Single Minded

Today's Scripture

I think that we generally misunderstand the mission of Jesus Christ. We understand that Jesus is bringing salvation to the world and indeed he is. But when we think of Jesus in this way, we tragically miss what Jesus is really intending to do in this world.

Jesus has one thing, and only one thing, on His mind: The will of the Father. The primary focus of the will of the Father was this: to show his people that God never fails in fulfilling the promises that He has made. This reliability was the key to the relationship He was building with Humanity.

So Jesus, when He comes to us, is very focused on the satisfaction of the covenants that God had made with Abraham, Moses and David. Jesus is zeroed in on this and this is why, in His exchange with the gentile woman, that He remains focused on the children of Israel. They are to be the light to the nations, according to God’s promise. They must be regarded and tended to in this regard, or otherwise, God is not a fulfiller of promises – that would be devastating.

Jesus will not be distracted or dissuaded from this mission. If God can’t be trusted to fulfill his promises, then how will a relationship ever form? So Jesus sets aside the temporal needs of the Gentiles – for a moment. He has to stay focused or all of the work that He and the Father have done over the course of salvation history will come crashing down. Jesus will never risk this. We should be soooo thankful for this because when God is faithful to the Old Covenant (testament=covenant) then that means we can trust Him to be faithful to the New Covenant. He will be with us to the end of the age and will bring us into Heaven with His Father forever.

If we want to believe in that, then we should thank God for Jesus’ determination to meet God’s covenantal demands. We should thank God that He remains so dedicated to meeting our needs and satisfying His covenant. Because now Jesus is single-minded, and He is focused on us. Very reassuring.