So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

Imagine a man who owned some land and he planned on developing it into a subdivision. One of his friends saw that he had hired a lot of people to level out the land but they were using pickup trucks with plows and scrapers. It was going to take a long time. He had a friend who owned a large tractor — an earth mover, designed to just do this work. His friend offered to lend the tractor to him. But this man was not willing to operate this tractor because the man was not “kosher” and did not eat the right food and so his tractor was considered unclean. This man’s friend was trying to be kind and considerate, but he is labeled an outcast. And so this stubborn man lost out on saving months of work because he could not see God provision for him through this friend. In the same way, the Jewish leaders could not receive the “life” Jesus had for them, because they could not get past miracles on Sundays and the fact that he called God his Father. They saw him as a threat to their leadership and were going to find a technicality to pin on him. Instead of investigating whether Jesus was the Messiah, they simply wrote him off. Even more, they persecuted him and as his popularity grew, they tried to have him killed. Man-made conditions of faith never stand up or “hold water” compared to God’s work in his servants on earth! We are his “hands and feet”. He longs for us to be actively serving. When we are so in tune with God’s heart that we can say whatever he does — we do; then we have become “Christ-like” and we have confidence to continue to operate amidst persecution. Then, we will SPREAD HIS LIGHT all around us and BREATH the LIFE of God into the dry bones of those in this world. ‭‭

I Peter‬ ‭1:3-5‬ ‭says this: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

‬‬Let us be active in spreading the living hope of Jesus Christ today and every day, by the power of God! Such a great gift (as Jesus Christ and his life) cannot go to waste, it must be shared!