“Please, Your Honor, I’d like to be excused from jury duty,” pleaded an anxious-looking man.
“Why should I excuse you?” asked the judge.
“You see, I owe a man fifty dollars, and he’s leaving in a few hours for a post abroad. He’ll be there for years and I want to catch him before he leaves, for it may be my last chance to repay him.”
“Excused,” stated the judge coldly. “We don’t want anyone on the jury who can lie like that.”
People make excuses to get out of responsibilities. When you see someone who has been faithful to a difficult duty, we admire them. A student has a part time job and full time degree plan and finishes with good grades and we respect them. The greater the task they complete, the greater our respect is for them.
Jesus Christ did not make excuses. Jesus was a DOER. In three years, He performed dozens of miracles and healed hundreds. Thousands were converted while He discipled twelve men who did the most ambitious church planting and training in the history of the world, and then He died for the sins of the world. He was action oriented .
I like the quote of one of our Presidents-Theodore Roosevelt.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”
Matthew 9:35-38 (NASB) “ Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd”.
He went-He saw-He felt.
Jesus WENT. He was a man of action, heading out into service. He knew Who He was and He knew His mission. He came to save sinners, to destroy the works of the devil, to establish a better covenant, and redeem for the Father men and women from every tribe and nation. The Jesus kind of faith always acts based on “knowing” not “feeling”. Jesus focused on what He was “going to do” not what He was “going through.” Some Christians live their whole lives around what they are “going through”, and they never do the great works intended for them.
Jesus SAW. Jesus went first, out of purpose and principle, and then He saw. Some people never see the opportunities in life because they never GO. They have no mission in life and so they never see the potential of how God could bless others through them and even themselves in the process. Jesus Christ had a mission statement. He declared about Himself:
LUKE 4:18-19 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”
Jesus was concerned about others. He saw people and their real needs when others did not. The reason? He was about doing His mission. People miss opportunities because they are not looking for them. They have no vision for what God wants to do in their life, so they want nothing and expect nothing. If God were to bring about a divinely ordained potential miracle, they would not recognize it and pass on by. Jesus wants to use us now by the power of His Holy Spirit to continue to do His missing.
Jesus FELT COMPASSION. The last thing Jesus did is the first thing we tend to look for. The “feeling” of compassion. Jesus did not feel the compassion until He WENT and SAW. If we GO, then we will be in the place He wants us to be. It is then we will have eyes to SEE and then we will FEEL the compassion that can produce results. Jesus told His disciples to pray for workers in this mass of people who need Him. What a life could be lived by being one of His workers. Awesome!