Things I wish Jesus never said and a few I wish he had podcast notes

We did a podcast based on the article” Things I Wish Jesus Had Never Said,” BY EDDIE BECKER

A popular adage has regularly been applied to the person of Jesus—he comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

“On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’” (John 6:60)

THAT I’M BLESSED WHEN I’M PERSECUTED FOR MY BELIEFS

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Matthew 5:11

Through ridicule and brutal persecution, we are to feel … lonely? Depressed? Angry? Bitter? No, Jesus says we are “blessed.”

THAT I’VE CHEATED ON MY WIFE WHEN I CHECK OUT AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN

“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:28)

When do you think the moment of adultery occurs? To many men it’s when a spouse has sex with someone outside their marriage. Many women think just an emotional relationship on any level with someone other than a spouse is cheating. Jesus says the tipping point starts when we simply lust after someone who isn’t our spouse.

THAT I CAN’T LOVE GOD AND MONEY AT THE SAME TIME

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24

I think Jesus brings up money here because if there is one thing that distracts us from full dependence on God, it’s money. How much time do we spend on it? Thinking about it? Worrying about it? Working for it? Spending it? Saving it? Wasting it? Stealing it? After all, as Kanye West says, “having money’s not everything; not having it is.”

NOT TO WORRY

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear … “ Matthew 6:25

$300 billion. That’s roughly the amount of money spent annually by employers on work missed and health care costs related to stress.

TO TAKE SIN SO SERIOUSLY

“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.” Matthew 18:8

Jesus doesn’t play with sin. He goes as far as to suggest that any part of our body that causes us to sin needs to be removed. Those are drastic measures. He doesn’t recommend a self-help book or program. He wants total amputation of the things that are causing us to seek pleasure away from Him.

TO PAY MY TAXES AND TITHES

“Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Matthew 22:21

Be honest: you don’t like paying taxes. You don’t scrape couch cushions at home to gather extra money to donate to the IRS. Why? Because we don’t always feel like the money goes for our own personal wants and needs. We treat our tithes the same way. Jesus commands us to honor our leaders, both civic ones and church ones. In our age of anti-government rage, Jesus shows us we all come under the authority of someone else. We’re to honor that.

If we can all be truthful, we find some things Jesus said difficult. We can debate over the cultural applications of many of the statements He made. We can add to and take away, twist and rearrange the phrases so they fit our own selfish purposes. I’m as guilty as any other at doing these things. Yet all I can do is wonder if the things I wish Jesus hadn’t said are really the things He wanted me to hear and do the most.