Day 275: Matt 7:1 - 9:26

I love reading about Jesus and His earthly ministry and seeing how often he shook things up. It's funny how religion tells us that Jesus never disturbed anything and that He always walked around making everyone happy and roses blossomed and bunny rabbits hopped around everywhere He went. But actually reading the New Testament opens our eyes to a completely different fact. Jesus stirred things up and oftentimes made people mad in the process. The immature Christian seems to think that Christianity is here to bring people together and make everybody happy, but the truth is pretty close to the opposite. Jesus came to separate once and for all His people from the rest of the world. We can find so many verses about separating the chaff from the wheat or the lambs from the goats. Jesus came so that everything the religious people did and thought would be challenged and put to the test. Jesus didn't come to blur the lines and make everybody equal. He came to challenge us and show us that we may in this world, but we are not of this world. Jesus requires out whole hearts and if we will give that to Him, only then will we truly live. We must always remember as believers that they will either love us or hate us, but they had better not ignore us.

- Lord, help me to stand firm for You. Give me the strength and power to stand up and do what You've called me to do regardless of what people think of me. Help me to remember that Jesus offended people all of the time not because His actions were wrong, but because they challenged everyone around Him to live a life of righteousness and unwavering devotion to God. -