Daily Archives: October 8, 2013

Everyone, Everywhere

Bible Study, , ,

EVERYONE EVERYWHERE

 “When the sun went down, everyone who had anyone sick with some ailment or other brought them to Him. One by one He placed His hands on them and healed them. Demons left in droves, screaming, ‘Son of God! You’re the Son of God!’ But He shut them up, refusing to let them speak because they knew too much, knew Him to be the Messiah.” Luke 4:40-41 (The Message).

After the initial excitement of this new prophet who said and did out-of-this-world things, they all settled into a routine. They dutifully waited until after sunset, when the Sabbath was over, before they brought their ailing friends and relatives to Him for a touch and a word.

Don’t you love the “one by one” bit? He didn’t run a mass healing campaign. ‘Everyone who is sick, come to the front. Now pray a healing prayer.’ He touched them, one by one. I can imagine that, in those few moments, when He placed His hand on a fevered brow, a diseased limb, or an aching belly, the word that He spoke was a tender expression of love, of kindness and reassurance. God was there and He was showing His people just how big His heart of compassion was for them.

Deep into the night they came, patiently waiting their turn for the Master’s touch, with a bubble of expectant excitement inside. They knew that tonight, when they put their heads down to sleep, they would be free of aches and pains and fever, and they would wake to a brand new day.

“He left the next day for open country. But the crowds went looking for Him and, when they found Him, clung to Him so He couldn’t go on. He told them, ‘don’t you realise that there are yet other villages where I have to tell the Message of God’s kingdom, that this is the work God sent me to do?’ Meanwhile He continued preaching in the meeting places of Galilee.” Luke 4:42-44 (The Message).

A strange way to respond to a successful healing campaign, wasn’t it? At the height of success and popularity, He goes missing! Leaves town! Escapes into the country! Was Jesus suffering from “burn out”? Already? His ministry had only just started and He couldn’t take the pace?

Far from it! He knew that His commission was far bigger than a local Capernaum success campaign. He had a message to deliver and work to do that extended over the entire nation, not just to a little pocket of people in Capernaum. Excited and happy as they were, He had to leave them and move on because others needed His message and His ministry.

So what was He actually doing? If He was not running a healing campaign, what was His purpose? Did He come to tell them that, if they accepted Him as Lord and Saviour, they would go to heaven when they died? Was that the sole purpose for His coming? The way the gospel is presented from many pulpits today, that might be what we think He came to do – to die on the cross so that we can go to heaven! Really!

Jesus was always about God’s kingdom. For too long the Liar and Usurper had held sway over the people and they were living with the result — emotional pain, physical distress, social and political upheaval. That was not God’s way. Jesus came to show and tell the real story about God’s rule. Get back under His rule, follow His way and things will be very different.

There was one major obstacle to becoming a part of His restoration plan — sin — the big barrier between God and man. But Jesus came to deal with that as well so that there would be nothing to stop people from returning to the Father and coming back under His rule — right in the heart of enemy territory.

But everyone needed to know, not just Nazareth — and they didn’t want to know — and Capernaum — and they couldn’t get enough. Everyone, everywhere, so they could choose.

You, too.

 

 

The World’s Most Heinous Crime!

Bible Study, , ,

THE WORLD’S MOST HEINOUS CRIME!

“‘I admit that I didn’t always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw the believers — I had no idea they were God’s people — into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.'” Acts 9-11 (The Message).

What a list of accomplishments to put on your CV, Paul! What a confession! Religious extremist! Fanatic! Murderer! Terrorist! Talk about a religious war! Paul could have been fighting the cause of any one of the world’s most prominent religions today. They all have the same intention — get rid of believers in Jesus; 165,000 Christians murdered every year. Why? What have they done? Put their faith in the Son of God who was raised from the dead? What kind of a crime is that? Why did he do it?

We have only two options — believe in the God who created us in His image or believe in a god we created in our image. How do we know the difference? By our fruit. We always become like the god we worship. If we worship a god we, or someone else, has created in our image, we reveal the nature of that god by our disposition and behaviour.

Paul thought that he was fighting for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but this God revealed Himself as gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faitfulness, full of mercy and forgiving sin (Exodus34:6). Does that look like the God he was representing in his murderous hatred of believers?

What was Paul’s problem? He was deceived. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV). There was nothing wrong with his zeal but everything wrong with what he believed.

Why did God not take him out for his actions against His people? He deserved to die there and then, didn’t he? I suspect that God saw beyond his fanatical persecution of Christians to a passionate desire to serve and please the God he thought he knew. That he went about it the wrong way was not the issue. That could be corrected. That he had a heart for God was a characteristic that could be honed into a loyal and faithful son of God and worshipper of Jesus.

A story in the Old Testament clearly illustrates this principle. Isaac, Abraham’s son, had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, it seems, was the more pleasant character. He was an outdoor man, a good hunter and a daddy’s boy. His brother, Jacob, like his name meaning “deceiver”, was a scheming, lying, twisted namby-pamby mommy’s boy.

But Esau had an inborn fault — he had no interest in spiritual things. He gave away his right as the firstborn just to fill his belly on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, Jacob coveted his brother’s position as the firstborn and the privileges and advantages that came with it. Through lies and deception he stole his brother’s birthright and the father’s blessing. For a good part of his life he lived by deceiving and being deceived.

But, from God’s perspective, Jacob’s thirst for spiritual realities was a characteristic He could work with, even though he went about it the wrong way. God moved him, slowly but surely, into the place where he was cornered, wanting to go home, but desperately afraid of Esau and the repercussions of his deception. In an all-night struggle with the Angel of the Lord, Jacob surrendered and he was changed, from “deceiver” to “prince with God.” The same zeal that drove him to lie and steal, now drove him to love and obey God.

God is looking for those who yearn for Him, though they may not know it. He will make Himself known to anyone who seeks Him with all his heart.