“Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve disciples, and he went to the leading priests and captains of the Temple guard to discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them.” (Luke 22:3 NLT)
Judas’ problem, as ours, isn’t that he didn’t love Jesus, he just loved himself more.
The Lord showed me this in an odd way today when my dogs, whom I love dearly, annoyed me so much by simply doing what dogs do, by barking. And some who have dogs may respond, “But barking dogs DO get annoying.” And I agree, but here’s the truth the Lord is showing me – what makes the difference between letting the dogs do what they do, correcting them or quieting them down, then moving on, or allowing them to annoy me and get under my skin, affecting how I view the rest of my day?
Therein lies the problem that led Judas to allow Satan to lead him into making the most severe misjudgment of anyone’s life EVER – to betray Jesus! Yet, we can fall prey to the same strategy of the enemy multiple times a day. How so? The most significant issue with which we wrestle each day isn’t “what will I do with Jesus?” It’s “what will I do with ME?”
My foul mood wasn’t brought on by the behavior of my dogs; it was brought on by my inappropriate response TO their behavior. Judas didn’t suddenly stop believing in everything he’d heard Jesus teach, he got mad because Jesus made some decisions with which he didn’t agree that made him angry. Why? Because they weren’t the same decisions he would have made or more to the point, that he wished Jesus had made.
Remember Matthew 26:7-9 where Matthew records: “While He (Jesus) was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over His head. The disciples were indignant when they saw this. ‘What a waste!’ they said. ‘It could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.’”
Who might you have expected to lead the other disciples in their “indignant” response? How can I be so sure Judas was upset by this? Because three verses later Matthew records Judas went to make arrangements to betray Jesus. He might have thought his indignation was justified, that the money could have legitimately been used to help the poor, and he could have made a reasonable argument that he was right to think that. However, he forgot two very important facts.
First, NOTHING when given with a sincere heart and for the sole purpose of honoring, exalting, and glorifying Jesus is being misappropriated or misspent, not even the giving of our own lives. But secondly, he forgot to get his own greedy heart out of the way before making that judgment. His concern wasn’t for the poor, it was for himself (John 12:6).
How like Judas we become when we allow our own personal preferences to stand in the way of showing genuine love, sympathy, empathy, and concern to those we love. They become as little “building blocks” of resentment that build, not because someone does something specifically against us, it’s that we take it personally because it feels like its against us. Simple things like how we/they load the dishwasher, put the toilet paper on the roller, warm things in the microwave, hang clothes on hangers, how others drive, and a thousand other little things over time build such resentment in us we draw conclusions and make decisions that have become blown way out of proportion, but by then the devil has us and we’re standing on the threshold of denying Christ!
Let’s look at this more closely in tomorrow’s article.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 