Daily Devotional For Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Happy Terrific Tuesday! Today, we come to a discussion Jesus had with the religious leaders and in doing so, He asked them two questions in John 8. Let’s take a moment to look at these two questions that are almost asked by Jesus one after the other. Look at John 8:43a, 46a, “Why do you not understand what I say? . . . (46) Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” (ESV). In both cases Jesus is dealing with religious leaders who are so biased against Him, they are blind to what is so obvious to us today.
In the first question asked by Jesus He gave them the answer in John 8:43b, “It is because you cannot bear to hear My word” (ESV). Jesus in a few verses prior gave these religious leaders the reason they were unable to hear what Jesus was saying. Look at John 8:38, “I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father” (ESV). They were not children of God the Father.
So, who was their father? – the devil. We see this in John 8:41, when Jesus said this to them, “You are doing the works your father did” (ESV). We read this today and miss the drama and emotion in Jesus’ discussion. If someone says to you, “You’re the son or daughter of the devil,” how would you respond to that? We can only imagine that it was pretty tense, caustic and emotions were running high.
Just like physical children take after their earthly father, so did these religious leaders. Their desires were to fulfill the desires of their father, the devil. We even have a couple of sayings in our culture that goes this way, “Like father, like son” and “The apple does fall far from the tree.” We rarely use these in a positive way and Jesus’ in His comments intentionally chose to be direct, blunt and truthful.
Jesus again affirmed why these religious leaders could not “hear” Him in John 8:47, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God” (ESV). We can only imagine how well these words from Jesus went over on this group of “sons of the devil.”
In Jesus’ second question to these hypocritical and self-righteous religious leaders, His question was a bold affirmation of what theologians refer to as Christ’s impeccability; that is, His utter holiness and separation from sin. The Bible says about Jesus’ sinlessness:
- 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (ESV).
- Hebrews 4:15,”For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (ESV).
- Hebrews 7:26 says this about Jesus – “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (ESV).
- 1 Peter 2:22, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth” (ESV).
I like what pastor and author John MacArthur writes on this:
“Only the perfectly holy One, in intimate communion with the Father, could dare to issue such a challenge. Though His enemies wrongly believed Him to be guilty of sin, they could not prove Him guilty of anything. At His trial before Annas, Jesus issued a similar challenge: “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?” (John 18:23). There, as here, the challenge went unanswered” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “John,” p. 372).
A person’s actions reveal what is in his or her heart. In a later letter John wrote in 1 John 3:8 this, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (ESV). New Testament scholar Bruce B. Barton writes this”
“To people who fear being offensive when they express their faith, the bluntness of Jesus’ statements stands as a rebuke. Sometimes we do not love people enough to risk losing their approval. Jesus took the risk because he loved the people, even those who rejected him. Among those who did respond to Jesus were some who had once been firmly set against him. At all times Jesus was truthful, never deliberately harsh or offensive. Jesus said what people needed to hear, fully knowing that they did not want to hear it. If we wait to speak about Christ until we are sure the other person is ready to respond, we may never speak at all. Our caution will prevent us from sharing our faith with some who might astound us with their unexpected openness” (Source: Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Commentary, “John,” p. 179).
Jesus’ audience was hardened and deaf; the life-giving, enlightening word could not penetrate their closed hearts, ears, and minds. And this was very dangerous because not being open to the words of God made them receptive targets for the devil’s lies. The religious leaders were unable to understand because they refused to listen. satan used their stubbornness, pride, and prejudices to keep them from believing in Jesus. If we fill our life with distracting and conflicting messages from the heroes we follow, the books we read, the songs we listen to, and the movies we watch, we will discover that it is harder and harder to “hear” God speaking at all. He has not stopped communicating; we are just listening to other voices” (Source: Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Commentary, “John,” p. 185).
(I do not capitalize the name of satan, he does not deserve that respect.)
Questions To Consider
- How well would you say you are at listening to the words of Jesus?
- For you personally, when would you say are the most difficult or challenging commands of Jesus to obey and why?
- What would you say keeps you from hearing from the Lord and what do you need to do to change that and why?
Scripture To Meditate On: John 6:60, “When many of His disciples heard it, they said, `This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” (ESV).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I am so sorry when my ears and heart are deaf to Your Words. I allow so many other issues, tasks, people, projects, TV, music and even myself to keep me from listening to You. I need to do what King David wrote in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God” (NIV). Lord, as the young Samuel said, `Speak to me Lord, for Your servant is listening,’ in 1 Samuel 3:9-10. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly