.NASB1995
Much of our modern disunity stems from this very idea. Where does my responsibility begin and end for my fellowman? During an interrogation, Jesus summed up the Law of God with a dual command.
“And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.””
Matthew 22:37-40 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/mat.22.37-40.NASB1995
By Luke’s account, the expert in the Mosaic Law, seeking to justify himself, then asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with a story of an unfortunate traveler. Weigh laid by robbers on a desolate stretch of road, the man was left for dead. Three people happened upon him in their respective journeys. A priest and a Levite both passed by on the other side of the road. A Samaritan, having compassion on the man, bandaged his wounds, found lodging for him and paid his expenses. Then Jesus asked the legal expert, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.””
Luke 10:36-37 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/luk.10.36-37.NASB1995
We often try to justify ourselves by the same sort of reasoning. I know what God’s law says but… We would be wise to spend some time in the Scriptures seeking God’s heart for those less fortunate, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, the disabled and the poor. When God placed us in our various locales and gifted us spiritually, artistically or academically, and materially, it was not for our own benefit. We are meant to steward whatever He has entrusted to us for His glory. We are still commanded to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, confident that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6) Our sincere and earnest efforts will not always be understood or welcomed. We may face opposition or hostility when we seek to honor God with our own selves and our resources, but recognizing that everything we have is a gift from God, we entrust ourselves to His care and keeping, certain that His purposes are being accomplished.
Jesus is our best example in all things. He is our intercessor before God, One who is familiar with all our weaknesses since He lived among us but without sinning. Jesus, God incarnate, often faced opposition and He warned that we would be hated even as He was hated. (John 15:18) Early in His ministry, Jews in Nazareth, neighbors who knew Joseph and Mary, many of whom had watched Jesus grow up, attempted to hurl Jesus off a cliff in their anger. On two occasions, the Jewish leaders tried to stone Jesus for blasphemy because He claimed to be God and the Son of God. Each time He miraculously escaped them. When Jesus intended to go to Bethany to raise Lazarus, His disciples were surprised that he would venture anywhere near Jerusalem where to Jews had so recently threatened Him, but He remained resolute. (Luke 4:28-30, John 8:59, John 10:31-33, 39, John 11:8)
““Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword [of division between belief and unbelief]. [Luke 12:51-53]”
Matthew 10:34 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/mat.10.34.AMP
We gain some insight into the confidence of Christ as He boldly followed the plans of God through to the very end when we overhear Him praying.
“After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you.
For you have given him authority over everyone.
He gives eternal life to each one you have given him.
And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.
I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.
I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world.
They were always yours.
You gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, for I have passed on to them the message you gave me.
They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me.”
John 17:1-8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.17.1-8.NLT
Jesus and John writing about Jesus used the phrase, “My (His) time or hour has not yet come.” Jesus, speaking to His brothers who still did not believe in Him but pressed Him to come to the feast in Jerusalem to let the world know His true identity, and again to His mother when she told Him at the wedding feast at Cana that there was no more wine and instructed the servants to do whatever He said, answered with the phrase, “My time has not yet come.” John, describing how Jesus was not taken by His plotting enemies, each time explains that Jesus’s hour had not yet come. This hour or time was not so much a fixed point as it was an opportune moment. In the fullness of time, we read, God sent His Son, born of a woman. (Galatians 4:4) God does all things at the proper time, at the time of fulfillment or completion, or at the appropriate time and my times are in His hands. (Psalm 31:15)
“Jesus replied, “Now is not the right time for me to go, but you can go anytime.
The world can’t hate you, but it does hate me because I accuse it of doing evil.
You go on.
I’m not going to this festival, because my time has not yet come.””
John 7:6-8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.7.6-8.NLT
Judas, one of the twelve, betrayed Him. Peter denied three times knowing Him. The others save John fled from the garden on the night of His arrest. His accusers called for His death.
“He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.”
Isaiah 53:3-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/isa.53.3-5.NLT
“The Jewish leaders replied, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this, he was more frightened than ever.
He took Jesus back into the headquarters again and asked him, “Where are you from?”
But Jesus gave no answer.
“Why don’t you talk to me?” Pilate demanded. “Don’t you realize that I have the power to release you or crucify you?”
Then Jesus said, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above.”
John 19:7-11 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.19.11.NLT
“Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people!
You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures.
Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”
Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
And he said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day.
It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’
You are witnesses of all these things.”
Luke 24:25-27, 44-48 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.24.25-48.NLT
“Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.
And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.””
Matthew 28:18-20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.28.18-20.NLT
Oh, to have been there, sitting at Jesus’s feet when He opened the scriptures concerning Himself to them! The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us lived every last detail of His story among men then He ascended to the glory He shared with the Father before the Creation. He accomplished God’s purpose for Him perfectly and completely. My own attempts may be clumsy and at times I may feel as if I have been catapulted by sheer momentum into oncoming traffic but one truth remains. I am called and chosen to show the goodness of God who called me out of darkness into His wonderful light. (I Peter 2:9) He who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion in the day of Christ Jesus, and with the apostle Paul I can say,
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.
And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return.
And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.”
2 Timothy 4:7-8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2ti.4.7-8.NLT
ҦBut as for me, I will look expectantly for the Lord and with confidence in Him I will keep watch; I will wait [with confident expectation] for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
Do not rejoice over me [amid my tragedies], O my enemy!
Though I fall, I will rise; Though I sit in the darkness [of distress], the Lord is a light for me.”
Micah 7:7-8 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/mic.7.7-8.AMP
“But I am still full of confidence, because I know whom I have trusted, and I am sure that he is able to keep safe until that Day what he has entrusted to me.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, keep the good things that have been entrusted to you.”
2 Timothy 1:12, 14 GNT
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