Category Archives: Christian life

JESUS’ SECOND TEST – TEST GOD

Christian life, ,

JESUS’ SECOND TEST – TEST GOD

Then the devil took Him to the Holy City and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down….” Jesus answered him, “it is also written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Matthew 4:5-7.

The second test has a fairy-tale-like air about it. If the devil literally took Jesus to the highest point of the temple, how did He get up there? If it only happened in the spirit, what was the big deal?  The Bible does not indicate how it happened. We must take the Word at face value.

The first test was painfully real to Jesus because His hunger, after a 40-day fast, would have driven Him to do anything within His power, and do it immediately, to satisfy His desperate need.

The strength of the second test would have depended on the strength of the mission that was on His mind. “How am I going to get the people to believe in me and my message?” One supernatural act that would have fulfilled the people’s expectation, might have been enough to convince the crowds in the temple that He was their Messiah.  However, He did not want to be received because of a spectacular feat but because of an inner conviction that He was their Messiah.

Jesus did many miracles during His three-year ministry, but He was still rejected because He did not fit the image of Messiah in the minds of the people. They were looking for a Messiah who would make their lives more comfortable. They were okay with Him as long as He did stuff to relieve their misery, rather than self-denial and servanthood.

Jesus saw through the devil’s suggestion. God’s promises were not to be manipulated for His own ends. He could not force God to intervene miraculously to rescue Him. There could never be a shortcut to receiving the kingdom of God.

Jesus responded to this test immediately. He did not have to consider anything before He met the lies and countered them with truth. “The Message” puts His response very strongly. “Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.” He was indignant at the very thought of challenging God’s word. Satan was trying to lure Him into a standoff with God by using the word of God to pit His will against God’s will. If God had wanted Him to get the people’s attention by doing something spectacular, He would have told Him, but that is not the way He works.

Satan got it wrong, and Jesus was quick to put him in his place. This was non-negotiable. He refused to manipulate God. He would obey God’s word, no matter what it took to fulfil His mission.

We do not live to test God. We live to co-operate with God, to find out what He is doing and to fit in with Him. We do not know what we really want. Unlike Jesus, we often “trust God” to do what we want in ways that are manipulative and arrogant.

WHY DID JESUS COME? – 2

Christian life, ,

WHY DID JESUS COME? – 2

“God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them…” 2 Corinthians 5:19.

Jesus’ coming to reveal the Father was the first step in the process of restoring the broken relationship between God and His estranged family. Who would want to be in fellowship with an angry God? It was imperative that God come in person to show people what He is really like.

Bu that was only the beginning. There was a huge obstacle, called sin that blocked the way back to the Father. Sin is an unpayable debt, an unbridgeable chasm that separates us from Him, violates His perfection and prevents us from fellowship with Him. God is a just God and requires just payment for the debt we owe Him. He cannot brush sin aside and ignore the penalty He demands for transgressing His law. To cancel the debt required a perfect human sacrifice for which no one qualified except Jesus because He alone lived a perfectly sinless life as a human being and then willingly laid down His life in our place.

He rose from the dead to break death’s power over man, to prove that He was innocent and that the Father’s justice was satisfied. He was ready and qualified to carry out the next step in His assignment – to reconcile us to the Father. It is one thing to know that there are no more obstacles between us and the Father, but quite another to remain estranged from Him because we have not personally been reconciled to Him.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, but the effectiveness of that reconciliation is only felt by one’s personal appropriation of what Jesus has done. It is tragic to know that millions of unbelieving people have never availed themselves of the right to fellowship with the Father through Jesus’ death for them because they don’t know or because they refuse to receive His gift!

When two parties are estranged because of offense, it is the offended person’s responsibility to forgive by cancelling the debt, and the offender’s responsibility to seek reconciliation based on the offer of forgiveness. God, in Jesus Christ, not only paid the debt Himself so that He can hold out the offer of forgiveness, but He also takes the next step by initiating the reconciliation that will restore us to full and unrestricted fellowship with the Father as His sons and daughters.

Although there is still another step in the process of restoring the human race to God’s original purpose, which will be explained in another article, up to this point we have seen that the obstacle of sin has been removed, the chasm bridged by God Himself through Jesus, and the way wide open for anyone who believes in Jesus, to return home and to be accepted and embraced as a son or daughter of God in His forever family.

THE BEATITUDES

Christian life, ,

THE BEATITUDES

“Blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed…”   Matthew 5:3-11.

What is this blessing of which Jesus speaks nine times in the opening verses of His “Sermon on the Mount”?

Before He launches into a description of the ways of the Kingdom of God, He answers the question many people are asking: “How can I be happy?” Does God really care about our happiness? Yes. Isn’t He more concerned about our holiness? According to Jesus, no. God cares about whether we are happy or not and He tells us how we can be truly happy. The problem is that most people look for happiness instead of realising that happiness is a by-product of something else. If we focus on happiness, we will find that it is elusive but, if we follow Jesus’ prescription, happiness will be the automatic outcome.

There are two words for “blessed” in the Hebrew language.

“Baruch” is the word used for the supernatural blessing God gives to us just because He can. We cannot merit God blessing. It is the evidence of His divine favour.

“Baruch” is also the word used when we bless God in worship. “Bless the Lord, O my soul…”

“Asher”, also translated “blessed”, refers to the happiness that is the outcome of obeying God’s word, of living the way He prescribes. Happiness (being blessed) is the natural outcome of living within the boundaries of what God intended for us. In the Old Covenant system, living God’s way ensured that His people would live in the land God assigned to them, under God’s protection and enjoying the blessings of His provision and prosperity. This was what His people understood about His kingdom, and the outcome of living this way would be a truly happy life.

Happiness is the by-product of the way we relate to and treat other people. To seek happiness for ourselves is to miss the way in which we can be truly happy. When we live for ourselves at the expense of other people, we cut off the source of happiness which is being unselfish and generous towards those less fortunate than ourselves.

The thrust of the Beatitudes is not inward- but outward-looking. What can we do to make life better for other people so that we can experience the happiness that flows from that lifestyle?

Interesting that these are called “be” attitudes and not “do” attitudes, since our doing can only flow from being! So Jesus focuses on heart attitudes which only come from the transformation that must happen before our behaviour can change.

The “Sermon on the Mount” is Jesus’ explanation of what living in the Kingdom of God is all about, and the Beatitudes His introduction to that way of life. Without understanding the Beatitudes, the rest of the Sermon on the mount is more difficult to grasp. In the next nine postings, I intent to explain the Beatitudes in the context of Hebrew literature and interpretation so that we can attempt to understand them as Jesus taught, from a Jewish rabbi’s perspective.

DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD

Christian life, ,

DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD

“Do not love the world, nor anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him…The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God, lives forever.” (1 John 2:15, 17, NIV).

What is this “world” of which John speaks? It can surely not be the natural world since, at the time of creation, God declared it “good”.

There is a “world” within the world that represents an alien and unseen domain that is superimposed on the good earth God created. The Apostle Paul called it “the dominion of darkness” (Colossians 1:13) over which the devil, “the god of this age,” (2 Corinthians 4:4), presides, and blinds the minds of those who do not believe..

Why should believers not love the world?

Firstly, the values of the world are opposed to God’s values. The world espouses, applauds and panders to the cravings of sinful man. Those who live comfortably in the present world system are nurtured in self-centredness, self-will and self-gratification. 

We live in a world that is drunk on entertainment, promoting values that titillate the senses; its value system is based on situation ethics – it is right as long as it feels right regardless of who gets hurt in the process. There are no absolute standards of right and wrong in the world because God has been written out of the text.

Secondly, selfish desire is the engine that drives the machine. Media advertising, entertainment, provocative fashion, music, literature, all fire the basest desires of fallen human nature and then go in for the kill. 

Thirdly, greed and ambition are the prime motivators in this system. The whole world worships at the shrine of “mammon”, professions that were once the expression of compassion; nursing, medicine, law, education, are now classified as “business”. Relationships flounder on the rocks of greed, mercy bows to the mighty dollar and people unashamedly climb on the heads of others to get to the top.

There is a frenzied purpose behind this “dominion of darkness” – to kill, steal and destroy because the devil knows his time is short.

John’s sober counsel is, “Do not love the world”, and there is a very good reason for this.

These values belong to a dominion that is doomed to destruction. The writer to the Hebrews warns that everything that can be shaken, will be shaken, and only that which is eternal will remain. There is a kingdom whose values express the eternal nature of God, love, goodness, and truth, which will remain when the dominion of darkness passes away. Since these are two opposing kingdoms, to love the world is to repudiate all connection with the Father.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire”.” Hebrews 12:28, NIV).

Those who are glued to this world system will be part of the trash that will be disposed of in the lake of fire. So, do not love the world, if you do, you will go down with it.

GOD’S KINDNESS CAUSES US TO CHANGE

Christian life

GOD’S KINDNESS CAUSES US TO CHANGE

“Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance.” Romans 2:4

I am intrigued by the “upside down” way in which God deals with people. When He wants to draw us to Himself, He hides. When He wants us to listen to Him, He whispers, and when He wants to change us, He showers His goodness on us.

Jacob is a case in point. He was an unsavoury character – “deceiver” was his name. After cheating his twin brother out of his inheritance and his father’s blessing as the firstborn, he ran for his life. For some reason which God does not explain, He chose Jacob to be the one in Messiah’s line.

But Jacob was an unlikely candidate. How was God going to shape him into a worthy patriarch of the Jewish nation? Before anything else, Jacob needed a good talking to because of his bad behaviour. Exhausted from his long journey, he put his head on a rock and went to sleep. He had a strange dream; a ladder reaching up into the sky with angels ascending and descending on it and the Lord Himself standing above it. In his dream God spoke to him – not a word of reproach or rebuke, never a threat of punishment.

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” Jacob could not believe his ears; he who needed to be faced with his wickedness, was hearing gracious words of comfort, promise and blessing. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” (Genesis 28:13,15).

Jacob was probably more ashamed of what he had done because of God’s kindness than he would have been had he received a sharp rebuke.

Perhaps we can paraphrase the Apostle Paul’s comment this way, “It is God’s kindness to us that causes us to change our minds about Him.” Why do we need to change our minds? Is it not because our opinion of God is sometimes far from what the Scriptures reveal about Him? When Moses asked God to show Him His glory, God responded, “I will cause all my goodness to pass before you.”

God wants us to know how good He is. He showers His goodness on us so that we can change our minds about Him. He wants us to recognise His goodness, celebrate His goodness and honour Him for His goodness. He wants us to respond to His goodness by reflecting it in the way we relate to others.

How do you treat God’s kindness? Paul warned, “Don’t treat God’s kindness with contempt.” Ingratitude is the most subtle way to treat God’s kindness with scorn, as though it were worth nothing. Ingratitude sets our way towards disaster. God is good. Let’s acknowledge His goodness…always.