Just As Jesus made His final journey to Jerusalem, we are on our own journeys to the Holy City. What’s that all about?

 

IT’S WORTH CONSIDERING

 Jesus said that His delight was to do the will of His Father. This becomes a startling statement when we realize that the Father’s ultimate will for Him placed Him upon a cross on a hill in Jerusalem. Even though Jesus knew what awaited Him, He let nothing get in His way during His final journey to the Holy City. He never hurried through villages that were hostile to Him. He didn’t linger where He was welcomed. He let nothing deter Him from going to Jerusalem to fulfill the Father’s will—the toughest assignment ever given to a human being, even if He was also God. He was resolute every step of the way.

Jesus had us in mind through it all. His and His Father’s love for us spurred Him on to do the unthinkable—to sacrifice Himself for us. In John 17 we read of His prayer that we would be one with Him and the Father just as they are one. It was this oneness that kept Him going. He wanted us to experience the same oneness with the Father that He enjoyed, and He was willing to go to the cross to make it happen.

AS I SEE IT

 It’s a shame that it takes most of us such a long time to realize and desire the same goal—our oneness with our Lord. This is our “Jerusalem.” This is our destination, and it’s not a place, it’s God Himself. This is expressed in what Jesus called the first and the greatest commandment—to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls and minds (Mt. 22:37-38). It’s all about having such an intimate loving relationship with our Heavenly Father that we have become one with Him. His thoughts have become our thoughts, and His love flows through us all the time. We don’t have to ask Him to reveal His will to us. We’ll just know it.

There is a sense in which we share Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem. We will never become one until we, too, are crucified. The good news is that this has already happened. The moment we were born again, we were placed in the eternal line of Christ, so when He died, was buried, and rose to newness of life, so did we. The bad news is that we tend to act as though the old “us” is still very much alive. Unless we deny ourselves and take up our own crosses, we will never become one with our Lord.

We let way too many things distract us on our Journey to Jerusalem. We have our own ideas of what the Christian life should look like and it seldom matches Christ’s. Our goal should be oneness, and our journey, like our Lord’s, requires a cross. Our responsibility is just like Christ’s—to do the Father’s will regardless if the difficulties or discomforts. Forget about being useful to God. Jesus never sought to be useful. He sought to do the Father’s will, and so should we.

Our life is our journey to Jerusalem. We must not be distracted along the way. If our mindset is to do the Father’s will, we will find the oneness Jesus desires for us. What happens to us along the way is not our concern. We must stay focused on the goal and like Paul, press on.

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