Are you in B.C. or A.D.?

Lk 12:49-53

49 "I've come to start a fire on this earth--how I wish it were blazing right now! 50 I've come to change everything, turn everything rightside up--how I long for it to be finished! 51 Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront! 52 From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be-- Three against two, and two against three; 53 Father against son, and son against father; Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother; Mother-in-law against bride, and bride against mother-in-law."

Food for thought!

These words are by all ways a shock. Jesus sometimes shocks and shakes us. In order to drive home an important point, Jesus sometimes uses hard talk. The question is, what is it that he want to teach us this time? What is the lesson?

First of all, FIRE in the Bible is almost always the symbol of judgment. So, then, Jesus regards his coming as a time of judgment. So when he says, I have come to start a fire on this earth, he means, I have come to judge all of us. When we stand before Jesus, we stand in judgement. By the way, this is why time is divided into BEFORE CHRIST (B.C.) and AFTER CHRIST (A.D). 

Before Christ comes to us, we are living in BC, and after he has come, we live in AD. His coming inevitably means division, not only of time and history, but also sometimes of families and individuals. Over and over again we have to decide whether we love better our ways or Christ's ways; our traditions or Christ's teaching; our thoughts or Christ's thinking. 

The essence of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth. We must be prepared to count all things as loss for the excellence of Jesus Christ, as Paul did:

I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. (Phil 3:5-9)

In your life, do you have a BC and AD? Do you see any difference in what you were before and what you are today? Are you changing in anyway? Are you still living in BC?