Monthly Archives: April 2016

What A Prayer!

April 6, 2016Christian LifeJesus' joy, protected by the Father's name, revealed, the power of the Word, they have obeyed your wordLuella Campbell

WHAT A PRAYER!

What was the kernel of Jesus’ prayer for His disciples? One had already fallen away – on his way to sell his rabbi out for a few pieces of silver? Have you noticed that Jesus excluded Judas from His prayer? Judas’s mind was already made up. Jesus made no urgent request for the Father to stop him or for the Holy Spirit to convict him. It had to be and in the sovereignty of God He would blend every circumstance into His plan of redemption, even the free will of Judas who chose to betray his Master.

I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave then to me and they have obeyed your word. (John 17: 6)

What an insight into the heart of Jesus! The Father had given Him twelve men as a sacred trust. It was His task to impart the Father’s Word to them until they had grasped, embraced and obeyed that Word. Jesus could not leave them alone in this world until He was sure that His task of training them to be His disciples was complete. From the moment He finally left them, their role would change. No longer would they simply be His disciples. They would be, like Him, true sons of the Father.

Verse 6 can also be translated:

I have revealed your name to those you gave me out of the world.

What was the significance of this declaration? The Lord revealed Himself to His covenant people by many names; Elohim – the Mighty One; El Elyon – the Most High God; El Shaddai – the one who nourishes; Adonai – the Master; El Olam – the everlasting God; Yahweh – the one who is; and the many facets of Yahweh – provider, shepherd, healer, righteousness, peace, banner, sanctifier, Lord of hosts and the Lord who is there.

But there was one name by which He was not known until Jesus came – the name, Father. Jesus came to reveal that name by being the perfect Son. It was that name He made known to His disciples and it was to that name that He entrusted them because He knew that God, as the perfect Father, would always be with them, vigilant and caring like no earthly father could ever be.

Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I have given them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They know with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. (John 17: 7-8)

But wait a minute! What are you saying, Jesus? You are speaking as though the disciples had it all together. We know very well that they were an imperfect lot; they didn’t have a very good track record, and the events of the next few hours would show them up for what they really were – cowards and deserters. They had failed to learn their lessons and they fell apart when the crunch came. Jesus had warned them many times of the coming events, but they dismissed His words as of no consequence. How could He speak of them to the Father in this way?

Jesus has already shown us, time after time, that He saw people not as they were but as they would be through the work of the Holy Spirit in them. He spoke of His disciples as though they were already perfected because He had full confidence in the Holy Spirit to complete in them what He, Jesus, had begun.

But He was also realistic. The process by which they would reach maturity was fraught with danger. There was a threefold enemy they had to battle – the world, the flesh and the devil. They needed the supernatural defence and protection of the Father to arrive at their destination. Jesus was fully aware of this and He prayed for them.

Threefold protection

Protected by the power of the Father’s name

I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17: 9-11)

Theirs was a shared responsibility. What belonged to the Father also belonged to the Son. Jesus was soon to leave them. He would no longer be with the disciples to sort out their squabbles and keep them together as a band of His followers. They had the potential to lapse into their old, selfish and self-centred ways, ignoring the priceless love and unity that Jesus fostered among them and which set them apart as His disciples.

Jesus would now entrust to the Father those whom the Father had entrusted to Him. It would be the Father’s responsibility to guard them against the ravages of their ungodly old natures, the lure of the world and temptations of the devil. Jesus’s prayer was not about physical safety. That was not His priority. It was far more important to Him that God’s supernatural power at work in them would mould them together as one with one another and with the Father since unity was the supreme hallmark of the Godhead.

Jesus had been in harmony with the Father from the beginning, never failing to receive His instructions from Him and carrying them out with meticulous obedience. He expected no less from His disciples but, without the Father’s intervention through the Holy Spirit, there was every possibility that they would fail in their basic relationship with Him and with one another.

What was His prayer for them? “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name . . .” God’s name was far more than a handle by which He was known. The very name of God was powerful. Jesus would have been aware of the words of Proverbs 18: 10:

The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

To call on the name of the Lord was to invoke everything that He was. Jesus entrusted them to the name of the Father.

While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. (John 17: 12)

Jesus lost one. Not even He was able to save Judas from the consequences of his own choices. He had to let him go, knowing that the Father would work everything out perfectly to fulfil His purpose to offer salvation to the whole world through the death of His Son. Judas had a part to play, an unsavoury set of choices which would doom him to eternal loss, but even that was woven into God’s plan of redemption.

Protected by the power of Jesus’s joy

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. (John 17: 13)

The disciples were facing the most terrifying experience of their lives. Not only were they about to witness the execution of their Master at the hands of the Roman government, but they could also possibly be implicated in the charges against Him. And Jesus spoke about them being filled with joy? His joy? What kind of joy would fill the heart of a man who was about to be crucified? This sounds crazy!

It is crazy if we look at it from a human perspective. But Jesus never viewed life in the same way as we do. The writer to the Hebrews understood Him.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the throne of God. (Heb. 12: 2)

What was disaster at that moment would be viewed with the full measure of His joy when they saw the big picture. The suffering of the cross was the process. Redemption was the goal. In the days to come the disciples would follow their Master down the pathway of suffering but, like Him they would learn to fix their eyes on the goal. The suffering was temporary – the goal eternal. Although Paul was not part of the Twelve, as an apostle he also learned the lesson and could write:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is sees, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4: 16-18)

Jesus’s joy will immunise us from the effects of pain and sorrow. His joy will condition us for the future when we can put behind us the effects of Adam’s sin on the world and focus on what is to come. This was His legacy to His disciples and to those who follow in their footsteps, bearing witness to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit within.

People with this kind of mind-set are invincible. If they are hated, persecuted and even killed, they are protected by an indestructible joy because it is anchored in an indestructible hope founded on the victory Jesus won at the cross.

Protected by the power of God’s Word

I have given them your Word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself so that they may be truly sanctified. (John 17: 14-19)

The original Greek word ponos (meaning “anguish”) and its derivative poneros (here translated “evil one”) does not refer to the evil one but to the anguish that comes from the influence and effect of that which is evil. What is Jesus saying? His prayer has two possible meanings; either that the Father protect them from the anguish caused by the evil people of the world, or the pain the disciples would bring on themselves if they lived outside of the protection of God’s Word.

The second interpretation is more likely because Jesus has already prayed that they would be fortified against suffering by the power of His joy. People might inflict suffering on them as they did on Him, but the joy of knowing the outcome would fortify them against emotional pain and enable them to be overcomers.

Paul knew this joy when he wrote:

No, in all these things (trouble, hardship, persecution, nakedness, danger or sword – verse 35b) we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that (nothing – author’s note) will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8: 37, 39)

Jesus understood that the most potent enemy man has is within himself. The only way the disciples would be protected from the suffering they could bring on themselves was to follow Jesus by walking in the light of God’s Word.

They had already received God’s Word as Jesus had faithfully given it to them. It was up to them now to live by that Word so they could be set free from consequences of sin as they walked in the truth. Jesus had shown them the way. He had faithfully taught them how to be true sons by living by the spirit of Torah, by being gracious and forgiving and extending mercy to all who needed it.

They had chosen to walk in God’s way, and with that choice came the inevitable clash of light and darkness. How easy it would be for them to falter when the heat was on! Only as they remained true to the Word, fastened their eyes on the goal and not on their circumstances, and allowed the truth to set them apart from the world, would they enjoy the power of God’s Word to protect them from the ravages of their old sinful nature.

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

Jesus Prayed For His Disciples

April 4, 2016Christian LifeFather's business, glorify your Son, I have revealed your name, the name FatherLuella Campbell

JESUS PRAYED FOR HIS DISCIPLES

Jesus’ final act of love for His disciples was to pray for them before He left them. How blessed we are to have a record of His prayer and to glean from His words the depth of His love for them and His confidence in the Father that they would not fail Him or waste all the effort He put into them to become His true talmidim!

In this prayer Jesus summed up His entire life’s work and His attitude towards the most important people in His life, His Father and His followers.

Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you. For you granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17: 1b -5)

Why did Jesus pray for Himself first? He took nothing for granted. Is this a sample of His daily prayers as He fellowshipped with the Father late at night and in the early hours of the morning? He was on earth on the Father’s business. He could not afford to miss a cue or to mess up on any assignment. His Father’s glory took precedence over everything else. It was always uppermost in His mind and, because they were one, when the Father glorified Him, He reflected that glory straight back to the Father.

In our journey with Jesus, we have discovered that God’s glory is supremely revealed in the mercy He showed to undeserving people. Jesus was the Father’s representative, always extending the Father’s mercy to those who needed Him most. As He showed mercy, so the Father’s heart was revealed to His people who had badly misunderstood Him through those who falsely represented Him. Whenever He extended mercy to a suffering soul, Jesus was not only revealing His own nature but also the nature of the Father, glorifying Him by revealing His own glory wherever He went.

Jesus was facing an ordeal no person in all of history before Him had ever faced. Yes, people had suffered. People have always suffered, from the moment sin had entered into the world, but no one has ever suffered in the way that Jesus was about to suffer. He needed the Holy Spirit’s strength to endure the agony of a death He did not deserve so that the glory He reflected would be the pure light of God’s glory. His glory and the glory of the Father were inseparably linked together.

Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you. (John 17: 1b)

And so Jesus prayed, not at this point to return to the glory He had with the Father but that He would endure His suffering and death in such a way that the glory of God would be reflected in Him every step of the way. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane that the battle raged and was won – so fierce that bloody sweat oozed from His pores. He made His surrender then, remaining in perfect unity with the Father and perfectly fulfilling the Father’s will.

What was the kernel of His prayer for His disciples? One had already fallen away – on his way to sell his rabbi out for a few pieces of silver? Have you noticed that Jesus excluded Judas from His prayer? Judas’s mind was already made up. Jesus made no urgent request for the Father to stop him or for the Holy Spirit to convict him. It had to be and in the sovereignty of God He would blend every circumstance into His plan of redemption, even the free will of Judas who chose to betray his Master.

I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave then to me and they have obeyed your word. (John 17: 6)

Verse 6 can also be translated:

I have revealed your name to those you gave me out of the world.

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

Jesus And His Enemies

April 2, 2016Christian Lifehypocrites, love your enemies, self-righteous, the word the judge, truthLuella Campbell

JESUS AND HIS ENEMIES

If Jesus loved the down-and-outs like that, what about His enemies? When we read the gospels, it seems that He had it in for them. He took every opportunity to tell them off in public and to make them squirm and look like fools. Did He tell His disciples one thing and do the opposite? He was big on “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you. Don’t take revenge. Let God avenge the wrong they do to you.” But He mercilessly exposed the wicked hearts of the religious leaders. How loving was that?

We have to concede that Jesus was always guided by the truth. When He collided with the Pharisees and the religious leaders, what was His motive? What was the difference between the “sinners” and the Pharisees? Need!

Jesus did not have to tell the “sick” ones how sick they were. They knew it. Just like a medical doctor whose job is to prescribe treatment for the sick, not condemn the patient for his condition, it was not Jesus’s role to beat on those who knew they were sick. They flocked to Him because He had treatment for their diseases, both physical and spiritual. They hung on His words because He supplied answers for their need.

The religious ones, on the other hand, were so full of their own self-righteousness that they didn’t need Jesus or the message He came to bring. They were quite satisfied with the status quo, thank you very much, and even hated Him for showing up their shallowness, emptiness and hypocrisy. They needed to hear the diagnosis, whether they wanted it or not because, unless they understood how deathly sick they were, they would die without even trying to find a cure.

Jesus revealed His love for them in the very truth He told them which they refused to hear. Once He had told them the truth, it was up to them what they did with it. If they chose not to respond, their guilt was theirs on Judgment Day when they had to give an account of what they did with their lives.

Surely, speaking the truth is the most loving thing a person can do, regardless of whether the other person wants to hear it or not, or will respond or not. The responsibility becomes his when the words have been spoken.

This is where attitude and motive come in. What was Jesus’s attitude? His very words and tone conveyed anger. Why was He angry? Was it right for Him to be angry? Anger is not sinful if it directed at the right object and for the right reasons. Jesus’s anger was not selfish. He had nothing personal to defend. His anger was directed at those who misled the people they were supposed to be teaching the truth.

The whole of Matt. 23 is an outburst of anger against the Pharisees for misrepresenting God and His Word and for increasing the load of rules and rituals on the people and then judging them for failing while they basked in their hypocritical self-righteousness. Righteous anger has a redemptive purpose if it is heeded, but brings judgment if it is ignored. It was Jesus’s anger that eventually took Him to the cross because he never gave up on exposing those who opposed Him.

What was His motive? Once again it was the truth. He wanted them to hear and to respond to the truth. If they refused, it was on their own heads.

As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. (John 12: 47-48)

Jesus’s words of accusation were never vindictive or directed towards settling a personal grudge. He was fighting for justice for those who were wronged by the attitude and behaviour of the Pharisees.

His exasperation with those who refused to listen to Him culminated in an outburst of tears.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,’ (Matt 23: 37-39)

Is that not the expression of love?

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

Jesus And The Common People

April 1, 2016Christian Lifecommon people, holiness not repulsive, Jesus did not judge, loved them unconditionallyLuella Campbell

JESUS AND THE COMMON PEOPLE

Jesus had a special and intimate relationship with His disciples. He had lived and walked with them for three years. It was understandable that He should love them and crave their friendship and fellowship because it was to them that He would entrust the success of His mission. Imagine that!

It was to these twelve fallible human beings – and one of them would turn traitor – that He would hand over the task of representing Him to a hostile world. They would have to be like Him, love like Him, forgive like Him, act like Him and speak like Him to a world that hated and rejected Him and killed Him for showing them what God was like. They would be treated with no less venom than He was.

He passionately loved His disciples, but what of the common people? What did He feel about them?

Brennan Manning tells the story of an elderly Dutch professor who was one of thirteen children. As a child, he overheard a neighbour asking his father which of his children was his favourite. Which one did he love the most? His father’s response startled the little boy listening in.

“That’s easy,” his father replied. “Sure there’s one I love more than all the others. That’s Mary, the twelve-year-old. She just got braces on her teeth and feels so awkward and embarrassed that she won’t go out of the house any more. Oh, but you asked about my favourite. That’s my twenty-three-year-old, Peter. His fiancée just broke their engagement, and he is desolate . . . But I guess of all the kids . . . ‘and his father went on mentioning each of his thirteen children by name. The professor ended his story by saying, “What I learned was that the one my father loved the most was the one who needed him the most at that time.”

(Brennan Manning – The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus – Ch. 1, p 28)).

And that’s the way Jesus loved the people. He loved the ones the most who needed Him the most.

He responded with the mercy to the ones who cried for mercy. He had compassion on the crowd because He saw them as harassed and helpless, as sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9: 36). He fed them in the wilderness when they were hungry after three days without food. He condemned the religious leaders for placing burdens on them too heavy to carry.

He ate with the outcasts of society in spite of the criticism He faced from the “righteous” ones. Eating together had a special significance for people of the Middle East. You never ate with anyone whom you considered to be your enemy or with whom you were out of fellowship. Jesus was sending a clear message to the religious ones. “I have no axe to grind with the tax collectors and prostitutes.” That really rattled their cages!

On one occasion, Jesus had graciously accepted the invitation to a meal from a Pharisee – Simon by name. During the meal a woman with a questionable reputation slipped in and fell down in front of Him, weeping. Her scalding tears fell on His feet which she tenderly wiped with her unbraided hair, smearing apart the dust and grime which should have been bathed away by Simon’s servant as a gesture of courtesy for an honoured guest.

Simon looked on in disgust. He was outraged by this intrusion and Jesus’s response. How could a man who claimed to be a prophet allow her to do this? Didn’t He know who she was?

How clear had Simon’s message been to Jesus! “I have invited you to eat with me so that I can look good. But I have withheld the common courtesies so that you will get my message. I am not in fellowship with you.”

Jesus smartly put him in his place. With one of His straight-shooting parables, He unmasked the hypocrite. How obvious was Jesus’s message back to him! It didn’t matter to Him how Simon treated Him and what he meant by his pointed omissions. With one of His simple stories He ripped the mask off Simon’s face and exposed his hypocrisy to all the guests at the meal.

Simon had made it clear that he was not in fellowship with Jesus. But this woman! She had shown her love by giving to Him from her own body and treasure the common courtesies withheld by Simon. She, not Simon, enjoyed His forgiveness. She, not Simon, knew what it was to love Him. Simon was held prisoner by his prejudice, but she was free from her sin and guilt and enjoyed the peace of God which nothing could take from her.

Jesus was never fazed by the so-called “unclean” people – lepers, diseased and disabled people; everyone was an opportunity to show them the love of God. He even touched and raised the dead! He embraced lepers, those who had not felt human skin in years, and made them clean. Never did He accuse or condemn. He spoke healing, peace and hope into them and loved them unconditionally.

He forgave sinners, much to the fury of the Pharisees. What right had He to forgive sins? Every right in the world because He was the lamb to God who was slain from the foundation of the world. He forgave a paralytic without his even asking Him. He even made the witnesses go away and forgave an adulteress when she should have been stoned, because His yoke was mercy, not judgment.

His holiness was not hypocritical and repulsive like the “piety” of the religious ones. People were drawn to Him like moths to a candle. They did not fear Him; they flocked around Him. Why? Because they felt His love, not His disapproval, no matter how vile they were.

Once again I quote from Brennan Manning. He tells the story of Dominique, a French priest who belonged to the community of the Little Brothers of Jesus. At the age of fifty-four he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

“With the community’s permission he moved to a poor neighbourhood in Paris and took a job as a night watchman at a factory. Returning home every morning at 8 am, he would go directly to the little park across the street where he lived and sit down on a wooden bench. Hanging around the park were marginal people – drifters, winos, “has-beens”, dirty old men who ogled the girls passing by.

“Dominique never criticised, scolded or reprimanded them. He laughed, told stories, shared his candy, and accepted them just as they were. From living so long out of the inner sanctuary, he gave off a peace, a serene sense of self-possession and a hospitality of heart that caused cynical young men and defeated old men to gravitate to him like bacon towards eggs. His simple witness lay in accepting others as they were, without questions and allowing them to make themselves at home in his heart. Dominique was the most non-judgmental person I have ever known. He loved with the heart of Jesus Christ.”

Isn’t that the secret of the rabbi’s heart – total acceptance with no conditions because “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4: 8)?

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

Ebenezer Family Church

HE IS RISEN!

Monthly Archives: April 2016

What A Prayer!

Jesus Prayed For His Disciples

Jesus And His Enemies

Jesus And The Common People

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