Journey to the Cross: Week One

This Week's Scripture:
Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-40

Join us as we Journey to the Cross, a nine-week study designed to prepare our hearts for Easter. 

This study comes to us from The Daily Grace Company. Originally designed to be an eight-day study, we’re going to stretch it out over nine weeks and meditate on Scripture as we enter the season of Easter. I hope you’ll join us!

This week we are looking at Symptoms of Spiritual Blindness. Next week, we will look at what it means to Overcome. In the following weeks, we'll study topics like Sifted Like Wheat, The High Priestly Prayer, Failure That Leads to Victory, Good Friday, Sunday is Coming! He is Risen, and finally Follow Me.

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Symptoms of Spiritual Blindness

​"The whole city was stirred up, saying, 'Who is this?' And the crowds said, 'This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."' Matthew 21:10-11

The people thought they knew who Jesus was.

They celebrated as if they did. They put on such a good show that the religious leaders saw their worship and asked Jesus to rebuke the people.

​And yet, the people didn't truly know who they were welcoming into Jerusalem. They knew who they wanted Jesus to be. They wanted Him to overthrow Roman rule and save them from their current form of government. 

They wanted a powerful leader to sweep them into victory and prosperity. But that wasn't who Jesus was or what He came to do.

How often do we get it wrong too? Do we go through the motions of church and religiosity, but our hearts truly don't know who we serve? Have we created a God that we desire instead of worshiping Him for who He really is?

In today's reading, Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9, but he leaves out two critical phrases. He eliminates "rejoice greatly," because instead of rejoicing, Jesus weeps at the people's  spiritual  blindness  (Matthew 21:5). Matthew also omits "righteous and having salvation is He," because  even  though  those  things  remained true, the people wouldn't accept God's salvation. They wanted to be saved from  their  physical  bondage  but  had no idea that they were in such spiritual need (Revelation 3:17).

"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" Matthew 21:5

"For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." Revelation 3:17

How quickly do we do this? Do we focus so much on the to-do list and the negativity around us that we forget our spiritual needs? Even worse, do we look around us and notice everyone else's faults without realizing how many we ourselves have?

This passage reminds me of Peter's dialogue with Jesus just a few chapters before. "'Who  do  people say that I am?' A prophet, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah. 'Who do you say that I am?'" Peter replied confidently, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." How could he be so sure? Because he knew Him personally.

The people were spiritually blind because the Pharisees had stripped the truth of the Word and implemented religious rules in its stead. Let's not simply go through the motions of religious conduct. Let's not assume that we know Jesus because we prayed a prayer or grew up in church. That's not the same as getting to know Him.

I wonder how often Jesus sees the state of our hearts and weeps over it.

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​Are we relying on teachers of the Word to tell us who God is? Let's be women who dig in the Scriptures ourselves, and who know who He is--because we've met Him ourselves.