In the Lord’s eyes a fool is a person who lives in God’s world but refuses to admit that God exists. This is why we read in Psalm 14:1:
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”
Basically this means a fool denies the obvious and does not acknowledge reality.
In his lifetime the apostle Peter wrote several letters to his congregations, two of which are recorded in the New Testament. The young congregations had to deal with a lot of harassment and intimidation. Jesus was officially declared dead. Why? He died for all to see on the cross. His death was no secret. It was a public event.
All humans die. So did Jesus. But then He rose on the third day. Saying the resurrection is real would be admitting that Jesus is beyond human – in other words He is the Son of God. The Romans who guarded the tomb of the Lord saw Jesus step out of His grave. Back then people contested this spectacular piece of information as people do these days. Again we see the pattern of a fool here: closing the eyes to the truth.
People who publicly spoke about the resurrection of Jesus Christ were openly opposed and persecuted. The apostle Peter gets to the point and says rather than fighting the opposition believers should be focusing on doing good. The blessings of a productive child of God would eventually silence the bad rumors the enemies of the kingdom of God were trying to spread. Deeds speak louder than words.
In God’s point of view, the end does not justify the means – never has and never will be. “Live as free people,” Peter says, “but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.” The Crusaders back then had it all wrong and unfortunately, the Crusader’s breed hasn’t died out just yet. Make no mistake about it: Wherever we see Christians follow the wrong mantra corruption sets in. It is ironic that nowadays the worst opposition seems to come from people claiming to be Christians. But then, it’s not surprising. After all, Jesus was betrayed and delivered into the hands of the Roman authorities by His own people. And it seems that history is doomed to repeat itself.
Now that we are in the 21st century, the followers of the Way the Truth and the Life are active all over the globe. Unfortunately, wide-spread Christianity does not necessarily mean that foolishness is on the decline. We need to remember that the word “Christianity” in itself is just a label. As in Peter’s days Christians are asked to fill this label with positive meaning. Instead of focusing all our energies on opposing the opposition we want to be focused on doing the Lord’s will.
The Lord loves people. His heart goes out to them. We do God’s will when we help people and have their best interest at heart. So let’s do this. Let’s be a blessing to our contemporaries.
Thought Of The Day 