Tag Archives: believe

Convinced Or Convinced?

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CONVINCED OR CONVINCED? 

“Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take away the stone,’ He said. ‘But Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.’

“Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’ When He had said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’

“The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'” John 11:38-44 NIV.

What a moment! What went through the minds of the two sisters, of the bystanders when Jesus ordered them to remove the stone? ‘No! It can’t be! Is He out of His mind? Is He really going to go in there? What is He going to do?’ As the heavy stone was moved, so the stench of death wafted from the mouth of the cave and they involuntarily stepped backwards.

Jesus was oblivious to the smell of putrefying flesh. He took a step forward and turned His face heavenwards. In a strong, confident voice He addressed His Father, ‘Abba, we’ve already talked and you have heard my request. Now I want all these people around me to know and believe that it is you who sent me.’ When did He speak to the Father? All the time, no doubt.

Then, without hesitating He addressed the corpse — in a loud voice that Lazarus would hear wherever he was — ‘Lazarus, out!’ The bystanders watched and waited, hardly daring to breathe. Was this just a big show? The seconds ticked by, then…out of the darkness a figure emerged, naked but for the strips of cloth around his hands, his feet and his face and probably encasing his body as well. He shuffled towards the entrance, unable to walk because of the linen ties around his feet.

Miraculously, the odour had dissipated. Lazarus was very much alive but still wearing the evidence of his departure encasing his body. Instead of the stink of decay, the fragrant spices of his sisters’ loving preparation for burial still clung to him released by a fresh breeze which blew away the last vestiges of his untimely death.

Trying in vain to free himself of his encumbrances, Lazarus shuffled out of the tomb. The people stared at him, speechless with shock and disbelief. Only one person was with it enough to speak sense in the situation. I can imagine that Jesus was amused by the bizarre scene — dozens of people gawking like beached fish while a man tied up in burial cloths, hands and feet firmly immobilised, and unable to see where he was going, tries to get free of his bonds and speak to them!

‘For pity’s sake,’ I can imagine Jesus saying, ‘Untie the poor guy and let him go.’ With a jolt, someone would come to and take off the bandages from Lazarus’ feet and hands and untie the cloth around his face so that he could breathe freely again and see.

The Bible abruptly halts the story right there. John was not about telling a story. He was about providing convincing evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, sent by the Father to reveal His Father’s glory. What did the Jews think about that? Was this magnificent sign, the climax of the signs John had recorded to reveal the nature of the Father and convince his readers that Jesus was indeed God’s Son, perfectly reflecting Him in everything He did, enough to tip the scales?

We have to read on to the conclusion that unfolded in the next few days to discover the depth of wickedness in the hearts of Jesus’ opponents that drove them, not to believe but to plan their murderous end to the story!

Walk In The Light

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WALK IN THE LIGHT 

“To this they replied, ‘You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!’ And they threw him out.'” John 9:34 NIV.

Strange isn’t it, to what lengths people will go to prove they are right, only to dig themselves deeper and deeper into their own guilt! No matter what they said or did, it didn’t make the Pharisees right and the healed man wrong! Education, status, position, standing in society or in the church, title or anything does not make lies the truth.

“Jesus heard that they had thrown him out and, when He found him He said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is He, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in Him.’ Jesus said, ‘You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one speaking with you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshipped Him.'” John 9:35-38 NIV.

Two perspectives; two conclusions! The Pharisees rejected Jesus as the Son of Man and ended up by evicting the healed man from the synagogue (vs 22) because he acknowledged that Jesus was from God. On the other hand, Jesus found the man and invited to faith in Him as the Messiah. The man gladly responded, completing the conviction he had that Jesus was from God and entering into the kingdom of God.

In spite of the Pharisees adamant claims, the “in” were “out” and the “out” was “in”!

Not only could he now see but his healing had also given him spiritual “sight” into the unseen realm of faith. The action of the Pharisees only served to intensify their blindness while the healed man had never seen so clearly in his life before.

“Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’ Some Pharisees who were with Him heard Him say this and asked, ‘What? Are we blind too?’ Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” John 9:39-41.

Amazing how those Pharisees got the point! They were sharp enough to realise that Jesus was talking to and about them. They had accurately judged and condemned themselves but still refused to acknowledge that they were guilty.

It is this aspect of ownership, rulership and authority of the world that the unbeliever refuses to accept. To accept the truth that God is the Creator of the universe is to acknowledge His ownership and authority over everything, including human beings who do not want to be ruled.

When Adam disobeyed God’s instruction at the beginning, he declared independence and illegitimately snatched the right to make his own rules. However, his action does not cancel God’s authority — it only compounds man’s guilt.

“But to the wicked person God says, ‘What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you…When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But now I will arraign you and set my accusations before you.'” Psalm 50:17, 17; 21 NIV.

The one difference between God’s way and all the ways of false religions is that God has appointed a Judge who will judge the world in righteousness. “For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:31 NIV.

The very ones who refused to recognise Him; who maligned Him and those who believed in Him; who falsely arrested, accused and had Him crucified, will face the blazing light of His glory and give an account of their deeds. He will not need to say a word. They will finally “see” in the light of His truth, every lying word they ever spoke or thought and every wicked deed they perpetrated in the name of God.

Jesus invites us to “walk in the light” now so that we will not need to be ashamed at His coming.

The Sounds Of Silence

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THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE 

“‘Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.’

“The Jews answered Him, ‘Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?’

“‘I am not possessed by a demon,’ said Jesus, ‘but I honour my Father and you dishonour me. I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it and He is the judge. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death,'” John 8:46-51 (NIV)

How difficult it must have been for Jesus to have any kind of discussion with these men! Whatever He said to them was another reason for them to hate Him and to either contradict Him or, if they could not get the better of Him, to attack His character.

What Jesus was saying to them was the truth but they did not have a clue about what He was telling them. It was as though He were speaking a foreign language. Although He was speaking in their language, what He was saying was foreign to them because He was speaking of the things of the Spirit and of the realm of God’s kingdom of which they knew nothing.

Why did Jesus even try to speak to them? Why didn’t He just walk away because it was like speaking to a brick wall? We have to understand that He was giving them every opportunity to hear the truth, whether they understood it or not. There was an important reason for doing this.

“‘If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.'” John 12:47, 48 (NIV).

Have you ever wondered why the Apostle Paul had to stand before kings? God told Ananias, after Paul’s conversion outside Damascus, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel…'” Acts 9:15 (NIV). Paul proclaimed God’s Word to the Roman governors Festus and Felix and to King Agrippa when he was on trial in Caesarea, and finally to Nero in Rome although none of them believed in Jesus.

It was their reaction to the Word that judged them. Jesus gave the Pharisees every opportunity to respond to His words in faith but they refused and brought the guilt of their sin down on their own heads.

Although Jesus’ words may seem outrageous at times (who would have the audacity to say. “…whoever obeys my word will never see death”?), we have to read them against the backdrop of who spoke them and what evidence He gave that He had the authority to speak like that?

Had they come from any other person, we could dismiss them as the ravings of a madman (which the Pharisees did!). But they could not answer His challenge, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”  Instead they side-stepped His question by accusing Him of being demon-possessed.

But every truth He told them and every offer He made to rescue them from their self-destruction and bring them back into fellowship with the Father was met with rejection and abuse, and served to drive them deeper into their own guilt and condemnation. When they stand before the bar on Judgment Day, the Word will be their judge as it will be the judge of every person who has heard the word and refused to obey.

But what of those who have never heard Jesus’ word? There is another word which every human being has the opportunity to hear: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 (NIV).

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:1-4a (NIV).

Have you listened to His voice?

You Will Die In Your Sins

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YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS

“Once more Jesus said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.’

“This made the Jews ask, ‘Will He kill Himself? Is that why He says, “Where I go you cannot come”?”

“But He continued, ‘You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

“‘I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins.'” John 8:21-24 (NIV)

‘And go to hell when you die!’ Is that what Jesus meant?

How differently we non-Hebrew-speaking people interpret the Word!  Is it not true that we automatically assume that that is what He meant? Unfortunately, we have come to use “heaven” and “hell” as the measure of salvation. “Saved” people are going to heaven; “unsaved” people are going to hell.

We have already discussed the meaning of “light” and “darkness” in Scripture. Now we need to examine two other contrasting concepts that Jesus frequently used; “life” and “death”. Although it is impossible to treat this subject fully in a short article like this, I will attempt to give pointers to a better understanding of what He meant by “eternal life”.

In His night-time encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus uttered the words of the most well-known verse in the Bible — “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16. Three things stand out clearly in this statement: Eternal life is a gift; it comes through faith in Jesus; and it rescues the one who believes in Him from perishing.

We have to ask the questions: When does this “life” begin? Is it only for the future or is it a present reality? What is eternal life?

According to Jesus, ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.’ John 5:24 (NIV). Eternal life, then, is not living forever in heaven when a person dies. It is a dimension of being he enters into as a gift from God the instant he believes and receives the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.

Eternal life is a present reality. The other three gospels focus on “the kingdom of God”; John speaks of eternal life. These are inseparable truths about the life Jesus came to model and to give to those who believe in Him. Eternal life is living in the kingdom of God, in the realm of God’s rule, under His authority and in submission to Him, modelling Jesus’s attitude and behaviour in the way we live.

This life is a free gift (John 3:16); it comes to us through Jesus (John 14:6b); it is about reconnection to the Father through Him (John 14:6a); it is sustained by intimate fellowship with Jesus (John 6:35); following Him enables us to understand and live this life (John 8:12); it is about self-forgetful and self-sacrificial love for others (John 15:13).

But what is this life? God is love. Although His love is immeasurable and beyond the limits of our understanding (Ephesians 3:16-19), Jesus came to model the Father’s love so that we catch glimpses of the enormity of a love that gave His only Son to free us from self-destructive lives of self-will and alienation from God; and that we can follow that way through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The more we follow Jesus, the more we move towards the essence of salvation; becoming whole people again; “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossian 3:10 – NIV).

Because the Jewish leaders had rejected Jesus and refused to believe that He was the Son of God, they were perishing in their chosen path of self-destruction. This was not Jesus’ judgment on them. It was the inevitable result of their selfish and greedy lifestyle. They were destined for the trash heap because they were wasting their potential as sons of God and were living worthless and useless lives.

To everyone who believes in Jesus He offers the opportunity to escape the destruction of self-indulgence and return to the way of life that enables us to become truly human as God intended. Real life is living in loving interconnection with God and with all of creation and is only possible through faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Do you have this kind of life?

He Is The Word

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HE IS THE WORD 

“Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, ‘Does this  offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you — they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him. He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.'” John 6:60-65 (NIV).

Sobering words!

If there were among His disciples those who were offended by the talk about His death and the effect it would have on them, how would they swallow the reality of His return to the Father. They were already grumbling because He insisted that He had come from the Father but, to go back to where He had come from would be just too much for them. Little did they know that they would be witnesses of that very event!

Jesus brought these men to the heart of what He was all about — His Word. He and His Word are inseparable. John introduced Him to his readers as the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was God. According to Hebrew understanding, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. Jesus was God in another form — in the flesh and the Word.

It is difficult for the human mind to understand the intimacy between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Word. What the Father speaks and what the Son speaks are the perfect expression of who they are. The Spirit equally participates in and energizes the Word to speak and effect what they say.

Faith in God’s Word is equal to faith in God. To believe what Jesus said is to stake one’s life on the one who said it. It was John’s purpose to present all the evidence necessary to authenticate Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God so that His readers would have confidence in His Word and therefore in Him.

How difficult it is for human beings to take the words of Jesus seriously! We are conditioned by the fickleness of our nature, to mistrust one another’s words because of experience. The word of human beings has proved so untrustworthy that we have to record on paper, sign and have witnessed every agreement for it to be believed.

“When God made His promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.’ And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.” Hebrews 6:13, 14 (NIV).

Nowadays, not even an oath is trustworthy. It has to be recorded with ink on paper and signed for it to be binding.

“Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.” Hebrews 6:15-18 (NIV).

If Jesus is God and His word is the essence of who He is, then His promise is infallible and unbreakable — “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

What anguish, what sorrow, what frustration went into the words He spoke. His constant refrain was, ‘You will not believe.’ Judas walked with Him for more than three years and he chose not to believe and walked away. What will it take for us who have all the hindsight we need to be convinced that He is who He said He is, to believe and to respond to what He had promised?

Do you believe?