Gentle Jesus

Scripture

Come to Me, all whose work is hard, whose load is heavy; and I will give you relief. Bend your necks to My yoke, and learn from Me, for I AM gentle and humble- hearted; and your souls will find relief.

~Matthew 11:28-29, NEB

Quote

To my knowledge, Jesus used force only one time and that was to show us He could, for He has all power {Matthew 28:18} but force was not His usual manner.

~Ya’akov

We humans, especially Americans, are fund of instant oats, instant coffee, instant pictures; one hour opticals or cleaners. We are in a hurry, always in a hurry–which is the root cause of most road rage. We have more fast-food restaurants than we can shake a stick at and building more every day. We hate waiting on anything from doctors to red lights. We want instant gratification. Let me ask you a question: how does that work with your vertical relationship? Are you prepared to tell God to shake a leg, get on the stick, hurry up, etc.? I thought not! You nor I, nor 7.8 billion more like us are going to hurry God. He will execute His will in the fullness of time. Spiritual maturation is a life long process and there are certain aspects that you will not understand until you get older.

Jesus is our SAVIOR but He is also our TEACHER. He said,
“Bend your necks to My yoke, and learn from Me.Note: there is some bending we have to do, the proud stiff I will not bend himself without a conscious effort. Note how humble the C {Christ} is compared to the I. We have to bend our proud stiff necked I to get into Jesus yoke. First step in our salvation is REPENTANCE. After justification comes sanctification; we begin learning from Christ. The good news is: He is not only a perfect teacher, He is humble, kind, patient and gentle. He does not get upon the desk and scream. He does not push and shove. He is gentle and He understands us better than we understand ourselves. His desire is to teach us and He understands our proclivity and reluctance to learn. I must testify: I am absolutely amazed at His patience with me. I have held on to so many harmful things and yet He has never, not once, snatched a single idol from my hands. He urges me gently. He speaks to me tenderly, “Jack, aren’t you ready to give that to me? Can’t you see it is hurting you and others? Let me tell you something wonderful about this process: every time we surrender an idol to Jesus, He takes it, puts His omnipotent foot on it and crushes it into the dust of the ground and we stand amazed in His presence. We are not angry or upset with what He has done. Matter of fact, it is the cause of celebration. I think of the old hymn, “Whiter than Snow,” “LORD Jesus I long to be perfectly whole {I do}. I want the forever to live in my soul {I do}. Break down every idol and cast our every foe. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.”

When Jesus called Peter, He may have thought to himself, “this dude is rough around the edges; it will take some time to make a fisherman of men out of him.” I stand amazed at the infinite patience of Jesus and His gentle way of doing things. He sees all my idols but He does not violently rip them from my hands, He gently one by one encouraged me to lay them at his feet and then He crushed them.

I’m reading the New English Bible yesterday morning. I was reading Matthew 9-15 which is the section labeled “Controversy” by the NEB. It is the section where Jesus does miracle and teaches in parables and the Jewish religious establishment gets upset with Him. Jesus told them, “You hear but you don’t understand…you are looking right at me but you don’t see ME {God}.” These folks read the scripture all the time but they didn’t understand what they were reading. They didn’t see Jesus in the scripture and didn’t recognize Him in the flesh. I know that several of my readers are daily bible readers. I was asks yesterday to recommend a version to read in 2021. Let me make it clear that the main thing in reading the Bible is to UNDERSTAND. Your desire should be for GOD to speak to you. I know folks who boast about reading the Bible through but they always read the same version and the ones I am thinking about read the King James. They are making no progress because they do not understand what they are reading. Why are traditionalist so afraid of modern versions? [1] They are steeped in tradition and their values are set, [2] they are afraid of change, [3] they have totally misunderstood the point of bible reading which is to get to know Jesus better. It does no good to read if you don’t understand what you are reading. Simple English versions help. The LIVING BIBLE, which is a paraphrase will open your eyes to a lot of truth. Don’t be afraid of the truth.

TMI Section

TMI, too much information, is a fallacy of the elderly. If you hang with them any length of time, they will tell you more than you want to hear. So young folks, stop reading right now: do not read another word. One of the most difficult parts of the day for me is taking a shower and getting ready to go out in public. I do not dread getting up, I look forward to getting up: I dread the old shower. Young people don’t understand; they can reach all parts of their body easily. When you get older, it takes a lot of effort to clean up. Senior adults have a limited amount of energy. Let’s say a child has an energy level of 100 and Youth have between 90-100. Young adults have 80-90. Middle adults have 70-80. You do see the trend, the older you get the less energy you have. Young seniors have 50-70, then you get a little older and the level drops about ten degrees. When you get to 70, there is another big drop. So let’s say I start the day with 30 points of energy, taking a shower uses 10 of them. The seniors know I’m telling the truth. You young whipper-snappers are laughing but your time is coming.

Keith and Judy Blackwood have the virus. Joe David and I visited Roger and Dot yesterday. They plan to keep Roger at home which is good. Hospice is working with them. Roger is not in a coma, not yet but he sleeps all the time. He did open his eyes but he is too weak to speak. We begin our CHRISTMAS VISITS today {with the kids}. We made visits in Limestone yesterday. Covid has changed everything but I am determined not to let in ruin Christmas. Of my four visits, only one was home but I had a good visit there.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *