Matthew 26:21-22<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow as they were eating, He said, \u2018Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.\u2019 And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, \u2018Lord, is it I?\u2019 \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the grace of God, I am determined not to be the one who betrays Jesus. Because Jesus used the word, \u201cassuredly,\u201d we know that someone must betray Him and as the end of time draws nearer, more and more of God\u2019s people will be tempted, enticed and forced to betray Jesus. But it doesn\u2019t have to be me. Or you. We know that the love of many will grow cold and many shall fall aside, but we also know that grace will increase as surely as evil abounds on the earth. We know that God will not leave us alone with the tempter, but will make a way of escape for every temptation that comes our way. For this reason, I am confident that by the grace of God, I will not betray my faith or my Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think it had to be Judas who betrayed Jesus. It could have been Thomas or Nathaniel or Bartholomew. In fact, it could have been Peter or James or John. Judas did not appropriate the grace that was available to him. There is always enough grace to escape the fiery temptations that besiege our hearts and minds. There is always a way of escape. You don\u2019t need to be the one to betray Jesus. I am determined not to be the one either. I can\u2019t speak for others in the family of disciples, but surely enough as God\u2019s Words cannot be broken, some disciples will betray Jesus; but it won\u2019t be me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cO God my Father, I will not betray You and I know You don\u2019t want me to betray You, so I am praying in line with Your will for me. O God, give me an abundance of grace today and every day, in Jesus name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 26:21-22 \u201cNow as they were eating, He said, \u2018Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.\u2019 And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, \u2018Lord, is it I?\u2019 \u201d By the grace of God, I am determined not to be the one who betrays Jesus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4505,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503\/revisions\/4505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}