daily java

Daily Java:

Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him. Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:33-36 NLT)

When Jesus came, his people expected him to live up to their expectations. He was going to be their king, so therefore he needed to act like they wanted him to act.

The problem was: Jesus didn’t come to do what they wanted, he came to do what God the Father wanted. What they wanted was entirely beside the point.

So they got mad at him and tried to get rid of him. They wanted what they wanted and they were going to get it even if it meant killing yet another prophet.

However, this was not another prophet. This was the King. And he didn’t come by their permission and they were not going to stop him.

The same thing holds true today. People try to co-opt Jesus for all kinds of things. Climate change, animal rights, dietary choices, political parties – every group feels that if Jesus were here today, he would be one of them and argue in their defense.

The problem is, again: Jesus didn’t come to do what they wanted. In fact, he didn’t care about these things. He came, Luke 19 says, to seek and save that which was lost.

In Matthew 22:15-22, a group of people tried to trick Jesus into revealing what he thought about taxation. They asked if it was good to pay taxes to Caesar.

There was an ongoing argument among a lot of the Jews that said that since Caesar was an occupying army and not Jewish like they, they had no obligation to pay taxes. The other side wanted to keep the occupying army happy and encouraged the others to go along.

They asked Jesus this and tried to bring him into the political arena. If he said that it was fine to pay taxes, the conservative side would call him a traitor to his people. If he said no, it wasn’t good, the liberal side would call him an insurrectionist against the Roman empire.

Instead, Jesus asked for a coin and asked whose picture was on it. They replied Caesar. All right then, Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.

In other words, he was not going to take sides. He did not come to argue politics, or dietary choices, or energy choices. He came to bring us to God.

There are things I believe he would have stood against. He would have been against abortion. If the unborn John recognized the unborn Jesus (Luke 1:39-45) then obviously God dwells in the unborn. And to kill one is murder.

He would have stood for helping the homeless and the hungry. In Matthew 25, it was the fact that they did or did not help the hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, that determined their willingness to love Jesus.

But, you know, he never said anything much about war, or government, or slavery for that matter. There were a million things he didn’t say anything against.

When you accept him, you are accepting a heavenly based king who also determines how you will live on this earth. But Jesus himself knew that one day this earth will be gone.

And the apostle Peter said: The heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live (2 Peter 3:10-11)

One of these day, all of the energy and the animals and politics will be gone. All that will be left is us and Jesus.