Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Battle Begins

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THE BATTLE BEGINS

“The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.’ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute Him. In His defence Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too, am working.'” John 5:13-17 (NIV).

The battle royal has begun, the oldest and fiercest battle in the world, the war between religion and truth.

Satan’s modus operandi is to ensnare people through deception to believe his lies which take many forms, so that he can control them through fear. Religion is one of his most potent lies — whatever form religion takes — that people are able to reach their god through their own efforts.

The Pharisees’ god was a demanding disciplinarian who could only be appeased through strict obedience to his rules (to which their rabbis had added a whole lot more to be on the safe side) and through the shedding of much animal blood. The Sabbath was a very important part of their rule-keeping ritual and they were incensed when anyone “broke” any of their prohibitions.

When Jesus healed the paralysed man on the Sabbath and instructed him to carry his sleeping mat, they found themselves up against an implacable enemy. Jesus refused to back down and compromise the truth that the Sabbath was a gift from a loving Father to allow them to rest, and not another day for them to try to appease Him by keeping rules.

God’s commandments were never intended to be restrictive, making life burdensome and unpleasant. He was regulating the lives of a group of people who only knew slavery and the abuses they had suffered at the hands of their cruel Egyptian masters. He had to teach them to be human again. He also had to teach them the meaning and consequences of sin and holiness so that they could show the world what their God was like.

God’s “Law” was a marriage covenant, setting the boundaries within which they would flourish in their relationship with their “husband”. He wanted them to live in union with Him so that they could carry out their task of having dominion over the created order under His authority as He intended from the beginning. The Hebrew word “torah” means “teaching”, not “law” as in dictatorial restrictions. God was teaching His people how to live again.

God wanted them to be a family of sons and daughters, living in harmony with Him and with one another, but they had made it into a slave-master religion, ruled by fear, not love. David was one of a very few of God’s people who really understood His intention and got past the rigmarole of rules and ritual to an intimate father-son relationship.

The strict rule-keeping of the Pharisees closed their hearts to the suffering of the fellow beings which angered Jesus as much as His rule-breaking angered them. God was not so callous as to ignore the needs of people and animals when they happened on the Sabbath. If an animal fell into a pit, they could not leave it there until the next day just because it was the Sabbath. They were to rescue it regardless.

Jesus was no less concerned about suffering people. When their need came to His attention, He did what was necessary to get them out of their “pit” but the Pharisees reacted against Him because He made God too “nice”.

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees was to inform them that, although God rested on the Sabbath, He was still working. That sounds a bit contradictory, doesn’t it? God rested from His creative activity but He is fully involved in the work of re-creation. Man messed everything up and God is busy putting things right again. Jesus was also involved by His mission and ministry on earth. The cross would be the defining moment, providing the motivation and the power to reconcile people to God and to set them on the new way to restoration and wholeness.

The Pharisees neither understood not die they want to understand. They preferred their way because they had status and power. They rejected the possibility of a new status, sons of God, and a new power to overcome sin and become imitators of God as dearly loved children. It was their choice.

What’s yours?

How Many Bricks?

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HOW MANY BRICKS 

“The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’

“But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ‘So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’ “John 5:9-11 (NIV)

The Sabbath — a hot issue for the Pharisees, but why? Anyone who violated the Sabbath got them going. Was it because it was the one thing they could control? Breaking the Sabbath was an outward violation of the law and they could come down hard on the culprit to show him who was boss.

However, to them Sabbath-breaking wasn’t about “breaking” the fourth commandment as much as it was about contravening their petty laws which were added to the fourth commandment as their interpretation of God’s law. The fourth commandment was about keeping the Sabbath, not breaking it, and it all depended on what was meant by “keeping” the Sabbath!

In order to understand the Sabbath, we have to go back to when and where this commandment originated. It was part of God’s marriage covenant with them at Sinai when they came out of Egypt. Why was it necessary for God to give His people an instruction like this? Was it to put restrictions on them? No, it was to set them free.

The only life the Hebrews knew in Egypt was a life of slavery. Seven days a week they made bricks. Their value for their masters lay in what they could produce. God sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt and everything Egypt stood for. Without an instruction like that, they would have gone on thinking that their only worth to God lay in what they could achieve or produce and not in who they were.

They had to be reprogrammed to realize that their work did not make them who they were. They were of worth to God because He had created them in His image to be a reflection of Himself, not only for His own sake but also to train them to treat one another with dignity and respect.

When God’s work of creation was complete, He rested but He did not sit back, fold His arms and do nothing. He supervised what He had created to ensure that everything functioned together in perfect harmony. He wanted these newly-freed slaves to remember that it was He who set up the Sabbath as a legitimate day of rest and it was the Egyptians who had contradicted His instruction.

For the Jews the Sabbath was intended to be a gift from God to set them free from viewing themselves in terms of what they could produce, and to give them time and opportunity to catch their breath, recover their strength and get ready for another six days of labour. They were to remember that God set it up for them because He had rested on the seventh day after His work was complete. It was a “sign” of His covenant with them set up at Mount Sinai.

“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.'” Exodus 31:13 (NIV).

The religious leaders had turned the Sabbath into a day of restrictions and religious rules so that they could monitor what the people were doing and jump on them when they stepped out of line. They prescribed what “work” was in such petty detail that the people were hardly able to move.

Jesus refused to be dictated to by these religious slave-drivers. He was not intimidated by their accusations and threats. Carrying a mat was not work; it was part of legitimate daily activity. He insisted that the Sabbath was a gift of God’s love, not prison bars to dehumanize them, and that He was the author of the Sabbath, not some human rule-makers who failed to understand why it was needed in the first place.

The Sabbath was a visual aid of a rest that went much deeper that just one day of not working. It was prophetic of a day which God called “today” in which we would rest form every effort to please God by our own “work”. When we enter into Jesus, we enter into His rest, because He satisfied God’s requirement for a perfect life and then died to pay the debt of our imperfection. He calls us to enter that rest by trusting in His finished work.

Have you entered His rest?

Don’t Interfere With Me!

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DON’T INTERFERE WITH ME

“Some time later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

“Now there was in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?'” John 5:1-6 (NIV).

What a question! Thirty-eight years lying paralysed and helpless on a mat and Jesus asks a question like that!

But Jesus knew the inner workings of this man better that we give Him credit for. Thirty eight years is a long enough time in which to get used to a certain way of life and to develop an attitude. To this man it was normal for him to lie there, day after day, to feel sorry for himself and to watch the world go by and not be a part of it. He had his “spot”, no doubt; he was probably give food by his family and, since he had long given up hope of a miraculous cure in the pool, he just lay there….and even stopped thinking.

Then a strange man came along and asked him an even stranger question, ‘Do you want to get well?’ On the surface it seems like a foolish and unnecessary question but wait a minute, to whom was Jesus talking? Not to someone who has ‘flu or even pneumonia but to a man who had been useless and helpless for a very long time. He had no dreams, no ambitions, nothing to look forward to, and nothing to plan. He just was.

What would it take for this man to have to start thinking and living again? He was used to his condition which required no effort at all. Who did this man think He was, coming here and trying to shake him out of his comfortable nothingness? What was the point of even trying to raise his hopes when it was all hopeless anyway?

“‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no-one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’” John 5:7 (NIV).

The man’s spontaneous response was to retreat into self-pity mode. ‘Sir, don’t you understand that I am useless, helpless and alone? No one cares enough about me to help me into the pool.’ He was so locked into his situation and mind-set that he did not hear Jesus’ question. He had a pat answer that played in his mind like a stuck record.

What would it take to rekindle hope in the heart of this man? Without hope, healing could never happen. Somehow Jesus had to get beyond his wall of despair and begin to help him to dream again.

A simple command changed everything for the paralysed man. “The Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” John 5:8, 9a (NIV).

There was no need for Jesus to enter into a counselling session with him. Having gauged his state of mind, He spoke a word and the man responded. There was authority in His command. Healing flowed through the man’s body as he acted.

Is that not the key that opens the door of hope for us too? When Jesus speaks a word to us it requires an act of faith to respond to His command before the miracle happens. Whatever miracle we are needing takes more than a passive “believing”; it needs the active “responding” to activate the power of God.

What is your state of mind? Have you lost hope? Has despair clouded your spiritual hearing and sight? Jesus is asking you, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ That’s the real issue. Do you want to be alive again or are you so comfortable in your misery that it has become the normal for you?

Jesus is saying to you today, ‘Get up!’

Convinced?

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CONVINCED? 

“While he was still on the way his servants met him with the news that the boy was living.

“When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’

“Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he and his whole household believed. This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.” John 4:51-54 (NIV).

The second sign? What was the first sign?

John obviously did not record the first sign. Was the first sign part of the “many other things” that Jesus did which were impossible to record because there were too many (John 21:25)? John was selective about the stories he recorded because he wrote with a specific purpose in mind. Each miracle he wrote about, which he called “signs”, ended with a response of faith in those who were involved in it or those who witnessed it.

Why did he call them “signs”? A sign points to something. The purpose of John’s gospel was to point to Jesus as the Son of God so that His people would believe in Him.  “Jesus performed many other signs, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in His name.” John 20:30, 31 (NIV).

John left his readers in no doubt as to the purpose of his book. It was not just an interesting and well-written story. It was about a man who was more than a man, the God-man, the Son of God and the one chosen and anointed by the Father to represent and reveal Him to the world so that the facts would speak for themselves of who He was.

The sick boy’s father believed that Jesus could heal his son and acted on His instruction, ‘Go home. Your son will live.’ Jesus did not need to be physically present to heal his son. The confirmation came when he learned that the miracle happened at the exact moment when Jesus had spoken the words, ‘you son will live.’

Why was this another sign? To what did it point? Jesus made claims beginning with “I AM” which incensed His enemies because they recognised how outrageous they were if they were not true. Since they had already decided that He was a blasphemer and refused to weigh up the evidence, every time He said, ‘I AM’ was another nail in His coffin.

But, while they refused to be convinced, there were those who responded with simple faith to the miracles that were a witness to whom He said He was.

In the Jewish legal system, there had to be two or three witnesses in a court of law for an accusation to be valid. When the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy, He called His witnesses — John bore witness to Him, the Father bore witness to Him and His miracles were signs to point to the validity of His claims.

His first miracle at the wedding in Cana in Galilee bore witness to His claim to be the source of the new wine of the Spirit. His healing of the dying boy in Capernaum spoke of His power to give new life to those who are dead in their sin. On both occasions Jesus did nothing more than speak the word and the miracle happened. John’s introduction to Jesus in the first sentence of His gospel was, “In the beginning was the Word…”

As the story of Jesus unfolds, John gathers evidence and piles on witness after witness to show his readers the absolute authenticity of Jesus’ words…miracles…responses…all point to the same thing; this man, Jesus, is none other than the Messiah, the Son of God. But still, the Jews in the main rejected Him. Why? It was their choice.

What’s yours?

 

 

The Power Of Words

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THE POWER OF WORDS

 “After two days He left for Galilee. (Now Jesus Himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country). When He arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all He had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival. for they had also been there.

“Once more He visited Cana in Galilee where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to Him and begged Him to come and heal his son who was close to death.

“‘Unless you people see signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ‘you will never believe.’ The royal official said, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’ 

‘Go,’ Jesus replied, ‘your son will live.’ The man took Jesus at His word and departed.” John 4:43-50 (NIV).

Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans in Sychar. What must it have been like for His disciples? Were they still so wrapped up in their prejudice that they spent an uncomfortable two days, champing at the bit to get out of there, or were they so enthralled with the teaching of Jesus that they forget where they were? Most definitely the former, I think. They were still their old Jewish male selves and probably couldn’t wait to put Samaria behind them!

They must have breathed a sigh of relief when they finally put their feet back on Galilean soil, back to friends and family and familiar territory to take a break from their hectic schedule. But not for long. They were no sooner back in Cana than there was someone clamouring for Jesus’ attention.

John described him as a “royal official”. Was he someone from Caesar’s household or was he of Herod’s clan? John doesn’t tell us. We only know that he was someone important in social circles but that didn’t make him immune from potential tragedy in his family. His son was dying and he had no-one to turn to in his anxiety…until Jesus arrived in Cana.

Jesus could do nothing without it being broadcast around the country. He was the current sensation in Galilee. People who had been at the Passover were buzzing with news about Him. He was the “homeboy” who was making waves wherever He went and they loved it, for now.

The stricken family pricked up their ears when they heard He was back. The father wasted no time in setting off from Capernaum to Cana. He wouldn’t even risk sending a servant to enlist Jesus’ help. When he arrived in Cana and found Jesus, his earnest entreaty received an uncharacteristic rebuff from Him. ‘All you people are looking for are signs and wonders to boost your faith. You want what I can do, not me.’

The frantic father brushed Jesus’ words aside. His errand was too urgent to engage in a discussion. ‘Please,’ he begged, ‘come and heal my son before he dies.’ Jesus was satisfied that the man’s request for help was genuine and not another ploy to get Him to do a miracle to entertain the crowds. He did not even need to be there in Capernaum to heal the official’s son. ‘God,’ He said, ‘your son will live.’

This man’s faith in Jesus was tested to the limit. Jesus did not respond to his plea, ‘Come down and heal my son.’ There was no need for His physical presence to do the miracle. His word was enough and the royal official knew that. He understood how authority worked, and he recognised Jesus’ authority in the unseen realm. He set off home with complete confidence in Jesus’ spoken word.

What will it take for us who claim to believe in Jesus to have that kind of confidence in His word? His promises, printed in a book, have no less authority to do what He has said than the words He spoke to that desperate father that day.

Do you believe that?