Tag Archives: revealed

You’ve Got To Hand It To Him!

Bible Study, , ,

YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO HIM! 

“‘I have brought you glory on earth by finishing 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.

“‘I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They are yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.

“‘For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.” John 17:4-8 NIV.

With what calm assurance Jesus could speak to His Father of His submission and obedience! How could He do that? From our perspective His work was far from done. He listened to the Father and did what the Father told Him to do. That’s it! This is how a true son should be.

Jesuscame from the Father with a specific task to perform. Contrary to the many ideas people have about His mission, He revealed in His prayer the one reason why He came — to reveal the Father.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3 NIV.

In the Old Testament the Son revealed the nature of the Father in His dealings with His people. He spoke to individuals directly on many occasions through His appearances as the angel of the Lord; to Abraham when He came to tell him of Isaac’s birth and the destruction of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and when He stopped him from sacrificing his son on Mount Moriah; to Moses at the burning bush; to Gideon in the wine-press; to Isaiah in the temple, and to many more.

Jesus has many titles but the one specific and appropriate to the Apostle John’s record of His life is “the Word.” In Hebrew thought, the word is a manifestation of God in another form. John saw Jesus as God’s spoken word to the world in visible from. Through Him God spoke and the words He spoke were a sacred deposit in the lives of those to whom they were given.

The Father gave the gift of twelve men to Jesus, men who belonged to Him because they were a fragment of His chosen people. Jesus viewed them as a sacred trust to whom He was to give the treasure of God’s words, placed within their spirits as seed where they would grow, mature and bear fruit as these men believed and did what the words instructed them to do under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had spend a whole night in prayer before He chose twelve men out of the many who followed Him at the start of His public ministry. When we look at them, we would think that He made some rather poor choices! But they were the ones the Father had given to Him and they were the ones with the potential to continue His mission to the world.

It is impossible for us to grasp the significance of these eleven rough, unshaped “diamonds” the Father had entrusted to Him! At this point they were uncomprehending, frightened and confused individuals, but Jesus had such confidence in His Spirit that He could view them as believing, obedient disciples, filled with God’s word and fully equipped to carry on Jesus’ mission in the world — to reveal the true nature of the Father to both Jew and Gentile.

Jesus’ prayer was not begging and pleading but giving thanks and expressing His trust in the Father that He would do in them through the Holy Spirit all that He intended when He chose them to be Jesus’ disciples. What an encouragement to us who feel so inadequate for the tasks entrusted to us! Jesus assures us that union with Him is the key to fruitfulness.

“Apart from me you can do nothing,” He said but, “We can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength.”

Honour The Honour

Bible Study, , ,

HONOUR THE HONOUR! 

“At that Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. ’I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

“‘I’ve been given it all by my Father! Only the Father knows who the Son is and only the Son knows who the Father is. The Son can introduce the Father to anyone He wants to.’

“Then He turned in a private aside to His disciples, ‘Fortunate the eyes that see what you’re seeing! There are plenty of prophets and kings who would have given their right arm to see what you are seeing but never got so much as a glimpse; to hear what you are hearing but never got so much as a whisper.'” Luke 10:21-24 (The Message).

I wonder whether the disciples ever recognised how privileged they were!

Over a period of thousands of years the prophets had spoken of a time when God’s Messiah would come. Perhaps they did not clearly understand the reason for His coming, especially since each one had only a tiny piece of the puzzle. Peter wrote about this in his first letter, perhaps remembering the words of Jesus spoken here and realising with hindsight what He was getting at.

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glory that was to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, Even angels long to look into these things.” 1 Peter 1:10-13 (NIV).

The Twelve, and now this bigger group of seventy, were standing on the threshold of a new era, not only in their own history but also in the history of the world. Their exclusiveness was about to give way to a revelation of God’s love and mercy to all mankind that they had not even fully appreciated.

It’s no wonder Jesus was exuberant though He knew full well what lay ahead for Him and them before His worldwide mission would be fulfilled. Of course He knew the Father! He was one with the Father, in essence, nature and purpose. Before He left the Father’s realm and willingly laid aside His rights as God, He fully participated in the power and majesty of the Godhead.

He introduced them to the Father just by them being around Him, although it took a while for them to realise that. “‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?'” John 14:9-10a (NIV).

It was Jesus’ strategy to reveal Himself and His ways to those who were uncluttered with religion and theology. He bypassed the ones who were “qualified” through book learning, passed on by the ones who thought they were qualified, in favour of the simple ones who would take the truth the Holy Spirit revealed at face value.

Learning has value if it does not close one’s mind to the ministry of the greatest teacher of all, the Holy Spirit who is in residence in His temples. We, who are the temples of the Holy Spirit, have the author of the Book within us. We have an even greater privilege than the disciples because we have the advantage of access to the whole Bible and the revelation of many thousands who have recorded their insights into the Word through the Holy Spirit.

How much do you honour this honour?

Stone Blind!

Christian Life, , ,

STONE BLIND!

“His companions stood there dumbstruck – they could hear the sound, but couldn’t see anyone – while Saul, picking himself up off the ground, found himself stone blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. He continued blind for three days. He ate nothing, drank nothing.” Acts 9:7-9 (The Message).

We tend to think of Paul’s “Damascus” experience as the moment when he had a blinding revelation of Jesus, lying on the ground and hearing a voice so real that his companions heard it too. No doubt that was the beginning but what about the three days of blindness and fasting in Damascus that must have elongated and consolidated that life-changing encounter with the Master.

In his letter to the Galatians, in the heat of the defence of his apostleship, he refers, possibly, to this interlude in his life, suspended in time, when the on-going revelation of Jesus forever cemented his conviction and his loyalty to Him as the Son of God. He lived in the aura of this moment for the rest of his life.

“I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preach is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man…” Galatians 1:11-16 (NIV).

What transpired in his heart in those three days of blindness and solitude? No-one dared go near him – at least none of the community of believers – because his reputation had preceded him. He was probably too stunned to say anything to anyone. Even those who hosted him, most likely people of his old persuasion, seeing his companions were like-minded and would have contacts in Damascus, would have left him alone.

How would they have understood why he was suddenly blind and why the fire of hatred against the believers had gone out? They must have either tiptoed around him or left him alone to process what had happened.

Perhaps he reflected on the bewildering experience of watching Stephen die at the hands of vicious murders, and witnessing such grace that it fired his antagonism even more. Now the Jesus whom Stephen saw in his dying moments was the Jesus who had spoken to him outside the city. So He was alive after all! He could no longer dispute that, and fighting against it was futile.

Whatever took place in his inner being during those days, Saul was convinced that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead and that everything He had preached and claimed was the truth. From now on he, Saul, soon to be renamed Paul, would as fearlessly proclaim His resurrection as he had fought against it in his ignorance.

Nothing less than a personal encounter with the risen Jesus could have ever convinced him of that truth. For three days and nights he marinated in that moment until it energised and influenced every waking minute of the rest of his life.

Without the resurrection our faith is as empty and ridiculous as any other religious fantasies taught and believed as fact. Jesus Christ of Nazareth claimed to be the Son of God and, to prove it, He said He would be crucified and, after three days, He would rise again. He said it and He did it! Whatever else He said, did and promised hinges on this.

In those three days of physical blindness, Saul came alive, and was able to “see” more clearly than he had even seen before. His eyes were opened and he saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.