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Articles
What Do You Expect from Jesus?
It’s normal to have expectations in life. What happens, though, when reality does not meet your expectations? That often happens with Christians and Jesus. When a person obeys the gospel and becomes a Christian, he tends to have certain expectations about what life as a Christian looks like. When those expectations are not met, we are left with very serious questions about our faith. What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?
John the Baptist expected Jesus to be the Messiah (John 1:27-30). After all, John had a very special role in preparing for Jesus’ ministry (Luke 1:13-17). Nevertheless, in Matthew 11, John finds himself in prison for speaking the truth. Now we are not told exactly what John was thinking, but it’s hard to imagine he expected to end up in prison. We do know John had questions. In Matthew 11:3 John sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?”
So what do you do when reality does not align with your expectations? You have two choices. You can decide there is not way you could be wrong, which leads to developing some twisted view of reality. Or you can recognize the need to realign your expectations. Instead of getting hung up on our expectations of Jesus, we need to concern ourselves with an entirely different question:
What does Jesus expect for me?
Jesus lays out His expectations for His disciples in Matthew 10. He tells them to expect persecution, family betrayal, hatred, and conflict (Matthew 10:16-38). That’s an awful list, but thankfully that is not all Jesus expects for His disciples. He also promises us the reward of salvation (Matthew 10:22). He promises His loyalty (Matthew 10:32-33). He expects us to love our neighbors (Matthew 10:42). We can also expect to find eternal victory through Him in the end (Matthew 10:38-39).
Once you start to understand what Jesus expects for you and from you, then you can better form your expectations of Him. In Matthew 11:16-19, Jesus rebuked that generation for having misguided expectations about Him. They expected Jesus to defeat the Roman Empire and establish His throne in Jerusalem. Instead of listening to Jesus’ message, they wanted to dictate the message. They forgot who was to submit to who.
People often expect Jesus to fix everything in this life. What we easily forget is that this life is hard whether you are a child of God or not! The people of Jesus day expected God’s kingdom to fix the problems with the world, but the kingdom is actually intended to fix the problem within you!
What do you expect from Jesus? Expect to follow Him, to learn from Him, and to find rest in Him. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).
