Acel ruminates

(Crime Scene Investigation) based on the report last Sunday at the Fort
Crime: Execution of an innocent man

SUSPECT 1: Roman Soldiers (the executioners)

Motive:  They’re just doing their job

• 
If we do things that our society/culture expects of us to do.. using
this motive to do things that aren’t right, then we are also like these
roman soldiers.
•    It takes a radical decision to stand up for
what is right based on God’s truth even if doing something wrong or
doing what the Bible call sin (like promiscuity, drunkenness,
immorality,etc.) is socially/culturally accepted.

SUSPECT 2:  Pontius Pilate (Roman governor of Judea)

    Motive:  To please the crowd

• 
Even if Pilate find no basis for a charge against this man Jesus (John
19:6) he approved in crucifying him.  The crowd swayed him.
• 
Anytime anyone of us is swayed by the popular ideas or patterns of
this world instead of renewing our mind with God’s words, we, then have
a Pilate within us.
•    You’ll be mocked, laughed at, and even
resented by the crowd when you go against the flow….. but we have a
choice… are we going to follow the crowd.. or are we going to follow
Jesus?

SUSPECT 3:  Caiaphas (the high priest – religious leader)

   Motive:  Self-preservation

• 
The priests were afraid they might lose their power over the people
because Jesus is becoming popular.   They have to maintain the status
quo.  Everything should be in moderation…not too radical.
•    When
I surrendered my life to Jesus, some people think that I’m crazy.  They
say I should not be too radical about it.  I should balance it (what
does that mean? Does that mean I’ll attend church, then do things that
I know is sin?)…but it’s either Jesus is Lord or he’s not Lord at all.
It’s either I follow his ways or my own way.
•    Heaven is an
extreme place.  God did an extreme thing to reach us when He paid a
high price (sending his son to die for sins of all mankind) so that
whoever accepts this gift will have life to the full … and even have
eternal life.

SUSPECT 4: Judas Iscariot (the disciple)

    Motive:  Love of money

• 
For 30 pieces of silver, Judas betrayed his friend and teacher Jesus,
but nowadays, people do this even for a cheaper price.
•    The
richest of the rich and even the poorest of the poor betrays Jesus by
doing wrong things just because of the love of money. 
•    Maybe
that’s because God requires us to give our tithes and offerings… not
because He needs money, but as a reminder that he owns everything, and
that we are simply a caretaker of this money. 

SUSPECT 5:  Myself

    Motive:  All of the above

• 
Some people think there is a hierarchy of sins.  Some think that as
long as we are not worst than the other people we know, then it’s ok…
and that makes us feel good about ourselves.  But in James 2:10 it says
“ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” 

•    What is the worst sin? It’s the one that I / or you commit.  As long as we think other’s sins are greater than ours, we won’t understand grace.

• 
When Paul encountered Jesus, he sees himself as the worst of sinners
even if he lived in a legal way all his life.  (1 Timothy 1:16)  He
understood what grace is and why Jesus has to die.

SUSPECT 6:  GOD (the Father)

    Motive: Love

•    God planned it all.  It was intentional. 

•    Hundreds of years ago before Jesus was born on Earth, Isaiah already prophesied it.  “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering…”- Isaiah 53:10

• 
When Adam and Eve sinned against God, Sin entered this world, and
that’s why there are crimes, poverty, immorality, etc. God already
planned how to save the guilty mankind. The only way is Jesus. It was a
rescue mission.
•    Why does God love us?   I don’t really know…
and that’s why we call it amazing grace!! We don’t deserve it.. yet he
decided to love us and save us.

John
3:16 “ For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Note:
Next Sunday, (March 16,2007) CSI reporter will discuss about the VICTIM.. You’re
invited to listen at Every Nation Building, Fort Bonifacio Global City
( 9am, 11 am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm)