Lent day 1

Ok, so Lent was meant to be when I kick started this up again and became a little less slipshod in my bible reading. All those dips into the text that never made posts. And now I'm behind. So, there will be a few posts in quick succession to catch up. I'm following a set of readings by YouVersion.

Today's reading is Matthew 21:1-11, the so-called triumphant entry. Jesus sends his disciple forward to get a donkey and her foal or colt. Likely it belongs to people he knows who would understand who 'the Lord' was - not God as we might jump to, but the teacher they knew.

You see, Jesus was a very deliberate person with a clear purpose. His actions were symbolic, but not merely so. He came to fulfill what prophets had said, and not just simply the actions but all that they meant.

Jesus understood what he was doing, proclaiming himself King of Israel, and the response of his disciples and the Passover pilgrims show that everyone else did as well. The pilgrims knew who he was, no doubt many of them had seen and heard him throughout Galilee, but those from the city appeared not to. Perhaps the poor and oppressed from the country saw the need more for a king than those who worked in and around the temple?

So Jesus was deliberate in pursuing kingdom goals as the king. Are we as deliberate in doing so? Now I can understand those who wonder what God's will is in this or that situation, don't want to presume, etc. We also know God can do surprising things. But forearmed is forewarned. How deliberate is your bible reading and prayer, your intentionality in being missional? Something tells me if Jesus was deliberate in what he did, and yet could react in the moment, we should aim at doing the same?