Friday: The Mastery of Indecisiveness
WEEK 47
FRIDAY
THE MASTERY OF INDECISIVENESS
Luke 9:57-62
We must now look at another mastery—the mastery of procrastination and indecisiveness. With the coming of Jesus things turned from the indecisive to the decisive. The Jews were looking for a Messiah sometime. That sometime became now; the hope-to-be had become the is. All the confusions and hesitations and speculations and prophesying precipitated into a concrete fact, the fact of Jesus. God acted decisively in Jesus. Since God had acted; people must act. Paul put it this way, “God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives” (Acts 17:30). The issues had been cleared; there was only one issue: Jesus. You were with him or against him. To be with Jesus, you were with God; and to be against him, you were against God.
This decisiveness on the part of God as revealed in Jesus passed over to the disciples. The Acts of the Apostles is the most decisive book ever written. There wasn’t a hesitation anywhere in the Christian movement. There were hesitations in the Acts, but all of them were in the environment surrounding the disciples; they were not in the disciples. Here they are: “When they received this news, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were baffled and wondered what might be happening” (5:24). That was the religious world. Here was the official world: “Felix became fearful and said, ‘Go away for now! When I have time, I’ll send for you’ ” (24:25). Here was the Roman world: “The jailer called for some lights, rushed in, and fell trembling with fear before Paul and Silas. He led them outside and asked, ‘Honorable masters, what must I do to be rescued?’” (16:29-30). And the confusion of multitudes was seen in this: “Meanwhile, the assembly was in a state of confusion. Some shouted one thing, others shouted something else, and most of the crowd didn’t know why they had gathered” (19:32).
In the midst of all this confusion and indecisiveness look at the Christians! They cut down through all that confusion with decisiveness as a knife cuts through cheese. They knew whom they believed, where they were going, and were sure of the power to get there. They belonged to the Great Decisiveness.
O Jesus, Master—you who set your face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem—help me to face everything with the same blessed decisiveness. Take the wobble out of my will and mind. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I belong to the Great Decisiveness, so I’m through with indecisive wobbling and weakness.