{"id":6680,"date":"2015-07-06T00:05:07","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T07:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6680"},"modified":"2015-07-05T13:35:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T20:35:47","slug":"war-can-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/07\/06\/war-can-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"War Can Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to \u2018set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law\u2019; and \u2018a man\u2019s enemies will be those of his own household.\u2019 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cHe who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet\u2019s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man\u2019s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.\u201d (Matthew 10:34-42)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe angels declared, \u201cpeace on earth, goodwill toward men\u201d and their words are repeated endlessly during the Christmas season. But Jesus also affirmed that he did not come to bring peace on earth. Instead, he came to bring war. <\/p>\n

\tJesus divides people. He breaks up families and friends. Followers of Jesus have suffered persecution, even death. Jesus\u2019 demands are paradoxical: if you love your parents more than Jesus, then you\u2019re not worthy of Jesus. If you don\u2019t march off to your own execution every day, you\u2019re not worthy of Jesus. If you find your life, you\u2019ll lose it, but if you lose it for Jesus, then you\u2019ll find it.<\/p>\n

\tIt sounds very extreme in a comfortable society that tolerates and even encourages Christian commitment. But in some parts of the world, what Jesus said remains literally relevant. In some parts of the world, if you decide to become a Christian, you\u2019re deciding to be cut off from your family, to have your husband or wife divorce you, to lose your friends, and to quite possibly lose your life. In a comfortable, tolerant, western civilization, we don\u2019t have to make such choices. But the question Jesus asked remains relevant even for us: what is our priority? What matters most to us? How far will we go for Jesus? We still must decide.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDo not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to \u2018set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6680"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6680"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6682,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6680\/revisions\/6682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}