Tag Archives: believe

Bread From Heaven

Bible Study, ,

BREAD FROM HEAVEN 

“Then they asked Him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’ Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.’ So they asked Him, ‘What sign, then, will you give so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”‘

“Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’

“‘Sir,’ they said, ‘always give us this bread.'” John 6:28-34 (NIV).

These people were well influenced by their religious leaders and still thought and operated in the natural.

Jesus had just challenged them, ‘Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you.’ John 6:27a. Their response was, ‘What must we do…?’ thinking that there was something extra that they must add to their already burdensome performance to guarantee them an eternal existence beyond the grave.

Jesus’ response took them back to the simple requirement He had persistently told them which they did not seem to hear or understand. It was not about works but about faith in Him that opened the door to what He called “life”. The people clung to Moses as their model because he was the agent through whom God did mighty miracles in the wilderness and delivered them from the Egyptians.

In spite of their ancestors’ grumbling against Moses and their disobedience and unbelief towards God and His miraculous interventions, these people still saw these mighty miracles as the sign that it was God who was with them and who led them to the Promised Land.

According to them it was Moses who had given them the manna which sustained them for forty years in the wilderness. He didn’t multiply a few barley loaves to feed a few thousand. He gave them an abundance of manna every morning which fed millions! That was Moses’ sign that it was God who was doing it. ‘What can you do, Jesus, to better that?’

Already their unbelief was working overtime! Why did they follow Him across the lake in the first place, and then back to Capernaum when they didn’t find Him where He had been the day before? Was it because He was feeding their souls with the living bread — His word? No! He had already diagnosed their motive — a free meal at God’s expense! They were certainly “working” for that bread.

Providing manna for millions of people every day was a small miracle compared with the greater miracle of God coming in person to provide “bread” that would sustain them forever. But they could not see it. The life He offered them was not simply an extra-long biological life on the earth but a supernatural quality of life in union with Him that freed them from the fear, guilt and shame that drove them to hide from God because of their sin.

The “bread” of which Jesus spoke was a symbol of the bread, His word that would nourish and sustain their spirits in an unbreakable connection with Himself. Because He would do away with the barrier of sin which had disconnected them from God and left them unprotected against the judgment of God, they would reconciled to God. They would be able to live in fellowship with Him without the sacrifices and mediators they forced to go through now.

Once again their response revealed their misunderstanding of His offer. The Samaritan woman thought He was offering her a supply of water that would relieve her of the burden of carrying water from the well every day. They thought that He would give them bread, like the manna, which simply fell from heaven and saved them the labour of having to bake their daily supply.

Because their minds were locked into the natural, as we shall see, their unbelief mirrored the unbelief of their ancestors and they forfeited the opportunity to receive this “bread” and enter the fullness of the life He offered.

Have you “eaten” this bread?

The Face Of The Father

Bible Study, , ,

THE FACE OF THE FATHER 

“‘I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me, but if someone comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes only from God?

”But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?'” John 5:41-47 (NIV).

Listen to this man! Every word He spoke to the Pharisees drove the nails deeper into their coffins.

Jesus claimed to be the truth (John 14:6) and if He was who He said He was, these men who were so convinced that they were right, ought to have taken heed to what He was saying because it was His word that would, in the end, be their judge (John 12:48).

He put His finger on the thing that was the chasm between them and Him — ‘I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.’ Had they captured God’s heartbeat throughout the course of their history, when He agonized over their failure to understand the love He had for them and His passion that they would be to one another what He was to them, they would have recognized that Jesus was the mirror image of the Father.

They claimed Moses as their authority and yet Moses was the one who recorded all God’s dealing with them through their years of wandering in the wilderness. The evidence of God’s love was there if they would open their eyes and ears, but all they could see was the rules and ritual that turned them into the very slave-drivers from whom God had set them free.

The face of Jesus is visible throughout the pages of the Old Testament if they would only look for it but they were too blinded by their own self-interest to see it. They were too drunk on the accolades they received from others to recognise the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

There is great pathos in the words of Jesus. He does not utter them with accusation but with grief because He knows what of what they have forfeited by their blindness. He knew that the day would come when their lives would be paraded before them, every scene, every response and every choice. The blindfold would be off and they would see the implications of every refusal and every rejection of the potential that was in them.

God is not a vindictive judge, waiting to get even with those whose blindness prevents them from seeing the glory that could be theirs if they would only take Him seriously. His heart breaks for the wasted potential of those who throw their lives away on useless pleasure, self-indulgence and even self-contempt that leads them down the road of self-destruction.

The arms of Jesus were wide open to the very men who were planning to kill Him. Hear the sob in His voice when He said, ‘You will not come to me that you might have life.’ It takes courage to admit that you have been wrong; that your way does not work; and that the road you have chosen leads to a dead end.

His adversaries were nit-picking about carrying a mat on the Sabbath. Jesus was offering them the gift of eternal life which no amount of rule-keeping could earn for them. They walked away in disgust and resolved to silence Him when they got the opportunity because they did not want the life He offered.

What about you?

History Or His Story?

Bible Study, , , ,

HISTORY OR HIS STORY? 

“‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ‘and do you not understand these things?’

“‘Very truly I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.'” John 3:9-15 (NIV).

Such familiar words that we can almost recite them from memory! But what do they mean?

Although Nicodemus was a prominent teacher in the ranks of the religion scholars and was familiar with the Word of God, it was obvious to Jesus that he did not understand the truths he was teaching. It had been so long since God has spoken and actively intervened in the affairs of His people that Nicodemus was essentially teaching history.

Jesus must have startled him by saying that, although He was also a rabbi, He wasn’t teaching history; He was teaching truth from experience. He was speaking about reality because He had been in the heavenly realm; He had come from there and was relating what He knew, hence He could speak with authority.

How does one move from history to experience? Once again John brings his readers back to the main theme of his gospel — believing in Jesus. Nicodemus had nothing more than sterile religion to pass on to his learners. He needed something much more than that to have access to the “heavenly things” of which Jesus spoke.

Eternal life is not just unending life somewhere out there when we die. It begins here and now with a transfer from the dimension of existence in a purely self-dominated and soulish way to a dimension of living in union with God, experiencing His presence and His power to live unselfishly for other people and to submit lovingly to His will and purpose.

How can this transfer happen? Jesus put it in a nutshell and in the imagery of what was familiar to Jewish readers — Moses and the snake. This was familiar history to the Jews and to the Gentiles who had embraced the Jewish religion. They knew about Moses and the snake.

During their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, the children of Israel were familiar with the inhabitants of the desert — the “nasties” of that kind of terrain. But God protected them from their deadly neighbours until they infuriated Him so much with their complaining and rebellion that He withdrew His protection and let the fiery serpents loose on them. Many of them perished from the poisonous bites until the people cried out in desperation.

God instructed Moses to fashion a model of a snake out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looked at the snake and trusted God for healing would be saved from the effects of the snake’s venom.

‘This, Nicodemus, is the key to understanding what I am telling you.’ The key to their healing lay in the condition and the promise — if they looked at the snake and believed what God had said, the miracle happened. They were rescued from death and given back their life.

Jesus would also be “lifted up” on a wooden stake for everyone to see, but not everyone would experience the life He promised. Only those who gazed at Him with faith in His promise would make that transfer from death to life. Something supernatural would take place in their spirits. They would literally “come alive” to God; they would have a spiritual awakening to a dimension of living they have never “seen”, a new life thrumming with God, everywhere.

That’s what changes history to His story, and our story.

Saying Is Believing

Bible Study, , ,

SAYING IS BELIEVING

“Some of them were won over and joined ranks with Paul and Silas, among them a great many God-fearing Greeks and a considerable number of women from the aristocracy. But the hard-line Jews became furious over the conversions. Mad with jealousy, they rounded up a bunch of brawlers off the streets and soon had an ugly mob terrorising the city as they hunted down Paul and Silas.

“They broke into Jason’s house, thinking that Paul and Silas were there. When they couldn’t find them, they collared Jason and his friends instead and dragged them before the city fathers, yelling hysterically, ‘These people are out to destroy the world, and now they’ve shown up on our doorstep, attacking everything we hold dear! And Jason is hiding them, these traitors and turncoats who say Jesus is king and Caesar is nothing!” Acts 17:4-7 (The Message).

They’re at it again! The unbelieving Jews seem to have been tarred with the same brush the world over. Were the Thessalonian Jews infected by those coming from other centres that had already heard and reacted against Paul and Silas, or was this a fresh wave of persecution? These European Jews appear to be just as hard-hearted as the ones in Israel and Asia Minor.

They didn’t want to get their hands dirty, so they hid behind the street hooligans and relied on them to cook up lies and get the city fathers’ backs up against Paul and Silas while they stood watching in the background. There was no truth and no conscience in the accusations and behaviour of the mob. Since Paul and Silas were not available to face the music, they grabbed the first people they could find to victimise with their lying hysteria.

This is the typical modus operandi of the devil — turn up as much heat as possible so that people are not interested in the light. It was through experiences like these that Paul was able to understand and write about Satan’s tactics and teach his beloved converts how to deal with him. He recognised that, behind the trouble he experienced from unbelievers, both Jews and Gentiles, was an unseen, sinister enemy who was out to destroy both him and his work because he was allied to the God whom the devil hates.

The devil’s language is lies and his method is deception. Jesus called him ‘a liar and the father of lies,’ and that was no libellous indictment. Those who are under his influence because they refuse to believe and receive the truth are themselves subject to the lies with which he infiltrates their minds.

The big problem is that those who speak out lies actually believe what they are saying is true because they are saying it. This happens in politics. Representatives of government make grandiose statements and then believe them simply because they have said it. This happens in my country. Anyone with half a brain laughs at some of the claims made, knowing very well that there is no substance to them but, at the same time. knowing that the speaker thinks that, because he or she has made the statement, that makes it true.

How are we to counter these attacks? Paul had learned that it was not his role to fight. The war has already been won. Jesus exposed and defeated the devil on the cross. Our weapon and defence is the truth. Lies have no substance and cannot endure. It is the truth that prevails over lies. As soldiers in the army of God, we have only one instruction, “Stand!” We are to hold our position, standing on and protected by the truth.

By submitting ourselves to God’s word and His authority, we put the devil to flight since he cannot take God on and win. If we stand on and believe the truth we are indestructible because “the word of the Lord endures forever.”

Barnabas And Saul Go West

Bible Study, , ,

BARNABAS AND SAUL GO WEST

“Sent off on their new assignment by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went down to Seleucia and caught a ship to Cyprus. The first thing they did when they put in at Salamis was preach God’s Word in the Jewish meeting places. They had John along to help out as needed.” Acts 13:4-5 (The Message).

Commissioned by the Holy Spirit and in partnership with Him, Barnabas and Saul made their way to the nearest sea port, Seleucia, and set sail for the largest island in the vicinity – Cyprus. Why there? We are not told anything about their planning and strategy before they left. They must surely have sat down together and discussed where they would go and how they would go about their mission, assuming that they would always be led by the Holy Spirit.

They did not go in the direction of Saul’s home city because, obviously, he had thoroughly saturated it with his teaching while he was there. There would be no necessity to go over that ground again. They trusted the Holy Spirit to redirect them if they went off course and set off in the confidence of His presence with them.

Their strategy – the most obvious place to start would be the synagogue, the place where Jews met regularly for worship. They were guaranteed a ready-made congregation of their own people who would already be familiar with the Scriptures — no need for lengthy instruction in the basics.

“They travelled the length and breadth of the island and at Paphos came upon a Jewish wizard who had worked himself into the confidence of the governor, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man not easily taken in by charlatans. The wizard’s name was Bar-Jesus. He was a crooked as a corkscrew.” Acts 13:6-7 (The Message),

So far so good. They traversed the island, preaching in synagogue after synagogue with no incident. The Cypriot Jews were seemingly more open-minded than their Judean cousins. In the main centre, however, they ran into a rather unusual fellow countryman, of all things a magician; not a magician practicing illusion, mind you, but a Jew who dabbled in the occult.

As if that were not enough, he had wormed his way into the confidence of the Roman governor — a dangerous situation if ever there was one. This man must have been so convincing that not even an intelligent man like Sergius Paulus saw through him. Imagine the influence he must have had on the governor himself, something akin to the tactics of Hitler who was deep into the occult.

“The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God’s Word first hand from them. But Dr Know-It-All (that’s the wizard’s name in plain English), stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer.'” Acts 13:7-8 (The Message).

Once again the first sign of opposition on the island of Cyprus came from a Jew. Satan’s emissaries are taken from all people and all walks of life. The governor’s interest in the gospel touched a nerve ending and Bar-Jesus immediately raised a very vocal protest, trying to divert the governor’s attention from the truth.

This was the smooth-talking imposter’s undoing. Thankfully his influence over Sergius Paulus had not yet deadened the governor’s appetite to hear the truth. What Paul and Barnabas had to say awakened in him the awareness that these men had a message that rang true and he wanted to know more. Truth and lies banged heads, and alerted the two missionaries to a very real enemy that needed to be dealt with.

Light and darkness cannot co-exist. Darkness is merely the absence of light and as soon as the light is turned on, everything that is hidden in the darkness is exposed. The light of God’s truth shone into this man’s heart, exposing him for what he really was and his reaction was to fight back violently.