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The Power Of The Cross – Made Holy By The Blood

Gospel, , ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

MADE HOLY BY THE BLOOD

The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood. (Heb. 13: 12)

Holiness is a scary subject, even for believers, if we don’t know what it means. We lower the volume when we sing about it in church as though holiness is something mysterious about it and we daren’t say the word too loudly!

The Bible declares that God is holy. What does it actually mean? God is absolutely and utterly disconnected from anything that is less than perfect. He is set apart from sin and set apart to Himself because there is no one greater than He. Habakkuk was well aware of this when he said:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Hab. 1: 11)

God is holy because He always acts towards His creation in righteousness and justice. He is always consistent with who He is. His holiness guarantees that He will always be faithful to who He is and what He has said.

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself. (2 Tim. 2: 13)

God’s holiness is our security. Therefore, God’s holiness should make us shout, not whisper!

However, because He created us in His image for fellowship with Himself, He requires that we be holy, that we be set apart from sin for His exclusive possession. But why should we be holy?

Firstly we are because we are to be holy because we are His sons and daughters, and He requires that we be like Him as members of His family.

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Heb. 2: 11)

Secondly we are to be holy because there can be no fellowship between light and darkness.

What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Cor. 6: 14)

But we are sinful, born in sin and spiritually dead. How can we approach a holy God as we are, polluted with sin? Since it was impossible for us to remove our guilt except through the penalty of death, God provided His own solution to remove the barrier of sin and reconcile us to Himself.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering . . . (Rom. 8 :3)

By dying in our place, Jesus paid the debt for our sin once for all, and brought us back into the family of God as His beloved children, guilt-free so that we are once again set apart from sin to God to live for Him under His authority and for His glory. By dying in our place, Jesus changed our status from sinners to God’s holy and beloved children (Col. 3: 12).

For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Heb. 10: 14)

But that’s only the first step. We also have a part to play in becoming what we already are. Potentially, we are holy. We have been set apart from sin to God through Jesus’ death. But how do we become what we are? It’s a process and a partnership between us and God, through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil His good purpose. (Phil. 2: 12-13)

The blood of Jesus has “washed” us clean of our sin and guilt if we have responded to God’s word. By faith we received and believed the message, and God responded to our faith by removing us from the dominion of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His Son, under His authority and rule.

Our responsibility now is not to make ourselves holy by trying to keep rules, but to remove ourselves from the corruption and pollution of the world, and to respond to His discipline by trusting Him in our trials and hardships and by submitting to and obeying Him because He is our Father and His love is perfect.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all . . . They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good.in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12: 7-8; 10)

Hardships expose our doubts, insecurities and fears, and reveal the level of our trust in God. He wants to bring us into the place where we trust Him and live in His perfect love, without fear and absolutely secure in Him so that we can enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with Him.    

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.

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), 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.

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http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

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Jesus, The Rabbi

Bible Study, , , ,

JESUS, THE RABBI

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will sent you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther, He saw James, son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay He called them and their left their father, Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him. (Mark 1: 16-20).

We often admire these men for acting so promptly when Jesus called them, don’t we? How could they just drop everything and go after a comparative stranger? And Zebedee didn’t protest either. He watched half of his workforce walk away without uttering a word. And they didn’t just take off half an hour to chat with Jesus. They were gone for good!

Of course we would wonder at this because we don’t understand the culture. Jesus was a rabbi. He was thirty years old, the age at which a rabbi would have completed his education and was ready to begin his itinerant teaching work. If he was recognised as having s’mikah – authority – he would choose young men to follow him to be his talmidim – disciples.

It was a great honour to be chosen to be a disciple. The rabbi’s simple invitation, “Follow me,” was an indication that he believed that they could become like him. These men would stick to him like glue, living with him day and night. They would watch him and listen to him and learn to copy him until they became replicas of their rabbi. He would teach them his yoke – his way of understanding and living Torah – God’s teaching in the five books of Moses, which they were faithfully to pass on to others who would follow them. They could not change or omit anything without being disqualified as a disciple.

Talmidim were usually chosen from among the young learner-rabbis. Those who did not make the grade after their elementary education went home to learn the family business. The select few went up the ladder of education, always aspiring to be among the very best who would one day also be recognised as being rabbis with s’mikah.

Strangely enough, Jesus chose men who had failed their entrance “exam” to “rabbi school” and were plying the family trade on the Sea of Galilee. They were not only dropouts from school, they were also in a sense religious dropouts as well. Because they dealt with dead fish, they were probably always considered “unclean”. They must have been startled out of their wits to hear the qualifying call, “Follow me,” especially from the mouth of the most popular rabbi of the day.

It’s no wonder they dropped everything and set off after Him without hesitation. Who would be so foolish as to pass up an opportunity like this? I can imagine how they shook their heads in wonderment and chatted excitedly together as they walked behind their rabbi, each one trying to get as close to Him as possible to pick up the dust thrown up by His sandals as He walked. They just could not believe that their lives could take such a radical turn in a moment.

They did not know that they were in for a rough ride. They were called to follow, not just another rabbi but, as they would find out soon enough, the Son of God. His authority did not come from the recognition of men but from God. He would say and do things that would appal them because they knew He was courting trouble with the religious authorities but it didn’t seem to bother Him.

He mystified them. He was ultra-kind to the down-and-outs. He had amazing powers – like no other rabbi in Israel. He healed sick people with a touch or a word. He made blind people see and deaf people hear. He even raised dead people to life again. And His preaching! He made outrageous claims and said outrageous things and yet, somehow, they believed Him. He spoke as though He knew what He was talking about.

As for the revered religious leaders, He made mincemeat of them with His words. He enraged them by uncovering their wicked hearts. He had no compunction about pulling them to pieces in public. He courted trouble without a qualm – almost as though He was egging them on to kill Him.

It’s just as well they had no idea what lay ahead for them. Would they have been so eager to follow Him had they had a glimpse into their future? This was an all-or-nothing call and they answered it without hesitation and without a backward glance.

Jesus still calls, “Follow me!” When men who masquerade as disciples call you to follow them, don’t go. If leaders try to bind you to themselves, don’t follow. There is only one who has the right to call and to whom we must respond – Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

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.

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

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

Three Huge Events

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THREE HUGE EVENTS

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days. By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient (Heb. 11: 29-31).

Three huge events! Whoever heard of people crossing a sea on dry land or a city falling without a shot being fired? What about a pagan prostitute helping the enemy because she believed in the enemy’s God? But it happened.

The Israelites were in a bit of a spot. A few million of them and they were cornered on a stretch of beach on the shore of a 5,000-feet-deep sea. On both sides were mountains, and behind them the advancing army of Egyptians, determined to force them back to slavery in Egypt.

But they had a God who was watching. He stepped in with some pretty miraculous interventions! He put Himself between the Egyptians and the people all night in the form of a fiery pillar. That should have been enough to scare off the Egyptian army after everything they had gone through in Egypt. Funny how people never learn!

Then, without warning, the wind began to blow – nothing unusual in the desert except that this wind blew in the right direction, cutting a path through the sea and drying up the sea bed. It blew all night. When the sun rose the next morning the Israelites were astonished to see dry ground in front of them. Not only was that, but the path through the sea level, not 5,000 feet down. At Moses’ command they began to walk – right through to the other shore.

The Egyptian soldiers thought they could do the same, but they were on the wrong side of God. They didn’t reckon with the need for faith. The only faith they had was determination to get the Israelites back but their kind of faith didn’t work. The same water that protected God’s people, wiped them out and left the people free of their enemies – for good.

And what about Jericho? This was no ordinary city in those times. The first city God’s people encountered inside the border of Canaan was Jericho. It had to be heavily fortified because it guarded the entrance to Canaan from the eastern border – the Jordan River. It was impenetrable from below, with a vigilant people inside to boot. The Israelites had no chance of breaching the walls. They had no military equipment, an untrained and untested mob.

From a human point of view their case was hopeless – and the Jericho-ites knew it.  The first day it was a joke. They poked fun and shouted insults at the motley crowd of ex-slaves marching silently around the city walls. The second day they crowded onto the city wall to watch the spectacle and to throw rubble at them. The third, fourth and fifth days drew fewer and fewer spectators. On the sixth day, hardly anyone bothered to watch.

On the seventh day something changed. Instead of dead silence, the priests began to blow their shofars. The eerie sound echoed across the hills and bounced off the city walls, sending shivers of fear down the backs of the people barricaded inside the city. What were these strange people up to? They soon found out when the silly army ended their seventh lap around the city with a mighty shout. With an ominous rumble increasing to a roar, the city walls disintegrated right in front of their eyes. The walls they thought were protection melted like butter in the sun.

They fled in every direction but it was of no use. The same people they mocked turned into merciless killers, destroying everything until the city lay in ruins and the inhabitants lay in silent heaps, a bustling city turned into a historical relic in one short day. Impossible in the natural but terribly possible with God.

What about Rahab? She heard about the goings-on in Egypt – news travelled fast, even in those days – and she knew in her heart that the God of these Israelites was not like the gods of the Canaanites. She didn’t know much about the people or about Him, but she knew enough to be afraid. She wanted to be on His side rather than against Him. She put her confidence in the promise of the spies and waited.

When the walls of the city collapsed, the piece where her house stood remained intact. Imagine that! It stood like a defiant pillar in the middle of the ruins. No one bothered to watch as the “traitor” escaped with her entire family – unharmed while everyone else perished.

None of these miracles were possible except for God! History? Yes, but it’s worth trusting Him, don’t you think? He’s still the same God today.

If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8: 31b).

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.

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

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublshing.com.

 

The Living And Enduring Word Of God

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THE LIVING AND ENDURING WORD OF GOD

For, ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.’ And this is the word that was preached to you (1 Peter 1: 24-25).

This world and everything in it is transient – passing away.

Contrary to the evolutionists who insist that everything in the world is evolving upwards, observation and common sense tell us that this is not true. Death and decay follow birth as surely as night follows day.

Take the mayfly, for example, which exists only to reproduce and die. For what purpose? We don’t know. Its larvae spend years in the silt at the bottom of the river, waiting for the perfect conditions to rise to the surface, shed their skin and mate. All in the course of one day, the males mate and die and the females lay their eggs and die. The eggs become larvae and the whole cycle begins again.

Every living creature, large and small, lives to pass on its genes to the next generation and for the males of the species, the battle for the right to mate is fierce, even to the death.

Self-preservation is equally strong in the human race. We fight to stay alive. Medical science has advanced in every possible way to keep us alive, even when our brains have ceased to function. Side by side with the desire to live forever is the instinctive belief that there is life after death. Even the most primitive of people have some sort of belief in an afterlife. Only the cynical feel that death is the end of it all.

The problem is that most people, at the same time, cling to this life and to the transient world system in which we live. Unfortunately for those who have made this present world their permanent home, it is a vain hope because the world as it is, is condemned to judgment and destruction. It has been corrupted through sin. It and those who cling to its standards and practices will perish when Jesus returns.

We have only one guarantee of escaping the judgment that is to fall on everything that is corrupt, that is, everything that does not fulfil the purpose for which it was created; to be reunited with the God who made us for His purposes. Everything that does not fulfil God’s will is doomed to destruction.

God’s word is indestructible. According to Hebrew interpretation, His word is the manifestation of Himself in another form. We know that Jesus is the living Word of God, the visible manifestation of the Father in human form. His spoken word is inseparable from Himself because, again, it is a manifestation of Himself in another form. His word cannot die because it is perfect – and that which is perfect has no death in it.

And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible; like gold refined seven times (Psa. 12: 6).

Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away (Matt. 24:35).

How then can we be sure that we are not part of the imperfect world that is passing away?

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2: 15-17).

We have only one guarantee of eternal life. God’s indestructible seed, His word must be planted in our hearts. It is through belief in what God has spoken that we are rescued from a life of sin and are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Sin is the killer. In order to live forever, sin must be removed and our lives set on a course to be recreated in the image of our Creator.

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Col. 3: 9-10).

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. . . (1 Peter 1: 23).

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God (1 John 3: 9).

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.

 

It Had To Be!

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IT HAD TO BE! 

“Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.'” John 11:45-48 NIV

Wrong! The religious leaders were really being melodramatic! In what way would Jesus’ signs cause them to “lose” their temple and their nation?

Jesus’ miracles, up to that point were in no way disturbing the Romans. What He was doing was evidence that the God who wanted them to worship Him was not the vengeful, demanding and legalistic god of the Pharisees but a loving Father who wanted them to submit to His way so that they would live in harmony with Him and with one another.

Like all the others, including Jesus’ disciples, it seems that their idea of the Messiah was one of a strong political ruler who would restore the Davidic kingdom to its former glory by getting rid of the Romans and setting up His own rule in Israel. Did they think that Jesus’ miracles were His way of getting the people on His side so that, when He made His move against Rome, they would rise up with Him?

Had they only listened without the filter of their prejudice and envy, they would have heard something different from their twisted interpretation of His words and works. Their protests covered up a much more sinister and personal reason for hating Him. Jesus was not shy of showing them up for what they were — greedy and conniving opportunists who used their position to enrich themselves at the expense of the people whom they controlled through their religious demands in the name of God!

This latest challenge, the spectacular and unassailable act of raising Lazarus who had been putrefying in the grave for four days, was the last straw. They had to exterminate Jesus because they did not know what He would do next. What they did not take into account was that nothing He had said or done up to this point, indicated that He had intentions of rising up and taking over. All they knew was that He had great power and they were afraid of Him.

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up. ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’ He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take His life.” John 11:49-52 NIV.

Caiaphas was high priest and spokesman for the Sanhedrin. Little did he know that what he had to say, out of his puny reasoning, was actually an accurate and profound prophetic statement of the truth. Caiaphas saw Jesus as the scapegoat for themselves and the people. It was either Jesus or them. However, he unwittingly verbalised God’s redemptive purpose for sending Jesus.

John was quick to pounce on his words and explain that Jesus’ death was indeed a substitute for the Jews in Israel and all God’s people everywhere. Were the words of Isaiah which the prophet had spoken centuries before and which Caiaphas would have known so well, subconsciously emerging from his lips?

“Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we were healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV.

Yes, Caiaphas, you were absolutely right! It had to be, but you were part of it and you were guilty!