Holy Week, Day 2 - Disciple Makers Series #22Sample

Making things more important than God  

Thoughts on the message

Remember, Jesus declared Himself as King in Matthew 21 when He came into the city riding on the donkey. Now, Jesus is speaking as the King. He is condemning the actions of the religious leaders. He showed how foolish their questions were, He exposed their unwillingness to accept John the Baptist (the man who announced Jesus’ arrival), He exposed their hypocrisy – and now He exposes their foolish thinking and their silly rules.

This is two parts – today and tomorrow.

Today He exposes their focus on the temple and its importance – rather than on God who makes the temple holy. This is easy for us to do as well. It is easy to look at people and accept them or reject them – and not realize that it is God in us that makes us special. We look down on the poor, needy or hurting and look up on the successful – and forget that in God’s eyes there is no difference. We can treat children as less important than adults – and not see that God says we must come as children if we want to enter His Kingdom.

With God present, we must treat people as special. When God is absent, it does not matter how beautiful, how expensive, how rare, how desirable something is – it has very limited value, and nothing of eternal value.

So look differently at people today. All are created in God’s image. All have eternal destiny. All are being called by God to eternal life. They are much more valuable than any external packaging.

Prayer

Father, today I ask that You show me where I look at the external package people bring and never allow it to determine how valuable they are. You died for them – they are special. You seek them out – I must as well. Also, help me to seek Your presence. Your presence is what makes my day of great worth and value. I want to honor this day – because You are present. Even if my day is full of failure, full of trouble and hard work or anything else. It is a special day because of You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.