Luke 13:31-35
The Pharisees were against Jesus. How was it then that in the Gospel reading for today, some Pharisees came to Jesus to give warning, telling our Lord to leave and "go somewhere else" because "Herod wants to kill you."
What a friendly tip. Or was it? Actually, what the Pharisees were trying to do was to discourage Jesus from continuing with his mission. Jerusalem was Jesus's destination. There, His mission will be fulfilled, and the Pharisees don't want Him there.
But the Lord will not be discouraged. No threat, not even the possibility of being killed troubled Him. He knew His goal, His God-given mission. He gave Herod a message:
"I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal."
We also have our goal. We have many goals in life, actually. But there is no greater goal than to be able to enter heaven when we die. To be saints, that is the goal. And, for this goal we cannot let anything stand as a block--not discouragements, not sacrifices, not sufferings, not sin.
A time may come when someone suddenly gives an apparently friendly tip. "Leave that road" the devil may say, "that is the road of sacrifices and sufferings." Be firm like Jesus! May we be able to say in reply:
"I will stay treading this road for this is the road God wants me to take. And, at the end of my life, I will have reached my goal---to be united with Him forever in heaven."
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