In Class with Jesus - Part 2

Real change is linked to real relationships.  

We deceive ourselves if we think that only God speaks unseen to our transformation.  More often than not it is people because it is people we offend and hurt with our reactions, our prejudices, or brokenness – our sin.  How will we know we know if we aren’t told, but who wants to be told? 

The New Testament doesn’t just address our need for encouragement, not that you’d know, listening to many of our preachers.  The New Testament is a wake-up call. “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”  (2 Timothy 4:1-4).  

If we only ever encourage others, we will damage them, and we will distort the image of God in them. We aren’t transformed by the constant desiccation of sunshine, and we will increasingly find challenge unpalatable, if not impossible.   

For example: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”  (Matthew 16:21-23).  

This was preceded by the statement that Peter had heard from the Father in recognising who Jesus was.  But Peter had an agenda he wanted Jesus to conform to. Jesus saw Peter’s agenda as the domain of Satan.  Peter must have been shocked, but he was shocked out of dangerously wrong expectations and thinking.  

Solomon stated remarkably that, “Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse (deceitful) are the kisses of an enemy.”  (Proverbs 27:5-6).  

It is easy to both give and receive a compliment (especially for advantage), much harder to receive correction.

Could you have been one of his followers?   

Could we survive being in class with Jesus?