What do you think happens if you put one bad fruit in a basket with good fruit?
If it’s left with the good fruits long enough, the bad fruit will spoil them all.
One of the most important things we can do is watch the people we spend the most time with and make sure there are no bad seeds in our inner circle. Equally important is working to eliminate all bad habits because, like bad fruit, the wrong habits can contaminate the good ones and keep you from being who you want to be and doing what you want to do.
Judas in the Bible is one of the most important examples of a bad seed that we have in history, and greed was the bad seed that grew in him and caused him to betray Jesus.
Judas was one of the 12 disciples who were entrusted with the privileged position within Jesus’ inner circle. The chief priests were high-ranking priests in the Jewish temple, and they were responsible for overseeing the temple rituals and sacrifices, and they held significant religious and political authority in Jerusalem during Jesus' time. They wanted to kill Jesus because they saw Jesus as a threat to their authority, power, and way of life. Jesus criticized the hypocrisy and corruption among the Jewish leaders, they thought he was being blasphemous by claiming that He was the son of God, and they were afraid that Jesus’ popularity would threaten their power and possibly even cause a revolt against the Roman rule that controlled them, leading to intense retaliation.
In Luke 22:3, it says Satan, the devil, entered into Judas, and Judas went to the chief priests to see how he could betray Jesus. The chief priests offered him 30 pieces of silver, and Jesus took it.
Matthew 26 tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal, saying that Judas came to him with “a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people,” and the sign he gave the chief priests so that they knew who Jesus was was kissed when he greeted him.
From there, the chief priests beat and hung Jesus, showing how one bad seed can bring down a kingdom.
But all things work together for the good of those who believe, the betrayal is what led to Jesus dying for our sins, what he was brought here to do, and led to his resurrection proving that he is the true Son of God.
Wisdom is knowing what is good for you and knowing what isn’t, and being able to keep the good and limit or remove the bad. Don’t let one bad seed keep you from doing what you want and know you can do.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT
1 - What is your biggest takeaway from this devotional?
2 - Who is someone or something that is a bad seed in your life that you either need to limit or remove?
3 - What can you do to limit or remove that seed?
4 - How are you impacting others? Are you being good fruit for others or bad fruit spoiling the group?
My Prayer
Our Father. Thank you for all the gifts you have given me, including the gift of discernment - the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. I pray that you are able to help me identify what is good for me and what is not and that you are able to help me keep the things that are good and limit or eliminate the things that aren't. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
For a printable PDF version of this post, click here: Judas: The Bad Seed
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