There’s a scene in the coming of age movie “The Breakfast Club” where Ally Sheedy’s character confesses to what made her parents so abusive. Emilio Esteban’s character asked her, “What do they do? Do they starve you? Do they beat you?”
Like Emilio, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what horror she was about to reveal about her parents! It finally came out as she mumbled, “THEY IGNORE ME.”
That line hit me like a two-by-four. My parents loved me. They did not ignore me. So, it was sobering to realize in that moment how many people in our world have been so hurt, so wounded, so emotionally destroyed because they were ignored by the very people that were supposed to love them.
How blinded by a lust for power must Judas Iscariot have been to have walked with Jesus for three years, and yet essentially IGNORED every word, every action, and every lesson presented by the Son of God?
The apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2:4:
“You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s Temple. He was rejected by His people, but He was chosen by God for great honor.”
Peter was marveling at how the Jews, God’s own chosen people, had rejected Jesus. This Jesus, the very One that the Old Testament Scriptures had been foretelling for thousands of years. The very One that the Jews themselves were anticipating, yet here He was in their very midst, and they didn’t see Him as God’s anointed Son. The Son of our Salvation.
How busy or wrongly focused must we be to IGNORE JESUS in our daily lives? We might go to church on Sundays, but once we leave the service, it’s back to our lives of comforting ignorance, as we GIVE OURSELVES PERMISSION to IGNORE God’s hand in our lives. To ignore God’s desire to be invested in our lives.
To ignore our own desires to have God in our moment-to-moment issues, because we are afraid that He might not let us do the things that we want to do. Things that might seem fun on the outside, yet separate our hearts from God on the inside. Behaviors and motivations that make us take our FOCUS OFF GOD, even though He is right in front of our faces. Things that make us IGNORE GOD until the following Sunday at 10am.
God lowered His Son Jesus to pay our penalty, but rose Him up to great honor. And in doing so, through the Holy Spirit, put Jesus right in front of faces, NOT to be IGNORED. So let’s not. Let’s not ignore Jesus. Because when we think He’s not paying attention to us, He is standing with us every step of our day. He is faithful to us, even when we are not faithful to Him. He will never forsake nor IGNORE US. Let us be grateful for such a Gift as Jesus. Let us NOT IGNORE JESUS.
God bless you all, and we hope to see you Sunday!
— Pastor David McCall
