Wrong Voices, Wrong Choices

Then he said to them the third time, “Why, what evil has He done? I have found no reason for death in Him. I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go.
But they were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified. And the voices of these men and of the chief priests prevailed.
So Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they requested.
And he released to them the one they requested, who for rebellion and murder had been thrown into prison; but he delivered Jesus to their will.
[Luke 23:22-25 NKJV]

That it should be as they requested. Truly, it seems very much that nothing has changed, and that today, many are choosing the path of rebellion instead of Jesus. Why is that?

The message Jesus brings is not an easy choice. We want to know that things are going to turn out well for us, but we are unprepared to follow the difficult road that leads to that desired result. We rebel against the ‘hard word’ and ‘the way of suffering’.

Do we really choose to release rebellion and murder from prison? It is the only alternative that we are offered by the authority in the world. To rebel against the ‘hard road’ and ‘put to death’ the one who is ‘the way of salvation’. Often, and only too late, do we realise the wrong turning we have taken.

Pontius Pilate found no reason to condemn Jesus to death, but he chose to take the easy way out and listened to the many voices shouting to release the murderer, Barabbas.

This morning, reading the ‘Seeds of the Kingdom’ message by Ron Scurfield of Ellel Ministries (“Bitter-Sweet”), it became clear that The Lord’s Way means that we have to taste of our own bitterness, before we find the refreshing water at the oasis.

PRAYER: Lord, help us all to see the error of our ways and turn, or re-turn to You and know that You lead us to make the right choices every day, even through harshness and pain, for Your glory and our salvation. Forgive us, Heavenly Father, when we listen to the wrong voices and make the wrong choices.

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I Choose Jesus Arc Gogong

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An appalling thing to-day is that the man of the world has his eyes open in a way many a preacher of the Gospel has not. Ibsen, for example, saw things clearly; he saw the inexorable inevitableness of God’s pronouncements—no forgiveness, no deliverance, no emancipation, because he ignored Jesus Christ and His Redemption and saw facts as they are.

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