Tag Archives: rejected

LUKE’S GOSPEL…NAZARETH – 7b

Bible Study, ,

The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus because they thought they knew who He was. They judged His message without exploring the evidence of His claims.

Jesus made it clear to His own disciples, “You can trust me because of what I do””. 

“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”

‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus’ entire ministry focused on the restoration of God’s kingdom, not only to His own people but also to the entire Gentile world as prophesied in Isaiah…

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. “…I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭42‬:‭1‬, ‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

As much as the Jewish leaders hated Him for exposing their hypocrisy, and even accused Him of using demonic powers to cast out demons…His works were incontrovertible evidence of the real source and purpose of His ministry…

“If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Why did Jesus do the miracles He did? Why did He heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons? Was He looking for popularity or trying to gain a following in competition with the religious leaders? 

Jesus had one goal in view…

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

‭‭Mark‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

His message was the good news of the kingdom, with all the ramifications of that message…including His own death and resurrection, and the miracles as evidence of God’s benevolent rule at work. Jesus came to herald and to bring about the return of the order, justice, righteousness, and peace of His rule, which would culminate in the restoration of everything, including creation, to His original plan, on His return at the end of time. 

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””

‭‭Revelation‬ ‭21‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬

To the Jews, this message was both revolutionary and unpalatable because there was no place in their Messianic expectation for the Gentiles. Their very mention brought about responses of anger and contempt. 

So, they rejected their very own “homeboy”, despite His teachings and His work, because of their bitter prejudice, which even cancelled their own covenant relationship with God. From that moment on, He was unwelcome in Nazareth. Their unbelief shut Him out, limited His power in their town, and sealed their fate as it did for everyone who refused to believe in His name. 

This brings me to the part of my meditation that is relevant for us humans…the issue of skepticism and prejudice that is damaging to our attitude to truth.

He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.’ And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.” – Mark 6:1-6

“After Jesus restored Jairus’ daughter to life with his healing touch, he and the disciples departed Capernaum and traveled 25 miles south to Nazareth. For Jesus, this was a homecoming, a chance to see his family and the friends with whom he was raised. We might expect the town to be excited about his visit and welcome Jesus as a local celebrity. After all, they would have heard all about how he taught with authority, healed diseases, drove out demons, and even calmed a storm. That’s a fairly impressive resume! 

“And yet, the people of Nazareth greeted Jesus with skepticism and outrage. Others might be empowered by God to perform such works, but this was Mary’s Son. He grew up down the street, and they knew he was just a carpenter. While today we value the opportunity to achieve, advance, and make a new way in the world, the people of Jesus’ day were defined by their families and their upbringing. Jesus did not come from a line of teachers and preachers; he was not a scribe or a priest. And so, the people took offense at what he was doing and who he claimed to be. They felt entitled to define Jesus according to their terms.

“How does your skepticism keep you from experiencing the full and awesome power of Jesus? Have you sought to understand and define him from your earthly perspective? Faith is about surrender and trust.”

(Source: biblestudymedia.com)

To be continued…

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – NO, LORD! NOT THAT WAY

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NO, LORD! NOT THAT WAY

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Mark 8:31-33

This whole incident at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus’ question, Peter’s response and what followed is an important part of the disciples’ understanding and experience of Jesus as their Messiah. It was part of refashioning Messiah’s person and role in Israel as a nation and in their lives as individuals. Messianic expectation was very high because of the hated Roman oppression. Further, John the Baptist’s ministry had raised their hopes, topped with this man whose ability to do miracles seemed to have no limit.

At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus actually acknowledged Peter’s conclusion, representing the opinion of all the disciples, as true. Then, in the very next breath He warned them to keep quiet about it. Why? Peter may have been accurate in his confession, but he was way off the mark in his understanding of Jesus’ role as Messiah. His very next response to Jesus betrayed his complete misunderstanding of what the Messiah was all about.

It was imperative that the disciples accurately represent their Messiah to their nation and to the world. Jesus did not want them to go blabbing a lot of nonsense about Him because they attached their notion of what they expected of Him to His identity as Messiah. They had to wait until the revelation was complete – until they were thoroughly instructed and convinced by the Holy Spirit of who He was and why He came.

Following His warning not to disclose His identity yet, He began to fill in the details of His mission – suffering, death and resurrection as the imperative route of victory – over a far more powerful and sinister oppressor than Rome, the power of sin and death. Sadly, His words fell on ears padded with the pre-conceived idea that the Messiah had come to conquer Rome and set up a restored kingdom like that of David’s kingdom. They could not take in His apparently failed mission. Peter vocalised their objection and received a sharp rebuke from Jesus. At that moment Satan was speaking through Peter and Jesus silenced him

Living Stones

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LIVING STONES

As you come to Him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4-5).

Peter’s short letter is a treasure chest of spiritual jewels. How amazing that it was written by a relatively uneducated ex-fisherman!

The first thing this says to me is that it was the Holy Spirit, not Peter’s level of intelligence, that gave him understanding of the truths about the God-man he lived and walked with for three and a half years. Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. What an encouragement for ordinary believers that we can receive revealed truth from God without the need for superior education or intelligence!

Theologians do not have the monopoly on understanding God’s word – in fact sometimes their ability to reason, rather than the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, leads them and us into confusion.

From the day of Pentecost onwards, Peter recognised Jesus in the Old Testament Scriptures. His quote from Isaiah 28:16 comes in the middle of a prophecy against Ephraim – the northern kingdom of Israel which was in perpetual rebellion against God. Like the nations of which David wrote in Psalm 2, Ephraim had thrown off God’s yoke. They refused to obey Him, choosing idols in His place and living the ungodly lives of the pagans around them.

God’s word to the nations who rejected His rule (Psa. 2) was the same word to His own people who had similarly scoffed at Him and gone their own way:

To the nations David wrote:

He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain’ (Psalm 2:5-6).

To His own people God said:

‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic’ (Isaiah 28:16).

And so Peter quoted:

For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame’ (1 Peter 2: 6).

God has only one answer for rebellious nations, rebellious children and His own obedient children – Jesus, the Messiah. He is the cornerstone of His temple built of living stones.

In ancient building practices, the cornerstone was the principal stone placed at the corner of the edifice. The cornerstone was usually one of the largest, the most solid and the most carefully constructed of any in the edifice. Jesus described Himself as the Cornerstone that the church would be built upon, a unified body of believers, both Jew and Gentile. (http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Christ-cornerstone.html)

To believers, Jesus is the precious stone that holds the temple together. Everything we do as Christ’s body is based on Him.

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. . . (1 Peter 2: 7a).

No so to the unbeliever. To them He is the stone over which they stumble and who will crush them on the Day of Judgement. To the believer He is the Rock on which they can depend. He holds everything together and, through Him we are built into a temple in which God dwells through His Spirit. To the unbeliever He is the terrifying Rock of Judgment.

But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for (1 Peter 2: 7b-8).

Our union with Jesus as individuals guarantees our place in the temple of God, the place He has chosen for His dwelling forever. No longer does He live in a temple built of stone. That was only a picture of His intention to make His people His permanent home. His temple, built of living stones, is the place where He is the centre and where He is honoured and worshipped perpetually by those who love Him.

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. ‘They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and will be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ (Revelation 21:1-4).

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.

 

Glimpses Of The Great God: Day Thirteen

Devotion, ,

DAY THIRTEEN

 Who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,

nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered Him stricken by God,

smitten by Him and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:1-4

 What proof do we have of God’s love for us?  “Greater love has no-one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Read through this very familiar passage of Scripture again and again.  Jesus left the place where He was the darling and focus of all the attention of heaven to this – unknown, unrecognised, unappreciated, rejected, despised, scorned, humiliated and thrown away like a bit of garbage – and that by the very people He had created in His own image and for His glory.  Could He have stepped any lower?  And yet He did it for you and for me.  He absorbed all the blows that were meant for us so that we could walk free and be completely acceptable and accepted by God.  He was no “Mr Universe” or “Mr Sexy” as the world loves to categorise men. He was so ordinary that no-one recognised Him as God.  Even His miracles were misrepresented as the works of the devil.  For you and for me He became NOTHING.

Come, Follow Me

Bible Study, , , ,

COME FOLLOW ME

“They said, ‘Nobody wrote warning us about you. And no one has shown up saying anything bad about you. But we would like very much to hear more. The only thing we know about this Christian sect is that nobody seems to have anything good to say about it.’

“They agreed on a time. When the day arrived, they came back to his home with a number of their friends. Paul talked to them all day, from morning to evening, explaining everything involved in the kingdom of God, and trying to persuade them all about Jesus by pointing out what Moses and the prophets had said about Him.” Acts 28:21-23 (The Message).

As always, Paul gave the first opportunity to his own people to hear the gospel. Putting aside all his previous experiences with the Jews, he summoned the leaders to listen to his story in the hopes that some of them would believe and take the message back to their own community while Paul was restricted to his quarters under house arrest.

Paul’s meeting with the Jews in Rome started off in friendly fashion. At least, as far as they were concerned, he could begin with a clean slate. His reputation had not yet preceded him. He could tell his story to an unbiased audience and allow them to make their choices without prejudice, so he thought.

For a whole day Paul opened up their Scriptures to them, shining light on and bringing new meaning to the old familiar words. What a Bible study it must have been! His letter to the Roman church had already been written, and his readers familiar with the grand truths that he had unlocked for them from the pages of Holy Writ. No doubt drawing from the understanding he had received under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, like his Master, he spoke of the glories of the kingdom of God to men who should have had an appreciation of the Scriptures.

“Some of them were persuaded by what he said, but others refused to believe a word of it. When the unbelievers got cantankerous and started bickering with one another, Paul interrupted: ‘I have just one more thing to say to you. The Holy Spirit sure knew what He was talking about when He addressed our ancestors through Isaiah the prophet:'” Acts 28:24-25 (The Message).

The same thing all over again! Paul should have been used to it by now. This is the nature of the gospel of Jesus. He warned that it would be so: ‘I did not come to bring peace but a sword.’ His truth and His claims inevitably draw a sharp line down the middle. Such is the truth about Him that no one can remain neutral or indifferent to Him.

There is an innate enmity against God in the heart of every human being until their deep need for Him rises to the surface with a longing to know Him that outweighs their antagonism towards Him. Some will follow their hearts while others will retain that inward hostility that will rob them of the mercy that constantly reaches out to them. They will put anything in its place rather than submit to the love that calls them to Himself. The fight is so strong that they will destroy the messenger rather than respond to his message.

There is little else in the world that provokes such a violent response as the claims of Jesus. Religion and politics are the main causes of the great divide. But Jesus’ call is not to a cause like religion or politics: it is to Himself. ‘Come, follow me,’ He invites us, and that implies only one thing. You cannot follow a dead man, therefore He must be alive.

Unlike the founders of every counterfeit religion who can only leave behind a record of what they said or did, Jesus is alive! Like all others, He died, but unlike any other, He rose again to authenticate every claim He made about Himself. He is the only one who can speak, now, into your heart, saying, ‘Come, follow me.’