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What do you do when you’ve repented, but it doesn’t seem to help the situation?
When Judas Iscariot, the traitor, learned that Jesus had been condemned to die, he repented & took the thirty silver coins back to the chief priests & the elders (215). “I have sinned by betraying an innocent man to death!” cried Judas.
One of the chief priests dismissed him, saying: “That’s not our problem.” The looks on their faces told Judas that all the Jewish religious leaders were agreed. In anguish & frustration, Judas threw the coins down on the floor & left the temple.
Unable to undo his treachery & overwhelmed with grief, Judas went outside the city & hanged himself!
The chief priests picked up the thirty silver coins from the temple floor. “This is blood money, so it’s against our law to put it in the temple treasury,” one said. They decided to use the blood money to buy the potter’s field, as a cemetery for foreigners. That field is called “Field of Blood” to this very day.
(This was an unexpected fulfillment of what the prophet Jeremiah had said, centuries before: “They took the thirty silver coins & used the money to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord had commanded me.”)
LORD, please help us to love tears of repentance, even when they seem insufficient.
What do you do when you’ve repented, but it doesn’t seem to help the situation?
(215) Matthew 27:3-10
Unexpected 