Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 8 verses 31 through 36:
31 So Jesus said . . .“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
We can think of ourselves as good, moral upstanding people and still be absolutely blind to our own patterns of sin. Our own prejudice is mostly hidden from our eyes. So too is the shadow side of our personality. Most of us are not aware of the pride, anger, hostility, and envy we carry inside us. It may even be more difficult to see the patterns of sin we have in our church, family, political party or racial group. We like to think of ourselves as the good guys!
Jesus challenged the purity of his people. He caused them to see their own ambiguities, ironies, and conflicts. He said they, a free people, were still yet slaves to sin.
This was too much for many to bear; and so they killed Jesus. This is what happens to all the prophets who dare to say the emperor has no clothes. But even as Jesus was being killed, there was a large contingency of people who recognized in their hearts that he was right. This was the beginning of their liberation.
A quote is attributed to Harriet Tubman, "I freed a thousand slaves and could have freed a thousand more if they had know that they were slaves."
A Prayer: LORD, give me eyes to see the shackles of my own besetting sin, and humility to accept the hard truth which can finally set me free.
No comments:
Post a Comment