John 1:1-5 - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
The "Word": Greek - "Logos"
Logos - Definition: "Originally a word meaning Word, Speech, Account or Reason.
It became a technical word in philosophy by Heraclitus who used the term for the principle of order and knowledge." Heraclitus stressed that man cannot, and will never, understand Logos which is always present.
Aristotle applied the term to mean "reasoned discourse" in the field of rhetoric. He used Logos as one of the 3 modes of persuasion. The other 2 are Pathos and Ethos. Ethos is persuading the audience by making them trust the speaker and believe him by connecting with them personally. Pathos is persuading the audience by sparking their emotions. And Logos is persuading the audience using Logic and fact. (Get it?... Logos = Logic)
The Stoic Philosophers identified the term with the "divine animating principle pervading the Universe and animating it." It was conceived of as material and is usually identified with God or Nature.
Philo, a Hellenized Jew, used the term Logos to mean "an intermediary divine being." Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect idea, and therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world. The Logos was the highest of the intermediary beings and was called by Philo "The first born of God." Philo also wrote that "the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated." The Logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, the "Angel of the Lord" in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was identified with the Logos by Philo, who also said that the Logos was God's instrument in the creation of the universe.
So what is the Logos? Is it God? Is it Jesus? Why translate it as Word?
The book of John was written to gentiles, probably mostly Greeks. Greeks would have been considered the intelectuals of the day. They were all about logic and knowledge. I Corinthians 1:22 says, "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom..." Matthew and Luke were written to Jews who "demand a sign", so they have accounts like the Virgin Birth, as well as many miricles, because those accounts are signs that would point to and prove that Jesus is the Christ. But since "Greeks seek wisdom", the book of John doesnt focus as much on the miricles themselves but on different conversations, and on who Jesus was much more than what He did. John has many accounts of Jesus speaking with the Jews or the Pharisees and proving Himself to be Christ by constantly claiming to be one with God, to have come from God, and that He is God. (i.e. John 3:11-18; 5:17-39; 6:32-38; 7:16-18, 28-29; 8:12, 28-29, 48-59; 9:5, 35-39; 10:7-18, 24-38; 11:25-26; 12:44-50; 13:3, 31-32; etc...)
So instead of starting the book with the Birth of Jesus, John starts out with the true origin of Jesus as the Logos. The Logos is a term and idea that the Greeks would have not only been familiar with, but also would have been very fascinated with. From what I understand, the Logos is intelegence itself as well as the creator of inteligence, it is the very order of the Universe. For the Theist it is equated with God and for Naturalists, it would be considered to be the origin and means of existance and nature. So John starts his book by saying that the Logos is the very wisdom of God as well as the very essence of God. It is distinguished from God, and yet one with God, not just in unity but also in function. John says that the Logos was the ganet that formed the Universe. Nothing was made by anything else but the Logos of God, who is God himself.
So basically the Logos, is the Wisdom (Logic) of God. With that being said, John 1:1-5 may better be understood like this: "In the begining was the Wisdom of God, and the Wisdom of God was with God, and the Wisdom of God was God. He was in the beginning with God. ALl things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In the Wisdom of God was life, and the life was the light of ment. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Verse 14 goes on to say, "And the Wisdom of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
I have always heard of the Logos, (probable becuase it is translated "Word), to be the written Word of God... AKA the Bible. But the Logos is far more than that. The Logos is Jesus Christ! He is the Wisdom of God who was God's Master Craftsman during the creation of the World (John 1:3; Colosians 1:16-17; Proverbs 8:22-31), and is the Gospel, or Good News that freely offers us Salvation from sin and from the wrath of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18-24) It was not just a man who died on the cross for us, it was the Wisdom of God; God himself!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Corporate Worhsip
The commercialized ’Sunday Morning Service’ and I have a love-hate relationship. For most of us, our idea of church is showing up at a building every Sunday morning at 10:30am, listening to music, putting 10% of our money in a basket, and listening to a preacher talk to us about God.
The reason for going to church is not to appease our conscience, it’s to get encouraged to stay strong for God. But we usually go to church because that’s what Christians are supposed to do.
Acts 2:42-47:
And they devoted themselves to:
- The apostles’ teaching (Sermon)
- The fellowship (Meaningful Friendship)
- The breaking of bread (Communion)
- Prayers (Self Explanatory)
- They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as anyone had need (No one struggled financially without other’s helping)
- And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes (They saw each other at church and at home. Real Friendships)
- They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people (Always were thankful)
This was the church. We do some of this well, but other things, not so much… For example, our form of ‘fellowship’ is the 5 minutes after receiving the offering and before the preacher starts the sermon, when the preacher tells us to “Say hello to someone you don’t know.”
All of these are areas we need to grow in, but the main thing I wanted to talk about was our idea of ‘Corporate Worship’, or ‘Singing to the Lord‘. We talk about the importance of coming together and corporately worshiping the Lord, but when we get in those moments what is one of the main things the worship leader encourages us to do? “Let’s just sing to the Lord right now with no distractions. Don’t think about the people around you…” We think the most spiritual people in the crowd are the ones who can get their minds off of the person next to them. If we can manage to get in our own world and become oblivious to everyone else there, we are really worshiping. This seems like a wonderful thing until you compare it to the Bible. The Bible actually tells us that we are to encourage each other with songs. We are actually supposed to sing to each other about the character of God. This is true corporate worship, and the reason behind it is to encourage each other to stay strong in the Lord. Here are 5 scriptures I found that support this idea:
“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried out to him.” (Ps. 22:22-24)
“…I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Is. 6:1-3)
“…When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26).
“…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...” (Eph. 5:18-19)
“…Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col. 3:15-17)
The reason for going to church is not to appease our conscience, it’s to get encouraged to stay strong for God. But we usually go to church because that’s what Christians are supposed to do.
Acts 2:42-47:
And they devoted themselves to:
- The apostles’ teaching (Sermon)
- The fellowship (Meaningful Friendship)
- The breaking of bread (Communion)
- Prayers (Self Explanatory)
- They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as anyone had need (No one struggled financially without other’s helping)
- And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes (They saw each other at church and at home. Real Friendships)
- They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people (Always were thankful)
This was the church. We do some of this well, but other things, not so much… For example, our form of ‘fellowship’ is the 5 minutes after receiving the offering and before the preacher starts the sermon, when the preacher tells us to “Say hello to someone you don’t know.”
All of these are areas we need to grow in, but the main thing I wanted to talk about was our idea of ‘Corporate Worship’, or ‘Singing to the Lord‘. We talk about the importance of coming together and corporately worshiping the Lord, but when we get in those moments what is one of the main things the worship leader encourages us to do? “Let’s just sing to the Lord right now with no distractions. Don’t think about the people around you…” We think the most spiritual people in the crowd are the ones who can get their minds off of the person next to them. If we can manage to get in our own world and become oblivious to everyone else there, we are really worshiping. This seems like a wonderful thing until you compare it to the Bible. The Bible actually tells us that we are to encourage each other with songs. We are actually supposed to sing to each other about the character of God. This is true corporate worship, and the reason behind it is to encourage each other to stay strong in the Lord. Here are 5 scriptures I found that support this idea:
“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried out to him.” (Ps. 22:22-24)
“…I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Is. 6:1-3)
“…When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26).
“…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...” (Eph. 5:18-19)
“…Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col. 3:15-17)
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Mercy in Judgment
Many times when we think of mercy, we think of God sparing us from wrath. This is certainly biblical, but if we only have this mind set about mercy than we miss half of the beauty. Many times in scripture, God shows mercy in judgment. I want to show you some passages where God displays His mercy in the midst of His judgment…
Genesis 3 - The Fall
In Genesis 3:1-5, we see the serpent, being influenced by the Devil, tempt Eve to disobey God by eating the “Forbidden Fruit”. She and her husband, Adam, were deceived and ate. So God came down and questioned the man first, then the woman. Then He curses them.
To the woman He said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing…” and “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To the man He said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground… for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
At first glance you would probably ask me how God showed mercy here. It doesn’t seem like He did. Let me show you:
- Genesis 2:16-17 - “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” I believe that God showed mercy right then and there in not letting them die immediately. The commandment was, “Eat it and die”. They ate it and didn’t. That’s mercy!
- Furthermore, disobedience to God is not trivial, it’s treason. It deserves Hell. So there is mercy again. Yes, God did curse the woman with birth pains and the man with toil, which are hard things to deal with… No woman enjoys birth pains and no man enjoys the fact that everything he tries to create and cultivate wars against him, but these things are not unbearable, they are difficult, but we can deal with them. The punishment was not so bad that they died immediately and spent forever in Hell, separated from God, which is what they deserved.
- Also, in verse 20-24, God, in His kindness, serves them by making garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed them. And then God kicked them out of the garden, so that they couldn’t eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their sinful state. But in the book of Revelation, the Bible says that we will be given the Tree of Life to eat of once again.
II Samuel 24 - David takes a census of Israel
In II Samuel 24: 1-17 King David sins against the Lord and the Lord punishes the whole country. Basically, David wanted to count all of his men so that he would know how well they would do in a war. But God had delivered Israel in battle many times before without the strength of great numbers, including Gideon’s 300 men. So it was a lack of faith in God to count the people. Afterward David felt convicted and repented in verse 10. But God spoke to Gad, a prophet, and told him to tell David that He was going to punish Israel for this sin, and David needed to choose 1 of 3 punishments that were to be poured out on Israel:
1. 3 years of famine
2. 3 months of being pursued by their enemies
3. 3 days of plague in the land
David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” Verses 15-16 says, “So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and 70,000 of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’”
I love this story. David sins against the Lord and though he repents in verse 10, verse 11 says God was going to punish Israel because of this sin. But I think this is such a beautiful picture of mercy in the midst of judgment. Here we see this unbelievable amount of trust that David has in God when he says, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” In essence, David says, “This decision is to great for me. Let God punish us because even in judgment He will be merciful.” That is astounding when you consider the power and strength of God compared to that of man--God is Godzilla and man is the village people. But David knew the character of God, that even though He is just, He is full of mercy!
So God sends a plague and wipes out 70,000 people. Once again, this doesn’t seem like mercy until you see verse 16, “…The Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’” So God is pouring out this deserved punishment on Israel and after killing 70,000 people, God becomes grieved because of the weight of the punishment and says to the angel, “Stop! I can’t stand to see my children suffer anymore.” Now, God is absolutely Just and absolutely Merciful, so the punishment that was being delivered was just. For Him to stop punishing simply for the sake of mercy would be unjust. Every sin that ever has been or ever will be committed must be fully punished. Yet in His mercy, God stopped punishing Israel. The only way He can do that and still be just is if someone else receives the rest of the punishment that David’s sins deserved. In essence, God was saying, “Stop punishing them! I don’t want to see them suffer anymore. The rest of the punishment will be put on My Son.” That’s the mercy of God in the midst of judgment!
Habakkuk 3 - Mercy in Judgment
Habakkuk is basically a prophet’s complaint before God. Habakkuk is trying to understand why God is allowing evil to persist without punishing it. His complaint is a lot like the modern question today, “If God is good and loving, why does He allow bad things to happen?”
Here’s the highlights:
Habakkuk complains to God, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? …Why do You tolerate wrong? …The law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”
So Habakkuk is saying, “God, You say You are just, but if so why are You not punishing the wicked for the evil they are doing? They are oppressing the innocent and You‘re not doing anything about it.”
The Lord replies, “…I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people… [They are] guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
So God says, “I’m going to punish Israel’s sin using a people who are way worse than them.”
This conversation between God and Habakkuk goes on back and forth for 3 chapters and then Habakkuk ends his book with a prayer: “Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of You deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
So after asking God to punish the wrongdoers Habakkuk prays to God, “In wrath remember mercy”, and that’s exactly what He does. Amen.
Jeremiah 29 - The Exiles
Many of us have heard and often quoted Jeremiah 29:11 to people as encouragement: “For I know the plans I have for you, ‘declares the Lord,’ plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We encourage each other quite often with this verse, but how many of us really know the context of this verse?
If you read the preceding chapters you will see that Jeremiah has been warning the Jews that if they continue to disobey the Lord, God will have Babylon invade their land and send them into captivity. They refuse to obey and God does what He said. So they were taken over and were sent into exile. In Jeremiah 28 a false prophet named Hananiah prophesied and told captive Israel not to worry because God is going to deliver them from captivity within 2 years. Then Lord told Jeremiah to rebuke Hananiah and prophesy to the exiles, “No, it’s not 2 years. It’s gonna be 70 years. Get comfortable, settle down, buy houses, get married, start families, don’t decrease in number but increase because you’re going to be exiled for 70 years. BUT I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
The mercy of God in harsh judgment is clearly seen here. God only sends them into captivity so that they will turn back to him. This is the mercy of our God!
Hebrews 12:5-11 - Only true sons are disciplined
Hebrews 12:5 says, “…My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.” This is certainly opposite from what many of us hear today. We usually hear something like, “If you are constantly striving to please God, then His blessing will always be on you and you will not go through hard times.” This scripture is not only saying that you will go through hard times, but that sometimes hard times are God’s way of lovingly disciplining us as a caring Father. It actually goes on to say in verse 8 that “if you are not disciplined… then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”
Verse 10 says that “God disciplines us for our good, 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.” Then verse 7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”
Once again this doesn’t seem like mercy at first, but it is only because God loves us that He would do this. In fact, we can be certain that we are legitimate children of God if we do experience this Fatherly discipline from Him. This is one of God’s beautiful, merciful, Fatherly ways of showing His love to us in not letting us remain in our sins, and thus, be able to grow closer to Him. In the same way an earthly father disciplines his children to try to get them to not do what is wrong so that they will grow up to be good people, God disciplines us so that we won’t want to do what is wrong, but rather please Him and grow closer to Him.
I want to close by quoting some lyrics of an old Hymn about the Father’s Mercy:
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His Son for us
And make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turned His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Genesis 3 - The Fall
In Genesis 3:1-5, we see the serpent, being influenced by the Devil, tempt Eve to disobey God by eating the “Forbidden Fruit”. She and her husband, Adam, were deceived and ate. So God came down and questioned the man first, then the woman. Then He curses them.
To the woman He said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing…” and “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To the man He said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground… for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
At first glance you would probably ask me how God showed mercy here. It doesn’t seem like He did. Let me show you:
- Genesis 2:16-17 - “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” I believe that God showed mercy right then and there in not letting them die immediately. The commandment was, “Eat it and die”. They ate it and didn’t. That’s mercy!
- Furthermore, disobedience to God is not trivial, it’s treason. It deserves Hell. So there is mercy again. Yes, God did curse the woman with birth pains and the man with toil, which are hard things to deal with… No woman enjoys birth pains and no man enjoys the fact that everything he tries to create and cultivate wars against him, but these things are not unbearable, they are difficult, but we can deal with them. The punishment was not so bad that they died immediately and spent forever in Hell, separated from God, which is what they deserved.
- Also, in verse 20-24, God, in His kindness, serves them by making garments of skin for Adam and Eve and clothed them. And then God kicked them out of the garden, so that they couldn’t eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their sinful state. But in the book of Revelation, the Bible says that we will be given the Tree of Life to eat of once again.
II Samuel 24 - David takes a census of Israel
In II Samuel 24: 1-17 King David sins against the Lord and the Lord punishes the whole country. Basically, David wanted to count all of his men so that he would know how well they would do in a war. But God had delivered Israel in battle many times before without the strength of great numbers, including Gideon’s 300 men. So it was a lack of faith in God to count the people. Afterward David felt convicted and repented in verse 10. But God spoke to Gad, a prophet, and told him to tell David that He was going to punish Israel for this sin, and David needed to choose 1 of 3 punishments that were to be poured out on Israel:
1. 3 years of famine
2. 3 months of being pursued by their enemies
3. 3 days of plague in the land
David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” Verses 15-16 says, “So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and 70,000 of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’”
I love this story. David sins against the Lord and though he repents in verse 10, verse 11 says God was going to punish Israel because of this sin. But I think this is such a beautiful picture of mercy in the midst of judgment. Here we see this unbelievable amount of trust that David has in God when he says, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” In essence, David says, “This decision is to great for me. Let God punish us because even in judgment He will be merciful.” That is astounding when you consider the power and strength of God compared to that of man--God is Godzilla and man is the village people. But David knew the character of God, that even though He is just, He is full of mercy!
So God sends a plague and wipes out 70,000 people. Once again, this doesn’t seem like mercy until you see verse 16, “…The Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, ‘Enough! Withdraw your hand.’” So God is pouring out this deserved punishment on Israel and after killing 70,000 people, God becomes grieved because of the weight of the punishment and says to the angel, “Stop! I can’t stand to see my children suffer anymore.” Now, God is absolutely Just and absolutely Merciful, so the punishment that was being delivered was just. For Him to stop punishing simply for the sake of mercy would be unjust. Every sin that ever has been or ever will be committed must be fully punished. Yet in His mercy, God stopped punishing Israel. The only way He can do that and still be just is if someone else receives the rest of the punishment that David’s sins deserved. In essence, God was saying, “Stop punishing them! I don’t want to see them suffer anymore. The rest of the punishment will be put on My Son.” That’s the mercy of God in the midst of judgment!
Habakkuk 3 - Mercy in Judgment
Habakkuk is basically a prophet’s complaint before God. Habakkuk is trying to understand why God is allowing evil to persist without punishing it. His complaint is a lot like the modern question today, “If God is good and loving, why does He allow bad things to happen?”
Here’s the highlights:
Habakkuk complains to God, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? …Why do You tolerate wrong? …The law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”
So Habakkuk is saying, “God, You say You are just, but if so why are You not punishing the wicked for the evil they are doing? They are oppressing the innocent and You‘re not doing anything about it.”
The Lord replies, “…I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people… [They are] guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
So God says, “I’m going to punish Israel’s sin using a people who are way worse than them.”
This conversation between God and Habakkuk goes on back and forth for 3 chapters and then Habakkuk ends his book with a prayer: “Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of You deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”
So after asking God to punish the wrongdoers Habakkuk prays to God, “In wrath remember mercy”, and that’s exactly what He does. Amen.
Jeremiah 29 - The Exiles
Many of us have heard and often quoted Jeremiah 29:11 to people as encouragement: “For I know the plans I have for you, ‘declares the Lord,’ plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We encourage each other quite often with this verse, but how many of us really know the context of this verse?
If you read the preceding chapters you will see that Jeremiah has been warning the Jews that if they continue to disobey the Lord, God will have Babylon invade their land and send them into captivity. They refuse to obey and God does what He said. So they were taken over and were sent into exile. In Jeremiah 28 a false prophet named Hananiah prophesied and told captive Israel not to worry because God is going to deliver them from captivity within 2 years. Then Lord told Jeremiah to rebuke Hananiah and prophesy to the exiles, “No, it’s not 2 years. It’s gonna be 70 years. Get comfortable, settle down, buy houses, get married, start families, don’t decrease in number but increase because you’re going to be exiled for 70 years. BUT I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
The mercy of God in harsh judgment is clearly seen here. God only sends them into captivity so that they will turn back to him. This is the mercy of our God!
Hebrews 12:5-11 - Only true sons are disciplined
Hebrews 12:5 says, “…My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son.” This is certainly opposite from what many of us hear today. We usually hear something like, “If you are constantly striving to please God, then His blessing will always be on you and you will not go through hard times.” This scripture is not only saying that you will go through hard times, but that sometimes hard times are God’s way of lovingly disciplining us as a caring Father. It actually goes on to say in verse 8 that “if you are not disciplined… then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”
Verse 10 says that “God disciplines us for our good, 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.” Then verse 7 says, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”
Once again this doesn’t seem like mercy at first, but it is only because God loves us that He would do this. In fact, we can be certain that we are legitimate children of God if we do experience this Fatherly discipline from Him. This is one of God’s beautiful, merciful, Fatherly ways of showing His love to us in not letting us remain in our sins, and thus, be able to grow closer to Him. In the same way an earthly father disciplines his children to try to get them to not do what is wrong so that they will grow up to be good people, God disciplines us so that we won’t want to do what is wrong, but rather please Him and grow closer to Him.
I want to close by quoting some lyrics of an old Hymn about the Father’s Mercy:
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His Son for us
And make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turned His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Patience, Long-Suffering and Mercy of Jesus Christ
The Disciples
In John 16:32 right before Judas betrays Jesus, Jesus tells the disciples, “…But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with Me.” This word absolutely came to pass, not just for Peter, but for all of the disciples (Matthew 26:56). But the very next verse says that everything He is telling them is to give them peace. Jesus had every “right” to be angry that the disciples, His close friends according to John 15, would dare to abandon Him in His darkest hour. But instead, Jesus is warning them before they do it that they will abandon Him, and rather than telling them how horrible of a sin that is--which it is--He encourages them before hand so that they “might have peace”. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Now let’s deal specifically with Peter. We usually dis on Peter and say that he was coward. But Peter, though proven wrong, was being completely sincere when he told Jesus, “I will lay down my life for You”, just like he was being sincere when he told Jesus to call him out to walk on the water, and just like he was sincere when he made all of his other outrageous statements and promises that he fully intended on keeping. He meant what he said, and he believed he would do it! But Jesus, knowing Peters heart better than Peter did, responded, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” This must have not only devastated Peter, but also confused the junk out him. He probably had a very hard time believing what Jesus just said to him, and I’m sure he was embarrassed. But Jesus told him that he would disown Him 3 times before the night was over, and then in the next statement Jesus makes is, “Do not be troubled, Trust in God; trust also in Me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.”
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of my Jesus.
So one minute Peter is defending his Master against a troop of soldiers and cuts a guys ear off, the next minute he is denying that he even knows Him to a girl that worked at the gate of the high priest’s court yard, and the other 2 denials are soon to follow. The bible says that when he denied Jesus the 3rd time and heard the rooster crow that he ran away and wept bitterly. Then we see Jesus restore Peter in John chapter 21 in a beautiful dialog between Jesus and Peter.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Judas Iscariot
Jesus had such a strong love for all of his disciples, including Judas.
In John 12:3-8 we see Mary, Martha’s sister, washing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. It says that the fragrance filled the whole room. Judas makes a comment that sounds godly… “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” As spiritual as this might sound, the next verse says that he didn’t say this because he cared about the poor, but because he handled the money bag and helped himself to it when he wanted something. Jesus, God in the flesh, knew this. Yet He didn’t expose Judas’ sin to everyone there. His response was, “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have Me.” Wow! Jesus must have known Judas’ motives, and Judas’ response probably challenged the other disciples and made them think that Judas was really godly. But Jesus did not expose Judas. Jesus probably pulled Judas aside and confronted him on multiple occasions about stealing the money. Any business man, preacher, godly man, with any sort of wisdom would counsel you to at least demote, if not fire someone if they are stealing from you, especially if they are stealing from the ministry. After all, all the money Judas stole could have been used to feed the poor. But Jesus being fully aware of Judas sin was not bitter or sinfully angry with him. In fact, in Jesus’ response to him He answered him about the poor, not exposing his motives to the rest of the disciples. He was giving him time to repent. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
In John 13:4-17 Jesus washed the disciples feet before the evening meal was served. Jesus did this to show what it means to serve and love each other. So God in the flesh washed the disciples feet--the filthiest part of a person. Judas was included in that. Jesus washed the feet of his betrayer! Any normal human, even if they didn’t fire or demote Judas, would have at least had some sort of bitterness toward him. Even if they didn’t say anything, it would have showed on their face when they respond to him and would have made the disciples know that Jesus had something against Judas. But He never did that… in fact, it seems like the disciples had a lot of respect for Judas:
After Jesus finished washing the disciples feet, verse 21 says that He became "troubled in spirit and testified, 'I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.'" This statement freaked out the disciples and they wondered who it was. So “the disciple that Jesus loved” leaned back against Jesus chest and asked who it was that would betray Him. Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then He dipped the bread and gave it to Judas and said to him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” All the disciples heard Jesus say that, they saw Jesus give the bread to Judas, then they watched Judas walk out of the building immediately… I’m thinking, “Duh! Apparently it’s Judas.” But for some reason the disciples didn’t think that at all. They actually thought that Judas going to go give some money to the poor. The only way the disciples could have reacted this way is if they respected Judas so much, that they could never think it was him. That must mean that Jesus never gave them a reason to believe he would do such a thing. He never reacted with bitterness or anger, nor did He even hint toward Judas’ hidden motives to the rest of the disciples when He could have.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The Pharisees and Religious Leaders
We already know all of the junk that Jesus patiently dealt with on a daily basis from the Pharisees and Priests either challenging Him about the fact that he would dare heal someone on the Sabbath day, or questioning Him about His Authority, His power and who He claimed to be, or accusing Him of being a false teacher, being motivated by Satan and being a sinner. But let’s specifically deal with Jesus and the religious leaders during His trial and crucifixion.
In John 18:28 the Jews and religious leaders have taken Jesus before Pilate to have Him executed. But it is absolutely amazing to me what this verse is saying here… “By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.” STOP! Did you see that? It says they didn’t go into the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover! The Passover was a celebration that took place once a year. It served as a memorial for the Jews to look back and remember how God delivered them from Egypt. It specifically refers to the very last plague in Egypt that finally caused Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. God told the Jews to kill a spotless lamb, smear it’s blood on their door posts, eat the rest of it, and whatever they didn’t eat, burn. When the Angel of Death came to each house he would see the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and would pass over that house, but if a house was not covered by the blood of the lamb, the Angel of Death would go into the house and kill the first born of the house. This entire event was a shadow and prophesy that pointed to what Jesus was going to do. He was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who was slain. And only through His blood are we saved from death; death will Passover us. So the Jews are putting Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), on trial, trying to execute Him, and all the while they are making sure that they don’t defile themselves and thus not be able to eat the Passover meal, which is nothing more than a reminder of God’s faithfulness and a foreshadow of Jesus Christ… Talk about deception. Jesus told them one time, “You search the scripture for you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to Me.” But they were so blind and so hard hearted that they crucified the Lamb and Son of God while making sure that they could still participate in a celebration that was all about Him in the first place.
'Jesus, please don’t ever let our hearts grow that cold!'
This deception continues beyond Jesus trial on through the crucifixion. John 19:31 reads, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” Jesus just died a verse before this and immediately they started thinking about their religious festivals. They crucify the One that these festivals are about and then they go on celebrating them! How blind. How foolish. Yet Jesus patiently endured all of their accusations and all of their questioning. He endured them all the way to death, asking the Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. He never sinned through being bitter with them, nor through discouraging others to obey their authority. And He even did everything He could to save as many as possible, like Nicodemus (John 3). That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The crucifixion
The Crucifixion was the greatest level of suffering that anyone could ever imagine. And it was the climax of Jesus sufferings and the primary purpose for Him coming down from heaven. Here are some of the more descriptive parts in scripture that tell what Jesus suffered during the Crucifixion:
Psalm 22 is a prophetic Psalm that shows what the Messiah will go though when He comes:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from the words of my groaning? …I cry out by day, but You do not answer, by night and am not silent.
…I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him. Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him.’
…Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
…I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; You lay me in the dust of death.
…A band of evil men…have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
He went through all of this, receiving the wrath of God for my sin, so that I could be saved and reconciled to God. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Isaiah 52:14-53:10 is another Old Testament prophesy about the suffering of Jesus:
“… there were many who appalled at Him--His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness… 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. But He was pierced for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. …the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked… though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause Him to suffer, and…the Lord makes His life a guilt offering.”
These next scriptures are from the 4 Gospels. They describe the suffering and patience of Jesus on trial and throughout the crucifixion. I almost hesitate to share these because they have become so familiar to us that they are on the verge of becoming trite, if that hasn‘t already happened. But I challenge you to look at this and put yourself there, watching you Savior suffer these things:
In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus is distressed, and asks His disciples to “keep watch, and pray”. He goes off and prays, and because of anxiety He sweats drops of blood. When He comes back, I‘m sure He was more distressed because His close friends were sleeping rather than staying awake like He asked them to (Luke 22:39-46).
Then Judas and a troop of soldiers came with swords and clubs to arrest Him. They asked for Jesus of Nazareth and He said, “I am”, and the whole troop fell down. But rather than fighting back, He rebuked Peter for doing so and said, “Put your sword back in it’s place… Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scripture be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” And then He allowed them to arrest Him (Matthew 26:47-54; John 18:3-11).
Then He was put on trial and sent from high official to high official, the Pharisees trying their best to have Him executed. He was taken before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilot where He was falsely accused, beaten, mocked, scourged, humiliated, had his beard ripped out of His face, received a crown of thorns (Matt. 26:60-61;Matt. 26:68; Matt. 27:27-31; John 19:1-3)) and “opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 15:5; John 19:9).
Jesus, after being flogged with the Cat of Nine Tails, beaten, wearing the crown of thorns, etc., carried His own cross until they found a man name Simon to do it. They offered Him wine to ease the pain and He refused it. They gambled for His clothes, mocked Him, hung Him between two robbers, mocked Him by saying, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself”; even one of the criminals mocked Him. They wrote the crime He was charged with above Him, “Jesus, King of the Jews”. Then He cried out, “Father forgive them for they don‘t know what they are doing“, and “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27:32-55; Mark 15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:16-37).
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of Jesus Christ, King of glory. Thank You Lord for Your mercy, and for Your patience. Now let’s go and be like Him. AMEN!
In John 16:32 right before Judas betrays Jesus, Jesus tells the disciples, “…But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with Me.” This word absolutely came to pass, not just for Peter, but for all of the disciples (Matthew 26:56). But the very next verse says that everything He is telling them is to give them peace. Jesus had every “right” to be angry that the disciples, His close friends according to John 15, would dare to abandon Him in His darkest hour. But instead, Jesus is warning them before they do it that they will abandon Him, and rather than telling them how horrible of a sin that is--which it is--He encourages them before hand so that they “might have peace”. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Now let’s deal specifically with Peter. We usually dis on Peter and say that he was coward. But Peter, though proven wrong, was being completely sincere when he told Jesus, “I will lay down my life for You”, just like he was being sincere when he told Jesus to call him out to walk on the water, and just like he was sincere when he made all of his other outrageous statements and promises that he fully intended on keeping. He meant what he said, and he believed he would do it! But Jesus, knowing Peters heart better than Peter did, responded, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” This must have not only devastated Peter, but also confused the junk out him. He probably had a very hard time believing what Jesus just said to him, and I’m sure he was embarrassed. But Jesus told him that he would disown Him 3 times before the night was over, and then in the next statement Jesus makes is, “Do not be troubled, Trust in God; trust also in Me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.”
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of my Jesus.
So one minute Peter is defending his Master against a troop of soldiers and cuts a guys ear off, the next minute he is denying that he even knows Him to a girl that worked at the gate of the high priest’s court yard, and the other 2 denials are soon to follow. The bible says that when he denied Jesus the 3rd time and heard the rooster crow that he ran away and wept bitterly. Then we see Jesus restore Peter in John chapter 21 in a beautiful dialog between Jesus and Peter.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Judas Iscariot
Jesus had such a strong love for all of his disciples, including Judas.
In John 12:3-8 we see Mary, Martha’s sister, washing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. It says that the fragrance filled the whole room. Judas makes a comment that sounds godly… “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” As spiritual as this might sound, the next verse says that he didn’t say this because he cared about the poor, but because he handled the money bag and helped himself to it when he wanted something. Jesus, God in the flesh, knew this. Yet He didn’t expose Judas’ sin to everyone there. His response was, “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have Me.” Wow! Jesus must have known Judas’ motives, and Judas’ response probably challenged the other disciples and made them think that Judas was really godly. But Jesus did not expose Judas. Jesus probably pulled Judas aside and confronted him on multiple occasions about stealing the money. Any business man, preacher, godly man, with any sort of wisdom would counsel you to at least demote, if not fire someone if they are stealing from you, especially if they are stealing from the ministry. After all, all the money Judas stole could have been used to feed the poor. But Jesus being fully aware of Judas sin was not bitter or sinfully angry with him. In fact, in Jesus’ response to him He answered him about the poor, not exposing his motives to the rest of the disciples. He was giving him time to repent. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
In John 13:4-17 Jesus washed the disciples feet before the evening meal was served. Jesus did this to show what it means to serve and love each other. So God in the flesh washed the disciples feet--the filthiest part of a person. Judas was included in that. Jesus washed the feet of his betrayer! Any normal human, even if they didn’t fire or demote Judas, would have at least had some sort of bitterness toward him. Even if they didn’t say anything, it would have showed on their face when they respond to him and would have made the disciples know that Jesus had something against Judas. But He never did that… in fact, it seems like the disciples had a lot of respect for Judas:
After Jesus finished washing the disciples feet, verse 21 says that He became "troubled in spirit and testified, 'I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.'" This statement freaked out the disciples and they wondered who it was. So “the disciple that Jesus loved” leaned back against Jesus chest and asked who it was that would betray Him. Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then He dipped the bread and gave it to Judas and said to him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” All the disciples heard Jesus say that, they saw Jesus give the bread to Judas, then they watched Judas walk out of the building immediately… I’m thinking, “Duh! Apparently it’s Judas.” But for some reason the disciples didn’t think that at all. They actually thought that Judas going to go give some money to the poor. The only way the disciples could have reacted this way is if they respected Judas so much, that they could never think it was him. That must mean that Jesus never gave them a reason to believe he would do such a thing. He never reacted with bitterness or anger, nor did He even hint toward Judas’ hidden motives to the rest of the disciples when He could have.
That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The Pharisees and Religious Leaders
We already know all of the junk that Jesus patiently dealt with on a daily basis from the Pharisees and Priests either challenging Him about the fact that he would dare heal someone on the Sabbath day, or questioning Him about His Authority, His power and who He claimed to be, or accusing Him of being a false teacher, being motivated by Satan and being a sinner. But let’s specifically deal with Jesus and the religious leaders during His trial and crucifixion.
In John 18:28 the Jews and religious leaders have taken Jesus before Pilate to have Him executed. But it is absolutely amazing to me what this verse is saying here… “By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.” STOP! Did you see that? It says they didn’t go into the palace because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover! The Passover was a celebration that took place once a year. It served as a memorial for the Jews to look back and remember how God delivered them from Egypt. It specifically refers to the very last plague in Egypt that finally caused Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. God told the Jews to kill a spotless lamb, smear it’s blood on their door posts, eat the rest of it, and whatever they didn’t eat, burn. When the Angel of Death came to each house he would see the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and would pass over that house, but if a house was not covered by the blood of the lamb, the Angel of Death would go into the house and kill the first born of the house. This entire event was a shadow and prophesy that pointed to what Jesus was going to do. He was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who was slain. And only through His blood are we saved from death; death will Passover us. So the Jews are putting Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), on trial, trying to execute Him, and all the while they are making sure that they don’t defile themselves and thus not be able to eat the Passover meal, which is nothing more than a reminder of God’s faithfulness and a foreshadow of Jesus Christ… Talk about deception. Jesus told them one time, “You search the scripture for you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to Me.” But they were so blind and so hard hearted that they crucified the Lamb and Son of God while making sure that they could still participate in a celebration that was all about Him in the first place.
'Jesus, please don’t ever let our hearts grow that cold!'
This deception continues beyond Jesus trial on through the crucifixion. John 19:31 reads, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” Jesus just died a verse before this and immediately they started thinking about their religious festivals. They crucify the One that these festivals are about and then they go on celebrating them! How blind. How foolish. Yet Jesus patiently endured all of their accusations and all of their questioning. He endured them all the way to death, asking the Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. He never sinned through being bitter with them, nor through discouraging others to obey their authority. And He even did everything He could to save as many as possible, like Nicodemus (John 3). That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
The crucifixion
The Crucifixion was the greatest level of suffering that anyone could ever imagine. And it was the climax of Jesus sufferings and the primary purpose for Him coming down from heaven. Here are some of the more descriptive parts in scripture that tell what Jesus suffered during the Crucifixion:
Psalm 22 is a prophetic Psalm that shows what the Messiah will go though when He comes:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from the words of my groaning? …I cry out by day, but You do not answer, by night and am not silent.
…I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue Him. Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him.’
…Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
…I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; You lay me in the dust of death.
…A band of evil men…have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
He went through all of this, receiving the wrath of God for my sin, so that I could be saved and reconciled to God. That’s patience, that’s long-suffering, that’s the mercy of my Jesus.
Isaiah 52:14-53:10 is another Old Testament prophesy about the suffering of Jesus:
“… there were many who appalled at Him--His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness… 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. But He was pierced for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. …the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked… though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause Him to suffer, and…the Lord makes His life a guilt offering.”
These next scriptures are from the 4 Gospels. They describe the suffering and patience of Jesus on trial and throughout the crucifixion. I almost hesitate to share these because they have become so familiar to us that they are on the verge of becoming trite, if that hasn‘t already happened. But I challenge you to look at this and put yourself there, watching you Savior suffer these things:
In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus is distressed, and asks His disciples to “keep watch, and pray”. He goes off and prays, and because of anxiety He sweats drops of blood. When He comes back, I‘m sure He was more distressed because His close friends were sleeping rather than staying awake like He asked them to (Luke 22:39-46).
Then Judas and a troop of soldiers came with swords and clubs to arrest Him. They asked for Jesus of Nazareth and He said, “I am”, and the whole troop fell down. But rather than fighting back, He rebuked Peter for doing so and said, “Put your sword back in it’s place… Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scripture be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” And then He allowed them to arrest Him (Matthew 26:47-54; John 18:3-11).
Then He was put on trial and sent from high official to high official, the Pharisees trying their best to have Him executed. He was taken before the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilot where He was falsely accused, beaten, mocked, scourged, humiliated, had his beard ripped out of His face, received a crown of thorns (Matt. 26:60-61;Matt. 26:68; Matt. 27:27-31; John 19:1-3)) and “opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 15:5; John 19:9).
Jesus, after being flogged with the Cat of Nine Tails, beaten, wearing the crown of thorns, etc., carried His own cross until they found a man name Simon to do it. They offered Him wine to ease the pain and He refused it. They gambled for His clothes, mocked Him, hung Him between two robbers, mocked Him by saying, “He saved others, but He can’t save Himself”; even one of the criminals mocked Him. They wrote the crime He was charged with above Him, “Jesus, King of the Jews”. Then He cried out, “Father forgive them for they don‘t know what they are doing“, and “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27:32-55; Mark 15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:16-37).
This is the patience, long-suffering and mercy of Jesus Christ, King of glory. Thank You Lord for Your mercy, and for Your patience. Now let’s go and be like Him. AMEN!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
We Pray (Song)
Lyrics:
Verse:
We pray for the hungry and naked
We pray for the one standing alone
We pray for the orphan and widow
We pray for the one who don't have a home
Pre-Chorus:
We, Your saints, offer our prayers
We lift up these names before Your throne
Chorus:
Open their eyes to the gospel of Jesus Christ
He is the Name above all
Open their eyes to the gospel of Jesus Christ
He is the Only Way
Verse 2:
We pray for the ones who are ready to end it all
Show them the love that gave us a hope
We pray for the ones who abandoned their faith
Recapture their hearts and carry them home
We pray for the ones that say that they hate You
Let them taste and see that You are good
We pray for the ones who persecute us
Let mercy fall and save their souls
Bridge:
Let hope lead the way
Let them see You face to face
Open up blinded eyes to the Way, the Truth, the Life
Send Your troops, Send the saints
To shine the light of Jesus Name
Heal the sick, Raise the dead
Show Your power, Show Your power
The Gospel
I Corinthians 15:1-4 - “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”
So these are the 3 components of the gospel:
- Jesus died for our sins
- He was Buried
- He rose again on the 3rd day
I grew up in church. But even as a “PK”, I always had 2 questions in my mind growing up. These questions weren’t answered for me until this past year.
1) What’s so bad about sin?
2) What does someone dying on a cross have to do with my sin?
Question 1...
God is Righteous and Holy:
This is a quote from a book called 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die:
“God’s Law demanded, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is--dishonoring God by preferring other things over Him, and acting on those preferences. Therefore, the Bible says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). We glorify what we enjoy most. And it isn’t God.
Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love Him is not trivial--it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.
Since God is just, He does not sweep these crimes under the rug of the universe. He feels a holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and He has made this clear: ‘For the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4).
There is a holy curse hanging over all sin. Not to punish would be unjust. The demeaning of God would be indorsed. A lie would reign at the core of reality. Therefore, God says, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’ (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26).”
The level of an insult rises with the level of the sovereign. Another words, if I were to slap my little sister, Katie, across the face, that would obviously not be very nice, but it’s not a really big deal when put into perspective. However, if I were to slap my mom, that’s a lot different. And better yet, if I were to slap the President of the United States, or the King of England, that is not just a no-no, it’s gonna get me thrown in prison, or shot! Now what if I slapped the King of king’s; the King of the Universe across the face? That’s not just gonna get me thrown in prison… That’s deserving of a punishment much worse!
As the quote above says, “sin is treason!” “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4); Someone Must Pay! Sin is not a game to God.
And all of us have sinned…
Romans 3:10-18 - “…There is no one righteous, not even one; There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
God hungers for righteousness and justice, so His judgment on sin cannot be forgotten or done away with. It must be delivered, and it must punish sin!
So how could we ever escape the wrath of God?
Question 2...
God is Merciful:
God has just as strong a hunger for mercy as he does for justice - Matthew 12:7; Romans 5:8; John 8:3-11
God’s desire for Mercy and His desire for Justice, both must be satisfied.
1 John 4:10 - This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 5:6-8 - You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For example:
Imagine a dark rain cloud is hanging over your head (The dark rain cloud is wrath). Everybody in the world has a dark cloud over their heads. The only way to get the sunshine (mercy), and not the rain (judgment) is by switching places with someone. But you can’t switch places with me because I have a rain cloud too, so it would accomplish nothing. We need to switch places with someone who has sunshine over their head.
All of us have sinned and deserve judgment. Only Jesus lived without sin and thus, deserves mercy. So Jesus, the Perfect Lamb of God, took our place and received all the judgment that we deserved so that we could receive all the mercy that He deserved.
The Cross is the only place where God’s Justice and God’s Mercy are both fully satisfied.
God KILLED His Son Jesus, so He wouldn’t have to Kill us! That’s the mercy of God!
Isaiah 53:10 - “…Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer…”
Knowing these things to be true, we must respond.
The first response is to completely deny the Truth and Mercy of the Almighty God and spend eternity in Hell under His terrible wrath.
John 3:18 says, “…he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Revelation 21:8 - “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Revelation 14:11 - “And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."
The second response is for unbelievers who have read this post and believe it to be true and are wondering what to do next.
Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
So if you believe the gospel, or good news, that I have shared with you here--that though we are sinners and deserve Hell, God in His amazing mercy sent His Son, Jesus, to receive the wrath that we deserved so that we could receive the mercy that He deserved--then all you have to do after believing it in your heart is tell Jesus that He is your “Lord”. Now the word “Lord” has lost its meaning in our culture. Basically what it means is “master”. In other words, if you make Jesus your master, your boss, the leader of your life, you will be saved.
Hebrews 2:1-3 - We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
And finally, the third response is for those who have made a comittment to follow Jesus, but are not living a life obedient to Him.
Titus 2:14 says, “[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Definition: Zeal - excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end…
We are to be “zealous for good works”. That means we are to have excessive fervor for good works; we are to be crazy about doing what is right and pleasing to the Lord!
Romans 12:1-2 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
It says “in view of God’s mercy” give your life to God. That means, in view of the gospel; in view of everything we see herein above, Live For God!
The Bible is very clear about the fact that we are not saved by works, but when we are saved, works will follow. If they don’t, you might not be saved.
Romans 6:1-2 - What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Prayer:
Jesus, thank You so much for Your mercy. I am a hopeless sinner, destined for the eternal wrath of God apart from You. Thank you for receiving the wrath that I deserved so that I could receive the mercy of God that You deserved.
In view of Your mercy and because You loved me first, I give my whole life to You. You decided how I am to live, who I am to be, where I am to go and what I am to do. You, in Your great mercy are in charge of my destiny, and I submit to You Lord.
Teach me how to love You and to be like You.
So these are the 3 components of the gospel:
- Jesus died for our sins
- He was Buried
- He rose again on the 3rd day
I grew up in church. But even as a “PK”, I always had 2 questions in my mind growing up. These questions weren’t answered for me until this past year.
1) What’s so bad about sin?
2) What does someone dying on a cross have to do with my sin?
Question 1...
God is Righteous and Holy:
This is a quote from a book called 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die:
“God’s Law demanded, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is--dishonoring God by preferring other things over Him, and acting on those preferences. Therefore, the Bible says, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). We glorify what we enjoy most. And it isn’t God.
Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love Him is not trivial--it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.
Since God is just, He does not sweep these crimes under the rug of the universe. He feels a holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and He has made this clear: ‘For the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). ‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4).
There is a holy curse hanging over all sin. Not to punish would be unjust. The demeaning of God would be indorsed. A lie would reign at the core of reality. Therefore, God says, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’ (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26).”
The level of an insult rises with the level of the sovereign. Another words, if I were to slap my little sister, Katie, across the face, that would obviously not be very nice, but it’s not a really big deal when put into perspective. However, if I were to slap my mom, that’s a lot different. And better yet, if I were to slap the President of the United States, or the King of England, that is not just a no-no, it’s gonna get me thrown in prison, or shot! Now what if I slapped the King of king’s; the King of the Universe across the face? That’s not just gonna get me thrown in prison… That’s deserving of a punishment much worse!
As the quote above says, “sin is treason!” “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4); Someone Must Pay! Sin is not a game to God.
And all of us have sinned…
Romans 3:10-18 - “…There is no one righteous, not even one; There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
God hungers for righteousness and justice, so His judgment on sin cannot be forgotten or done away with. It must be delivered, and it must punish sin!
So how could we ever escape the wrath of God?
Question 2...
God is Merciful:
God has just as strong a hunger for mercy as he does for justice - Matthew 12:7; Romans 5:8; John 8:3-11
God’s desire for Mercy and His desire for Justice, both must be satisfied.
1 John 4:10 - This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Romans 5:6-8 - You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For example:
Imagine a dark rain cloud is hanging over your head (The dark rain cloud is wrath). Everybody in the world has a dark cloud over their heads. The only way to get the sunshine (mercy), and not the rain (judgment) is by switching places with someone. But you can’t switch places with me because I have a rain cloud too, so it would accomplish nothing. We need to switch places with someone who has sunshine over their head.
All of us have sinned and deserve judgment. Only Jesus lived without sin and thus, deserves mercy. So Jesus, the Perfect Lamb of God, took our place and received all the judgment that we deserved so that we could receive all the mercy that He deserved.
The Cross is the only place where God’s Justice and God’s Mercy are both fully satisfied.
God KILLED His Son Jesus, so He wouldn’t have to Kill us! That’s the mercy of God!
Isaiah 53:10 - “…Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer…”
Knowing these things to be true, we must respond.
The first response is to completely deny the Truth and Mercy of the Almighty God and spend eternity in Hell under His terrible wrath.
John 3:18 says, “…he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Revelation 21:8 - “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
Revelation 14:11 - “And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."
The second response is for unbelievers who have read this post and believe it to be true and are wondering what to do next.
Romans 10:9-13 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
So if you believe the gospel, or good news, that I have shared with you here--that though we are sinners and deserve Hell, God in His amazing mercy sent His Son, Jesus, to receive the wrath that we deserved so that we could receive the mercy that He deserved--then all you have to do after believing it in your heart is tell Jesus that He is your “Lord”. Now the word “Lord” has lost its meaning in our culture. Basically what it means is “master”. In other words, if you make Jesus your master, your boss, the leader of your life, you will be saved.
Hebrews 2:1-3 - We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
And finally, the third response is for those who have made a comittment to follow Jesus, but are not living a life obedient to Him.
Titus 2:14 says, “[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Definition: Zeal - excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end…
We are to be “zealous for good works”. That means we are to have excessive fervor for good works; we are to be crazy about doing what is right and pleasing to the Lord!
Romans 12:1-2 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
It says “in view of God’s mercy” give your life to God. That means, in view of the gospel; in view of everything we see herein above, Live For God!
The Bible is very clear about the fact that we are not saved by works, but when we are saved, works will follow. If they don’t, you might not be saved.
Romans 6:1-2 - What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Prayer:
Jesus, thank You so much for Your mercy. I am a hopeless sinner, destined for the eternal wrath of God apart from You. Thank you for receiving the wrath that I deserved so that I could receive the mercy of God that You deserved.
In view of Your mercy and because You loved me first, I give my whole life to You. You decided how I am to live, who I am to be, where I am to go and what I am to do. You, in Your great mercy are in charge of my destiny, and I submit to You Lord.
Teach me how to love You and to be like You.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Love the Lord Your God with ALL...
Matthew 10:37-39 - Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you understanding and with all your strength.
Luke 9:23 - …If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
To carry our cross. What does that even mean? We see pictures of it all the time on coffee cups, tee shirts; we imagine ourselves carrying this big, 80-100lb cross beam on our shoulder. Because of it‘s weight we are limping and leaning over, struggling to get to our destination…
People genuinely try to capture this reality, but unfortunately, the “cross” doesn’t have a lot of meaning in our culture. Don’t get me wrong, in many ways that’s a good thing, the cross was such a cruel way for even the most heinous of crimes to be punished. But the unfortunate thing is that because of our culture we don’t understand what the cross really was. It was not unique to Jesus, the cross was a very common, very cruel way to punish many a crime.
Seneca (d. 65 C.E.) refers to a variety of postures and different kinds of tortures on crosses: some victims are thrust head downward, others have a stake impale their genitals, still others have their arms outstretched on a crossbeam.
An especially grim description of this punishment, meted out to murderers, highwaymen, and other gross offenders, is the following from a didactic poem: "Punished with limbs outstretched, they see the stake as their fate; they are fasted, nailed to it with sharpest spikes, an ugly meal for birds of prey and grim scraps for dogs."
So you see here that the picture that the disciples had in their mind when Jesus to take up you cross daily was a lot different, and frankly, a lot more gruesome than the cute picture we put on our mugs! It is terrifying for someone to tell us to take up our cross… and how much more so to take up our cross DAILY! What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?… Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
The next scripture up there talks about the greatest commandment. It says to love God with ALL of your heart, ALL of your soul, ALL of your mind and ALL of your strength. Now lets use a simple analogy with that word “all” for a minute. If you have a bucket full of 154 apples and I take ALL of them, how many apples are left in the basket? …hmmm… that’s right, x=0! When it says to love God with ALL, that means there is nothing left to love anything of the world with in your heart, soul, mind and strength! WOW! You might be thinking, “What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?“ …Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
I sometimes get distracted during worship when we sing songs like The Stand from Hillsong… “I’ll stand with arms high and HEART ABANDONED, in AWE OF THE ONE WHO GAVE IT ALL! I’ll stand, MY SOUL LORD, TO YOU SURRENDERED! ALL I AM IS YOURS!” The reason I get distracted sometimes during songs like that is because I begin to look around and wonder, “Do these guys really know what they’re saying?“ For some reason I think most of us, myself included, have gotten it in our head that the more intense our faces look, the higher our hands are raised, the louder we sing and shout, the more we mean what we’re singing. However, if we really stop and think about the weight of those lyrics, it can become very difficult to sing them with sincerity in our hearts. Not that we don’t want to mean it, but how can we live a lifestyle like that… It makes me start to shrink back a little from singing along. Think about it: when we sing lyrics like, “I’ll stand with…heart abandoned; my soul, Lord, to you surrendered; all I am is yours!”, that’s not just talking about a moment of worship, that’s talking about the way we live our lives. It’s not hard to think about God and worship in atmospheres where everyone around us is on their faces singing their heart out to God. But what about when we leave? Because that’s what songs like this is talking about!
What does it really look like to “abandon my heart“? I have desires, I have dreams of who I want to be, where I want to work, how much money I want to have, etc… But if I abandon my heart, my desires, my dreams to Jesus, then what does my life look like? I guess it looks like whatever Jesus wants it to look like if he’s the one that I gave it too! There’s a song by Tree63 that has a line that says, “They say I must abandon You to make my dreams come true. So what am I supposed to do if I only dream of You?” That song paints this picture perfectly.
How about, “my soul, Lord, to you surrendered”, what does that look like? The word “soul” refers to our Mind, Will and Emotions. That’s whatever we “think about“, whatever we “want to do“, and however we “feel“. Those things are to be completely surrendered to Jesus.
“All I am is Yours”? ALL I AM IS YOURS? ALL? So you mean ALL as in EVERYTHING? As in, THERE IS NOTHING THAT I AM THAT ISN’T YOURS? EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY? ALL I AM IS YOURS?
This is why I tend to get distracted from time to time during songs like this. I look around and think, “Do these guys really mean this? Are they out Evangelizing? Are they out feeding the hungry? Are they praying and getting into the presence of God daily? Are they continually striving to not sin? Are they continually striving to obey Jesus? Everything He says? Even the hard things? The things that they don’t want to do?” A lot of times it seems that we sing songs like this too easily! Should our response always be to sing and shout these lyrics at the top of our lungs? Maybe sometimes the greatest response to lyrics like this is to just pause and count the cost, or to cry out to God for help to fulfill this kind of commitment, or to repent because of the lack of the commitment in our own lives! Let’s take these kinds of songs seriously; let’s begin to look at them as vows we’re making to the Savior of our souls, the Creator of the universe! Let’s have the mindset of Daily Carrying our Cross to follow Jesus! The Cross was one of the most morbid forms of execution we could ever imagine! That’s how serious we need to be about living for God, about giving Him our everything, about crucifying our desires, crucifying what we want to do, crucifying what kind of person we would prefer to be, and say, “ALL I AM IS YOURS”.
We‘ve heard it thousands‘s of times, “in order to do this we need to realize we can‘t do it on our own“. But what does it mean to rely on God’s strength? The Bible calls the Holy Spirit our Councilor, Helper, Teacher, it says that He gives us Power to Witness, Power to obey, the Holy Spirit is our Life-Source. We need “grace” to be able to do what God wants us to do. Grace is empowerment. It’s the power to obey. The bible says in John 15 that “without Jesus we can do absolutely nothing”! We need Him! We need to cry out to Him for the power to live this kind of lifestyle.
We will mess up, and we won’t be perfect, but when we fail we MUST ALWAYS fall at the feet of Jesus and ask for mercy to forgive us and grace to help us to change. Never run from Him or try to hide from Him because of shame. We must remind ourselves that Jesus was a human just like us and is now our high priest… the Bible says that we have a High Priest that understands our weakness (Heb. 4:14-16), that He constantly prays for us(Heb. 7:25), that we can cast our burdens on Jesus for He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7), that we can find strength in our God (Phil. 4:13).
Jesus, give us the strength to live for You! Make us like You. And help us to never to these things to win approval or any other pointless reason we might have, but to “love You because You first loved us”. Let our obedience ALWAYS be a response to Your Gospel!
Thank You for Your mercy and grace Jesus,
Amen!
Info on the cross:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/roman.html
Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you understanding and with all your strength.
Luke 9:23 - …If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
To carry our cross. What does that even mean? We see pictures of it all the time on coffee cups, tee shirts; we imagine ourselves carrying this big, 80-100lb cross beam on our shoulder. Because of it‘s weight we are limping and leaning over, struggling to get to our destination…
People genuinely try to capture this reality, but unfortunately, the “cross” doesn’t have a lot of meaning in our culture. Don’t get me wrong, in many ways that’s a good thing, the cross was such a cruel way for even the most heinous of crimes to be punished. But the unfortunate thing is that because of our culture we don’t understand what the cross really was. It was not unique to Jesus, the cross was a very common, very cruel way to punish many a crime.
Seneca (d. 65 C.E.) refers to a variety of postures and different kinds of tortures on crosses: some victims are thrust head downward, others have a stake impale their genitals, still others have their arms outstretched on a crossbeam.
An especially grim description of this punishment, meted out to murderers, highwaymen, and other gross offenders, is the following from a didactic poem: "Punished with limbs outstretched, they see the stake as their fate; they are fasted, nailed to it with sharpest spikes, an ugly meal for birds of prey and grim scraps for dogs."
So you see here that the picture that the disciples had in their mind when Jesus to take up you cross daily was a lot different, and frankly, a lot more gruesome than the cute picture we put on our mugs! It is terrifying for someone to tell us to take up our cross… and how much more so to take up our cross DAILY! What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?… Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
The next scripture up there talks about the greatest commandment. It says to love God with ALL of your heart, ALL of your soul, ALL of your mind and ALL of your strength. Now lets use a simple analogy with that word “all” for a minute. If you have a bucket full of 154 apples and I take ALL of them, how many apples are left in the basket? …hmmm… that’s right, x=0! When it says to love God with ALL, that means there is nothing left to love anything of the world with in your heart, soul, mind and strength! WOW! You might be thinking, “What kind of person can ask something that intense of someone?“ …Someone that owns us. Someone that paid for us. Someone that can relate to our weakness. Someone that can help us do it!
I sometimes get distracted during worship when we sing songs like The Stand from Hillsong… “I’ll stand with arms high and HEART ABANDONED, in AWE OF THE ONE WHO GAVE IT ALL! I’ll stand, MY SOUL LORD, TO YOU SURRENDERED! ALL I AM IS YOURS!” The reason I get distracted sometimes during songs like that is because I begin to look around and wonder, “Do these guys really know what they’re saying?“ For some reason I think most of us, myself included, have gotten it in our head that the more intense our faces look, the higher our hands are raised, the louder we sing and shout, the more we mean what we’re singing. However, if we really stop and think about the weight of those lyrics, it can become very difficult to sing them with sincerity in our hearts. Not that we don’t want to mean it, but how can we live a lifestyle like that… It makes me start to shrink back a little from singing along. Think about it: when we sing lyrics like, “I’ll stand with…heart abandoned; my soul, Lord, to you surrendered; all I am is yours!”, that’s not just talking about a moment of worship, that’s talking about the way we live our lives. It’s not hard to think about God and worship in atmospheres where everyone around us is on their faces singing their heart out to God. But what about when we leave? Because that’s what songs like this is talking about!
What does it really look like to “abandon my heart“? I have desires, I have dreams of who I want to be, where I want to work, how much money I want to have, etc… But if I abandon my heart, my desires, my dreams to Jesus, then what does my life look like? I guess it looks like whatever Jesus wants it to look like if he’s the one that I gave it too! There’s a song by Tree63 that has a line that says, “They say I must abandon You to make my dreams come true. So what am I supposed to do if I only dream of You?” That song paints this picture perfectly.
How about, “my soul, Lord, to you surrendered”, what does that look like? The word “soul” refers to our Mind, Will and Emotions. That’s whatever we “think about“, whatever we “want to do“, and however we “feel“. Those things are to be completely surrendered to Jesus.
“All I am is Yours”? ALL I AM IS YOURS? ALL? So you mean ALL as in EVERYTHING? As in, THERE IS NOTHING THAT I AM THAT ISN’T YOURS? EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY? ALL I AM IS YOURS?
This is why I tend to get distracted from time to time during songs like this. I look around and think, “Do these guys really mean this? Are they out Evangelizing? Are they out feeding the hungry? Are they praying and getting into the presence of God daily? Are they continually striving to not sin? Are they continually striving to obey Jesus? Everything He says? Even the hard things? The things that they don’t want to do?” A lot of times it seems that we sing songs like this too easily! Should our response always be to sing and shout these lyrics at the top of our lungs? Maybe sometimes the greatest response to lyrics like this is to just pause and count the cost, or to cry out to God for help to fulfill this kind of commitment, or to repent because of the lack of the commitment in our own lives! Let’s take these kinds of songs seriously; let’s begin to look at them as vows we’re making to the Savior of our souls, the Creator of the universe! Let’s have the mindset of Daily Carrying our Cross to follow Jesus! The Cross was one of the most morbid forms of execution we could ever imagine! That’s how serious we need to be about living for God, about giving Him our everything, about crucifying our desires, crucifying what we want to do, crucifying what kind of person we would prefer to be, and say, “ALL I AM IS YOURS”.
We‘ve heard it thousands‘s of times, “in order to do this we need to realize we can‘t do it on our own“. But what does it mean to rely on God’s strength? The Bible calls the Holy Spirit our Councilor, Helper, Teacher, it says that He gives us Power to Witness, Power to obey, the Holy Spirit is our Life-Source. We need “grace” to be able to do what God wants us to do. Grace is empowerment. It’s the power to obey. The bible says in John 15 that “without Jesus we can do absolutely nothing”! We need Him! We need to cry out to Him for the power to live this kind of lifestyle.
We will mess up, and we won’t be perfect, but when we fail we MUST ALWAYS fall at the feet of Jesus and ask for mercy to forgive us and grace to help us to change. Never run from Him or try to hide from Him because of shame. We must remind ourselves that Jesus was a human just like us and is now our high priest… the Bible says that we have a High Priest that understands our weakness (Heb. 4:14-16), that He constantly prays for us(Heb. 7:25), that we can cast our burdens on Jesus for He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7), that we can find strength in our God (Phil. 4:13).
Jesus, give us the strength to live for You! Make us like You. And help us to never to these things to win approval or any other pointless reason we might have, but to “love You because You first loved us”. Let our obedience ALWAYS be a response to Your Gospel!
Thank You for Your mercy and grace Jesus,
Amen!
Info on the cross:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/roman.html
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