Steven A. Bush - December 1, 2024
Blessed By The Father
On the Mount of Olives, just days before His cross, Jesus shares the following found in Matthew 25:31-34: "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" (ESV) So what does Jesus mean, "Blessed by My Father?" Is this some sort of earned blessing? But doesn't God give what we neither deserve nor could ever earn? Isn't that called, grace? Most certainly! But then in the next dozen verses Jesus describes His second coming judgment--His expectations--the evidences of the undeserved favor He has freely bestowed. What's striking is how intertwined and commingled our vertical actions are with our horizontal ones--how our treatment of "the least of these" reflects on how we treat the Lord Himself--good, bad, and otherwise. As always, Jesus' words are weighty. What will we do with them?
Scripture References: 1 Peter 1:3-9, Matthew 25:31-46, 2 Corinthians 8:9