“Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench, Till He sends forth justice to victory; And in His name Gentiles will trust” (Matthew 12:18-21).
The central purpose of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers is to actualize Christlikeness in them. God loves Jesus so much that He desires all His children to look like Him. The apostle Paul gave us the simple outline of the deepest desire of God’s heart for His children: “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him” (Romans 8:29 TMB). The Father’s great pleasure is for all His redeemed children to become Jesus’ look-alike. He wants us to think like Him, therefore He gave us the mind of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14), so that we can “Think of [ourselves] the way Christ Jesus thought of Himself” (Philippians 2:5 TMB). The logical implication of thinking of ourselves the way Christ thought of Himself is that we will posit similar attitudes as His in our practice of Christianity. This is necessary because we cannot re-present Christ to our world unless we represent Him in character and attitude. People must see something of Him in us for them to consider us as His authentic followers. As the consuming passion of Christ while on earth was to reveal the Father, so should the ultimate goal of the believer on earth be to reveal Christ. The Holy Spirit is given to enable us to do this.
The Holy Spirit helps us become like Jesus, loving people deeply. Let’s reflect God’s heart, be accommodating, and encourage others. God is working in us.
Our text is about our Lord Jesus and His attitude to human beings in their weaknesses. The Father said of Jesus, “I will put My Spirit upon Him… He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.” The Holy Spirit endowed our Lord with a gentle and accommodating heart that loves people so deeply that He did not mind breaking any religious rule that stood on His way to helping them become better. Matthew recorded two incidences that pitched our Lord against the religious leaders of His days and explained the attitude of Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah. First, the Pharisees were not happy that the apostles plucked heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath day. Our Lord reminded them how David and his men ate the showbread, which was meant to be eaten only by the priests and God did not hold it against him. He reprimanded them saying, “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12: 7-8 NKJV). The Pharisees, in their religious zeal would not have minded if the apostles had died of starvation than plucking and eating a few grains on the Sabbath.
Soon after the above incidence, Jesus went into the Synagogue to preach and there was a man with a withered hand; the Pharisees desiring to entrap Jesus asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” In replying He asked them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:11 NKJV). He then went ahead and healed the man. Notice that our Lord refused to condemn the apostles for plucking grains on the Sabbath and also refused to neglect caring for the sick on the Sabbath. He did those because that was what He saw the Father do (John 5:19). He refused to break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax because the Spirit of the Father, who’s other name is the Comforter was upon Him! Our Lord demonstrated for us the sobering truth that strength is best used when it protects the weak.
Similarly, having been clothed with the Spirit of the Father, let us reflect the Father’s heart by receiving in the Father’s House everyone He brings to us even though he differs from us in some obvious ways. Let us learn to be more accommodating of others and resist the temptation to judge them and thereby discourage them from coming home to their Father. Let us refuse the attitude of the Pharisees, who would rather play God than be godly. The strong among us should love and encourage the weaker ones. God is still working in all of us and He knows His job very well and will do it well in Jesus name.
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