If you’ve been deceived, manipulated, abused, shamed or hurt by someone, the instinct is to strike back. We want them to feel what we felt, lose what we lost, experience what we experienced. But the truth is they can’t give us back what we lost or feel what we’ve felt. We want it all back — but they can’t give it to us. They don’t have it and they never did.

Jesus’ first disciples were made part and privy to the greatest plot in human history. The plan of God to lift mankind out from under the eternal sentence of sin and death over our lives. It still remains God’s intent to use us in this — the most significant restoration project in the history of creation. But the same obstacles that stood opposing them in the first century, stands opposing us now — stones, demons and unbelief.

Good Friday: Seven Last Sayings of Jesus

The long awaited moment had come. Jesus, revealing Himself as Messiah to the city of Jerusalem and all gathered for the Passover celebration.
They welcomed and made room for the King! But they pushed Him to the cross when His deliverance didn’t look like what they’d imagined and
when His Kingdom wasn’t the Empire for which they’d longed.

So much of what we do today is a response to what was done to us in the past. It may sound over simplified, but we rehearse what they have done to us or we rehearse what Jesus has done for us. When we rehearse what they’ve done, we ultimately become the very thing we despise. But when we rehearse what He’s done, our lives increasingly become more than we could ever imagine.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan went to work planting seeds and causing division in the first family, our spiritual ancestors. He’s been at work ever since, planting destructive seeds in us too. We keep giving ourselves a pass when we don’t do what we’re feeling and rehearsing. But not doing what we want is not the same as doing what God desires.

Vengeance is one of the few things that God tells us not to do as He does. God is love and He calls us to love. God is generous and He calls us to generosity. God is merciful and He calls us to be merciful. God is holy and He call us to holiness. But vengeance is God’s alone. Yet, like the tree in the midst of the garden of Eden, it’s one of the things we find ourselves obsessed with. We must not allow vengeance to keep us from collaborating with God and from collaborating with one another. Vengeance is God’s alone.

Syncretism is the reckless blending of different often opposing views and beliefs into one new belief. Syncretism is deadly and it destroys the people of God. It destroys the flock of God. Jesus was diagnosing and prescribing a cure for the syncretism that was threatening to make His work ineffective in the hearts and lives of His disciples. We need the same diagnosis and prescription today. Are we called to self-help or self-sacrifice? Are we pursuing greatness in this world or the greatness of His Kingdom? They stand in direct opposition to one another and the two stand directly in front of us.

If you look closely at what we do, you will see a story revealing what we really want. Our wants and desires drive our lives and push us towards our choices. Typically all we want is the thing we could never seem to get. But what we do to get what we want, makes all the deference in our lives and this world. The question is not what will we do? The real question is what do we want?

Jesus demonstrates the power of one with His life. He leaves heaven and willingly lays down His life to rescue and redeem our lives. Too often we’re afraid and unwilling to lay down what we value. We too are called to give ourselves, to collaborate with God and extend His Kingdom one obedient step at a time. We are called to extend God’s Kingdom over building our empires.