Monthly Archives: April 2013

Jesus, Cornerstone

Christian Life, ,

JESUS, CORNERSTONE

“With that, Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, let loose: ‘Rulers and leaders of the people, if we have been brought to trial today for helping a sick man, put under investigation regarding this healing, I’ll be completely frank with you — we have nothing to hide. By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One you killed on a cross, the One God raised from the dead, by means of His name this man stands before you healthy and whole. Jesus is the ‘stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.’ Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been given or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one.'” Acts 4:8-12 (The Message).

Now the fat’s in the fire!

Peter could not have stated his case more clearly or thrown down the gauntlet more emphatically than he did at that moment! His words were loaded with truth, courage, boldness, conviction and challenge. He, a Galilean fisherman with no more training than three years with Jesus, was standing before the highest and most powerful religious court in the land and indicting them!

It’s history repeating itself. Only a few months before, Jesus had stood before the same court on trial for His life; yet He was the real judge and the court the accused. Now His followers were in the same position. It was religion going head-to-head with truth all over again.

Jesus had promised His disciples: ”’These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.'” Mark 16:17-18 (NIV).

The unseen kingdom of God had once again become visible through a miracle of God’s love and grace which had set a man free from the chains of disability. Everything imperfect is evidence that we are still living in captivity to a fallen world. Jesus brought with Him the good news that it would not remain like that forever. Little did these arrogant religious bullies realise that they had played a part in putting God’s plan into action by sentencing the innocent Son of God to death.

Wherever the apostles went, they heralded and demonstrated the power of this kingdom that would one day take over all the kingdoms of the world and restore all of creation to its original perfection. This would inevitably lead to a clash between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world over which the prince of this world presides for now.

Peter insisted that the ‘stone the builders rejected, was now the cornerstone’ of this building Jesus was working on – a spiritual temple built out of living stones, every person who trusted in Him for salvation, not in the puny and futile ‘righteousness’ the religious leaders were so proud of and so confident in.

The problem in our world is that the bold confidence in asserting this truth is interpreted as ‘religious intolerance’ and ‘hate speech’ and in some countries, even those that pride themselves on being ‘free’, is a reason for arrest and imprisonment. According to the opinion of the world, all religions are equal, and that may be true if we consider that Jesus did not come to found a new religion but to reveal the Father and to open the way for mankind to be reconciled to Him.

So we, who believe in Jesus, continue to assert that He is the cornerstone and that there is no other name by which we must be saved because He alone is the mirror image of God and the way to the Father. All over the world, governments and individuals are killing the messengers but they cannot kill the message because truth is indestructible.

Fearless Confidence

Prayer, , ,

FEARLESS CONFIDENCE

“A wonderful harmony in prayer: ‘Strong God, you made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. By the Holy Spirit you spoke through the mouth of your servant and our father, David.

“Why the big noise, nations?
Why the mean plots, people?
Earth’s leaders push for position,
Potentates meet for summit talks,
The God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers!”

For in fact, they did meet — Herod and Pontius Pilate with nations and peoples, even Israel itself — met in this very city to plot against your holy servant Jesus, the one you made Messiah, to carry out the plans you long ago set in motion.

“And now they’re at it again! Take care of their threats and give your servants fearless confidence in preaching you Message as you stretch out your hand to us in healings and miracles and wonders done in the name of your holy servant Jesus.'” Acts 4:24b-30 (The Message).

What a prayer! Doesn’t sound quite like the sort of prayer God’s people would pray today, does it? We would pray something like this: “O God, we are under attack! The devil is attacking us. We bind you, Satan, in the name of Jesus. We take authority over you. You have no power over us so take your hands off us. O God, please get us out of this. In the name of Jesus, amen.”

Prayer is a window into our hearts. When people pray together, they get to know one another pretty well. Compare our kind of praying with the prayer of those early disciples. We pray out of despair. Our focus is more often on the problem than it is on God. We rehearse the problem and beg God to intervene to get us out of it.

Remember Joshua at Ai? He was whining at God because Israel had been defeated and some of their men killed. He thought it was God’s fault for not supporting them. God’s response? “Stop praying! Get up! Israel has sinned.”

There is something reciprocal about our prayers and God’s responses. Israel’s defeat was the result of Achan’s disobedience, and prayer was not the solution. The value of Joshua’s prayer lay in God’s response — stop praying and do something about the sin in the camp. Perhaps we need to heed the lesson when we are praying about situations in our own countries.

The believers in this incident had it right. They did not interpret persecution as Satan’s work against them. They viewed it as God’s opportunity to get more glory for Himself by showing His power against the backdrop of puny human opposition. The psalm they quoted contrasted the worst that human power can do with God’s response to the rebellion of men and nations. “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill…” Psalm 2:6 (NIV).

Their plea was not, “God, get them off our backs,” but “God, let’s do it even more.” What a spirit! They were less concerned about their own comfort and safety than they were about getting the job done. They knew that God was supporting them as they supported him in His intention to make His Son known.

We in the western world need to recapture the attitude of those first followers of Jesus who were so captivated by Him that they disregarded themselves in their partnership with God to establish His rule on earth. They knew that God would take care of their business if they took care of His.

Deadly Presumption

Christian Life,

DEADLY PRESUMPTION

“Not more than three hours later his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in. Peter said, ‘Tell me, were you given this price for your field?’

‘”Yes.’ she said, ‘that price.’

“Peter responded, ‘What’s going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Master? The men who buried your husband are at the door and you’re next.’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

By this time the whole church and, in fact, everyone who heard these things had a healthy respect for God. They knew God was not to be trifled with.” Acts 5:7-11 (The Message).

What a pity that everyone, insiders and outsiders alike, does not have a healthy respect for God today. That was Paul’s diagnosis of the state of his world in the first century and it is equally true of the people in our world today.

The death of these two interlopers should carry a strong message for us in the church today. Just because God does not act as decisively against offenders in the church as He did then does not mean that He disregards the seriousness of this kind of behaviour.

There is something distasteful about the sin of presumption. In Psalm 50 the Holy Spirit, through David, said this: “These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you.” Ananias and Sapphira presumed that they could deceive the apostolic leadership and the whole church and get away with it. They did not reckon on the work of the Spirit we call “spiritual gifts”.

Those who are sensitive and in touch with the Holy Spirit’s voice within, and that includes every believer, not only the spiritual “elite”, have access to a range of “gifts” which are intended to enhance the smooth functioning of the church. These gifts include insight into things only the Holy Spirit can reveal, like the deception these two people were trying to pull off on the church.

These abilities to function in the realm of the supernatural are essential to minister help and hope to believers as well as to keep the people’s hearts open before God and to keep interlopers from polluting the fellowship. (Unfortunately some streams within the church have claimed these “gifts” as evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit (especially speaking in tongues) and elevated those who practise them to the level of “Spirit-filled” believers as though this is a qualification for God’s special attention).

Peter was quick to pick up in his spirit the deception Ananias and Sapphira were trying to pull off on the church. It takes confidence and courage to speak out against what they had connived to do. What if he were wrong? What if God had killed him for wrongly accusing them? The fact that they were caught out and taken out points to God’s concern for His own honour and Peter’s accurate discernment of their hearts.

Moses suffered the same consequences, though not as dramatically, for not upholding God’s honour in front of His people. When he displayed his irritation with the people for their unbelief and struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it, he disqualified himself from taking the people into the Promised Land. He was barred from completing the work he had begun and he died outside the land he so longed to enter.

What would God have to do today to purge the church of people who presume on the grace of God so that they do what they like and think that they will get away with it? When the church of the Lord Jesus returns to living in the fear of the Lord, perhaps the world will begin to take the church more seriously.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10 (NIV).

Companions of Jesus

Bible Study, , ,

COMPANIONS OF JESUS

“They couldn’t take their eyes off them — Peter and John standing there so confident, so sure of themselves! Their fascination deepened when they realised these two men were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal education. They recognised them as companions of Jesus, but with the man right before them, seeing him standing there so upright — so healed! what could they say against that.” Acts 4:13 (The Message)

Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose the guys He did to be His disciples? The other rabbis of His day went to the Beth Talmid, the “rabbi school”, to look for suitable followers, men who were already schooled in the Scriptures whom they could hone in their teachings and in their ways – their “yoke”, as it was called.

Jesus went to the lake and chose fishermen, tax collectors and political zealots, among others, men who had failed the entrance exam into “rabbi school”. These men had a lot less to unlearn than those who were being thoroughly schooled in the doctrines and practices of the very men who opposed Jesus and finally killed Him.

There was a very good reason for Jesus rejecting the learned ones — and Luke tells us why through the observation of the religious leaders as quoted above. Let’s have a look at what they saw in Peter and John.

1. They were confident and self-assured. Not arrogant, not bigoted, not dogmatic — but confident in the objective fact that Jesus was alive and they had seen Him and been with Him for forty days after His resurrection.

They didn’t need book learning to experience this kind of confidence. They had the presence of Jesus in them just as though He were with them in person. This was even better because the Holy Spirit in them was their strength, wisdom and guide every single moment.

2. They had no training in Scripture and no formal education. That was a bonus because they had a lot less misinformation to unlearn and prejudice to overcome than the “educated” ones. How much better it was for Jesus to write on a clean page than to rub out and start again.

That doesn’t mean that they did not have stuff to unlearn. One of their biggest issues was the expectation that Jesus had come to restore Israel’s political fortunes. They expected Him to evict the Romans and set up a restored Davidic kingdom. Their constant bickering was about the pecking order. Who was going to be at the top in this new government led by Jesus?

3. They were companions of Jesus. That’s a loaded statement. They had spent three years following Him, learning His ways, soaking up His teaching, practising His actions and attitudes. The religious hierarchy had tried to eradicate Him because He made things too hot for them. He repeatedly exposed their phoniness and they were losing face with the ordinary people they were supposed to be leading.

Now Jesus, whom they thought was safely dead and buried, had popped up again, multiplied in His followers. His Spirit was in them and they were doing what He had done. The religious rulers were not pleased. They were angry and frustrated. How were they going to put a lid on this thing?

What’s more, the movement was dangerous. These people were claiming and proclaiming that Jesus, not Caesar, was Lord, that He was Saviour and Prince of Peace — all the arrogant claims emanating from Rome. The implications were unthinkable. Instead of restoring the kingdom to Israel, they were in danger of being decimated by Roman military might.

Rome would not distinguish between the Jewish religion they tolerated and this new upstart mob that was claiming allegiance to a God who had come to earth, died and risen again and was now threatening everything that Rome stood for.

Companions of Jesus! What an indictment! That fact was responsible for the crippled man’s healing and they had no argument against that!

By What Power?

Bible Study, , ,

BY WHAT POWER?

“The next day a meeting was called in Jerusalem. The rulers, religious leaders, religion scholars, Annas the Chief Priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander — everybody who was anybody was there. They stood Peter and John in the middle of the room and grilled them: ‘Who put you in charge here? What business do you have doing this?'” Acts 4:5-7 (The Message).

Get the picture? All the religious ‘who’s who’ in Jerusalem, in full regalia and in all their blustering authority, confront the apostles who have done something they did not authorise. Man-power and God-power go head to head. Which one is God going to back?

We must remember, according to the teaching of the Apostles Paul and Peter, that the governing authorities are ordained by God and delegated by Him to maintain order in society. Therefore, no matter what they do, God backs the government because He put them there. But, of course, He also holds them accountable for what they do because He makes the rules and, if they do not uphold and obey them, they are culpable.

But now Jesus has put a spanner in the works. He came to re-establish God’s kingdom on earth. This kingdom takes precedence over the kingdoms of the world. He commissioned His disciples to announce this kingdom and invite people to enter it by way of faith in Him through His sacrificial death. This kingdom is one of righteousness, joy, peace and power which they had just demonstrated by healing a crippled man.

The kingdom of God is not about maintaining order. It’s about restoring everything that is broken. Broken bodies, broken spirits, broken lives, broken relationships, broken hopes, broken dreams, everything broken by the Fall stands in line for the power of God to restore. What happened to the crippled beggar and what happens to millions of people around the world is a foretaste of the final and complete restoration of all things when Jesus returns to finish what He began.

Who does God back in this conflict? The apostles, of course! The religious hierarchy threw all the power they had at the apostles but it could never match the power of God. It was His determined purpose to set up His kingdom in the hearts of men. He was revealing the true nature of the King by healing hearts and bodies. No threats, intimidation, persecution or imprisonment could stop His emissaries from delivering the message to whoever would receive it.

Even if they lost their lives in the process, they had nothing to lose. Death held no fear for them because Jesus had conquered death and delivered them from its terror, as Paul said, “‘for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.'” Philippians 2:21 (NIV).

What these poor benighted religious leaders did not realise was that the apostles were actually supporting them in their role as governing authorities. Every new member of God’s kingdom signed on to be law-abiding citizens of the state as well as obedient children of God. They should have been rejoicing and supporting the apostles instead of opposing them and shutting them up in jail.

Such is the nature of deception! What the religious leaders wanted was not true allegiance to God but the power to control the hearts and consciences of people; and they were losing it. They were determined to control at any price – even resorting to murder again as they had tried to get rid of Jesus. Would they never learn!

To try to oppose God is as foolish as trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. Not even the most powerful civil authority or religious force can prevent God from achieving His goal. Hitler tried and lost. Communism tried and failed.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,
and He will reign for ever and ever.”
Revelation 14:15b (NIV),
is the triumphant cry of heaven.eligious force