Tag Archives: the thief

OPTIONS! – 1

Christian Life, ,

Despite the result of Adam’s terrible decision, there is one thing God never took away from humans…the right to choose. It’s this power to think, choose, and make decisions that makes us responsible for what we say and do, and accountable to God for our actions and their consequences. Our decisions and choices affect us and those around us continually whether we like it or not.

Unfortunately, many people, if not most people, don’t accept or live by this truth. Like Adam, they play the “blame game” because it’s easier to blame someone or something else for whatever wrong they do than to take responsibility for the choices they make.

People have been taught to believe that their “mental illness” is a medical condition over which they have no control, which is given a fancy diagnosis behind which they shelter and hope that the drugs they swallow faithfully will cure their condition. So, they live as victims of people and circumstances, hiding behind other people’s words or behaviour as an excuse for their sin.

There is a plethora of mental “diseases” filling hundreds of text books which psychiatrists, who having spent many years studying and practicing what they have learned, inflict on sufferers to no avail. Patients are locked up in psychiatric facilities to keep them from harming others. Families wring their hands in despair because medical science is nowhere near to helping their loved ones overcome their condition even after years of treatment.

Imagine if all this research and knowledge were dumped for the Bible’s simple diagnosis…sin…and the powerful and effective remedy, faith in the blood of Jesus which provides forgiveness and peace!

God has never tried to hoodwink humans into believing that the devil or anyone else is responsible for what we do. He wrote it bluntly in His manual for living.

Ezekiel 18:19-20 NLT
[19] “‘What?’ you ask. ‘Doesn’t the child pay for the parent’s sins?’ No! For if the child does what is just and right and keeps my decrees, that child will surely live. [20] The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness.”

That’s clear, isn’t it?

You see, Jesus attributed everything bad we think or do to unbelief in Him which is what God judges. So, sin and all its consequences, are the fruit of refusal to turn away from selfish, sinful behaviour and to entrust our lives to Jesus.

Does this also include “mental illness”? Surely it must because mental issues are the outcome of sinful behaviour…feelings of fear, guilt, and shame. These hidden emotions produce all kinds of “disorders” which psychiatrists try to treat with counsel or medication instead of uncovering the roo cause.

John 3:18-20 NLT
[18]“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. [19] And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. [20] All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.”

Since people love their sin and refuse to turn away from their unbelief, the consequences are death…to peace, contentment, and freedom which are the fruits of choosing to live in the light, in the truth of who God is and what He has said.

The devil, who is the powerful influence over the world’s systems, has lied to us. He says that selfish indulgence is the way to live, so people choose selfish indulgence and blame others when they feel bad.

Jesus promised a rich and satisfying life to those who believe in Him.

John 10:10 NLT
[10]”The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

How can we have this life?

John 10:9 NLT
[9] “Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.”

We can only enter into this abundant life by, first, trustingvJesus’ promises for the forgiveness of all our sin, the very reason for our mental disorders, second, cleansing from all our wicked ways and, third, the new life Jesus gives to those who follow Him.

Who is the thief? In the context of Scripture, the religious leaders, who led people astray by their wrong teaching. The same can apply to anyone, including medically trained people, who teach us that we are “sick” and need their treatment to recover.

So, what’s the real problem with us?
We have chosen to look for the rich and satisfying life by ignoring God’s way and trying to do life on our own. Bad choice. It doesn’t work… never will! God created us in His image, to live in harmony with Him, His way. Any other way leads to disintegration, falling apart.

How, then, can we overcome the issue of bad choices?

To be continued…

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

Bible Study, ,

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

“‘I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.'” John 10:9-11 NIV.

Such familiar words and yet how they are misunderstood! Once again it is important to read them in context.

The Jewish religious leaders had persistently rejected Jesus and refused to recognize that He was indeed their Messiah. No amount of evidence and no amount of persuasion would convince them that He was the fulfilment of Old Testament messianic prophecy. They claimed to be the true leaders of Israel and yet they placed heavy burdens of unnecessary rules on the people that they were not able to bear.

Jesus insisted that those who refused to come to the Father through Him were thieves and robbers. They did not care for the sheep; they exploited them for their own benefit. They fitted the description of the false shepherds of Ezekiel 34. They tried to gain access to God through their own “righteousness”; by obeying the many petty rules their rabbis had made up around the Law of God.

Jesus said that all those who had come before Him, who masqueraded as true shepherds, were thieves and robbers. They, and not Satan, as this passage is so commonly interpreted, are the ones who kill, steal and destroy. He was aiming His arrows at the scribes and Pharisees who persistently attacked and tried to discredit Him.

These men prided themselves on being the shepherds of Israel while, in actual fact, they were the hireling shepherds who had no love for the sheep. Instead of caring for the sheep, feeding them, lifting their burdens and seeking the lost, they lorded it over them and made life intolerably difficult with their rules and requirements.

Jesus’ conflict with the merchants and money changers in the temple was a case in point. These unscrupulous men were extorting money from the worshippers by confiscating “defective” sacrificial lambs, forcing them to buy another, and selling the faulty ones to the next worshippers. They were probably there by permission of the priests who no doubt got their cut of the profits.

Unlike the leaders, Jesus had shown His people that He was their true shepherd. “I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.” Ezekiel 34:15-16 NIV.

David, the shepherd-king, had known the Shepherd of Israel. In his many years as a fugitive from Saul, he had lived under the care and protection of his Shepherd. Out of years of experience, he wrote the 23rd Psalm. The same Shepherd who had accompanied him through years of suffering, had now come in person to show His people who the true Shepherd was.

Jesus meant His disclosure to be an indictment of those who fail to fulfil their shepherding responsibility towards His people, not to give us someone conveniently to blame for the bad things that happen in our lives. Jesus spoke strongly to those to whom He has entrusted the care of His sheep, especially in view of His anticipated return. There will be swift retribution for the ones who forget their responsibility and waste their time and their Master’s resources on living for their own pleasure.

Peter got the message. “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who will also share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them — not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” 1 Peter 5:1-3 NIV.

Jesus had entrusted His sheep to Peter and his fellow disciples. Now Peter passed on the baton to others. Jesus said, “To whom much is given, much will be required.” Jesus, the Good Shepherd, showed us the way.

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.