LORD. IS IT I?
On the night that our Lord was betrayed, while His disciples were gathered around Him eating the Passover supper, Jesus said to them, “Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.” (Matthew 26:21). The response of these men who had loved Jesus and given up everything to follow Him has always caused me to ponder. Scripture says, “And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto Him, Lord, is it I?” (verse 22).
It
seems curious that when faced with the reality that one of them would commit
such a heinous act each disciple was quick to question himself first! It’s
an indication of a pure heart that causes one to examine him/herself and to ask
the Lord to “Search me, O God, and know
my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in
me.” (Psalm 139:23, 24).
After
sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to His teaching for the last 3 1/2 years
concerning discipleship and dying to self, could it be that His disciples had
come to realize that they could not trust in themselves, but only in Him Who
was their Light and their Salvation?
These chosen ones still had a lot to learn. There was much that they were yet unable to
grasp about God’s plan. Much of it wouldn’t
click for them until after Pentecost when they would be filled with the Spirit
of God and with spiritual understanding.
They were still looking for a king who would conquer the Romans, along
with the rest of their enemies, and establish His throne forever in Jerusalem.
That
very night, after supper, they got into a debate about which of them would be
accounted the greatest. Jesus had to
explain to them that it was the way of the Gentiles and of earthly kings to
lord it over one another and exercise their authority on others. He directed them to the example that He had
set before them: not One Who demanded to be served, but One Who served them
all.
Peter,
who insisted that he would go to prison and even to death if need be to defend
his Lord, was told by Jesus that he would deny even knowing Him, not just once,
but three separate times! At one point, Jesus
had to tell this beloved disciple, “Simon,
Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.” (Luke 22:31, 32).
During
His ministry, Jesus told the story of two men who went up to the temple to
pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a
publican. Pharisees were members of a Jewish sect which held
strict observance to the traditional and written law, but also were pretentious
and thought themselves superior to others.
Publicans were despised
Jews who had collaborated with the Roman Empire and were best known for
collecting tolls or taxes, and who were generally considered to be corrupt in
their dealings.
Jesus
said that the Pharisee prayed in this way: “God,
I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even as this publican. I fast twice
in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” (Luke 18:11, 12). The publican’s prayer, on the other hand, was
quite different: “And the publican,
standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke
18:13). Jesus said of the publican, “I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Luke 18:14). The Bible tells us that he who thinks he is able
to stand uprightly should take heed lest he fall. In Christ Jesus, the weak are made strong,
and the mighty are abased. No wonder
that every one of Jesus’ disciples was quick to look inwardly and check with
their Master whether or not it was he who would betray Him. In this, the disciples set a very good
example of humility for you and me to follow.
Paul wrote to the Church of Corinth and told them, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own
selves…” (2 Corinthians 13:5). We
should always be examining ourselves and measuring ourselves, not against one
another, but against the Word of God.
Based
on the introduction to this story about the Pharisee and the publican in verse
9, this lesson is as much about not trusting in our own righteousness as it is
about despising (or judging) others. The
measure of our own righteousness is always based on our trust in Christ, Who is our righteousness, and on His holy
example. It can never be based on our
own efforts, strength or willpower (see Jeremiah 23:6). Trusting in our own sense of good and evil is
not a winning strategy either. Even
trying to conform to the Law contained in commandments is futile. It didn’t work for Adam and Eve, and it won’t
work for us! The Apostle Paul wrote, “For it is God which worketh in you both to
will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13). We must learn to yield ourselves to the
working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and trust the Lord to work His will in
us. “This
is the work of God, that ye believe on Him [Jesus] Whom He [God] hath sent.”
(John 6:29).
Rather
than judging our brothers and sisters to determine if the message that the Lord
is speaking to us is being directed at them,
our response to the Word of God should always first be, “Lord, is it I?” Scripture says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of
the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” (1 Corinthians
11:31, 32). The Lord, through His
precious Holy Spirit, is always weighing our motives, intentions, thoughts and
actions against the light of His Standard for right and wrong: Jesus, His
beloved Son. We must, therefore, always
be checking ourselves to see what the Lord might be speaking to us, and to ensure that we are walking by
faith in the light that He sheds on our path.
The Church today needs much more heart-felt repentance, and much less
self-justification. “Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and
the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine
heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should
they say among the people, Where is their God?” (Joel 2:17).
Our
entire Christian walk is an exercise in learning to see Jesus in a clearer and
more authentic light. We must draw
nearer to our Lord in order to know and understand Him better. Imagine walking toward a person who is a
great way off from you. At first, all
you can discern is that it is a person, but you can’t yet make out any of their
distinguishing features. The closer you
come to them, however, the more detail you can make out about them: the color
and length of their hair, their general build, and even their gender. When you finally come next to them you can
see the color of their eyes, the shape of their mouth, and particulars about
their clothing. It is the same with
Jesus. The closer we get to Him, the
better we see and know Him. It is His character, though, that becomes clearer
to us. It is also the light that is in Jesus
that illuminates the darkness that is in each one of us, for He is the Light of the world. It doesn’t matter how good I think that I am; it only matters how I
compare to the life of Christ Jesus my Lord.
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and
increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy
of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that
thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and
anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be
zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:
if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will
sup with him, and he with Me.”
(Revelations 3:17-20). The Church of
Laodicea, to whom these words were directed by the Lord, seems to have a lot in
common with the Church today. We think
that our wealth and independence are signs of our superior spirituality when,
in fact, the Lord sees us as “…wretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” We need the kind of faith that has been
forged in the fires of adversity and refined in the crucibles of
suffering. We need to earnestly contend
for the kind of faith that the first believers had. We need the shame of our nakedness and sin to
be covered, not with our own righteousness which is like filthy rags, but with
the pure, white robes of Jesus’ righteousness and holiness. We need our eyes to be anointed by the
precious Holy Spirit so that our spiritual blindness may finally be healed. It is time that the Church yields itself to
the chastening hand of God and fall before Him with heart-felt repentance and
contrition. Jesus is at the door. He is knocking – wanting admittance to our
hearts and lives. Will we hear His voice
and open the door, or ignore Him until He goes away? If we answer, He will come and spread a feast
before us like we have never known.
Bread of Life, Fruits of the Spirit, and Rivers of New Wine and Living
Water will be ours in abundance!
Of
course, there is a time and place when the Church must rise up in
judgment. The Lord will give us
discernment to be able to detect evil spirits and to call them out when
necessary. We also need to learn to
judge the fruit of those who name the name of Christ, but live unholy lives. They are dangerous because they could lead
others astray by their bad example. We
must remember, too, that we all contain this glorious treasure of God’s grace
in earthen vessels. God’s people often
come with faults and weakness, sickness and affliction. For this reason “…the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men,
apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if
God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and
that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will.” (2 Timothy 2:24-26). In another place, Paul writes that he who
ministers to the faults in others must first be spiritual himself, focused on
restoring them, and readily looking to himself so that he himself is not tempted. Paul wrote, “Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit
of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he
deceiveth himself. But let every man
prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not
in another.” (Galatians 6:1-4).
The
next time you hear a sermon or a teaching from the Word of God, remember first
to say, “Lord, is it I?”
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