Well, tonight we looked at Christ Misunderstood. We covered three incidents that revealed the observers misunderstood what the Lord was all about. First was Simon the Pharisee, thinking Jesus couldn't be a prophet otherwise he would know what kind of woman was anointing his feet. I called this Cynical Misunderstanding, and the cure for it is confession. Certainly after the Lord's rebuke, he had only two options: crawl in a hole and die, or confess his faults before the Lord. His reaction is not given, I surely wonder what he did. The second misunderstanding I called Malicious Misunderstanding, where the Pharisees said Jesus cast out demons because he had a demon, Beelzebul. There is no cure for this misunderstanding, only rebuke. The last misunderstanding was the Concerned Misunderstanding of the Lord's family (Mk 3.21), "he is out of his mind". The cure for this misunderstanding is faith and obedience: "do the will of God". Interestingly, both his brother James and his brother Jude identify themselves only as "servants [doulos = slaves] of Jesus Christ. They got the message.
There are times when we as believers might misunderstand what God is doing. We might think God is even a little bit crazy. May God help us! We need to simply trust and obey. And may the Lord keep us from the other two kinds of misunderstanding!
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
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