Monthly Archives: November 2013

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Fourteen

Devotion, , ,

DAY FOURTEEN

 But He was pierced for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,

and by His wounds we were healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet He did not open His mouth;

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,

so He did not open His mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And who can speak of His descendants?

for He was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people He was stricken.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in His death,

though He had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Isaiah 53:5-9

These verses speak eloquently of a substitute.  Everything Jesus endured was not for Himself but for us.  What is amazing is that He was never a victim.  This is what He chose to do and He did it without flinching or pulling out when the suffering became too much.   He endured the cross because He loved the Father enough to do the Father’s will.  It was the Father who gave His Son and the Son who willingly obeyed the Father to rescue you and me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Lesson Learned

Bible Study, , ,

ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED

“When they came down off the mountain the next day, a big crowd was there to meet them. A man called from out of the crowd, ‘Please, please, Teacher, take a look at my son. He’s my only child. Suddenly he’s screaming, thrown into convulsions, his mouth foaming. And then it beats him black-and-blue before it leaves. I asked your disciples to deliver him but they couldn’t.'” Luke 9:37-40 (The Message).

This is strange. Not long before this, the disciples went out on a preaching tour, authorised by Jesus, and were very successful. They did everything He sent them to do including casting out demons. Why were they incapable of evicting this one?

The description of this demon’s vicious activity in the boy seems to indicate that it was a particularly nasty and tenacious spirit that had hold of him. It was not about to give way easily and made its intentions known. The disciples were obviously intimidated by its resistance and perhaps believed that it was more powerful than they were, and they gave up.

The boy’s father was relieved to see Jesus and wasted no time in pleading for His help. Jesus’ reaction to His disciples’ failure revealed His exasperation with them. They had been with Him long enough to know how to deal with the opposition from the dominion of darkness.

“Jesus said. ’What a generation! No sense of God! No focus in your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring your son here.'” Luke 9:41 (The Message).

Thisparaphrase captures the essence of the disciples’ failure and Jesus’ frustration. He perpetually lived in the environment of God’s presence. His God-awareness kept Him from being intimidated by apparently uncontrollable circumstances and enabled Him to restore to wholeness what the evil one was using to destroy people. Demons were part of the devil’s arsenal of destructive weapons against people whom they had overpowered but Jesus easily overpowered them because He, not the devil, is Lord.

Jesus knew that the power of God and the kingdom of God were greater than Satan’s power and in that awareness and environment He ordered demons to leave. The disciples, on the other hand, were yet to live in the mind-set of God’s presence and power. They had not yet grasped the authority that they had in Him.

“While he was coming, the demon slammed him to the ground and threw him into convulsions. Jesus stepped in, ordered the vile spirit gone, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. They all shook their heads in wonder, astonished at God’s greatness, God’s majestic greatness.” Luke 9:41-42 (The Message).

This demon was a show-off! He had to have his last fling before he left. But leave he had to, because he knew who had authority over him. In Mark’s version of the story, after this final thrashing, the boy seemed to be dead but Jesus had him up on his feet, healed and delivered, and handed him back to his relieved father.

The disciples were puzzled, according to Mark (Mark 9:28-29). Why did they have no power over this demon? Jesus’ reply is equally puzzling. The implication of His response seems to be that, before they could cast out the demon, they had to spend time in prayer. But that was not practical.

Prayer is essentially not about getting our needs met. Jesus said that that was the Father’s responsibility. Prayer is about developing a God-awareness that places us, like Jesus, in the environment of God’s presence and power.

Circumstances overwhelm us because they are more real to us than God. The more time we spend engaging with God and opening our spirits to His Spirit, the more real He becomes to us in the difficult circumstances of our lives. This is the essence of faith — and the outcome is God’s intervention to bring us a step closer to wholeness.

God is as real and powerful to us as we want Him to be.

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Thirteen

Devotion, ,

DAY THIRTEEN

 Who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,

nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered Him stricken by God,

smitten by Him and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:1-4

 What proof do we have of God’s love for us?  “Greater love has no-one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Read through this very familiar passage of Scripture again and again.  Jesus left the place where He was the darling and focus of all the attention of heaven to this – unknown, unrecognised, unappreciated, rejected, despised, scorned, humiliated and thrown away like a bit of garbage – and that by the very people He had created in His own image and for His glory.  Could He have stepped any lower?  And yet He did it for you and for me.  He absorbed all the blows that were meant for us so that we could walk free and be completely acceptable and accepted by God.  He was no “Mr Universe” or “Mr Sexy” as the world loves to categorise men. He was so ordinary that no-one recognised Him as God.  Even His miracles were misrepresented as the works of the devil.  For you and for me He became NOTHING.

Listen To Him

Bible Study, ,

LISTEN TO HIM

“Meanwhile, Peter and those with him were slumped over in sleep. When they came to, rubbing their eyes, they saw Jesus in His glory and the two men standing with Him. When Moses and Elijah had left, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He blurted this out without thinking.” Luke 9:32-33 (The Message).

Once again Peter, the blunderer, exposed the natural human reaction to a great moment of revelation in his life.

This experience was for them; it was to be a defining moment, convincing them once and for all that Jesus was the Messiah and binding them to Him in loyal love for the rest of their lives. What did Peter do? He wanted to set up a shrine to Jesus, Moses and Elijah!

He got it wrong on at least two counts. Firstly, Moses and Elijah were not on a par with Jesus. They were mere men; Jesus, the Son of God. Secondly, this was not about another religious experience to set up another memorial stone, as the children of Israel had done throughout their history. They never learned from their experiences but they kept making religious events out of them.

For the three disciples, this was another landmark on their journey towards getting to know Jesus as their rabbi, but much more than their rabbi. He was their Lord, the Son of God and Messiah. How else would they be convinced that He was who He said He was? Jesus was not interested in setting up another religious “festival” to add to the Christian “calendar”. Of what use would that be if this experience did not influence and change their lives?

Of what value is all the carry-on about Christmas, Easter and all the other highlights on the “Christian calendar” if it does not contribute to transformation into true disciples and sons and daughters of God? Over many weeks we have been meditating on who Jesus is and what He expects of us. We have learned that it was never His idea to set up another useless religion.

It grieves me to see what is done in His name when He NEVER told us to do it. Jesus does not want shrines and memorials, and church buildings, and fancy clothes, and chanting and rituals, all done “in His name” which out of character with who He is and what He wants.

He said, “Follow me!” What is He doing and where is He going? He still wants to reach out to the world, to heal the broken hearted and to restore everything that was broken through Adam. His message to the world is still “Follow me,” because He wants to take us to the Father.

“While he was babbling on like this, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them. As they found themselves buried in the cloud, they became deeply aware of God. Then there was a voice out of the cloud: ‘This is my Son, the Chosen! Listen to Him.’

“When the voice died away, they saw Jesus alone. They were speechless. And they continued speechless, said not one thing to anyone during those days, of what they had seen.”  Luke 9:34-36 (The Message).

It was the Father who put Peter in his place and corrected his cock-eyed thinking. No long explanations — just a terse instruction: “This is my Son; listen to Him.” Forget Moses and Elijah; they have served their purpose. It’s all about Jesus. It was then and still is now.

What if you and I made it our life’s purpose to follow Jesus — in our homes, in our work places, in our communities — being merciful, caring and generous instead of worshipping at our little shrines of experience and carrying on in our old selfish ways as though nothing had happened?

When you have “seen” Jesus, don’t set up a memorial. “Listen to Him.” That’s what it’s about.

It Had To Come Out

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IT HAD TO COME OUT!

“About eight days after saying this, He climbed the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John and James along. While He was in prayer, the appearance of His face changed and His clothes became blazing white. At once two men were there talking with Him. They turned out to be Moses and Elijah — and what a glorious appearance they made! They talked over His exodus, the one Jesus was about to complete in Jerusalem.” Luke 9:28-31 (The Message).

Exodus — a strange and unusual word to describe what Jesus was soon to accomplish in Jerusalem. This was obviously a reference to His death and resurrection, but why “exodus”? Luke is the only one of the gospel writers who used this word. Did he understand something the others hadn’t grasped?

This was a highly significant event. Why did it happen? Of what value would it have been had Jesus been alone on the mountain?

Let’s answer the second question first. Did Jesus need the affirmation of His Father? He had received the Father’s blessing at His baptism and, on the strength of that, He had launched into His public ministry, having passed the test of true son ship during His forty days in the wilderness. He had lived in close union with the Father and learned the lessons of obedience by obeying Him in every detail of His life. He knew He was loved and He lived out of that assurance. No, He did not need another affirmation of his identity as the Son.

It would seem that this was about the disciples; they needed this revelation of Jesus to cement two things in their minds, His identity and His mission. The appearance of Moses and Elijah and Peter’s reaction would help to put Him in perspective. Two of Israel’s most important and revered historical figures in company with Jesus?

It is clear that the disciples overheard the conversation — His exodus in Jerusalem. The exodus from Egypt, of course, was inseparably linked to Moses. Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt and into a covenant relationship with God. Elijah’s ministry was a powerful attempt to lead the people of the northern kingdom of Israel back to God out of slavery to idol-worship.

What was the meaning of Jesus’ exodus? Did it refer only to His departure from the world of humans back to the Father? The exodus from Egypt was a type of a greater deliverance — from slavery to sin and into a new covenant, sealed in His own blood, that was be a better covenant, based on better promises and sealed with a better sacrifice, guaranteeing a better hope.

This was an experience Peter and John never forgot and which helped to shape their conviction that Jesus was God’s Son and the promised Messiah. Peter wrote of this revelation: “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. He received honour and glory from the Father when the voice came from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain.” 2 Peter 1:16-18 (NIV).

John’s testimony is similar: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 (NIV).

It was imperative that these men, who were to testify to the world that Jesus was God’s Son, be so convinced in their hearts that they would be willing to give their lives for the truth they would proclaim. And they became eyewitnesses of something that no one else had ever seen.

We may not see the glory of Jesus in His visible form but with the eye of faith we have seen and believed. Have you?