Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve by Sue Bendorf

from Monday, June 2, 2014 — 

"Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve"  

     We are living in a time when this admonishment must be given again. If we think for a moment that we are not foreigners in this land and that we are not surrounded by other gods; if we say with our mouths that we serve YHVH while in truth we live by our own thoughts and for our own pleasures, we make liars of ourselves. The time of making a pretense of what we say we believe is over. The time of decision making is before one is in the heat of the battle.

     Memorial Day was last observed in America seven days ago. The day got me to thinking about a bit of correspondence I had a few weeks back with a couple of sisters. One of them eluded to how Peter was offended by the thought of Messiah having to die as seen in Matthew 16. In verse 15 we read that Messiah asks His disciples, "But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simom Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." It was after they recognized Him for who He was that He began to reveal to them more of His heart for the Father and His mission on earth. Beginning in verse 21, we read, "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee." It was at this point that Messiah responded to him, "Get thee behind me, Satan thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." 

     The context of what is taking place here is that once they had confessed that He had come from the Father, He began to reveal to them His coming suffering and death and that it was indeed His Father's will. They were faced with the reality that following the Father in obedience didn't promise them a life of position and ease, but the knowledge that if the Messiah, who walked in complete righteousness and was/is the embodiment of the Torah, and yet He had to suffer and die, then who were they to expect anything more?

     Knowing these things I am forced to ask myself, "Am I offended by Messiah's sacrifice because of what it may mean for me? Am I truly willing to follow Him ...no matter what the cost?"

read on...