They Knew Him Not
Jesus is in the area once again, passing through one town to another. Lately they always seem to be there, and are here again today waiting for Him. The Pharisees, highly regarded men of the law of God. Why then do they always seem to follow His every footstep~plotting and testing Him?
So what is it today? What trap have they set for Jesus, the Holy One of God, today? It is the question of payment of the census tax. Their malice and hypocrisy can be heard in the tone of their voices as they pose this question. These men, as usual, were not in search of any real answer. Their questions never had any real answer, at least none that they were willing to hear and Jesus knew this; He saw through to their very hearts, saw that there was no room for God because they were too filled with themselves and the ways of the world.
Jesus' reply? Give to Caesar what belongs to him and give to God what belongs to God. Once again Jesus refuses to fall into their malicious trap. What these hard~hearted men can not see or understand is that all belongs to God. Everything they are and have is His. These learned men of Scripture and the law seem to forget the words of God spoken through Isaiah: "I am the Lord, there is no God besides me."(see Isaiah 45:1, 4~6) These words were lost on them for they knew Him not~they refused to know Him.Jesus tosses the coin back to them, and continues on His way leaving them with themselves and their plots and schemes.
Prayer
My Dear Lord Jesus,
All that I am and have is Yours. Through the Father's love I was created for You. Empty me of myself and the things of this world so that I may be filled with You. May I always seek to know You and know who I am in You.
You are my Lord and God; I want no other.
Amen.
Comments
God bless
I loved the prayer too and joined you in it.
Thank you for this wonderful post!
I agree about the authenticity, Mary. Jesus knows who we are better than we do ourselves and he could see right through the Pharisees as well. True humility comes with being authentically who we are before God~flaws and all. That he can work with, being full of ourselves and phony He can not.
DG, that picture was a last minute find, but I loved it and just had to include it.
Blessings to you all.
And your blog is so peaceful... I first came here when you were on retreat, and I thought that your blog actually reminded me of a retreat with such a peaceful background and so much love for Jesus.
Thank you! God bless you.
Patricia
Thank you for joining me in the prayer and for your kind words about this post and my blog.
I am glad that my love for Jesus shines through here. This is all for Him and I try to stay out of His
way :)
God bless you as well.
Blessings!
As a child I was too naive to understand the evil, plotting hearts of the Pharisees, so their malice was largely lost on me. Now that I am no longer possessed of childhood innocence their malice is horrifying. Things haven't changed in the past 2000 years. The atheists and secularists want to deny that anything belongs to God because they don't believe there is such a Being. Then everything goes to Caesar, doesn't it?
Noreen~I am always amazed and a bit humbled when I think about how often I thought I could hide from Jesus. I am actually glad that I can't.
Barb~ what makes this scenario in today's time even more horrifying is that we have 2000 years of Salvation History to lean on that the Pharisees of Jesus
time didn't.
Blessings to you both.