REACTIONS TO JESUS

“Jesus delivered a man from a demon that had kept him speechless. The demon gone, the man started talking a blue streak, taking the crowd by complete surprise. But some from the crowd were cynical. ‘Black magic,’ they said. ‘Some devil trick He’s pulled from His sleeve.’ Others were sceptical, waiting around for Him to prove Himself with a spectacular miracle.” Luke 11:14-16 (The Message)

Why was it that people reacted to Jesus’ miracles of mercy by attributing them to demons? Is the human mind so warped that good is so unrecognisable that it must be interpreted as something the devil does? Was this influence of the religious leaders of His day, that they were perverted enough to refuse to acknowledge the work of God in healing and restoring broken people?

Perhaps experiencing the goodness of God was foreign to them and they could not accept the character of the God Jesus was revealing. They kept asking for more ‘signs’ instead of seeing God in the ones Jesus was doing all the time. Because of their unbelief, no amount of signs would convince them that God is good.

What about us? What does it take to make us aware of the goodness of God in the ordinary events of my life? Part of the repentance that must be on-going in our lives is to change our minds about who is in charge of the circumstances of our lives. That does not mean that God makes bad things happen. It does mean that God uses every experience, good or bad, to reveal Himself to us and to reshape our reactions and our character to be more like Jesus.

It’s entirely up to us to choose how we will view our everyday experiences – whether we see them as devil-inspired and spend our time rebuking him(!) or whether we recognise the hand of  God working in all things for our good and conforming us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28,29).

In this process of becoming a disciple, we am learning to think God’s thoughts instead of our own. The Apostle Paul calls it ‘renewing my mind’. We become what we think. If we think that the devil is pushing us around, we will be fearful, sceptical and insecure, but if we know that God is in charge, working everything for our good, we will have peace and security in Him. Stress will be exchanged for rest and trust for unbelief.

Goodness is the world has only one source, the God who is good. Evil in the world is not from God but is a tool in His hand to do His work in His children and to reveal His glory against the dark backdrop of sin on the canvas He is painting.