~ By James FireAttitude is Everything –
A very dangerous attitude to hold is esteeming our own seemingly immediate and urgent priorities to usurp those priorities esteemed by God.
During the days of Jesus, Israel wanted their Messiah to come as the Lion of Judah and deliver them from the oppressive enslavement to Rome.
Yet God’s priority was far more important – to deliver them from the oppressive enslavement to sin and death and their inevitable consequence: eternal damnation.
And so the Messiah came not as the Lion of Judah but as the Lamb of God to die for the sin of the world (JOHN 1:29); He did not arrive as the Avenger of Blood, the kinsman Goel and the warrior Messiah as was prophesied and desired by the Jews, but as a lowly carpenter rabbi who spoke of love, even loving one’s enemies, and admonishing his followers to turn the other cheek, bless them that curse them and to pick up their crosses (instruments of capital punishment in those days, right?) and follow Him.
Scripture prophesies both aspects of the Messiah – He is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God, but are only revealed in accord to God’s priorities, not man’s. The LORD Jesus was all about the kingdom of God, not subjecting earthly kingdoms to His rule – not yet (DAN 2:34-35, 44-45)! Likewise we are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (MATT 6:33) and conduct ourselves properly as its citizens.
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