Tag Archives: glory

RELIGION OR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Bible Study, ,

RELIGION OR RIGHTEOUSNESS

“Whoever speaks on his own does so to gain personal glory, but He who seeks the glory of the one who sent Him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about Him.

“‘Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?’

“‘You are demon-possessed,’ the crowd answered. ’Who is trying to kill you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy in the Sabbath. Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you so angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.'” John 7:18-24 (NIV).

Jesus had them! He saw right into their hearts and put His finger on the real issue. These people had their own agenda for “keeping” the law of Moses. In other words, the law of Moses was their excuse for following a religion that was to their own advantage.

Let’s look at it carefully. The first thing He exposed was their motive. It was definitely not to do God’s will. Had that been their intention, they would have recognized Him as God’s Son and representative and His teaching as the truth from God. What was their motive, then? They enjoyed the limelight and the accolades they received from their admiring followers. They loved being put on a pedestal to be honoured for their “holy” lives!

They were not interested in the real reason for God’s teaching – to replicate Him on earth so that the surrounding nations would have a picture of their God. They hated Jesus for exposing the falseness of their claims to be followers of Moses. If they were true followers of Moses, they would not have hatred and murder in their hearts.

They vehemently denied His accusation that they were out to kill Him, even accusing Him of being demon-possessed. They resorted to character-assassination to cover up their own evil intentions.

Jesus went right to the core of their wicked hearts. They circumcised a baby boy on the Sabbath because it was what the law required and they did no count it as “work”. However, when Jesus rescued a paralysed man from the misery of his imprisonment and gave him back his life, they pounced on Him for breaking the Sabbath. What was the difference?

They saw circumcision as a requirement of the law but they ignored the equally important requirement of showing mercy to those in need. Circumcision was not as powerful a revelation of God’s character or as demanding of themselves as was kindness to a fellow human being. It was the goodness of God revealed by Jesus through His compassion for people that they could not stomach.

There are two things that offend people — goodness and wickedness. Goodness offends evil people and wickedness offends good people! Behind the rage that was stirred in the hearts of these Jewish religious leaders was the real reason for their were so offense at Jesus’ action; He was good and they hated Him for it because they were self-deceived.

Self-deception is the worst form of deception because people believe their own lies and live according to what they believe. The Jews believed that it was more important not to do what they classified as “work” on the Sabbath, which took on ridiculous and petty proportions, than to show mercy to someone in need. This was a complete reversal of the law and the heart of God.

Herein lies the difference between religion and the kingdom of God. Religion focuses on performance even to the point of killing others if they do not comply. Jesus showed us that the kingdom of God is about living in unity with God in loving and caring for all of creation, including all people, even our enemies. True righteousness is doing the right thing to everyone in need regardless of colour or culture.

Jesus did! And so should we!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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 His love 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 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?

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

PERFECTLY GOD!

Bible Study, ,

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. 

His people 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 Jesus 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 supposed to be 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.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

A GLORIUS EXPECTATION

Bible Study, ,

A GLORIUS EXPECTATION

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:18-22.

Imagine yourself the parent of a child in a school play. Your little one is in the caste for which they have practised and she has talked about for many months. There is great excitement as the day arrives. Parents and friends have assembled from all over the town to watch the performance. The curtain is about to go up. Everyone waits with baited breath for the first glimpse of the children who are dressed in their finery. The props are in place. The music strikes up and slowly the curtain opens, revealing the splendour of the children!

Now imagine the caste being, not the children in a school play, but all the sons and daughters of God throughout time waiting for the curtain to be raised to display them in their final perfection as mirror images of Jesus, their elder brother. The audience is made up of all creation, including the fallen angels who have made every attempt to frustrate God’s preparation of His children for this big moment.

Creation waits with eager expectation because it knows that, in that moment when God’s children are revealed, it will be released from its captivity to death and decay, and it will join God’s children in putting God’s glory in display forever and ever. There will be no more carnivores, killing and devouring fellow creatures. Those that once ate meat will eat grass. There will be no more decay; no vultures will be hunting for carrion; no death of any kind will happen anywhere.

All that went wrong when Adam sinned will be reversed. God will make everything new. He will prove to rebel principalities once and for all, that He was right and they were wrong. Every son and daughter of God will be perfected in righteousness by his or her choice, freely loving and obeying God as their heavenly Father because He forgave all their sin through the death of His Son.

They believed the truth of what He had said and what He had done, and have become sons of God and co-heirs with Jesus. Finally, against all odds, God will have His family of beloved children, and He will be able to put them on display, perfected forever, for the whole universe to see. In that moment, those who have rebelled against Him and refused to believe His Word, will be banished from Him forever.

All the suffering that we are subjected to as part of this fallen world will be nothing compared with the glory that will be revealed on that day. God’s children face, not only the adversities that are part of an imperfect world, but also the hostility of those who are God’s enemies. Instead of evading suffering by joining the world in its sinful rebellion against God, we who remain loyal to Him and walk in His ways, are guaranteed a place in His forever family, and we have the promise of eternal life.

Look around you. Whatever frustrates you now, the destruction of our environment, the exploitation of our resources, the wanton decimation of our beautiful animals for human greed, will be over and those who participate in the mindless devastation, will be removed – forever.

We have a glorious future ahead. Be a part of it!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

IMMEASURABLY MORE!

Bible Study, ,

IMMEASURABLY MORE!

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for even and ever! Amen (Eph. 3: 20-21).

How typical of Paul to break out into an exclamation of praise! Packed into this outburst is a wealth of truth which will enrich our understanding of our heavenly Father if we mine the gold of its meaning.

Paul passionately longed that his readers would experience God’s love in its fullness which, in the end, is as measureless as God Himself. No matter how vast the dimensions of God’s love, like the universe around and above us, we will never exhaust that love or reach the limits of what God has for us, supplied by this love. As the old hymn states:

Thou art coming to a King,

Large petitions with thee bring;

For His grace and power are such,

None can ever ask too much.

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/you-can-never-ask-too-much – retrieved January 2016.

How tragic that most of us are satisfied to paddle in the shallows of God’s love when we can explore and embrace His love in its inexhaustible magnitude if we but leave our selfish selves and delve into God, our Father!

How can we know a love like this which is beyond knowing? This is the paradox. The more we know, the more we realise that we do not know and that there is so much more to know. I will dare to suggest a few ways in which we can move out of our comfortable personal environment into new and yet unexplored ways of knowing God?

  1. The first way to get to know God is to pray David’s simple prayer in Psa. 86:11.

Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

The Father loves to answer a sincere cry to know Him. He will open the door to the treasure stores of understanding His ways to anyone who diligently and sincerely seeks Him.

  1. God is knowable when we open our hearts in generosity and mercy to those who are or have less than ourselves. God rebuked King Shallum for greed and commended his father, King Josiah for showing compassion to the poor.

‘Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord (Je. 22: 15-16).

  1. Knowing God is about gazing at His glory. How do we do that? We are transformed as we contemplate Jesus, who is the image of the Father. Spend time in the gospels, following, watching, and listening to Him. You will be thrilled with the revelation of Jesus that the Holy Spirit will give you as you contemplate Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect (contemplate) the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3: 18).

  1. Seek His face. We are so opportunistic that we continually seek God for what we want and not for who He is. How often I hear the phrase from the lips of a child of God, “I am believing God for. . . “ as though our relationship with Him is nothing more than beggars wanting handouts! God is our Father; we are His sons and daughters. Knowing God is so much more than treating Him as a celestial vending machine.

Our Father has promised us that He will take care of all our physical and material needs as we focus on doing His will and seeking His kingdom first (Matt. 6:33).

Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always (Psa. 105: 4).

God is love. To seek Him and to know Him is to become aware of the immensity of the love that He pours into our lives, even in the seeming disasters and adversities that come our way. What if, instead of whining and moaning, and questioning His love when trials and tragedy hit, we seek His face and find, to our surprise and joy, that He is able to do immeasurably more than our finite minds can imagine when we trust His love and allow Him to be God at all times, even when life makes no sense.

After all, He is writing a much bigger story than our short chapter; He is painting on a much bigger canvas than our little corner. When God is free to be God in our lives without the restrictions of fear and mistrust, He will do immeasurably more than we can ever ask or imagine, according to the power at work in us. He is at work to reproduce the image of Jesus in us.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

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.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.