Being Killed

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

BEING KILLED

John 16:1-4

6:1 "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.

NIV

There are some things Jesus told his disciples that certainly seem to be directed only to them and not to future believers. It would be true, because we are not Jewish, that we would never be put out of the synagogue. We would not find any need to attend one in the first place. However, this idea of being killed by those who think they are doing a service to God has some merit for future believers, as well as the disciples. Many of them were killed for their faith in Jesus, thus they were hated and killed. Throughout the ages, the church persecuted believers who spoke out against its practices, what it has evolved into with the papal system. The period known as the inquisitions was a horrible time in Christianity and people were killed in hideous manners and in the name of God.  In other parts of the world today, we have witnessed believers murdered by the hundreds, again, in ways no human being should have to endure, and they were killed all in the name of some other god. Whether we will have to face that kind of persecution in our time, in our country, is doubtful. Although we do find many other forms of persecution, even though we are supposed to have freedom of religion. But there is another way of killing us that does not involve ending our ability to breathe and our heart to beat. The parable Jesus spoke regarding the sower, and the different types of the ground the seed fell on give us a clue into how we might be metaphorically killed. Although we might be attending church, are we really living this life of a believer to the fullest? We may not have fallen away because we have no roots. Surely we have developed some roots, we have dug our feet in, so to speak and would never consider leaving the church or our faith. Although some do leave a specific church from time to time and all too often it is due to something other than a physical moving away. However, we wonder if the weeds are choking the life out of us. The cares of the world are so burdensome that we spend far more of our time fighting those burdens than having faith in God to fight them for us. The reason we might be inclined to think along these lines is that if we truly were the good soil, we would be producing a crop a hundredfold. The question is what type of crop was Jesus referring to? Is the crop new believers? We have failed miserably in that regard. If that is the crop, we have not produced hundreds of new believers. Again, we may be choking to death by the weeds. What we do know is that good works are not producing a crop. Even churches filled with people who profess a form of Christianity, but are not born again believers, are doing good works and in the name of God or their church. They believe in God, and the Bible and so they too must be compared to ground, but that is not for us to determine as to which type. What we have to contend with is the type of ground that we are and what is the crop the good soil should produce. Our present world situation being affected by what is called a pandemic has brought newer people seeking relief in God, or religion. We saw a great influx in church attendance right after 911, but most of them fell away, having no root or were carried away or choked out by the cares of this world. In neither case were they a result of our being good soil, but it was due to some worldwide chaos. So, then are we being choked out by the concerns of the world? Are we so busy trying to make our way in the world that we have forgotten about the production of a crop for the kingdom of God? A hundredfold could mean just one person being lead to Jesus. We are one, and by duplicating ourselves, that is one hundred percent increase. Then we would be good soil and we would not be killed by the cares of this world.