01/06/2026
Yesterday’s choices may influence today’s reality, but they don’t need to limit tomorrow’s possibilities.
Judas betraying Jesus was necessary.
And that sentence alone makes people uncomfortable, because it feels like we’re saying God needed a villain. Like Judas was born, handed a black cape, and told, “Congratulations, you’re the bad guy. Please proceed to ruin everything.”
But that’s not how this works.
Not even close.
Judas was not forced. He wasn’t mind-controlled. He wasn’t pushed off a moral cliff by God so the story could move forward. Judas made a choice. A real one. And that choice reshaped everything.
That’s the part we don’t like sitting with.
Judas walked with Jesus. Ate with Him. Heard the same teachings as the other disciples. Watched the blind see and the dead walk out of tombs like it was just another day. He wasn’t lacking information. He was close enough to touch the miracles. And yet, somewhere along the way, his heart drifted.
Because Judas wanted a Messiah on his terms.
A fixer. A conqueror. A visible, immediate solution.
And when Jesus didn’t become that fast enough, or loud enough, or powerful in the way Judas expected, disappointment quietly turned into control. And control, left unchecked, has a way of turning into betrayal.
That’s usually how it happens, by the way.
Not with a dramatic speech. Not with villain music playing in the background. But with a slow internal shift where we decide we know better than God how things should unfold.
What makes this even harder is that Jesus knew. He knew Judas would betray Him. He said it plainly. And still, He washed Judas’ feet. Still passed him bread. Still called him friend. Jesus didn’t withdraw love because He knew the ending. He didn’t humiliate Judas or expose him early. Love stayed love all the way to the cross.
Here’s where our brains start doing that loading-wheel thing.
God knew Judas would choose betrayal.
God used that betrayal to bring salvation.
But God did not cause the betrayal.
The cross required betrayal, yes.
But betrayal was not commanded. It was permitted.
God’s sovereignty doesn’t mean He forces every move like a puppeteer. It means He is so unshakeable that even freely chosen sin doesn’t derail His plan. He doesn’t author evil. He outmaneuvers it. He doesn’t panic when humans choose wrong. He builds redemption right through it.
And this is where the plot twist comes in.
God is the master of plot twists no one sees coming.
The cross was supposed to be the end. A public ex*****on. A failure. A full stop. Instead, it became the doorway to resurrection. The worst moment in human history turned into the greatest rescue mission imaginable.
Judas’ failure didn’t break God’s plan.
It revealed how unbreakable it was.
And if we’re being honest, this is where it gets painfully relatable.
We know failure. We know the sick feeling of realizing we chose wrong. Said the thing. Did the thing. Didn’t trust when we should have. Took control instead of surrendering. And somewhere deep down we assume that was it. The moment we disqualified ourselves from anything good coming next.
But Scripture keeps telling a different story.
God takes failures and turns them into things we never could have imagined. He takes what looks like an ending and writes a chapter no one saw coming. He takes broken decisions and somehow, without calling them good, weaves them into something redemptive.
Not because failure is holy.
But because God is.
Judas chose betrayal.
Jesus chose obedience.
And God chose resurrection.
And maybe the comfort here isn’t that our choices don’t matter. They do. Deeply. But that God is not sitting in heaven wringing His hands over our worst moments. He is still working. Still redeeming. Still capable of turning even the most catastrophic mess into a story that ends in life.
God doesn’t waste failure.
He rewrites it.
And His plot twists are always better than the story we thought we were ruining.
