Optimist’s Roundtable
By Martha Sykes
From the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, He cast visions of a heavenly kingdom, in which all people from all nations would find identity and security. The people of Jesus’s time took their identity and security from a magnificent temple. Jesus took His teachings outside the temple, and into the streets and fields where the average people were just getting by. He took His message to the lepers and the women, to the Samaritans and the tax collectors. In the book of John, chapter 4,He shared a secret with a despised Samaritan woman. He told her that worship is no longer confined to the temple. He told her, “a time is coming, and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father, in the spirit, and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers, the Father seeks”.
Last week, I shared the story of Jesus, telling the disciples that their temple was going to be destroyed. Because the kingdom of God is not something we can touch or see, we have to trust in the Holy Spirit to help us in our spiritual journey, and before the Spirit of God can come alive in our hearts, we have to die to ourselves.
It is not about us, but it is about Jesus.
Jesus told the disciples that the majestic temple would be torn down. He was teaching them and us that the things that we put our trust in on this earth have to be destroyed in order for the kingdom of God to come.
Earthly things are only temporary, but the kingdom of God is the foundation of our lives and that it is eternal, and it will never fail.
Jesus wants us to see our suffering as an opportunity to witness God’s truth. Sometimes suffering can change lives because it turns into an opportunity to witness God’s glory if we truly believe.
Jesus knew that this truth about the temple could cause His followers great fear, and anxiety. It could also lead them to following false gods and straying from the truth. Or it could lead them to decide beforehand to trust God and therefore, to see any suffering that came into their lives as an opportunity to share in God’s faithfulness.
And ultimately that same situation can lead to good news for us because we have a loving God who is in control and every good thing in our lives that we have lost will be restored.
