This Week With Jesus

Judas is a famous man. Famous for the greatest and most spectacular sin in the world. And yet he was part of Gods plan and chosen by God, followed Jesus, worked miracles and was an apostle. This can be perplexing, for if he was chosen by God to betray Jesus, was he really guilty? If he was preordained was he at fault? Here is a problem we all face. If things are preordained, why am I guilty or why am I blessed or why am I suffering? Can I be a follower of Jesus and yet not be? Judas example shows us that we can be Gods followers yet not be. By choosing from the beginning an apostle who was destined for apostasy and destruction, and by including him in his closest relations, and by giving him power over unclean spirits and over diseases, Jesus shows us that religious associations and religious practices and miracle-working are no sure evidence of being born again. And born again we must be to become a true follower of Jesus. Secondly Judas had a choice: that of begging God's forgive

"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD". Psalm 112 ver 7 We are no strangers to bad news. Not one of us. And we are no strangers to fear as well. Fear is the one thing that can undermine our belief and faith in our God. It is well written that fear is the sharpest tool of Satan and which he uses well. When we fear, it is because we see no hope for the future. We depend on man and human power to bail us out. But as a follower of Christ and God, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, we do not need to fear. The KJV Bible Study says - "Christian, you ought not to dread the arrival of evil tidings; because if you are distressed by them, what do you more than other men? Other men have not your God to fly to; they have never proved his faithfulness as you have done, and it is no wonder if they are bowed down with alarm and cowed with fear: but you profess to be of another spirit; you have been begotten again unto a lively hop