Are You Willing to Say, “ENOUGH?”
Everyone’s had enough of something. For some, it’s that “Christmas” isn’t in the vocabulary of too many companies and marketing campaigns at this time of year. For others, it’s the disgust of partisanship. And on, and on, and on, and on.
Having had enough causes different reactions, such as:
(1) Emotional, spiritual, or physical collapse – “I just can’t deal with this any longer.” The stress causes a breakdown.
(2) An angry response – This can be either verbal or physical.
(3) More focus toward achieving a certain goal – “This is why I believe this/that.” A concerted effort is leveraged to persuasion.
The Maccabeans had had enough of sin, the sin of Israel’s past and the sin forced upon them by an oppressing, pagan king. This king wanted them to blaspheme God and to join in pagan worship. This was unacceptable to those in Israel at the time, especially as they reflected on all of the idolatry and other national sins that God’s chosen people had committed over the course of centuries. So they rebelled against the evil, and the Lord delivered them from the hands of their oppressors.
1 Peter 4:1-2 says: Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
As servants of Christ, it is our job and pleasure to show people the satisfaction of living in and for Jesus. His way is better, and when we focus on the divine peace God has for His people, sin cannot compare. Our hearts willingly repel that instinct to succumb to what is unholy. The problem is, our hearts don’t always see Christ’s work of grace first when the forbidden fruit presents itself. It is hard to see the will of God in a world where the forbidden fruit is uncensored, available, no longer verboten, and approved.
We must be like the Maccabeans, who two-hundred years before the work of Christ said : ENOUGH. The history of idolatry and descending into the squalor of sin must remind us of the present reality of the weight of righteousness. The coming King echoed the heart of God that this is the right moment to say: ENOUGH. God spoke it at the annunciation to Mary, He spoke it on the cross, and He speaks it now through forgiveness and the righteous response to that forgiveness. Have the spiritual reaction to moral filth that proclaims heart-decay to be unacceptable. Amen.
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