Baby Steps

The Jews answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God." (John 10:33)

The Jews were angry because they were offended. Their beliefs about God were being challenged and violated. They had always believed that God was far up in heaven and aloof, and any idea of Him ever being a human was preposterous.

Jesus highlights the principle that a person's works, or fruit, is the way in which to discern character. Words and profession is one thing, but observing the actions, the disposition and the treatment of others leads to an understanding of what is in the heart.

Jesus came to reveal the heart of the Father. In that role He lived and related to others just the way the Father would have if He had come to earth as a human. These religious people had the philosophy that a person could profess to honor God, could claim to be a God-follower while allowing their hearts to remain selfish. Their whole system of religion had degraded into a set of carefully crafted rules and traditions, many which had been designed to circumvent the very principles of truth and justice that God had given their nation originally. Their lives were largely a denial of the principles of heaven while they proudly professed to be God's representatives to those around them.

The 'works' of these religiously pious men were in striking contrast with the works of Jesus and how He treated the poor, the outcast and all those despised by the elite. For this reason Jesus came under severe attack repeatedly because he refused to in any way indulge in the practices of these hypocrites or endorse them in the slightest. While he was a perfect example of the foundational principles that had been given to the Jews centuries before of God's true ways of relating to others, He would not give credence to any of the accumulated traditions that had grown up around the original laws given to Moses.

These people had become obsessed with externals while neglecting the internal matters of the heart. They believed that religion and being right with God was based on performing religious rites, maintaining pure doctrines intellectually and keeping up appearances externally. All the while their hearts were filled with selfishness and corruption and deceit and were far from reflecting the real truth about the God they claimed to serve and worship. Because of this the example of Jesus became a constant source of deep embarrassment to them, a light that exposed their hypocrisy; and rather than admit their false beliefs they sought to put out the light that was bringing them so much discomfort.

These religious men were deeply offended by Jesus. Taking offense is seen in Scriptures as falling into the trap of Satan. Satan lives constantly in a state of offense himself. I suddenly realized this morning that rather than offense catching us in a trap which Satan manipulates apart from himself to lure people into, this trap is one in which Satan always lives and cannot escape from himself. Because he is hopelessly caught in the trap of offense himself and is filled with rage, he is ever seeking to make this trap as attractive as possible to lure others to fall into it so they can be filled with his bitterness and can be eaten alive in its acid over time.

Jesus could see clearly the trap of Satan that these men were caught in and longed to deliver them from it. Rather than sparring with these men to gain advantage over them or to shame them, Jesus was seeking in every way possible to attract them away from that trap by revealing the compassion and love and forgiveness of God to them. Even while they were clenching stones ready to kill Him for exposing their evil hearts once again with His love, He explained to them that the reason they could not appreciate His words or make sense out of what He was doing was because they were failing to think clearly and discern the obvious that He was showing them. He stated that the reason they could not make sense out of Him, the reason they were so miserable living in offense was because they were not yet His sheep.

In saying this Jesus was also pointing out that they were not really followers of God as they insisted themselves to be. By identifying Himself intimately with the Father whom they claimed to be their God, He exposed their hypocrisy openly and caused them to see the truth about themselves as well as about God and make a choice as to what they were going to do about it. In the midst of this confrontation Jesus made yet another invitation to help them get out of their trap of offense and become His sheep by seriously thinking about the things He had been doing in an objective way.

This whole book of John is all about the issue of belief. I am immersing myself in this book for that very reason because I too want to enter much deeper into true belief in Jesus. What I am seeing here is Jesus talking about two different options or steps available to deepen belief. If a person has too difficult a time believing the words of Jesus directly, they can simply choose to ponder the implications and significance of the actions of Jesus and how He treated people. That very choice to process this evidence can produce faith and belief that can help move one closer to believing more in His words and claims directly.

"If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father." (John 10:37-38)

I find it interesting that Jesus challenges these religious men by saying they need not believe Him if His life and actions and works are not consistent with the truth about the Father. This is an invitation to reexamine their assumptions about God and what He is like and how He treats people. It is also an invitation for all of us to do the same thing.

It is just as easy for us to reject the testimony of someone who is acting out of harmony with our assumptions about God as did these Jews. Our religions are so filled with false assumptions and twisted ideas about God that we too live in confusion about what is good and righteous. When we find ourselves offended by something Jesus says or does, do we take it as an invitation to question our own fundamental ideas about God or do we lash out against anything that exposes and contradicts our opinions about religion?

Jesus invites me to take a baby step if necessary to engage on the ladder of growing belief in Him. If I have a hard time with something He says about Himself or His Father He invites me to simply allow His works to speak for themselves and allow the implications of how He treated people to begin to infiltrate my heart to clear my confusion or soften my resistance to what He is saying. Jesus did everything possible to attract these hardened religious people to change their opinions about God and view Him in the light of the example of Jesus. I was also raised to have strong but often mistaken opinions about God that need correcting and Jesus invites me to let His works and His words begin to eliminate these lies and fill my mind and heart with the real truth about Him.

If I will do this, if I am willing to accept the challenge of Jesus to just think rationally and reasonably about what He does and says, the effect of focusing my attention on Him can transform me to become one of His sheep who can then recognize His voice and who can understand and live in harmony with reality as it was designed by God.