I decided to schedule an afternoon appointment with Jesus, and we met up at Matthew 10 at 3p.

It was intense. There’s really no way around it.

See yourself. Here are some direct quotes:

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. You’ll be flogged. You’ll be dragged before governors and kings. Don’t be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.”

“What I tell you in the dark, say in the light. Don’t fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

– Jesus of Nazareth