Monthly Archives: December 2013

The Sandwich Man

Bible Study, , , ,

THE SANDWICH MAN

 “‘Doom, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had been given half the chances given you, they’d have been on their knees long ago, repenting and crying for mercy. Tyre and Sidon will have it easy on Judgment Day, compared to you.

‘And you, Capernaum! Do you think you’re about to be promoted to heaven? Think again. You’re on a mudslide to hell!

‘The one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me.'” Luke 10:13-16 (The Message).

It’s funny how people shrug off warnings like these as the raving of a religious fanatic!

Some 500 odd years before Jesus spoke these words, the prophet Ezekiel warned that the Phoenician city of Tyre, built on an island in the Mediterranean Sea, would disappear into the sea because of its wickedness. Alexander the Great did the unthinkable. When Tyre, thinking it was unconquerable, resisted his armies, he built a causeway from the mainland to the island and took the city, reducing it to rubble.

Although Tyre and Sidon were pagan cities, they had many links with Israel in the Old Testament era. Jesus visited the area and healed a persistent woman’s daughter who was plagued by demons. These cities did not have the opportunities to repent as did the towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida did who were visited by the very Son of God Himself.

Jesus was not sandwich man, wearing a board that said, “Prepare to meet thy doom!” He expressed His concern over their hardness of heart. Had Tyre and Sidon received the same opportunity as they had been given, they would have grabbed it and turned away from their wickedness. How tough it would be for the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum which Jesus frequented, healing the sick and preaching the good news of God’s kingdom on many occasions, when they stood in the blinding light of God’s holiness to realise that they has wasted their opportunity to receive Jesus and live God’s way!

Even as you read these words, there is a reaction in your own heart as there is in mine. We can either read them as history or literature, or we can take seriously what the people of these towns did not do. Why did Jesus spend time with them? He had a passionate desire to reintroduce them to the God they had either forgotten or missed in the rubble of their religion. He wanted them to know and love His Father and return to a life of submission to Him in order to experience real life.

We are so conditioned by the persistent bombardment of the entertainment world to be spectators that we are inclined to take nothing seriously. We can watch the most evil and perverse programmes and feel nothing. Every form of wickedness is portrayed on the screen to entertain us so that we become so hardened by crime, violence, and sexual perversion that we are no longer horrified and outraged by them. Even so-called Christian television has become a form of spiritual entertainment.

Jesus’ words of warning should alert us to the reality of the most pernicious disease that afflicts people both inside and outside of the church — no fear of God! What does that mean? Put in very simplistic terms, we have the same attitude as the cities and towns Jesus warned — we don’t take Him seriously.

Let’s make a resolve today, if we consider ourselves to be His disciples, that we will read what Jesus said as though He really meant it and respond with faith and obedience to His Word. What difference would it make, what changes would happen to our lives, to our homes, to our work places and to our communities if we did that?

If we really love Him, we cannot afford not to.

The Rabbi’s Blessing

Bible Study, , , ,

THE RABBI’S BLESSING

“‘When you enter a town and are not received, go out in the street and say, ‘The only thing we got from you is the dirt on out feet, and we’re giving it back. Did you have any idea that God’s kingdom was right on your doorstep?’ Sodom will have it better on Judgment Day than the town that rejects you.'” Luke 10:10-12 (The Message).

This is a bit vindictive, isn’t it? Does it sound like Jesus? What is He getting at?

“The rabbi’s dust” is a euphemism for the rabbi’s blessing. It was the disciples’ duty to walk behind Him; to follow Him, literally and figuratively. The one who walked close behind Him picked up dust thrown up by His sandals. It was an honour for a disciple to “wear” his rabbi’s dust because it indicated that he walked closest to Him.

To shake off his rabbi’s dust was to scatter the blessing of his rabbi on others. Would Jesus really have advocated that His disciples thumb their noses at people who refused to receive them? He always had an attitude of compassion towards everyone, even those who rejected Him. He knew that they would be the losers. He wept over Jerusalem for not recognising the time of His visit to them.

It would be out of character for Jesus to instruct His disciples to call down curses on a family or community that rejected Him. He had stopped James and John from wanting to incinerate a Samaritan village for refusing Him hospitality. Why would His attitude to any other community be different? If we read this story through the spectacles of Jesus’ redemptive mission, what He was instructing His disciples was not to retaliate but to leave behind the rabbi’s blessing, even if the people did not receive them.

Another lesson His followers had to learn was that they were representatives of their Master. Whatever they said or did was on His behalf. He would not want them to act out of character with Him or His Father. However people treated them was what they thought of Him but that did not deter Him from wanting to bless them. After all, did He not say that His Father pours out rain on the just and the unjust?

What is God’s wrath all about then? Is He not angry with wicked people, and does He not plan to take vengeance on those who refuse to believe the gospel? God’s punishment always takes the form of the consequences people call down on their own heads when they refuse to heed His Word. Jesus said that it was not He but His Word that would judge them in the end (John 12:47, 48).

God’s wrath, rightly understood is His passionate grief over wasted potential. He has a good plan for every person and, when they choose their own way and make a mess of their lives it causes Him sorrow because of what they could have been. His plan is that every one of us should be a member of His forever family, to live with Him and to share all the benefits of a perfect world in fellowship with a living and generous Father.

He wants us to be like Him so that we can mirror His splendour (Isaiah 61:3), enjoy the freedom of the children of God and live in the safety and provision of His love. Why should we want to run away from that and set up a life of our own which can only bring us disappointment and emptiness?

God has proved His love for us by giving His own Son as a sacrifice of atonement for our sin, so that we can be reconciled to Him and return to the family as beloved sons and daughters. Jesus paid the debt of sin for the whole world and He is not mad with anyone any more. Can you get hold of that?

It is never His intention to take vengeance on anyone for not receiving the good news of His kingdom. The consequences of our choices are enough to contend with. His passion is that we respond to His invitation and enjoy the blessing and benefit of being members of His family.

With arms wide open He says, ‘Come home.’

 

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Twenty Two

Devotion, , , ,

DAY TWENTY TWO

 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the very nature God,

did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped,

but made Himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death –

even death on a cross !

Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place

and gave Him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

This poem gives us a picture of Jesus full-face; both God and man.  Imagine God, creator, owner and ruler of the universe, choosing to become nobody so that you and I can become somebody!  Get a hold of that!

 

 

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Twenty One

Devotion, , , ,

DAY TWENTY ONE

 Then the disciples went back to their home,

but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb

and saw two angels in white

seated where Jesus’ body had been,

one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken away my Lord,” she said,

“and I don’t know where they have put Him.”

At this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,

but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” He said, “why are you crying?

Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking He was the gardener she said,

“Sir, if you have carried Him away,

tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned towards Him and cried out in Aramaic,

“Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20:10-16

 Can you imagine this moment! Mary’s eyes are swollen with crying.  She does not recognise Jesus.  She pours out her grief to the “gardener” and then hears one word, “Mary!” and her world turns the right way up again.

 

 

You Are The Message!

Bible Study, , , ,

YOU ARE THE MESSAGE

“When you enter a home, greet the family, ‘Peace.’ If your greeting is received, then it’s a good place to stay. But if it’s not received, take it back and get out. Don’t impose yourself.

“Stay at one home, taking your meals there, for a worker deserves three square meals. Don’t move from house to house looking for the best cook in town.

When you enter a town and are received, eat what they set before you, heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!'” Luke 10:5-9 (The Message).

As one reads Jesus’ instructions over and over, something begins to emerge about His strategy for infiltrating a community with the good news of God’s kingdom. The first thing one notices is His respect for people’s right to choose. He didn’t insist that His disciples bulldoze their way in and force the message on people whether they wanted to listen or not. Everyone had the right to choose whether they accepted or rejected the messengers and their message.

‘Test the water,’ He said. How were they to do that? They were to do it in the disposition of Messiah. ‘Say hello,’ He said but, at the same time, their “hello” conveyed something far deeper than just a causal “hi”. “Shalom”, translated “peace” was both a greeting and a prayer. Shalom is the essence of what God desires and does for those who believe in Him and entrust their lives to Him. His work of restoration produces an inner peace and a wholeness that He intended everyone to experience from the beginning when He created mankind.

If a family responded positively to their greeting, they were to stay there and share the life of that family for the duration of their stay. It was part of Hebrew culture to show hospitality to strangers. It was accepted that a friendly greeting would indicate an open door and a family’s generous attitude towards their guests.

Should the greeting not be returned, they were to move on without making a fuss. It was everyone’s right to choose, and they were not to react ungraciously by retaliating when they were refused hospitality.

They were to receive what was given to them as graciously as their hosts gave and not move on if they were not satisfied with the quality of the hospitality. Being in a home gave them opportunity to interact with the family and minister to their needs, including healing their sick and sharing the good news of God’s kingdom.

The overall impression one gets from Jesus’ instruction is that He was advocating personal interaction with the people of that community. He was not about setting up a big healing and preaching campaign, inviting people to a gathering in the village square. It was about spending time in people’s homes and entering into the family’s life for a while, infiltrating the community with more than just preaching. He was always about being the message, not just telling it.

One cannot dissociate the message from the messenger. Jesus’ way is so unlike the ways of the world, and especially the ways of religion which tries to impose and force its ideas on people whether they like to or not. The message and the messenger are inseparable. It was the message personified in the life of the messenger that would persuade people of the truth, not force it on reluctant or sceptical hearers.

Jesus illustrated the kingdom’s power to infiltrate and transform society in His story of the women who mixed yeast into a lump of dough. He didn’t tell His disciples to leave it to the suitably qualified “professionals” to preach the gospel. He sent all His followers out to spread the good news everywhere that God’s way is the best way to live.

It’s by both life and lip that God’s kingdom comes alive in a community and brings it closer to God’s original idea of a family living together in “shalom” — harmony and wholeness.

Are you doing that?