And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me
Luke 7:23
The above sentence was made by my dear Jesus Christ while He was here on earth; He made the statement to John the Baptist’s disciples. What did He mean by this? Why did He speak in such a manner? If you have these questions tugging in your heart, this blog post tries to answer these questions.
So a quick back story before I proceed. I did not come to the full comprehension of this verse all by myself. I had help from my sister and brothers in faith – Blessing, Segun, Olaoluwa, and ultimately the Holy Spirit. Because I know that as we gathered together in the Lord’s name He was there opening our understanding and teaching us Himself. So today’s blog post would be lessons that I learned from studying Luke chapter 7 with my four friends, the Holy Spirit included. 🙂
Now to this peculiar statement Jesus Christ made – blessed is he who is not offended because of Me– Luke 7:23. John the Baptist who was related to Jesus biologically, who had baptised Jesus Christ was now in Prison by the order of King Herod-Matthew 14:3. And Jesus Christ did not exactly make any moves to release John the Baptist from prison, I mean ordinarily speaking, If I had a relative or even a friend in prison and I had the means to get them out of prison, I would definitely do all I can do to see it through. But here was Jesus with all His power silent about His cousin who was in prison.
Given Jesus’ silence on the matter and perhaps John’s frustration in prison he sent his disciples to Jesus Christ to ask Him if He was truly the sent messiah or another one should be expected- Luke 7:18-19. LOL! I find his statement somewhat hilarious but yet again sad to imagine. Sad to imagine because John the Baptist actually spoke a lot about Jesus Christ before Jesus began His ministry and even more so he witnessed when the father endorsed Jesus Christ as the Messiah – Matthew 3:16-17. But because of his prison experience at that moment, he had forgotten everything He knew about Jesus, doubt and perhaps frustration had set into the picture.
Therefore, to answer John the baptist question and doubt about Jesus being the Messiah Jesus responded by saying to the disciples, “The lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the dear hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good news is being preached to the poor“- Luke 7:22. These were the things that were prophesied about Jesus the Christ and He was walking in that light and so He definitely is the Messiah.
The fact that He did not supernaturally cause a prison break for John the Baptist did not demean the fact that Jesus Christ is the messiah. Setting John free from the prison at that time just may not have been part of God’s agenda and so therefore Jesus wasn’t going to do anything outside of God’s will. Because He tells us that He only does the things He sees the Father do and does only the things the father does – John 5:19. And as my Jesus rounded off His conversation with John the Baptist disciples He added, “blessed is he who is not offended because of Me”- Luke 7:23. He perhaps said this because He perceived or knew that John took offense in the fact that He had a powerful cousin but yet He refused to help Him out of prison.
How many of you have felt the same way John the baptist felt? Offended or betrayed by Jesus despite your closeness with Him. I am so sorry you have felt that way or that you feel that way but I would like to remind you that :
God has the grand scheme of things in His hand and He knows why He does certain things and why He doesn’t do other things. Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that God is God, God is good, God is just and He is still at work even if you do not see it. For example, Job who lost everything overnight had no clue that His love for God was only being tested for a moment. Taking offense in the Lord, calling the Lord names, or turning your back against Him wouldn’t solve or change the situation.
Our expectations versus God’s plans may just be completely different. Jesus Christ made illustrations about our expectations versus the reality of things as God makes them in Luke 7:24-27. More than often, we always have a different outlook on the ways things should be or the ways a miracle should happen. John had completely different expectations of the Lord while the Lord apparently had other plans for Him. I believe weighing, comparing, and checking our expectations against God’s expectations would help a lot in managing our emotions and reactions when things do not go in certain ways as we desire. I mean if we already knew from the Lord the way things may turn out, it may not take us by surprise and perhaps not feel offended or hold grudges against the Lord.
May we continuously remain blessed as we never take offense in the ways Jesus works in our lives,
Amen,