Closer to Jesus

So you want to be closer to Jesus. That’s a wonderful aspiration, but are you sure that’s what you really want? Okay, okay, I know you just said, “OF COURSE STUPID!” I understand, but you might like to think about this first: “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards” (Psm. 69:8-12). That was Jesus himself speaking in prophecy. The things that came upon him were the result of him being so close to his Father, and that’s just the way it’s always been with anyone and everyone who has ever walked close to God. You still want to be closer to God you say? That’s real good, but understand that Jesus was speaking of God’s own people in the above prophecy, as being those who reproached him. “He came unto HIS OWN, and his own received him not” (Jn. 1:11). Anyway, let’s move on to some other folks, who though they were less than Jesus, were pretty close to God themselves: “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him… Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?” (Jer. 20:7-10,14-18).

Now before passing judgment on these words of Jeremiah, as many foolish souls are prone to judge the great men of the Bible; understand that these words came from one of the mightiest warriors of faith God in the history of the world. Indeed, one who will have one of the highest rewards in the world to come, for the suffering and reproach that he endured for the Lord’s name. Wait until you’ve been where these men have been, and walked in the footsteps that they walked in, before making any critical analysis of them. But in any event, do you still want to be closer and closer to the Lord? Are you still willing to be alienated by most everyone who you know in Christ? Oh, you say it’s not that way in the faith of Christ? Then what is this about that the apostle Paul wrote in his final epistle to his beloved son in the faith? “This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me… Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica… Only Luke is with me” (II Tim. 1:15; II Tim. 4:9-11). Oh yeah, you might want to note that those in Asia that were turned away from Paul were the congregations throughout Asia minor that he labored in God’s love to establish; whom he also warned continually in all of his epistles about the false apostles and ministers who were trying to prey on them. Well, the false guys won that war my friend, and the great apostle died with that sorrow, mixed with the joy of going to see the one whom he had trusted and loved for so long; for whom he labored and suffered so greatly. And somebody will undoubtedly say something like, “Well, he was an apostle, and that’s why he suffered; but the rest of us don’t have to.” I’ve heard that kind of stuff all along the way by those who are fearful of suffering the reproach of their brethren, preferring to stay in good standing with everyone. Maybe these words of Jesus should be considered, which in fact were directed to all believers, not just apostles: “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets… Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Lk. 6:22,23,26). Note here how that these words of Jesus affirm that it is God’s own people who are in covenant with him that do the casting out and speaking evil of the faithful; and it is also God’s people in this equation who speak well of the false prophets and minsters.

The false apostles and ministers that troubled the congregations that Paul established were men who were in the body of Christ but did not love the Spirit of God like they should have (Acts 1:2,24; Philip. 3:1-3; I Jn. 2:19). The same apostle Paul was in agreement with the sobering words of Jesus: “Yea, and ALL that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall SUFFER persecution” (II Tim. 3:12). Persecution does not bring the suffering that the apostle speaks of here until it comes from brethren who are trusted, and who really have no excuse for misunderstanding someone who is being led by God’s Spirit in their life. Well, we’ve gotten fairly deep into this thing now, so are you still sure you want to draw closer to Jesus, and love with his love fervently? “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth… And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul” (Acts 7:51-54,58). I could go on for a long, long time with this little lesson of sobering, powerful truth about the reality of being truly ‘one’ with the Lord Jesus Christ, and with his Father (Jn. 17:21-23). Nonetheless I’ll finish in short order here, having saved the best for last. NOBODY has ever loved with the degree of love that Jesus showed when he was here, and this is what that love was called by those who had the covenant and the promises of God, and who paraded their supposed love for God’s law that he had so graciously given them: “Then answered the Jews, and said unto him [Jesus], Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” (Jn. 8:48). That pretty much sums it up I would say, except for one more integral quote from Jesus which applies to you and I: “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Mat. 10:25). So there it is my friend, the price of living close to God, and loving our brethren with the love that Jesus loved us with (Jn. 13:34). I don’t know about you, but it sure is worth it to me, especially seeing that the reward for doing so far outweighs the cost by a country mile (Rom. 8:18; II Cor. 4:17). Amen and God bless.