The
Chameleon
In place of our exhaustion and spiritual
fatigue, God will give us rest. All He asks is that we come to Him...that we
spend a while thinking about Him, meditating on Him, talking to Him, listening
in silence, occupying ourselves with Him - totally and thoroughly lost in the hiding place
of His presence. Chuck Swindoll
If you want to see the wonder of God in
action you don’t have far to go. Nature
is one of His most awesome creations. I
was reading about the chameleon and did you know that there are some species
that can change their thermal temperature by changing colors. The amazing thing about this is that in some
desert chameleons they have the ability to change one side to black and the
other half of their body to gray depending on where the sun hits them. I also learned that they have different
layers of colors that affect the way their outer appearance is viewed. Sort of like a chameleon color wheel.
When I started reading about the chameleon if
made me think about my life and how sometimes I can be just like them. You know how it is. You are socializing with friends or
acquaintances and someone in the group says something that is against
everything God is about, and you just laugh and act like it didn’t happen. Or you see someone mistreating another person
and you don’t stand up in defense of that individual. It’s really quite uncomfortable to be in this
situation. You know what is right, yet
because you want to “fit in” and not be different or weird by the world’s
standards, you change your color to match what is acceptable.
We don’t often hear people talk much about
Judas from the Bible. I started
wondering why no one talks about him much.
You hear about Moses, Abraham, Noah, Job and the list goes on, but not
much about Judas. My own thoughts on
this are that Judas makes us uncomfortable.
His betrayal of Jesus was so profound.
For thirty pieces of silver he betrayed our Savior. It’s not like Judas didn’t have time to
change his mind about betraying Jesus.
In Matthew 26: 47-49 Judas brought a crowd to arrest Jesus and his
signal to the crowd was that he would kiss and greet Jesus and that he would be
the one they should arrest.
The most heartbreaking part of this encounter
was that Jesus knew Judas would betray him and told him in Matthew 26:50 “Do
what you came for, friend.” Then when
Judas saw that Jesus was condemned to die he decided he had made a mistake and
tried to give the money back. The chief priest
and elders replied “What is it to us?” “It is your responsibility.”
When I choose to not step forward and claim
Jesus and defend His name, I am as guilty as Judas. I may not take money, or silver, or cash but
in reality what I accept is just as bad for my betrayal of our Savior. What I take in payment is “worldly acceptance”. If fitting in with the world is more
important than my Savior then I commit the same sin Judas or Peter did. When I decide to become a chameleon and fit
in with the world around me, I am not hidden from God just as Judas and Peter
weren’t either.
Prayer for the Day:
Heavenly Father, I am ashamed to say that I have tried to fit in with what the
world thinks I should be instead of being who You call me to be. Jesus stood up to those who ridiculed and
betrayed Him, but He also loved them even in the midst of his sorrow and
pain. There are times when situations
make me feel uncomfortable, but I ask for your strength when those times occur,
for me to take a stand for the one who died on a cross for my sin.
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