Wisdom says, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Proverbs 18:13

Now, I wonder how many beautiful things I have missed in this life because rumor closed my mind before I heard those things. A mind closed is a heart hardened, and a hardened heart is a lost opportunity - for example:

Full of the Spirit, Jesus came out of the wilderness after His baptism and returned to His hometown of Nazareth. When something wonderful happens to us, it's often with us that we want to tell our friends and family. They're the ones we want to share it with.

Well, Jesus came to Nazareth, His home town. He stood up in Church and read these awesome words from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he [has] hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, [and] to set at liberty then that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Well, every eye in that congregation was fixed on Jesus. They had heard the rumors of Him, and now they waited to see what He would say next.

Jesus opened His mouth and said simply, “…This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke 4:21).

At that moment, Jesus was making them the offer of all eternity. The next explosive moments, however, must have been some of the most painful of the Master’s life. At first the crowd began to murmur against His supposed presumptuousness, but then He spoke again and told them He could do no miracle for them, for they had less faith than the gentiles.

Oh, that congregation came apart! They were filled with wrath, and right there they grabbed Him, hauled Him out of their city, and attempted to murder Him by throwing Him off the cliff on which their city was built. But with a power greater than they could understand, He passed “…through the midst of them [and] went [on] his way,” (Luke 4:30).

They did not – they would not listen! What they thought they knew of Jesus overpowered their reason and closed their minds to what they could have known.

He was offering to set them free as they had never been free, give them peace, joy, power, and wealth such as they had never known, nor could they comprehend. But instead, they chose misery and damnation for their rash judgment. It was this that caused Jesus to say, “…No prophet is accepted in his own country.” (Luke 4:24).

I pray, my friends, that we might be wiser than they, and allow the Almighty to make someone we know greater than we thought we knew them [him]. It may be, my dear friend, that from those we least expect we will hear the most powerful things. Do not let someone’s past hold hostage their [his] future.