The Cause of Betrayal: Conditional Faith
“And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.” – Luke 22:4-6
Yesterday, we discussed frustration as one reason we betray God. Today we will talk about conditional faith or a conditional relationship with Jesus Christ.
Judas took a turn for the worse because his commitment to Christ was conditional. He thought, like some of us, that the primary mission of Jesus was to make his life better and to punish those who opposed him. He was giving of his time, his talent, and his treasure to the ministry of Jesus because he had something in mind that he wanted God to do, and he wanted it now.
Judas’ faith in God and his fellowship of Jesus were transactional. In essence, he was saying, “God, I’m doing this because I expect you to do that.” Judas had a “let’s make a deal” approach to faith.
Many of us try to make similar deals with God: If you heal me, I’ll stop smoking; if you get me the job, I’ll come to church; or if I get a raise, I’ll pay tithes. We make going to church, serving in ministry, and reading the Bible conditional. We think of God as a celestial concierge in the sky whose job is to sit by the phone and wait for us to call so that He can go fetch what we want.
The problem is this is not what walking with Jesus looks like. When faith is transactional, we fail to understand that Jesus isn’t always interested in changing the conditions around us. Sometimes He wants to change us.
God doesn’t just want you to come to Him when you need something. He wants a personal relationship with you. If He gave you everything you needed, right when you needed it, you wouldn’t be operating in faith. God is more concerned with the process of you becoming like Jesus Christ, than simply making deals. Don’t have a conditional faith. Trust that God is working behind the scenes, orchestrating everything that you need for your life!
Yesterday, we discussed frustration as one reason we betray God. Today we will talk about conditional faith or a conditional relationship with Jesus Christ.
Judas took a turn for the worse because his commitment to Christ was conditional. He thought, like some of us, that the primary mission of Jesus was to make his life better and to punish those who opposed him. He was giving of his time, his talent, and his treasure to the ministry of Jesus because he had something in mind that he wanted God to do, and he wanted it now.
Judas’ faith in God and his fellowship of Jesus were transactional. In essence, he was saying, “God, I’m doing this because I expect you to do that.” Judas had a “let’s make a deal” approach to faith.
Many of us try to make similar deals with God: If you heal me, I’ll stop smoking; if you get me the job, I’ll come to church; or if I get a raise, I’ll pay tithes. We make going to church, serving in ministry, and reading the Bible conditional. We think of God as a celestial concierge in the sky whose job is to sit by the phone and wait for us to call so that He can go fetch what we want.
The problem is this is not what walking with Jesus looks like. When faith is transactional, we fail to understand that Jesus isn’t always interested in changing the conditions around us. Sometimes He wants to change us.
God doesn’t just want you to come to Him when you need something. He wants a personal relationship with you. If He gave you everything you needed, right when you needed it, you wouldn’t be operating in faith. God is more concerned with the process of you becoming like Jesus Christ, than simply making deals. Don’t have a conditional faith. Trust that God is working behind the scenes, orchestrating everything that you need for your life!
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