Category Archives: Christian life

DAY TWO – PSALM 139

Christian life, ,

DAY TWO

“O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

Psalm 139:1-4

COMMENT

Not only are you the unique creation of God’s hand but also the object of His personal and intimate knowledge.  This can be quite a scary thought if you are thinking, saying, or doing what you know is displeasing to Him.  But it’s also comforting to know that God knows you so completely that you don’t need to hide anything from Him.  He knows where you are, He knows your thoughts and He knows your ways.  That means that He knows how you are going to react and what you are going to do before you do it.  Wow!  That’s amazing!  Imagine someone knowing you that well and loving you for who you are anyway.

PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

Praise the Lord today for His intimate knowledge of you. How does that make you feel?  Don’t you feel loved and special?  Thank Him for being so close to you that everything about you is open to Him.

COME AND EAT WITH ME!

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COME AND EAT WITH ME!

“The Day of Unleavened Bread came, the day the Passover lamb was butchered. Jesus sent Peter and John off, saying, ‘Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together.’

“They said, ‘Where do you want us to do this?’

“He said, ‘Keep your eyes open as you enter the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him home. Then speak with the owner of the house: The Teacher wants to know, ‘Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-storey room, swept and ready. Prepare the meal there.’

“They left, found everything just as He told them, and prepared the Passover meal.” Luke 22:7-15 (The Message).

Luke’s story has an air of anticipation about it. Jesus was expecting something to happen and His disciples were caught up in the atmosphere. Other Passover celebrations had come and gone but this one was going to be different.

Did Jesus make a secret arrangement with a friend for a venue for His last meal with His disciples? Was He giving instructions to His disciples because of His divine foreknowledge or was He, once again, simply following His Father’s instructions as He said He always did?

Eating together had significance but there was special meaning in the Passover meal. The children of Israel were on the threshhold of their great redemption. They were packed and ready to go, waiting only for the signal to make their escape from Pharaoh and his powerful army. Moses issued one more challenge, this time hitting at the heart of every Egyptian family, from Pharaoh down to the least slave – their firstborn sons! This one made its mark and Pharaoh finally consented to let Israel go.

But why stop to eat a meal before they left? There was a great deal of meaning and symbolism in the Passover meal: blood on their doorposts was an expression of faith in God’s promise of protection; they trusted in the blood of a sacrificial lamb to save them; they ated unleavened bread because there was no time to allow their dough to rise; bread without yeast symbolised eradication of sin from their lives, and so on.

Perhaps a part of the meaning of Passover is not understood, especially by non-Jews who do not know the cultural background of Jewish practices. Middle-eastern people are very hospitable. Eating together has great significance for them. The Hebrew word for “meal” is shul  and a table – shulkan. But shulkan also means “reconciliation” and “lamb skin”. Combine these ideas and you have a beautiful picture of the significance of Passover. 

If you do not have a table – shulkan – you use a lamb skin – shulkan – as a picnic blanket, but you could not eat a meal together if you had issues with each other. Hence the table – shulkan – which was a lamb skin – shulkan – became the symbol of reconciliation – shulkan. As families embarking on a very long journey, they could not travel unless they were reconciled – no issues to cause division on the way – and reconciliation was only possible because of the sacrifice of a lamb.

Put Jesus and His disciples into that picture and the Last Supper begins to tell its own story. Perhaps the most poignant message on that occasion was a tender invitation from Jesus, ‘Judas, I know what you have done but I have forgiven you. I do not hold it against you. You have to bear the responsibility of your treachery but there is a way back if you repent.’ To Peter and the other disciples who would all fail Him, Jesus was saying, ‘Come and eat with me. I have no issues with you.’ In Revelation 3:20 He says to everyone who has wandered away from Him, “‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.'”

SWEAT LIKE BLOOD

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SWEAT LIKE BLOOD

“Leaving there, He went, as He often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed Him. When they arrived at the place, He said, ‘Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.’

“He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?’ At once an angel from heaven was at His side, strengthening Him. He prayed all the harder. Sweat,   wrung from Him like drops of blood, poured off His face.” Luke 22:39-44 (The Message).

This is a very different Jesus from the one we have been accompanying through the Gospel of Luke. He was a man of many emotions, as we would expect from someone who was the perfect representative of mankind. Unlike many men, He did not ignore, deny or hide His emotions. He felt compassion, He rejoiced, He wept, He laughed, He grieved, He got angry and He got frustrated. Luke describes Him as a very human Jesus but also, always, the true Son of God.

This is the first time He showed His emotion regarding His approaching death. The dark shadow of the cross fell across Him in the olive grove. “Gethsemane” means “press” reflecting the process by which the precious oil was extracted from the olives that grew there. He was feeling the press of His impending sacrifice.

There were many “last times” for Him in the next few hours. The Passover meal He had just shared with His disciples was the last time He would eat with them. These moments would be the last time He would fellowship with His Father in the solitude of the garden and in freedom.

The overwhelming weight of what was looming was crushing Him like the press that crushed the olives. Only the pure Son of God knew what it meant to become sin for us. Only He felt the terrifying prospect of separation from His Father with whom He had lived in intimate and unbroken fellowship as a human being for thirty three years, of being cut off, abandoned and left alone in His time of greatest need.

Unless He was able to come to terms with, and fully embrace what lay ahead in the next few hours, the battle would be lost before it even began. His entire human life was consumed by this one purpose – to do the Father’s will. “Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come — it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.'” Psalm 40:7-8 (NIV). Now was the time to put His purpose to the ultimate test,

There is nothing wrong with the process by which He came to submission to the Father. There was no rebellion in His heart, not reluctance to submit, only the horror of His impending ordeal. He was to embrace His Father’s will by submitting to the worst that human beings could do to Him at the instigation of His arch enemy, the devil, without resistance, either physical or emotional.

This was a struggle so severe that His blood began to flow even before His skin was pierced by the whip, the thorns, the nails or the spear. Our minds cannot conceive of the suffering it meant, not only for Him but for the Father who loved and delighted in His Son beyond anything we can imagine. 

In that moment, in the full understanding of what lay ahead, Jesus embraced the Father’s will once again, and the deal was sealed. From that time on, He was secure in the strength of His submission and the knowledge that He would overcome — and He did. No amount of torture or torment could remove from Him the peace that surrender had secured. He was the only one, in spite of being the prisoner and the one in trial, in absolute control of the situation.

“When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made not threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness…” 1 Peter 2:23-24a (NIV).

This is a great lesson for us to learn. Jesus won the battle before it began by embracing the Father’s will. He was not caught out or taken unawares. Unlike Him, we do not know what lies up ahead but, as we live in daily submission to God, we will be ready to face our own ordeals without resistance if we entrust ourselves to Him who judges justly.

“So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.” 1 Peter 4:19 (NIV).

THE ROOSTER PULLED THE TRIGGER

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THE ROOSTER PULLED THE TRIGGER

“Arresting Jesus, they marched Him off and took Him into the house of the Chief Priest. Peter followed, but at a safe distance. In the middle of the courtyard some people had started a fire and were sitting around it, trying to keep warm. One of the serving maids…noticed him…and said, ‘This man was with Him.’

“He denied it, ‘Woman, I don’t even know Him.’

“A short time later someone else noticed him and said, ‘You’re one of them.’

But Peter denied it, ‘Man, I am not.’

“About an hour later someone else spoke up, really adamant: ‘He’s got to have been with Him! He’s got “Galilean” written all over him.’

“Peter said, ‘Man I don’t know what you are talking about.’ At that very moment, the last word hardly off his lips, a rooster crowed. Just then, the Master turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered what the Master had said to him…He went out and cried and cried and cried.” Luke 22:54-62 (The Message).

Would Peter ever forget that night? Every time a rooster crowed, for the rest of his life he would remember.

I guess that many thousands of sermons have been preached on this passage of Scripture over the centuries, mostly focusing on Peter’s denial and Jesus’ forgiveness. After all, it’s a message of grace that everyone needs to hear.

But God’s grace comes to us in many different ways. Sometimes we identify God’s grace as His direct intervention in our lives; miraculous healing, forgiveness, times when we cope when we have no strength of our own.

At that moment in Peter’s life, I am sure he would like to have killed that rooster because it triggered a memory that brought him to utter despair. What if Jesus had not warned him in advance that it would happen? Would the sound of the crowing rooster have had as much impact on him as it did? Probably not.

He would have felt bad about denying Jesus but, because of the warning, every time he heard the rooster, he would also have heard his own retort at Jesus’ warning, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to jail and to death.’ It was not Jesus’ words that haunted him as much as his own.

Peter did not know himself. He had no idea of his weak and cowardly heart until the crowing rooster pulled the trigger! He had a long journey ahead and a lot of growing to do before he could say those same words and mean them.

The rooster was only being a rooster but, for Peter, his voice was a forceful reminder of his fallible humanity and his need for God’s grace because he could not do it on his own. It was his failure that caused him to be aware of his constant need of God and caused him to rest in the power of Jesus to give him strength to stand under testing.

Peter could not have penned the words in his letter to believers under pressure had he not experienced what he did on that terrible night. Only tested faith can come out pure, like gold that has gone through fire. Had Peter not fallen that night, he could have claimed victory through his own will-power, but his crash was the best thing that ever happened to him.

The sound of the crowing rooster was a trigger, not of failure and despair but of hope, a reminder of God’s grace that forgives, restores and gives another chance to those who discover, through experience, how weak they really are, and who learn to rest in the strength that God supplies.

A BETTER COVENANT

Christian life

A BETTER COVENANT

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but He became a priest with an oath when God said to Him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: You are a priest forever.’ Because of this oath, Jesus became the guarantor of a better covenant (Heb. 7: 18-22).

Why was the old covenant weak and useless? It had no power to effect what it required. There was nothing wrong with what God asked them to do. In fact, the law was a reflection of God’s character. He not only asked, He required that they obey His teachings because there was no other way to live that would satisfy His holiness. The problem did not lie in the measure or standard God set for His people but in their inability to carry it out.

Then there was a second problem – the priests who represented the people to God were just as unable to measure up to God’s standard as the people were. They were as sinful, rebellious and corrupt as the people they represented. God’s requirements were just and righteous. What He demanded of them was exactly according to who He was, but the whole system fell flat because of the corruption of the people’s hearts. They had no desire or power to do what God required.

God’s intention was never to accept them on the basis of their perfect obedience to the law because they couldn’t do it. The priesthood was His special gift of grace to show them His solution for their sinfulness. He provided blood sacrifices to atone for their sin, and a priesthood which would mediate for them so that God would accept their sacrifices.

All this was just a picture of what He had already done for them. Before He even put breath into the first human being, He had already provided His sacrifice – Jesus, the perfect lamb sacrificed before the creation of the world. He was the only acceptable solution to the problem of man’s sin. Every time an animal was killed and its blood sprinkled on the altar, the offerer was supposed to be trusting in God for the forgiveness of his sins because God’s lamb was the real sacrifice of which the animal was a picture.

So deeply was the nature of man corrupted that the people used their sacrifices as an excuse for sinning since they thought that, no matter what they did or how wicked they were, they could always offer sacrifices for their forgiveness. They thought that it did not matter how much they sinned. They could always offer a sacrifice and be forgiven.

Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning (Hos. 8: 11).

If the system was intended to provide a solution for the corruption of the people’s hearts, it was doomed to failure from the beginning. It could tell them what to do but it could never enable them to obey. It could only show up the depth of their sinfulness and bring the judgment of God down on them, priests and people alike.

God’s solution was already written into His book before man ever fell from his state of perfection. He had prepared another priesthood – not taken from among the people by reason of their ancestry, but one whom He sent from heaven to be a man, to uphold and live by His standards to perfection and then to die in their place as a sacrifice for sin. This priest would be raised to life again by reason of His sinlessness and become forever the high priest His people needed.

Why was Jesus, in the order of Melchizedek, the perfect replacement for the Aaronic priesthood?

Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office but, because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens (Heb. 7: 23-26).

He is the high priest we need, and He is always in the presence of the Father to represent us before Him. Not only does He present His blood as the perfect sacrifice but He also provides the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts. We are no longer rebels but beloved sons and daughters, at home and at peace with the Father.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.