Is Jesus the one?
Matthew 11:2-6
2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
“Are you the one, or should we expect someone else?”. These are the words that stood out when I read this passage.
When Jesus arrived on the scene there were people who were waiting for the Messiah, but it seems that for many of them, Jesus was clearly not what they were expecting.
Isn’t that the way it is with us sometimes? We want a messiah, a saviour to come into our life, but God’s ways are not always exactly what we are expecting. It can be a bit hard to get our heads around the fact that God’s ways are not our ways and we have to trust Him that He always knows best.
The final words Jesus says here are “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me”. My personal paraphrase of this statement is, “Can you handle me (Jesus) even if I do things differently to what you expect?… If this doesn’t cause you to stumble, then you are blessed (it’s going to go well for you!)”.
Today, once again I make a choice to agree with God. I choose to accept His ways as the best way, and trust that even when things don’t go the way I want them to, I can know that His plans are always for my good. And He says I am blessed.
Written by Shelley Witt