Today's Devotional

 

January 29, 2008

                                                                             

Subject:   Don't Miscalculate Jesus

John 6:63 - 66 "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.  And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.  From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."

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In a 60 Minutes Interview, an FBI agent responsible for the interrogation of Iraq's deposed and executed leader, Saddam Hussein, detailed how the leader "miscalculated" what the United States would do after we threatened to invade to remove him from office in 2003.  The FBI agent in a rather revealing interview said that Saddam Hussein never expected that we would actually come to Baghdad and simply thought that we would send a few missiles and stop with that action.  As we now know, this proved to be a grave miscalculation for Saddam and ended up in not only his death, but also the untimely demise of his sons as well.

That's the kind of impact life has on us when we miscalculate Jesus also.  As you can see from the scripture passage above, some His followers miscalculated Him.  Some thought that Jesus would come ruling with an iron fist to overthrow Roman rule.  Others perhaps thought that He would come to remove the Jews from the "world" establishing their own homeland free from outside influence.  Whatever many believed, they miscalculated and when Jesus identified that some of them were not true followers, they fell away.

Today, your miscalculation of Jesus can have grave consequences.  We don't get the rest of the story of those disciples which "turned away and walked with Jesus no more" but I can tell you their end and it couldn't be a happy one.  Ensure that you know the Jesus that you follow.  There are lots of things you can mess up on in life, but don't miscalculate Jesus.  

Carlen