We need to know that we are so beloved of God that He has
honored us by making us a blessing to those around us. When Jesus sent out His
12, he prepared them with a series of teachings. For one thing, that needed to
know that they were more valuable than many sparrows, but He didn’t stop there:
·
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever
receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he
is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a
righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous
person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold
water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose
his reward.” (Matthew 10:40-42 ESV)
Please do not miss the weightiness of this teaching. When
people receive us, it is as if they received Jesus. Consequently, if they
simply give us a cup of cold water because we are His disciples, they will be
blessed abundantly. We are, therefore, so honored by our Lord that He has made
us into a channel of blessing to those who receive us. He promised the same
thing to Abraham:
·
I will bless those who bless you, and him who
dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)
This was this blessing with which Isaac had also blessed his
son Jacob (Genesis 27:29). This blessing didn’t merely pertain to the
Patriarchs but to all the children of God (Numbers 24:9). Consequently, when we
feel rejected and maligned, we need not try to build up our own self-esteem
with our invented and distorted positive affirmations. Instead, we merely need
to meditate on the love that God has bestowed upon us.
He has even made us into such channels of blessing that our
presence alone means blessing to those around us. Abraham had appealed to
Yahweh to spare the sinful Sodom:
·
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the
city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty
righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the
righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked!
Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And
the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare
the whole place for their sake.” (Genesis 18:24-26)
Not satisfied, Abraham whittled the number of righteous down
to ten, to which Yahweh responded, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it”
(Genesis 18:32). God would spare Sodom for the sake of only ten righteous! I am
convinced that God has tolerated the sins of our nation – we have become the
capital of abortion, porn, and now even a leader in sex trafficking – for the
sake of the presence of His people. We have been incredibly honored by our Savior
who has given us all the fullness of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:8-10; 1
Corinthians 7:14; 2 Corinthians 2:14:16).
I was thinking about this very thing the other day. Often,
after I buy my morning cup of coffee, I sit on peoples’ steps in NYC to read my
Bible. I used to fear being humiliated by someone who might tell me, “Get on
your way. You don’t belong here.” However, I now am clothed with a divine
perspective. “How blessed they will be if they speak a pleasant word to me!” I
no longer fear the potential humiliation. If they tell me to leave, I feel that
it is they who have lost out, not me!
We need to know how blessed and honored we are so that we
might have courage in a world which hates us, as our Savior had warned:
·
Brother will deliver brother over to death, and
the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put
to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who
endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:21-22)
We need to endure, but how? By knowing how beloved and
honored we are!
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