Part 10 - Letting the Father Handle the Situation.

The Lord Jesus acted at all times on the assumption that His Father was handling the situation, and Jesus simply took care to obey His Father's instructions. Even when He was being reviled and tortured, "He left His case in the hands of God." By this submission to His Father, Jesus "learned obedience" as a Man, and the obedience was total: " He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2: 8).

Now, as God, He asks the same of you and me.

This is what baffled the disciples. At times they must have thought the Lord Jesus was hopelessly passive, and that He was failing to come to grips with reality. He seemed bent on drifting toward disaster. They must have wondered, Why not get organized ? Why not cash in on His popularity with the crowd or pull some political strings ?

Whenever Jesus performed some notable miracle and someone was healed, why did He avoid such obvious opportunities for wider publicity and tell people to keep their mouths shut ? Why did He not throw His weight around, project His personality, exploit His authority, and confound His foes once and for all by some overwhelming vindication of His Deity ? Why did He not emphatically let people know just who He was and where He had come from ? Why did He not boldly justify His claim to equality with the Father and wipe the floor with His enemies ? Why this pitiable show of weakness and this apparent foolishness ?

Why ? "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1: 25). Therefore "He was crucified in weakness" (2 Corinthians 13: 4). The Lord Jesus could afford to be weak; He could afford to be thought foolish in the eyes of silly, sinful men; He could afford to be reviled and mocked and spat upon, because He knew He had been sent by the Father, and that into the Father's hands He had committed His Spirit, not only in death, but throughout His life. Jesus could afford to do as He was told, and He could afford to die, because He knew that Someone else was taking care of the consequences: "For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God" (2 Corinthians 13: 4). The resurrected Christ now lives, to continue His life in you !

If you are not yet prepared to do as you are told, no matter how weak or foolish it will make you look, then whatever you believe about the resurrection of Jesus is still academic. You have not yet entered into the good of it. When it comes to the point of obedience to God's clear instructions, the life of Jesus Christ within you makes human circumstances irrelevant; for to share His life now as He once shared His Father's life on earth is to know, as Jesus did, that Someone is taking care of the consequences. I do not mean by this that God's purposes are always irrational in the light of human circumstance, nor that there is any particular virtue in being eccentric or foolhardy. What I am urging is simply that you become delightfully detached from the pressure of circumstance, so that it ceases to be the criterion in the decisions you make.

You will not need to know what He plans to do with you.....you simply need to know Him.

When I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12: 10.

Next week we will learn more about "All of truth"