Monthly Archives: December 2013

Afraid Of What?

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AFRAID OF WHAT? 

“‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.

“‘Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.'” John 3:16-19 (NIV).

Strange that Jesus almost sounds as though He were a preacher preaching a sermon instead of the Son of God speaking about Himself — the simplest, most well-known and well-loved, yet profoundest words in the Bible!

These words are so simple that a child can understand them. “God loved the world so much that He gave His Son…”

Why did God give His Son? The world was in darkness. What is darkness? We’ve already spoken about John’s use of “darkness”. Adam’s choice to go it alone instead of submitting to God’s authority and doing life God’s way, brought the whole world into disrepair, messed up and falling apart. God had other plans for His creation, plans for everything, including people, to work together in perfect harmony with Him but instead, darkness…

The result was condemnation. God passed sentence on His creation; not just people but everything; the natural world and even the heavens come under the hammer — guilty, condemned and sentenced to death. We see the sad result everywhere.

But God had a solution — Jesus. He sent His Son to fix everything that was broken. How did He do that? He showed us what the Father is like and what a true son is like and then threw down the gauntlet to the devil, ‘Do your worst and I’ll take it. I’ll release my creation from the curse of their choice. Let’s see what darkness can do.’

Darkness did its worst but Jesus bounced back. There was no darkness in Him and darkness could not hold him captive. The Prince of Darkness did his worst through the darkness in people but it was not strong enough to snuff out the Light. When Jesus walked out of the tomb, darkness was overcome and He could offer pardon and peace to anyone who comes to Him.

No condemnation! That’s what Paul said. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 (NIV). They came to the Light, believed in the Light and shed their guilt, shame and fear — forever. God’s verdict is now, “Not guilty; cased dismissed.” Every case the devil brings to Him for judgment is thrown out of court. There is no case because the debt has already been paid.

But there is a peculiar twist to the tale — there are people who actually refuse to accept the verdict — not guilty — and prefer to carry on with the trial and accept a guilty verdict and the sentence that goes with it. Why? How can they be so perverse?

There is only one reason. They love their filthy, twisted, selfish, perverse lives so much that they would rather go to jail than come clean and be set free. It’s okay to enjoy your sin while you can and get away with it but you have to live with the consequences afterwards. That’s one of the problems. People deliberately ignore the “afterwards” bit.

Come on now, let’s be real. What keeps people in darkness? “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” John 3:20 (NIV). There it is! The oldest reason in the Book. Adam hid from God because he was afraid. People hide from God because they are afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of being found out. And when they are found out, they will be punished, so they think.

But wait a minute. Didn’t we say that Jesus has already been punished? No condemnation? So what’s the problem? They either don’t know or they don’t believe. “God so loved the world…” a love so big and so unfathomable that it sounds too good to be true. But it is true.

Listen to this one: “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love.”1 John 4:18 (NLT).

 

But there is also hope. “‘But whoever lives by the truth comes to the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.'” John 3:21, 22 (NIV).

History Or His Story?

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HISTORY OR HIS STORY? 

“‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ‘and do you not understand these things?’

“‘Very truly I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.'” John 3:9-15 (NIV).

Such familiar words that we can almost recite them from memory! But what do they mean?

Although Nicodemus was a prominent teacher in the ranks of the religion scholars and was familiar with the Word of God, it was obvious to Jesus that he did not understand the truths he was teaching. It had been so long since God has spoken and actively intervened in the affairs of His people that Nicodemus was essentially teaching history.

Jesus must have startled him by saying that, although He was also a rabbi, He wasn’t teaching history; He was teaching truth from experience. He was speaking about reality because He had been in the heavenly realm; He had come from there and was relating what He knew, hence He could speak with authority.

How does one move from history to experience? Once again John brings his readers back to the main theme of his gospel — believing in Jesus. Nicodemus had nothing more than sterile religion to pass on to his learners. He needed something much more than that to have access to the “heavenly things” of which Jesus spoke.

Eternal life is not just unending life somewhere out there when we die. It begins here and now with a transfer from the dimension of existence in a purely self-dominated and soulish way to a dimension of living in union with God, experiencing His presence and His power to live unselfishly for other people and to submit lovingly to His will and purpose.

How can this transfer happen? Jesus put it in a nutshell and in the imagery of what was familiar to Jewish readers — Moses and the snake. This was familiar history to the Jews and to the Gentiles who had embraced the Jewish religion. They knew about Moses and the snake.

During their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, the children of Israel were familiar with the inhabitants of the desert — the “nasties” of that kind of terrain. But God protected them from their deadly neighbours until they infuriated Him so much with their complaining and rebellion that He withdrew His protection and let the fiery serpents loose on them. Many of them perished from the poisonous bites until the people cried out in desperation.

God instructed Moses to fashion a model of a snake out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looked at the snake and trusted God for healing would be saved from the effects of the snake’s venom.

‘This, Nicodemus, is the key to understanding what I am telling you.’ The key to their healing lay in the condition and the promise — if they looked at the snake and believed what God had said, the miracle happened. They were rescued from death and given back their life.

Jesus would also be “lifted up” on a wooden stake for everyone to see, but not everyone would experience the life He promised. Only those who gazed at Him with faith in His promise would make that transfer from death to life. Something supernatural would take place in their spirits. They would literally “come alive” to God; they would have a spiritual awakening to a dimension of living they have never “seen”, a new life thrumming with God, everywhere.

That’s what changes history to His story, and our story.

Journey To Wholeness

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JOURNEY TO WHOLENESS 

“Jesus answered, ‘Flesh give birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.'”  John 3: 5-8 (NIV).

That’s it! It’s a mystery — a secret finally revealed.

Every other religion has a set of beliefs and a set of rules to which its devotees subscribe. Their origin is in the mind of man and the outcome is the best or worst that man can produce. The only authority religion has is force applied from the outside or persuasion based on lies. It cannot produce life or change a human being’s basic nature.

But Jesus, the Son of God, was sent from the Father to remove the barrier between Himself and His human offspring and to return the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Him and receive Him to restore what He intended us to be from the beginning.

This interaction between God and human beings through the Holy Spirit is very different from even the best of what religion or philosophy offers. Self-help is useless because it cannot provide the energy to effect anything but frustration and disappointment, or self-satisfaction if you think you’ve arrived!

Jesus explained to Nicodemus that the best that flesh can do is reproduce itself. What is “flesh”? It’s the nature we were born with — self-centred, selfish and self-seeking. I am the centre of my universe and everything revolves around me and is about me and for me. This attitude is the antithesis of everything that God is. It blocks my fellowship with Him and my understanding of Him and His ways.

I am caught up and locked into a way of thinking and a way of living that shuts me out of His felt presence and keeps me a prisoner to a life of greed, selfishness and self-destruction, and doomed to face God’s justice as a firstborn son “in Adam”. ‘If you want to be free of that mind-set,’ said Jesus, ‘you need a power outside of yourself to release you and give you a new nature so that you can begin again.’

It takes something far greater that “Seven Easy Steps to a New Life”. You can change your ways for a few days, or even weeks, but you will inevitably slip back into who you really are because you still have your unchanged, inborn, selfish nature that holds you in a vice-grip.

It was God’s original intention for human beings to live in union with Him so that they would experience the love, joy and peace that are the essence of who He is. Adam lost that when he chose to go his own way, and dragged all his offspring into lives of misery and chaos. As long as the flesh rules, that can never change.

Nicodemus recognized that there was something so radically different about Jesus that he had to find out what it was. ‘It’s the Holy Spirit,’ Jesus told him. When the Holy Spirit is welcomed by handing the reins back to God, He becomes fused to our spirit, bringing God into the picture once again. The old nature is still there but it is overshadowed by a new disposition, the very nature of God.

Change happens, not self-help change that lasts for a little while, but real, radical change because God, by His Spirit, is now in residence. ‘It’s as mysterious as the wind,’ Jesus said. ‘You can’t see the Holy Spirit, but you can see what He does.’ He changes the heart, the attitude, the disposition and the outcome is evident by the way we think and the way we treat people.

It happened wherever people responded to Jesus. Zaccheus is a good example. From a self-seeking and greedy tax-collector he became an honest and generous believer who put his money where his mouth was — literally! Jesus response was, ‘Today salvation has come to this house. Zaccheus has begun his journey to wholeness.’

Now that’s real change! Have you started your journey?

Justice Or Mercy?

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JUSTICE OR MERCY? 

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one can perform the signs you are doing if God were not with Him.’ Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’

‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!'” John 3:1-4 (NIV).

Now here’s an honest Pharisee, if ever there was one! At least he admitted, on behalf of his fellow Pharisees, that Jesus had come from God. I wonder what the others would have said had they heard him. Would they have flatly denied ever saying that, or even thinking it? Or was Nicodemus using the royal “we”?

Nicodemus was honest enough to show Jesus that he had weighed up the evidence and come to the conclusion that Jesus was demonstrating something far beyond the capabilities of ordinary people. Unlike his colleagues, however, he didn’t attribute Jesus’ power to Beelzebub; He connected the dots and came up with the conclusion that Jesus and God were doing this together.

What was Nicodemus getting at? In a roundabout way he was asking, ‘Jesus, we are both teachers. What have you got that I haven’t got?’ Perhaps he didn’t get an opportunity to ask his question. Perhaps Jesus cut him short to stop him rambling and get him on the right track.

Jesus’ response was surprising — no explanation, just a bold statement. ‘You’ll never get it, Nicodemus, unless you are born again.’ What did He mean? What is this ‘born again’ idea that Christians bandy about so freely without understanding its meaning?

Throughout the Bible we read that there was special significance in being the firstborn in a family. Firstborn sons, first of all, belonged to God and had to be redeemed by the payment of a sum of money to the high priest. Firstborn animals were sacrificed. Firstborns carried the responsibility for the rest of the family. They received justice for any of their siblings’ wrongdoing while the sibling received mercy.

We see this illustrated in the story of Joseph. It was Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn who refused to kill Joseph but suggested they throw him in a pit… He planned to rescue him from the pit and return him to his father because he would have had to bear the punishment had they killed Joseph.

Firstborn sons also received a double portion of their father’s inheritance. This was to compensate for their responsibility, for example, of marrying a brother’s widow to produce offspring for his dead brother.

The Bible makes it clear that Adam was God’s firstborn and got justice for his sin. Since we are all “in Adam” we also should receive justice for all our sin. However, Jesus is described as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Colossians 1:15 (NIV). Why is this so important? As God’s firstborn Son, Jesus received justice in order that we might receive mercy.

But I thought you said that in Adam we receive justice? True, but since we are “in Christ” we have received justice “in Him” because He died on our behalf. Now here’s the miracle. Jesus is also called “the last Adam” — second-born in God’s reckoning. Since we are “in Him” we received justice as firstborns but we also received mercy as second-borns! Isn’t that amazing? God is so precise and so just!

Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, ‘If you want to understand what is happening in the realm of the unseen — the kingdom of God — you need a spiritual rebirth from justice into mercy.’ No one can understand or receive God’s mercy until he is transferred from the realm of justice to the realm of mercy on which what God’s way of dealing with people is based. Because God’s justice has been satisfied once and for all through the cross, He deals with us all as second borns — mercy, mercy, mercy!

‘Nicodemus, do you understand that? If you want to experience God’s mercy, you need to be transferred from “in Adam” to “in Christ” and that takes a supernatural act of God. It will never make sense to you until that happens and it won’t happen until you believe that I am the Son of God and that my sacrifice paid your debt and offers you mercy.’

Wow! Isn’t that something! And it’s freely available for all!

He Knows All People

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HE KNOWS ALL PEOPLE 

“Now while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs He was performing and believed in His name. But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for He knew what was in each person.” John 2:23-25 (NIV).

One would think that Jesus would have been delighted with the success of His ministry. This was exactly what He wanted, wasn’t it?

But John makes a tongue-in-cheek comment about their response to Him. They trusted Him, but He didn’t trust them! Now there’s a problem! Jesus didn’t not respond to their faith as they expected. Is John saying that there was no work of God’s grace in them? That is drastic! Why not?

Firstly, they had not yet seen and heard enough of Jesus to make that commitment. Like the disciples, the Jews had an expectation of the Messiah that was not in keeping with His real identity and mission. They were expecting Him to get rid of their enemy, the Romans. He came to get rid of their real enemy, the devil, and to deal with sin and alienation from God, their Father and restore fellowship with Him.

Secondly, they were guilty of the most heinous of sins against God — self-seeking self-interest. Is that why John said that Jesus knew what was in man’s heart?

Of course Jesus knew! From the beginning of human history, when Adam chose to listen to the devil and defy God, man’s nature has been polluted with selfishness. He lost his God-awareness and became self-aware. He became the centre of his world, and everyone and everything else was to serve him, so he thought. He does everything to suit his own ends — hence war, greed, crime, divorce, promiscuity and every other evil you can think of.

The book of Job addresses this absolutely fundamental issue with regard to our relationship with God. Satan challenged the motive for Job’s righteousness. He accused him of being in it for what he could get out of it. ‘Take it all away and he’ll curse you,’ he sneered. ‘Okay,’ said God, ‘you can strip him of everything, but don’t touch his body.’

Satan let rip and in one day Job was stripped of all his possessions and even his family, yet his response was, “I was born naked and I’ll die naked. God gave and God has taken away. I still praise you, God!”

God said to Satan, ‘See, I told you Job is a righteous man.’ But Satan was not satisfied. ‘Just touch his body and see what happens,’ he challenged. ‘Go ahead,’ said God, ‘but don’t take his life.’ This time the devil did the worst he could think of without killing him.

Because of his terrible disease and the stench and disfigurement he suffered, Job put himself on the ash heap where he thought he belonged. From being a man of standing and influence in his community he had become trash. Because he was not given access to the behind-the-scenes exchange between God and Satan, he had no idea why God was treating him like this.

His so-called friends had the logical answer, ‘You must have sinned.’ Job denied doing wrong and turned to God for answers. God remained silent until Job had exhausted all his arguments, accusations and the defence of his integrity. When he had nothing more to say, God spoke. And did He speak! He gave Job the tongue-lashing of his life for daring to question Him.

But at the same time, God was pleased with Job. Why? Because, in spite of his suffering, he refused to give up on Him. ‘”Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him.’” Job 13; 15 (NIV). That’s all He needed to hear to confirm that Job’s faith was not in what God could do for him but in God Himself even if the worst happened.

In an environment of “prosperity” teaching, the “name-it-and-claim-it” movement and, even worse, “if things go wrong, you have sinned” philosophy, how many true believers are there in the church, to whom Jesus has entrusted Himself in response to their truly trusting Him even if He slay them? What a terrible insult to God that so many of His people are in it for gain, not for worship.

Are you?