Can you think of similar traps in our cultural mindset? How do the issues of today tend to draw us into a polarizing ‘I’m against you’ or ‘for you’ attitude? Each issue is different, but many of the debates draw us away from Scripture and God’s love into suspicion, distrust, and a ‘protect myself’ mindset. I’ve experienced acquaintances bluntly ask at election time, “Who are you for? If you’re a Christian, you cannot support that person!” Taking sides becomes more important than listening, more important than re-fouting the conversation to Jesus.
“When you’re betrayed, abandoned, lied about, and scandalized; when you are sick with a fatal disease; when your finances are going down the drain; when you see your loved one walk through the doorway of hell; that is the moment to trust. And in trusting you will know God. Your point of desperation will likely not involve being sawn in two or wandering about destitute in sheepskins, but it might. Regardless, when you have nowhere else to turn except to God, and you turn to him, your faith of desperation will meet the fullness of God, and you will taste the life without lack as you discover the depths of the faith of sufficiency.” - Excerpt, Life Without Lack by Dallas Willard
“Jesus’s response not only avoided the trap the Pharisees and Herodians had set, it also confronted them. They were living with the appearance of serving God, but in reality, they lived the hierarchal, power-over ways of the world. They were like the fig tree and the temple and the tenants of the parable of the vineyard. They were not producing the expected fruit.” - Excerpt, Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark by Steve Langford