Does This Offend You?

August 20

Salvation through Jesus Christ is a free gift but many people have great difficulty in accepting it. There are various reasons mankind has turned away in great numbers from the One who claims to be the only way to salvation. Some who do so are proud, smug in their own goodness and feel no need of a savior.

Others find it difficult to apprehend the blood sacrifice that was required of God in the flesh in order to redeem His fallen creation. Indeed, when in John 6: 53-58 Jesus expounded upon His impending death and the communion it would require of those who believe, many walked away (vs 59).

“When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at the idea, He said to them, ‘Does this offend you?’” They were, indeed, the first of many who would find offense in Jesus. Many today express the same discomfiture when His name enters a conversation. We can speak of God without offense. We can speak of religious leaders through the centuries, but when we utter the name of Jesus, the world demands our silence.

The name that trills off the tongue of men of every nation and religion as a curse word, causes those same men to recoil when it is spoken in faith and power. It is the name above every other name, the only name given whereby men must be saved (Acts 4:12). Until a man avails himself of the saving power of that name, he is lost in the quagmire of his best effort to save himself, he is perishing in his sin.