Verse of the week

'And who gave you authority to do this?' Mark 11:28

Here's a question: how do you react when you read the Bible and realise that Jesus is asking you to change your thinking or lifestyle in some way? Do you:
(a) Close the Bible again. If you ignore him, Jesus might go away.
(b) Find a different bit of the Bible to read. Jesus might say something nicer if you pick a different bit.
(c) Come up with lots of arguments why that doesn't apply to you really
(d) Accept that Jesus is clearly challenging you, but that you're not going to change anyway - I mean, who does he think he is?
(e) Accept what Jesus says, say sorry for the wrong way you've been living, and ask for his help to change from now on.
Let's be honest, most of us often answer a - d. And in fact, whenever we do a, b or c, we're actually doing (d) - we're seeing Jesus challenging us, telling us how we ought to live or think or behave, and we're essentially saying 'What gives you the right to tell me this? Who do you think you are?'...'I'll decide for myself thank you very much Jesus.'
That's what the chief priests said to Jesus after he cleared out the temple. The temple was dear to their hearts; it was what their confidence and social standing relied on; and Jesus came in and essentially said 'You're getting it wrong. You need to change.'
And they react with this question - 'Who gave you authority to do this?' - 'Who are you to tell us what to do?'
The answer, of course, is that Jesus is God's Son, and that's why he has authority to tell anyone how to live, including us. There's a challenge for us when Jesus tells us that something we love doing, something that gives us confidence or popularity or enjoyment, is not right, and that we need to change. Will we join the religious leaders and turn round to Jesus and say 'I don't recognise your authority to tell me what to do', or will we bow to Jesus and say 'You are God's Son. I'll change, with your help.' The natural answer is the first one; the Christian answer is the second.
There's a warning in all this, of course, because those religious leaders didn't accept Jesus' authority, and they ended up killing him to shut him up - and 40 years later, the temple they held so dear to their hearts was totally and utterly destroyed. The question is not actually whether Jesus has authority or not; the question is whether we accept it and gain eternal life, or reject it and fact judgement.