The following comes from my book, MORE
Amazing Stories & Daily Devotionals
Before cell phones, my Christian friend Carl received an anonymous phone call. The caller said, “You don’t know me, but I have proof that your wife has been cheating on you. You’ll find an envelope taped to the dumpster behind the movie theater. Inside it you’ll find a cassette tape of phone conversations between your wife and her lover.”
Carl thought it had to be a prank call. He loved his wife and shuddered at the idea that she would be unfaithful. But just to be sure, Carl drove to the theater and walked around to the back of the dumpster. Sure enough, an envelope was hanging on it with a cassette tape inside.
He listened to the tape and the conversations verified the informant was indeed correct. Carl was devastated to find out his wife really was having a secret affair. She later divorced him and married the other man. To this day, Carl has no idea as to the identity of the man who called him, or how he got the taped phone conversations.
Betrayal is the most painful kind of rejection because it involves both hypocrisy and a violation of trust. At the Last Supper, Jesus held up bread and told His disciples, “This is my body.” As they were eating, Jesus handed Judas a piece of bread, which signified that Jesus was handing over His body to His betrayer. At that moment, Satan entered Judas (John 13:26-27).
The chief priests and elders had paid Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Later, Judas felt remorse and tried to return the money coins to the chief priests by throwing the coins into the sanctuary (Matt. 27:3). In the most extreme hypocrisy, the elders said, “It is not lawful to put them in the temple treasury, since it is money paid for blood” (27:6). They ignored the fact that they were the ones who paid Judas the money in the first place! In their minds, it was a crime to put blood money in the temple treasury, but it wasn’t a crime to pay Judas to shed Jesus’ innocent blood.
So what did they do with the money? They came up with an idea to make them look like they were doing a good deed for the community. They used the money to buy a potter’s field to bury strangers (27:7). How nice of them.
Judas’s betrayal didn’t stop God’s plan for Jesus from being fulfilled. And if you’ve been betrayed, God still has a good plan for you. What about Carl? He married a Christian woman and has been happily married for years. If you’ve been betrayed, don’t become bitter. Ask God to make your situation even better than it was before. www.makinglifecount.net www.kentcrockett.blogspot.com
