Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 31; Luke 10
I assume there are different things like this for everyone, but there are a few teachings or events from the gospel accounts that always jump out at me every time I come across them, and one of them is here in Luke 10.
When Jesus sends out the seventy-two He says,
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.”
The thing that sticks out to me so much in this is that Jesus is telling us that people will necessarily respond differently depending on what they are given. This might seem obvious, but there are many Christians who don’t hold this view.
There are many who believe that God has already chosen who will believe and who will not believe, and so it ultimately doesn’t matter how faithful any given individual Christian is in sharing the gospel and/or living a life that brings glory to God because, if that person is preordained to believe, they will eventually come to faith no matter what. So in that sense, what does it matter if the Holy Spirit was calling on me to share the gospel with him and I said, “No”? If he is supposed to believe, he will either way.
There are others though who would no go this far, but will fall back on the goodness of God to justify their own faithlessness. They will think things like, “I know my lifestyle is opposed to what God is calling for from me in this area, but if there are people around open to the gospel I’m sure He won’t let this get in the way.” Or, “I know I have the opportunity to be sharing my faith with this person, but I’m too [afraid/ashamed/timid/embarrassed/etc.] and I know that God desires all people to come to know Him, so I’m sure He will send them someone else if they are open.”
Between these two groups, while I do not fall into the first camp, I can easily find myself in the second. I can easily find myself feeling called to something or convicted about something, and rather than respond, I start to come up with excuses as to why it’s not such a big deal, or how God will get His work done either way. But that’s not what Jesus is saying here.
What Jesus says in Luke 10 is that if these works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, things would have gone different spiritually for them, but because these works were not done there, they did not. What I take that to imply is that there may be people in heaven one day only because you chose to say yes to whatever the Spirit was calling you to do. And likewise, if that is true, we also have to recognize that there may be people who won’t be in heaven but who otherwise would be if we had been faithful to the opportunities God was putting before us.
I don’t ever want to grow callous to the spiritual need of those around me, and I don’t ever want to assume that I can just casually choose faithlessness when faithfulness doesn’t suit me at that moment without there being any consequences to my choice. If Tyre and Sidon would have responded differently if they had heard and seen something different, what about your family? Your friends? Your coworkers? Your neighbors? Whose eternity might look different based on your willingness to follow where the Spirit is leading you today?
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