Three on Jericho Road

Three on Jericho Road #2267. One of the most profound parables – The story of an encounter on the road to Jericho. – The choice you have every day – and the revelation you have on how to live your life.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

In the first century, Caesar issued a decree: anyone robbing or disturbing any tomb in Nazareth or Judea was to be executed. What’s strange about that? Who on earth were less likely to touch a dead body than the Jewish people who had laws against it? And as for Nazareth, it’s not even mentioned in the rabbinical writings. So why did Caesar issue a decree there? Undoubtedly, a report or rumor came to him about Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth, and an empty tomb. The accusations in Matthew 28:13 of tomb theft only prove that the tomb was empty. But nobody could have made it empty except God. The only One who disturbed the tomb was God. So the Nazareth Decree is further evidence that the tomb was empty. So, if you are with God, you have the same power – to disturb tombs. Disturb the tomb of the old self, the old habit, the old situation. You have the power to make things come alive that were dead. Go into that dead situation and make it come alive by the power of God. Go in there and disturb that tomb.

Messiah turned the whole thing around.
The command was love your neighbor as yourself. The man said, yeah, but who’s my neighbor?
I don’t have to love everybody. Messiah turns the whole thing on its head.
He says, you know, it’s in other words, it’s not who’s my neighbor so I can love them.
It’s when you love them, you are their neighbor. Who is the neighbor here, who is my neighbor here.
It’s not to find out who’s my neighbor so I can love them.
It’s love and they become your neighbor and you become their neighbor, you become the good Samaritan.
It’s not that you need a neighbor to love whoever it is. You love them. That’s it.
Who is my neighbor? You know they’re saying, should I even even help the Samaritans?
And this is one saying it’s the Samaritan who is the righteous one here and here.
So here it’s even beyond it. It’s the stranger. It’s the enemy. It’s the hated one who is your neighbor.
Now apply this. It says, it says love the love your neighbor as yourself.
See when you and, and, and Messiah ups it when he says love, not just that love your enemy.
How can I love my enemy? How can you love your enemy? How can you?
It’s hard to love your enemy, especially if they’re still against you. It’s pretty hard.
How do you, because you’re not approving them going against you?
It wakens up all your natural defenses when somebody is attacking you. How do you love your enemy?
Only if you can get beyond yourself, if you can transcend yourself.
Like Jesus did love your enemy because but the thing is when you love your enemy, they’re not your enemy, at least to you, they’re not because you can’t love.
And if you, I mean, they may see themselves as your e anybody.
If you love them, they’re not, they don’t become your enemy. You have the power to change people.
If you love them, go and do likewise. He said, go and do likewise.
So he’s talking about everybody who’s gonna follow him and find eternal life. That’s us. That’s each of us.
So the Lord is telling you and me go and do likewise. He told the parable linked to eternal life.
Who wants to receive it? We all want to have eternal life. We, if we’re saved, we have eternal life.
But he said, if so therefore go and do likewise, meaning this is the life you have to live, go and do likewise.
What does it mean? It means do as the Samaritan did. And as he said, it, it’s a command.
That means it’s a command of God.
If he said go and do likewise, it’s a command to do as the Samaritan did.
It’s not just a good thing, not just a nice thing. It’s an absolute thing.
That’s the way we have to live.
It doesn’t only mean if you happen to see somebody lying on the road.
Let me, let me, I can say this.
It was a long time ago when I had a, when, when I was starting out with a little Bible study, we had and, and I remember this whole group of people came and I happened to be talking about the good Samaritan and they looked horrible.
They could not look at me. They’re all looking down, they’re, they’re not looking at me at all.
They, they, and, and they, they’re, the more I talk, the worse it becomes.
So at the end I said, what was going on there? It’s a whole group of people what’s going on.
They said, um, you know, you spoke about, you know, stopping and helping the one on the road.
So when we came here, there was somebody on the road stuck on the road and we said, we can’t do it because we have to get to the Bible study.
So they had to get to the Bible study.
They had to skip the guy on the road to get to the Bible study to tell them to not skip the guy on the road because so often we get everything mixed up.
This is a ministry and we’re not doing the compassion of God.
A but it doesn’t mean if you just happen to see, if you do happen to see someone on the road, that’s the whole thing.
But it doesn’t mean you’re gonna see somebody on the road every day.
Most of the time you’re not, but it means live your whole life with this spirit and this attitude.
What does that mean? Number one, you are not.
If you are a disciple of God, you are not to live your life. A life of self centeredness.
If you’re a follower of Messiah, if you’re saved, you cannot live a life of selfishness or primarily look it out or look it out only for yourself a life that doesn’t care about others that is not acceptable to Messiah, that’s not acceptable for a disciple of Messiah.
Number two. And you, by the way, you could do all those things in the name of God and still be selfish.
You could do a million things in ministry for other reasons and still be selfish.
Number two, you the life you live must be a good life, meaning you must be a good person, not just not just not just primarily a successful person, that’s all great, not just uh a million things of a person, but you must be a actually a good person.
The life you live in. When people say Hey, I’m living a good life.
No, the good life is a life of goodness, not of money. Not, it’s a life of goodness.
It has something to do with the quality of goodness. Now, it’s not the same note.
It is not the same as the quality of niceness.
You might be a nice person and you might be a rotten person in your heart, in others. Why?
Because you could be nice for a million reasons. You could be nice to get ahead.
You could be nice to keep the peace. You could be nice because they’re like me.
You could be nice because it’s just a safe way to be that has nothing to do with goodness, a good life.
You know, he didn’t say he’d say he’s not called a nice shepherd.
He’s called the good shepherd and it’s not the nice Samaritan. It’s the good Samaritan.
You know, the priest might have been nice and the Levi might have been nice but they weren’t good.
But good is a whole another thing your life is to be a vessel of goodness, active, proactive goodness.
It can’t be negative. In other words, it can’t be a life that’s hurting people.
Not, not, not, not that you can, you can hurt their feelings if you’re in love sometimes.
But, but a life that’s not causing harm to people.
Not, not beating people down, not using people, not abusing people, not manipulating people, not neglecting people, but it also can’t be just neutral.
He said, well, I don’t hurt people. No, neutrals not. Ok. It’s not the neutral Samaritan. He wasn’t neutral.
The others actually were neutral and they were bad but they’re neutral. They didn’t hurt the guy.
The robbers hurt the guy. They didn’t do a thing. They were neutral. Neutral is not, ok.
You cannot be a light and be neutral. A light is not neutral.
The darkness is not neutral and the light is not neutral, but neutral is not enough.
I’m not hurting anybody. I’m minding my own business. That’s not enough. That’s not enough for God.
I’m minding my own business. You know, so much evil comes in the world because of people who mind their own business in Nazi, Germany.
Most of the people weren’t Nazis originally. They were minding their own business.
They didn’t want to make waves and so evil came on on the nation which could not have happened if they, if they didn’t do that to find out how you can receive more of Jonathan’s teachings to receive special free gifts or get in touch.
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