As they continued to mock Him, the Roman soldiers put upon Jesus, a crown of thorns, as if to provoke the Jews who’d been longing to make Him King. By hook and crook, they had even tried to pressure Him with the grandeurs manner they treated Him as He rode on a pony into Jerusalem. But despite all the majestic presentations of waved palm leaves accompanied with the Kingly titles they gave Him in desperation that day; Jesus would not be distracted by worldly honour from living His God given purpose in humility.
They’d have loved Him to be their earthly King so that He would remove their physical suffering and they imagined how He would use miracles and wonders to smite the Romans and relieve themselves from their earthly yoke. How selfish were their desires, for there was a whole universe out there whom they often called ‘Gentiles’ that also needed the Saviour, He was the Saviour of the world, not just the Saviour of the Israelites.
Yet Jesus would not yield to their request nor indirect plea. How many times do we pray and ask just for our very own selfish desires? For worldly honour and relief, we cry and fast day and night so that we may look accomplished in the eyes of men. How we want to use Jesus so that we may quiet down our physical fears while down here below. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” says James 4:3”. God has since been rejecting selfish desires, including the Jews urge on Jesus to make Him the King of their nation; what more that thing we have been selfishly praying for.
So, they shouted to the already angry mob, that was by now disappointed and annoyed at Jesus’ rejection of their free political support; “Behold your King” they shouted mockingly. The mob hurled insults at the King of Kings and the LORD of Lords. The One with a name that is higher than any other. The One who is exalted, high and lifted. The One to whom every name shall bow down to and confess that He is the LORD of Lords and King of Kings.
Why shall every man have to confess Him as such, because, while down here below in this corrupted earth, many a man have sought to gather to themselves worldly honour. They have gathered around them adoring crowds and followers so that they may be crowned with the honour that belongs to Christ alone. For whom on earth has been given the gift of influence, save it came from God Himself and to be duly returned to Him? But why to we accept the accolades of mankind and yet be held in contemptuous sins all day long? Does heaven really care about our earthly thrones that people sit us upon; when daily we continue to slight the grace and the mercy the real King of Kings has freely given to us.
So, we continue to reject the pleas from the King of Kings to leave sin and its dreadful ways, but rather, we take His name to use for our own profit and to sooth our own guilt. We accept from the crowd, that earthly crown that He rejected, and we refuse the crown of thorns that says, “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” Hebrews 11:25.
Today, the 1st of November 2024; Remove that clamouring self, come face to face with God, take the Saviour’s offer and there, your crown of thorns take in humility… for them that are humble, He will always lift up. Goodbye self, welcome Holy Spirit, Thou art welcome in this place.
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