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Luke 20
For what did Jesus criticize the teachers of the law? How can you avoid being guilty of these same things? One thing the Jewish religious leaders were guilty of was hearing but not understanding. They knew Jesus told the parable of the evil tenants against them, but they failed to understand the message of it. He actually answered their question through that parable. He told them that He had come to collect His Father’s harvest. Yet how did they respond to this truth? They sought to throw Him out and kill Him, just like the tenants in the parable.
I am always amazed at such blind pride. How hard it is to let that pride go and simply accept the hard truth! Yet one of the many lessons the Bible teaches us is that we all suffer from the same human condition. So if others are capable of such blind pride, I better bet it can happen to me, too. That’s why life is a constant battle for my heart and mind. It is not a battle I can win, which is why I need to choose daily to let God fight it for me.
Hos. 12-13
God doesn’t tell us to serve only Him because He is petty. We can’t put human characteristics on His jealously because He isn’t human. He is God, who does not think like we think and whose ways are always just. He tells us to serve only Him because He knows He is the only one worth serving. There is no other god. When we set our sights on any other, whatever that may be, we become like Israel. “You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.” (Hos. 13:9). If we oppose our only help, the only source of life, there is only one outcome, and it isn’t good.