Sometimes we think that people have to show up at our rally in order to support us. They have to either be behind us 100% or they are against us. But there is a middle ground, in fact, lots of middle ground. Sometimes people have competing drives and obligations that prevent them from lining up with you on every issue in life. They have a soccer game with their kid during the time you set for your important organizing meeting, so they can’t attend.
Jesus makes a powerful statement: whoever is not against us is for us. Notice that He didn’t say, whoever is not for us is against us. These are very different statements. Jesus said that is someone is not putting up active opposition to what we are doing, then they support us.
This is very different from the second statement which places everyone against us, if they aren’t specifically for us. Jesus’ way of thinking was that there was a smaller opposition than what the disciples were thinking. The disciples automatically threw people into the opposition side of the equation, if they weren’t actively supporting. Jesus puts in the opposition camp only those who specifically oppose Him.
Jesus illustrates this with a simple example. If someone gives you some support, even if it is as insignificant as a cup of water, they are no longer in the opposition camp. It costs almost nothing to provide a cup of water, even in a desert climate. If they give you this small support because you are connected to Jesus, then they are not opposition. They are on your team.
Just this simple fact makes us a larger group than we might have thought at first. Jesus seems to not be worried about those in the opposition group. If people are actually supporting Jesus in one moment, they won’t turn around and oppose Him in the next. The same is true in our lives.
But what about someone who flip flops on an issue? I think that they really didn’t support the first position, and perhaps even the second position. Some people just don’t have the backbone to really take a stand for something, anything. They are like the shifting sand, never stable enough to support any structure of substance. Their convictions are not convictions at all. They are just opinions at a moment in time.
The reason Jesus can be so sure that someone who does a miracle in His Name one moment won’t turn around and change their mind is simple: the LORD won’t be fooled by mere outward expression. He is not generally going to use a person proclaiming His glory who is half-hearted. He wants people who are willing to stick their neck out and have their head chopped off! He doesn’t want turtles.
The Arnold Journey 