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In Luke 9, verse 5, Jesus is about to send His disciples out into the world and is offering them some advice. He tells them,
“And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.”
In this video, Christy shares some additional points to consider with this verse.
-Transcript below-
How Jesus Shook The Dust Off
In Luke 9, verse 5, Jesus is giving advice to His disciples that he is about to send out into the world: He tells them
“And wherever they do not receive you,
when you leave that town shake off the dust
from your feet as a testimony against them.”
Notice that Messiah doesn’t tell us that if people don’t receive the message to yell it louder, berate them, insult them, or make it a point to speak to them over and over and over until they relent.
No, His response is one of quiet assurance. Shake the dust off your sandals and move on.
Often, we act as if we think it is our job to convince someone who has closed their ears to the truth to open them again, but there is such a fine line between seeking what is right and just wanting others to see that we are right in a matter.
I find that when we don’t get defensive when we are able to be kind and listen without feeling the need to prove someone wrong, when we accept that someone may not agree with us with a quiet confidence and still treat them with kindness regardless, that is a far greater testimony to the Father’s truth.
There are Three things we need to realize here:
- Only YHWH can bring someone around.
- We all have free will and some use that to reject His truth either indefinitely or until they are ready.
- YHWH’s truth is always truth and it does not rely on our defense of it to be so.
We must remain aware that we all rely on His grace, but as quick as we are to expect it from Him, we need to be just as quick to give it to others. Remember, we can’t know where anyone is on their walk. They could be a freshly planted seed, a newly surfaced sprout, or a tree about to bear fruit. Only the Father knows what stage they are in.
Many people don’t realize that Galatians 5 gives us two kinds of fruit, fruits of the flesh and fruits of the spirit.
The fruits of the flesh are hostility, jealousy, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and division. The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
The world, and sometimes our own heart, would lead us to treat others in line with the fruits of the flesh and to succumb to that is to risk poisoning the work of our Father. Whenever we make it a point to treat others in a manner in line with the fruits of the spirit we are sure to leave them better than when we found them.
Until next time, love y’all, bye bye.