Tag Archives: Word

Perfectly God!

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PERFECTLY GOD! 

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.'”)

“Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is the closest in relationship with the Father, has made Him known.” John 1:14-18 (NIV).

Don’t you love John’s positive declaration? No beating about the bush! In the most magnificent poetic language he could think of, he declared, no kidding, that Jesus is God! He didn’t even tell us how it happened. It happened — God, in the person of His Son, came to us — a man, yet so much more than a man, the God man, God in human flesh.

God the Father clothed His living Word, the Son, in a human body and sent Him to earth to live among His people in order to show them, through the life of a flesh-and-blood person, exactly what He is like because, ever since He met Moses at the burning bush in Arabia and called His people into covenant with Him at Mount Sinai, they just didn’t get it.

They wanted a god they could see and touch, so they made their own and worshipped what they had created out of their own imagination. And the gods they made were pretty awful!

And so God said, ‘If you want a god you can see, I’ll send you one — just like me — so that you can get a feel of the real thing!’ And when He came, they were so out of touch with the real God that they didn’t recognise Him. They were so used to their distorted, out-of-shape God who was a stickler for keeping impossible and unrealistic laws, and was thirsty for blood and punished people who sinned that they were uncomfortable with the One He came to reveal. He was too nice, too kind and too full of mercy — so they killed Him!

How can you be comfortable with someone who is full of grace and truth when you are full of laws and rituals and sacrifices and being so “holy” that you despise everyone who isn’t, especially despicable people like tax collectors and prostitutes? But, in spite of all that, He just kept on being kind to everyone and telling them the truth whether they believed it or not.

Moses…Jesus…the Law…grace and truth? Are they really opposites? How can they be when the instructions given at Mount Sinai on the best way to live, came from God. It’s just that the people didn’t really understand what it was all about. They were introduced to a life that would show all the nations around them what their God was really like based on the fact that there was a Lamb, already slain from before the foundation of the world, who had taken away their sin and healed the breach between them and their God.

The lambs they had to slaughter were just a reminder to them that all was well between them and God and that they were free to love one another…and the people who were not part of them because God loved them. They were spiritual babies and needed a daily reminder of God’s mercy, but they thought that their God wanted blood — a blood-thirsty God. They didn’t realise that the shedding of blood was for their benefit so that they would know they were forgiven.

When Jesus came, He showed them the real God, a God who wanted mercy, not sacrifice; a God who wanted them to be kind to one another, not judge and criticise one another for doing something good on the Sabbath or reaping a little bit of grain to eat when they were hungry. He showed them a God who forgave and didn’t hold grudges and most of all, a God who was real, through and through, and didn’t pretend to be one thing and do something else.

Jesus is qualified to show us the Father because He has always been with the Father and has the same nature as the Father. He is a “chip off the old block” as the saying goes. He is a perfect mirror image of the Father. When we look at Him, we see the Father because He is like God and He is God.

That’s what John wanted us to know. We can trust the Father because we can see Him in everything that Jesus said and everything He did.

The Gospel of John, Chapter 1 – Unity, Life, Light

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THE GOSPEL OF JOHN – CHAPTER ONE

UNITY, LIFE, LIGHT

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5 (NIV).

Have you ever read Genesis 1 and wondered where the light came from in days one to three when God only created the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day? Or perhaps you didn’t notice!

John’s gospel begins somewhat differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke. Like the book of Genesis, he begins with “In the beginning…” The beginning of what? Certainly not the beginning of God because He was already there in the beginning. And so was the Word.

Who was the Word, and why was He called “the Word”? According to Hebrew thought, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. So the Word can be written, as we have it in the Bible, or it can be a person; and that person was the second person of the Trinity who came in human form to speak to us about the Father and to show us what He is like.

The writer to the Hebrews put it like this: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He also made the universe. 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 1:1-3, NIV).

John tells us that the Word was with God in the beginning and that He was God. Does that sound like He, the Word, and God were two separate persons and yet one? He did what God did — He created everything. In Genesis 1 God created the universe through His word. He spoke and creation happened. But Jesus is the Word. Through Him it all came into being. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? What was John trying to tell us?

If Jesus and God were in it together, creating the universe by speaking it into being, then they must be two separate persons and yet, since they were both doing the God-thing — creating — then they must both be God. Two, yet one? Not one person but one in nature, one in essence, one in power, one in purpose — what the Bible calls echad — unity, not two Gods.

Here’s a simple illustration: God created Adam — one person. Then He took a piece of Adam and from it He fashioned Eve – two people. Then He brought them together in marriage and told them that they were to become one flesh — echad — the same word as the Hebrew creed, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…” — echad,  Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV). They were to be a visual aid of unity because they were to be a reflection of the image of God — one.

John’s next theme is life. Life is much more than just being physically alive. It is the kind of life that willingly does what it can to make the lives of others better. It reflects the nature of God, is generous and kind and in touch with God and responsive to His will.

Now John introduces another theme — light, which is closely connected to life. Our first reaction is to think of visible light but again, Hebrew thought was different. They would ask the question, “What does light do?” Light reveals, exposes, illuminates and enables us to see pictures. Darkness is the absence of light. Again, according to Hebrew thought, light is everything that causes creation to function in unity while darkness is everything that disrupts unity and causes life to unravel.

When Satan was thrown down to the earth because of his rebellion against God, he brought darkness to the planet, both physical and moral darkness. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep…” Genesis 1:2 (NIV).

Before God created the first human, the potential for him to be influenced by the evil one was already on the earth. It makes sense that God would not leave human beings to live in the environment of Satan’s influence without being able to choose to live in the light. So, according to John, God assigned the Second Person of the Trinity, who was the Word, to be present on earth by His Spirit to teach Adam and his descendants to live God’s way, which is to live in the light.

The Word was not only present and active in creation, He was also continuously active on the earth to influence His human creatures to love and obey Him and to live in fellowship with Him so that all of God’s creation could live in echad as a perfect reflection of their Creator.

That was God’s intention from the beginning but things went horribly wrong…

He Understood Faith

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HE UNDERSTOOD FAITH

“Jesus went with them. When He was still quite far from the house, the captain sent friends to tell Him, ‘Master, you don’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m not that good a person, you know. I’d be embarrassed for you to come to my house, even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well. I’m a man under orders; I also give orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’

“Taken aback, Jesus addressed the accompanying crowd, ‘I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust anywhere in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know about God and how He works.’ When the messengers got back home, they found the servant up and well.”  Luke 7:6-10 (The Message).

What an unusual man!

He was obviously a person of some authority who was used to giving orders and used to being obeyed. Twice in the story, he sent people to Jesus to carry messages for him. He dispatched a group of Jewish leaders to ask for help, and then he sent friends to tell Jesus that he did not expect Him to come to his home but just to give the command and his servant would be healed.

He recognised in Jesus a man who carried the same sort of authority over spiritual forces as he carried over his subordinates. Did that mean that he attributed his servant’s illness to dark powers in the unseen realm? We who are “enlightened” with scientific knowledge would pooh-pooh that idea because we have a better understanding of where diseases come from and why human bodies malfunction.

But what lies behind these causes of imperfections and suffering in the natural world? Was it not the deception of the devil in the beginning that led the first pair into disobedience and all its consequences? However this man perceived Jesus’ authority, he trusted Him enough to know that His word was to be obeyed in the unseen realm.

He was also a man who knew the Jews well enough to honour their scruples about hob-knobbing with Gentiles. He did not expect Jesus to enter his house because he was a despised Roman. It was enough for Jesus to use His authority over sickness to dismiss it from a distance.

To what did Jesus respond — to the man’s reluctance to invite Him into his home or to the expression of faith that revealed his understanding of authority?

It was undoubtedly the man’s grasp of the meaning of faith that caught His attention. Jesus was not bothered by the scruples of His fellow Jews. He touched sick people; He embraced “unclean” people; He handled dead people, and none of these violations of taboos ever affected Him. The sick were healed; unclean people were made clean and the dead lived at the sound of His voice.

He marvelled that a pagan Roman soldier had a better understanding of faith than His own people who had a history of faithlessness and disobedience from the beginning. It seems that Jesus’ response to the soldier’s request was one better than his expectation. Luke doesn’t tell us whether He even spoke to the sickness from afar. He only reports that when the messengers got back to the captain’s home, the servant was up and well.

There is nothing that pleases the Lord more than the confidence we have in Him that  doubts neither His ability nor His will to intervene when we cry for help. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 (NIV).

How can we have a faith like that? By soaking ourselves in God’s Word. “So faith comes by hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” Romans 10:17 (NLT).

Are you reading God’s Word? It’s the only way.

You Can’t Bend The Rules

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YOU CAN’T BEND THE RULES

“For the third test the devil took Him to Jerusalem and put Him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that “He has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone”?’

“‘Yes,’ said Jesus, ‘and it’s also written, “Don’t you dare tempt the Lord you God.”‘

“That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.” Luke 4:9-13 (The Message).

How stupid could he be? One thing the devil did not realise — he was not showing Jesus up. He was showing himself up! Did he really think that Jesus would fall for this one? After all, who made the rules?

But there is something more subtle in this test than trying to defy gravity. The devil was questioning the very foundation of Jesus’ authority. What God says is a manifestation of who God is. When He speaks, He places Himself under the authority of His own Word because He and His Word are one.

Before Jesus ever stepped out into public ministry, He had to settle this one. He was the “Word made flesh”; the living, breathing, acting embodiment of what God had spoken. “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He also made the universe.” Hebrews 1:1-2 (NIV).

Since it was through Jesus that God spoke the universe into existence, and all the laws by which the universe is held together and functions as a unit, Jesus was in perfect oneness with His own word. Did the devil really think that God would overturn His own word to save a foolish man from trying to defy gravity?

But there is something even deeper than that. By manipulating God’s word for His own ends, would He be trying to impress the many people present in the Temple at that moment that He was their Messiah? Was that the way to earn their allegiance? Jesus knew better than that!

It would not be His death by suicide but His death by sacrifice that would bring about God’s purpose to rescue the world from the clutches of the devil and restore them to their rightful place as sons and daughters in His family.

It was God’s way to work through the normal processes of life, including hatred and rejection, to bring about the salvation of the human race, and not through some death-defying act of stupidity at the instigation of a known liar! What guarantee could the devil give that God would overturn gravity for Jesus?

The question was: Would Jesus manipulate His Father by holding Him to His Word, especially applied out of context, or would He place Himself under that Word, no matter what the outcome for Him?

We already know the answer to that one. “…He was heard because of His reverent submission.” Hebrews 5:7 (NIV); “‘Abba, Father,’ He said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'” Mark 14:36 (NIV).

The result of the testing was a resounding victory for Jesus and a tail-between-the-legs thrashing for the devil! Jesus was now a tried-and-tested Son, ready to take on His mammoth task because His modus operandi had been established. It was quite simple, really — exactly what was expected of Him — submission and obedience!

Walking On The Word

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WALKING ON THE WORD

“At daybreak, no one recognised the land — but then they did notice a bay with a nice beach. They decided to try to run the ship up on the beach. They cut the anchors, loosed the tiller, raised the sail and ran before the wind toward the beach. But we didn’t make it. Still far from shore, we hit a reef and the ship began to break up.

“The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners so that none could escape by swimming, but the centurion, determined to save Paul, stopped them, He gave orders for anyone who could swim to dive in and go for it, and for the rest to grab a plank. Everyone made it to shore safely.” Acts 27:39-44 (The Message).

Terra firma! How thankful they must have been to feel solid ground under their feet. After two weeks of hurricane force wind and lashing rain, no matter how wet, cold and bedraggled they were, they were safely on land, for now. But there was still a long road ahead of them. They had no idea where they were, whether the island was inhabited, whether the islanders were friendly or hostile, where they would find shelter, food and water and if and how they would ever reach their destination.

I guess one person was unfazed by their circumstances. God had told Paul that the whole company would be saved. He had also told Paul that he was going to Rome. On the strength of God’s word, Paul believed that it would all work out for them.

The centurion’s trust and respect for Paul saved the lives of all the prisoners. After all, Paul seemed to be the only one in the company, together with his travelling companions, who was level-headed in the situation. He needed him to navigate the present circumstances to a satisfactory conclusion. The captain of the ship features nowhere in the story. He seems to have faded out of the picture after his bad mistake.

There is a clear and necessary lesson for believers in this event. Paul had learned, through many years of dangerous living, to find his safety, not in any geographical hiding place, but in the Word of God. As long as he believed and acted upon what God had said, his life was indestructible until his work was done.

God does not guarantee our safety for safety’s sake but for our role in His big story. Paul knew that Rome was the most dangerous place of all for him. He would have to face the crackpot, Nero, who had a pathological hatred for Christians because they challenged his arrogant claim to being Lord. Death held no terror for a man who passionately believed in and proclaimed the resurrection. He had only one desire — to please his Master and to fulfil his calling. He could do it only one way — by staking everything on God’s word.

On one occasion Jesus had left His disciples to cross the lake on their own while He went onto the mountain to pray. A storm arose and battered their little craft until they had given up hope and resigned themselves to being drowned. Jesus realised their plight and crossed the lake on foot to rescue them. They thought He was a ghost until He called out to them and they recognised Him. Impulsive Peter also wanted to try walking on water. Jesus said, ‘Come,’ and on the strength of His word, Peter clambered out of the boat and walked on water until his senses got the better of his faith.

There is no place in life more secure than in the word of God. When God speaks, He means what He says and will do what He says He will do. It is not our place to choose from His word what is convenient or comfortable for us. That is presumption. We are to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God”. Our role is to wait and listen until God speaks to us, whether it be through His written word or in some other way that is compatible with His nature and His Word.

The story of our lives has already been written in His book. It is up to us to overwrite our story to match His by listening and being obedient to His Word. Then, like Paul, we can know that the outcome, no matter what the crisis, is sure in God.