Have you ever had times where you just know that God is talking to you through a series of events or messages?

Sometimes I get that through Facebook. Sometimes different friends, all unconnected to each other, will post encouraging messages on the same topic in such a short period of time so that when I scroll down my feed, it is almost like one continuous stream.

Yes, I have awesome friends, but I also believe that God is always speaking to us . . . and some people are listening.

I see a lot of streams of encouragement, but Monday there was a definite stream, but it was more of a warning . . . a call to be ready . . . to be prepared. For what exactly, I don't know.

But it started the day before in my Bible Study. We have been in the book of John and Sunday we were on John 19:1-42, which is an account of Jesus's trial.

The religious leaders wanted to get rid of Jesus because he exposed their hypocrisy and threatened the status quo. So they falsely accused him and sent him before Pontius Pilate because they didn't have the authority to have him killed.

Pilate didn't really want to have anything to do with it. He wanted to set Jesus free and said every way he could that he didn't take responsibility for Jesus's death, that he washed his hand of it.

The religious leaders cornered Pilate by saying, "If you don't kill him, you are no friend of Caesar's."

A lot of the commentary on this was that Jesus was killed for solely political reasons.

But I don't agree with that. It was only a political reason because Pilate was being a putz and wasn't willing to stand up to the bullies.

He allowed them to manipulate and control his decision. Just because they said that he had to crucify Jesus or be a traitor, it does not mean that that was actually the truth.

The truth was, there were continuous conflicts between the Roman government and the Jews.

Everything wasn't peace and light, and then suddenly Jesus came along.

Pilate could have just told Caesar, "So here's the deal. The Jewish religious council can't stand this guy Jesus because he calls them out. But he hasn't actually done anything wrong." He could have stood for truth and justice and done the right thing.

But instead, Pilate operated out of fear and allowed the Jewish leaders to define the narrative instead of actually seeking truth.

And this was the quote that I think defined the whole class.

Post by Carla Alvarez.

When we stop listening to God and operating out of fear, all kinds of horrible things can happen.

. . . then the conversation continued on Facebook the next day.

Being Led by the Spirit

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