Read Luke 14:1-6
You Ultimately Give An Account For Your Actions To God And No One Else.
“One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a Prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.” The Pharisees and teachers of the law did not like Jesus. He spoke with authority, he backed up his authority with miracles, he challenged the Pharisees with their man made laws. It’s no different than today. As Christians, today, if we dare to let people see and know our faith, some will watch us very closely. They just look for us to mess up so they can tear us and our faith apart. Here’s the problem with that:
1. They may end up seeing our “human side” and see that we aren’t perfect. So they’ll jump right on that and do everything possible to defame us and our faith. Or
2. They exaggerate something we do or say in order to defame us. It’s hard to combat someone who functions that way, except to love them. Keep serving the Lord and keep being busy doing the work the Lord has called you to do. Your weak moment can be turned around to let people see your humility and confession of wrongdoing and explain the power of God’s grace and forgiveness.
While sitting with the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, Jesus saw a man suffering from abnormal suffering with his body. So Jesus asked them, “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So Jesus took hold of the man and healed him, then sent him on his way. Jesus saw how the Pharisees and the teachers of the law despised him for healing on the Sabbath and they considered it working on the Sabbath. Their lack of compassion caused Jesus to confront their blind spiritual vision because they ignored a man in need yet, if a child or animal got stuck in a well on the Sabbath they’d do everything they could to get the child or animal out of the well. Jesus confronted them in order to expose this hypocrisy. If it’s okay to get an animal out of the well on the Sabbath, how much more should we value a human life which is sick or lame and be willing to set them free from such bondage? But they remained silent. There will be times when we are attacked for our compassion shown for someone that others felt was not deemed worthy of such attention. If your act of kindness doesn’t violate Scripture and you felt led by the spirit to do it, then you do it. Remember, we will have to give account for our obedience or lack obedience before God on judgment day. Not to our neighbor who despises us or hates us.
