Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him. And suddenly, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:50-52).
Every human being knows the depths of inadequacy! We have lived long enough to know that being smart is not sufficient, yet we persist in shoring up our inadequacy. We persist because we believe that if we try harder we will be able in our humanity to overcome inadequacy! There is a tendency in us to believe that we can get things done simply by hard work and dogged determination. We teach our children to be determined in life which is a good trait; we teach them to be persistent and consistent, qualities which will help them to accomplish much in the natural, but when facing spiritual opposition, we need much more than persistence, tenacity, or dogged determination. We need the Holy Spirit’s enablement!
In Luke 22, it is recorded that Jesus had instructed His disciples to secure swords. They found two, at which point Jesus replied, “It is enough” (Luke 22:35-38). There is much disagreement as to why Jesus told them to buy swords, but we know that Peter in the garden, at the arrest of Jesus, was rebuked for using it! He said to Peter, “Put your sword in its place.” Jesus was not at all against swords, but every sword has “its place.” Our sword is the Word of God, and its place is in our heart and in our mouth! And “our place” is to trust in the Savior, the Word, no matter what! This seems to be very difficult when we have human means at our disposal. When human solutions are within our grasp, do we use the rationale, “that’s why Jesus gave us these,” or do we still trust Him? He is forever with us! Our conscious position in all things must be to trust Him. The question is, has our faith filtered through our consciousness to the subconscious, our default position? Let our faith in Him permeate through every part of our being. Let us put our sword-human means-in its place and take up the sword of the Spirit!
Pastor Don