Walking With Christ

Matthew 26:14-16 (14)Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests (15)and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. (16)And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.(ESV)

It’s Thanksgiving day. There are days where it’s truly difficult to find a lot to be thankful for. The depression and despair are like a heavy blanket that suffocates anything underneath of it. There are times that I have to disassociate to get out of the funk.

Fortunately, today is not one of those days. I thank God for Judas Iscariot. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the life of Judas. We know that Judas would be the one who betrayed Jesus, but you know who didn’t know this? The other disciples. They were right there in the same room and living with Jesus and Judas. Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him, yet Jesus loved Judas so much and treated him so well that none of the other disciples ever had a clue who would be the betrayer.

That is the love of Jesus. That is what it means to love your enemies. If we can’t love our enemies like this then we have no room to love our friends. I’m not throwing stones in glass houses. I’m walking on hot coals, because this goes against everything my human nature tells me. I am my own worst enemy. I rarely try to hide it. Nearly everybody has at least one person in their lives who simply isn’t their favorite person. The challenge for today is examine how you treat that person and compare that to the love of Jesus. How does it compare? If you’re like me, you have more work to do.