…Judas
Though your intentions might be
good, you can sometimes just wind up in futile counteracting against
the will & higher purpose of God. Judas was a good example for
this. Instead of letting go, letting God have His, howbeit irrational
& unreasonable sounding way, he had to try to bend things the way
he thought they should go. Folks who think they know better than God
can sometimes be the very voice of the Devil himself.
Judas wasn't strong enough to
withstand the Devil. He was full of doubts about Me, even though he saw
Me perform countless miracles, and he saw in Me what he considered
weaknesses: allowing to have the precious ointment "wasted" on My feet,
instead of selling it & giving the money to the poor... this was
also self-righteousness.
Thomas doubted, too. Peter
allowed the Enemy to speak through him, too, and resisted Me. John and
Andrew were also eaten by pride and religious zeal at one time, and
they all had their weaknesses. What made them endure to the end was My
grace, and - in some ways also the fact that they did not want to end
up like Judas, the one who had been too weak to resist the Enemy! That
dandy bad example certainly served a multiple purpose! They all knew
they did not want to become traitors to My cause like he was; they
wanted to remain loyal... anything but share that fate!
Judas had to betray Me in order
for Me to die for mankind. If it hadn't been him, it would have been
somebody else.... So, even if somebody makes the obviously wrong
choice, the right attitude to have about it is not a self-righteous,
judgmental one, where you separate yourself from them totally, with an
attitude of "I never would have done that," but rather one of knowing
that it could happen to anyone to fall like that, & that it's only
My grace that can keep you from falling.
Thinking you're better doesn't help any. It's only a temptation that makes things worse.
I have given those dandy bad
examples - like Judas - for My disciples to know that that's not the
way to follow. The end of his way made it plain that his path was the
path of destruction, and thus it shall be with all those who follow
Satan's way and who fall prey for his temptations for personal gain or
in order to save their own lives, their own well-being. He that saveth
his life, the same shall lose it in the end, but he that loseth his
life for My sake, the same shall save it.
Those that cling to and hold on
to their own lives, trying so hard to preserve them in their own
strength, will only find out that they've been losing out in the end,
while those who freely give of their own substance with disregard of
their own loss, they will inherit a hundredfold what they were willing
to give.
I took on Judas as one of My 12 disciples fully aware of what he was going to do.
I died for Judas, too, meaning
that I forgave him. I had to forgive him in order to be able to die for
his sins… In the end, he's forgiven, like anyone else who accepts My
sacrifice, even if after much wrong-doing, much blame and guilt. Of
course, he's not exactly the great hero that some make him out to be -
probably because there are so many folks nowadays who are just like him
- but he is forgiven and his sin is gone. I took it.
Sooner or later you're going to
marvel at how everything is wonderfully connected and intertwined in My
Big Picture… And… believe it or not, even so it is with these Judases
and the ones who need our forgiveness the most. They are an essential
part of the Big Picture, and you are connected to them within that
picture. There is a relation, and their destiny and fate is dependent
on your capacity to forgive them.
