Two Healings, Two Responses (4)

 

 

I want to touch on a similarity between Jesus healing the blind man in John Chapter 9 and His raising Lazarus from the dead in John Chapter 11.

 

“His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him’” (John 9:2 – 3).

 

“The sisters sent word to Him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ But when Jesus heard this, He said, ‘This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it’” (John 11:3 – 4).

 

Jesus points us to the glory of God as the purpose for the condition of the blind man and the condition of Lazarus. Now for sure, we might ask whether it was necessary for the blind man to have been born blind and to have lived into adulthood in that condition. We might ask whether it was necessary for Martha and Mary to go through the anxiety of Lazarus’s sickness and the sorrow and grief of his death. We could ask what Lazarus thought and felt about the whole experience.

 

It might be easy for some of us to say, “Such questions are not appropriate, if Jesus said it was necessary then that is the end of the matter.” Others might say, “Why? Why was it necessary for the man to be born blind and for Lazarus to die? Were there no alternatives? What other possibilities were there?”

 

Perhaps we can look to the difference between Zacharias and Mary for wisdom. When Zacharias hears Gabriel’s incredible message he responds in unbelief, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is an old woman” (Luke 1:18).

 

However, when Mary hears Gabriel’s even more incredible message she responds in awesome wonder and belief, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)

 

“Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

 

Perhaps there is also an element of the father crying to Jesus, “I do believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

 

When we shut our questions down, our perplexities, we deny our humanity and our dependance on Jesus; we are not robots, we have feelings, we have questioning thoughts. It is worse when we try to shut others down, denying them the opportunity to express their struggles, their questions, their search for wisdom and understanding.

 

On the other hand, playing God, critiquing God’s will and actions and words, engaging in endless “what if” speculation, takes the focus off Jesus and places it on us as the arbiters of life.

 

Can we trust Jesus or not? Do we trust Him?

 

Perhaps with the father seeking deliverance for his son we can learn to cry, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”

 

We can say, “Lord, I don’t understand all of this. I don’t understand the whys and hows and all the other questions. But I believe You, help me to believe You more and more and to trust You.”

 

My sense is that faith and belief in the presence of questions and doubt is more precious than a faith which denies the reality of doubt and questions. Let us not pretend; while I imagine that God can work through our pretensions, I sense that He would rather work through our honesty.

 

I have had friends who have lived and died through much suffering and limitations. I would have been a fool to have said, “This is why this is happening to you. This is why you were born with this disease. This is why this incurable illness has happened to you in the prime of life.”

 

For sure I saw the glory of God in these friends, for certain they have affected my life in Christ and increased my confidence in Jesus and my vision of eternity; but I simply cannot speculate on why such terrible disease and illness entered their lives, either as children or adults. I must trust Jesus Christ, I must trust His Nature, His Character, I must trust our Good Shepherd.

 

Let us recall that, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus” (John 11:5).

 

Jesus loves me, He loves you, He loves us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:29).

 

Our message can always be, “Jesus loves you and wants to be with you through what you are experiencing. He loves you with every beat of His heart. He wants you to see Him in new ways, ways you never imagined. He wants you to feel His arms holding you close.” We can always have confidence in this Message, for we can always have confidence in Jesus and His love.

 

This can be our invitation for those who have yet to meet Jesus to meet Him and belong to Him. It can also be our affirmation of God’s love to those who have already come to know Him. We can always trust Jesus…always.

 

Now for a bit of homework if you please. Between John chapters 9 and 11 is naturally Chapter 10. How might Chapter 10 relate to chapters 9 and 11?

 

We’ll look at this in the next reflection in this series, the Lord willing.

Two Healings, Two Responses (3)

 

 

Continuing our comparison between the healings of John 5 and John 9:

 

In John 9, when Jesus and His disciples see the man born blind, the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

 

Jesus replies, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

 

In John 5, when Jesus finds the man whom He had healed, He says to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

I point out that the subject of sin is raised in both narratives, not to attempt to answer the questions that can be raised in both instances, but because we are comparing the two men, the two healings of Jesus. The Scriptures were not written to satisfy our curiosity; they were written to reveal Jesus Christ. One of my favorite quotes from Fenelon is along the line of, “I know many people who are perfect…in speculation.”

 

For sure questions can lead us to Jesus, they can cause us to seek, to ask, to knock; and when Jesus is the object of our search and desire that is one thing, however, when our questions do not have Jesus as their object and center of gravity then we often engage in “foolish questions and ignorant speculations” which “produce quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23).

 

Furthermore, there are many things deep in the counsels of our Father beyond our understanding; it is not necessary that we know everything, it is necessary that we know Jesus and live in intimate relationship with Him.

 

Regarding John 9 and the man born blind, one thing we can be assured of, absolutely assured of, is that Jesus always desires to reveal Himself to us, He always desires to display the works of God in us. After all, God so loves us that He gave His only begotten Son for us – of course He wants to reveal Himself to us and draw us ever-closer to Himself.

 

I often tell folks who in are difficult situations, “I don’t pretend to know why this is happening, why you are going through this, but I do know this, our dear Lord Jesus wants to reveal Himself to you through this and draw you closer to Him.”

 

I believe this with all of my soul, with all that I am. I believe it because this is the character and Nature of Jesus Christ. There is deep and widespread suffering in this world, few of us escape it, it has many forms, some easily seen, some we never know about. Jesus walks with us through suffering, He carries us, He invites us to share His sufferings, He invites us to bless others through our sufferings – there are many dimensions to suffering and comfort and our transformation into His image.

 

And so we learn to look for Jesus in life’s pain and suffering, we look for how Jesus is coming to us and those around us, we seek to see the works of God within suffering, tribulation, uncertainty, within our struggles. O dear friends, this life will soon be over and the reality of eternity will be upon us and we will be within it. Each one of us will have a “last day”, each one of us will have a coming of the Lord, each one of us will leave this temporal life and move (actually we’ll “be moved”) into a life glorious beyond measure. Are we preparing for this? Are we allowing Christ to prepare us? Can we smell it? Taste it? Sense it? Touch it? See it, in some measure?

 

Let us always look for Jesus to reveal Himself.

 

Then we have what Jesus said to the man in Chapter 5, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

This may remind us of what Jesus says to the woman of John 8:11, “Go and sin no more.” I point this similarity out without further comment.

 

Regarding the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years in Chapter 5, physical incapacity does not mean that our capacity for sin is lessened (Matthew 5:21 – 30; 12:33 – 37; 15:10 – 20). We do not know how the man lived prior to his prolonged illness, nor do we know how he lived during his illness; we do know that Jesus warned him to stop sinning so that “nothing worse happens to you.”

 

It appears that this man did not take Jesus’ counsel to heart, for unless he was completely naïve, he must have known the result of telling the religious leaders that it was Jesus who healed him on the Sabbath. The man of John 9 aligned himself with Jesus, the man of John 5 gave his allegiance to those who sought to destroy Jesus.

 

Later in John Chapter 5 Jesus asks, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” This is the way of the religious world as much as it is the way of the world. It is often the way of those “searching Scriptures (John 5:39). Thankfully, we also have Bereans in our midst (Acts 17:11)!

 

Have I ever betrayed Jesus to the world or to the Pharisees? Have I received the blessings of Jesus, only to align myself with systems bent on His destruction? When others have asked me the equivalent of, “Why are you carrying your pallet on the Sabbath?” have I blamed Jesus and betrayed Him, rather than, like the man of John Chapter 9, steadfastly testified of Him and worshipped Him, have I been willing to be “put out” (9:34)? (See also Hebrews 13:13).

 

There is no peer pressure quite like religious peer pressure.

 

I will keep my answers to myself, for they are not pretty answers; my answers shock me, they shame me, they make me tremble.

 

What about you?

Two Healings, Two Responses (2)

 

Continuing our reflections on the healings of John chapters 5 and 9:

 

In both instances, the Pharisees challenged the men healed. In Chapter 5 they wanted to know why the man was carrying his pallet on the Sabbath. In Chapter 9 the Pharisees challenged the man by saying that the man who healed him, Jesus, was not of God and was a sinner (9:19, 24, 31). This is along the line of what we see earlier in Jesus’s ministry, when the scribes from Jerusalem were saying of Him, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons” (Mark 3:22). That is, the religious leaders were attributing the works of God to Satan and saying that Jesus had an “unclean spirit,” a perilous practice indeed (Mark 3:28 – 30)

 

Put more bluntly, in John Chapter 9 the Pharisees were telling the man whom Jesus healed, “An ungodly man healed you. God did not heal you. You have been touched by a demon.”

 

Now then, if you were the blind man, how would you have liked to hear that?

 

In Chapter 5, when asked by the Pharisees, the man did not know who healed him (5:13). In Chapter 9 the man knew who Jesus was, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes…”

 

There seems to have never been any doubt about Jesus by the man healed of blindness; his understanding of Jesus blossoms in the narrative. He goes from considering Jesus a prophet (9:17) to believing in Jesus as the promised “Son of Man” and worshipping Him (9:35 – 38; Daniel 7:13 – 14; Luke 22:66 – 71).

 

On the other hand, the man healed in John Chapter 5 shows no thankfulness toward Jesus. Unlike the man born blind, instead of giving Jesus glory he reports Jesus to the religious leaders. After later encountering Jesus in the temple, “The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath” (5:14 – 16).

 

[Note: When John uses the term “Jews” in his Gospel, he is typically referring to the religious and civic leaders of the Jews. John himself was a Jew, as were all the apostles, as were most of the people of Jerusalem.]

 

Perhaps, in comparing the two men whom Jesus healed in John, there is an element of the ten lepers of Luke 17:11 – 19. “One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him.”

 

In response, Jesus asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they?”

 

Perhaps there is an element of the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3 – 9, 18 – 23)? The man of John 5 is an example of the “seed beside the road” which “the evil one snatches away.” The man born blind is a picture of the good seed bearing much fruit.

 

Are we thankful for the work of Jesus in our lives? When He answers prayer do we fall on our faces, worshipping Him?

 

Do we, as the man born blind, testify to Jesus no matter the opposition? Or do we align ourselves – actively or passively – with those determined to destroy Jesus?

 

What else do you see when you compare these two men?

 

We’ll pick this back up, the Lord willing.

Two Healings, Two Responses (1)

 

 

Have you ever compared the two healings recorded in John’s Gospel? I’m speaking of the man lying by the pool of Bethesda in John 5, and the blind man in John 9.

 

Both occurred on the Sabbath (5:9; 9:14) in Jerusalem. The fact that Jesus healed on the Sabbath set the religious leaders off, it made them crazy (5:10, 16; 9:16).

 

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the emphasis the Gospel’s place on Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. In Mark 3:1- 8, early in His ministry, Jesus heals on the Sabbath in a synagogue and the religious leaders and Herodians conspire “as to how they might destroy Him.” Later in His ministry, in Luke 13:10 – 17, Jesus heals a woman who had been afflicted for 18 years, and once again stirs up religious opposition.

 

In Luke 13:15, in response to being attacked verbally by the synagogue official, Jesus says, “You hypocrites…” He doesn’t say, “You don’t understand, hang in here with Me and I’ll explain it to you.” He gets right to the point and calls the religious group “hypocrites.” This is a pattern we see in all four Gospels, and it is especially highlighted in the Gospel of John.

 

This reminds me of Jesus’ approach in His hometown synagogue in Luke Chapter 4 (I recently did a series on this). Rather than take things nice and easy and work into His Message, He gets to the point about who He is (Luke 4:18 – 19) and then throws gasoline on the fire by pointing to God’s working in the lives of two non-Israelites (Luke 4:25 – 27) which so infuriates His hometown neighbors that they try to kill Him.

 

Why didn’t Jesus spend the first few weeks or months of His ministry playing by the religious and cultural rules, while healing six days a week and not on the Sabbath? Why, early in His first extended sermon does Jesus say, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20)? Why not wait a few weeks or months before confronting the scribes and Pharisees and try to win them over?

 

From the very beginning of His ministry right up until its conclusion during Holy Week, Jesus is confrontational with the religious establishment; nor is He seeking to persuade people to follow Him, quite the contrary (John 6:60 – 71; 8:31 – 59; Mark 8:31 – 38; Luke 9:57 – 62). He says, in effect, to the people, “Don’t follow Me unless you know what you are getting into. Don’t believe in Me unless you give Me all that you have and all that you are.”

 

I don’t know the answer to my questions.

 

There is an adage in pastoral preaching that we are to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and while there may be an element of this in Jesus’ approach to ministry, I don’t think it captures the entire picture. One thing for sure, Jesus doesn’t leave any middle ground, He didn’t do it then and He really doesn’t do it now.

 

Yet, we do seem to be a people of the middle ground, of compromise with the world, the flesh, and the devil; of compromise with money and possessions and marketing and political and economic and social agendas.

 

I wonder what our own untouchable “Sabbaths” are. That is, what are those things that Jesus dare not touch in our lives and congregations, that are off limits to Him? I can look back and see many in my own life. There must be some in my heart today, dare I ask Him to reveal them to me?

 

What are the religious (and other) practices and doctrines and traditions that we defend from Jesus?

 

Yes, the Sabbath is Biblical in that it is in the Beginning (Genesis 2:1 – 3). However, the true Sabbath is Jesus Christ, with all the Sabbaths and Holy Days of the Old Testament pointing to Him, to relationship with Him, to His glorious Person and work (Hebrews Chapter 4; Colossians 2:16 – 17; Matthew 11:28 – 30).

 

What do you see when you compare the healings of John 5 and John 9?

 

We’ll pick this back up, the Lord willing.

Enigmatic Faith

 

Good morning dear ones,

 

Below is a note I wrote to a friend recently, perhaps there is something here for you.

 

Much love,

 

Bob

 

Good morning Friend,

 

I am reminded of the father who cried to Jesus, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” I have cried this many times and imagine I will do so many more times. What else can we do?

 

Faith is enigmatic, at least to me. A labyrinth? If we see the labyrinth in Jesus this is not so bad, for even our apparent dead ends are designed to transform us into His image.

 

Is He not our Good Shepherd? Can we not trust Him? Is this life not a pilgrimage and prelude to our glorious destiny?

 

Is not He, our dear Lord Jesus who gave His all for us, what matters? Then others? Lastly ourselves?

 

Could it be that you are already where you desire to be?

 

I have no doubt that you are in our Father’s House, for only those in His House and Family have the desires, the doubts, the regrets, and despair that you have.

 

As I said, faith is enigmatic. What can we do but allow the very faith of Jesus Christ to live within us and through us? He is the Vine and we are the branches and as His life flows through us, so His very own faith flows through us. This is why when I read Galatians 2:20 I read it as the dear KJV translators have it, “by the faith of the Son of God.”

 

As Jesus lives by the Father, so we live by Jesus…yes?

 

O dear friend, I have many regrets in my life…so very many. Sometimes I look back and think, “How could this be? How could you have done this, thought this, said this?” Then I am consumed by guilt and shame and remorse. It seems the closer I get to eternity the more I see these things. What to do? What can I do but trust Jesus?

 

And isn’t that what this all comes down to, trusting Jesus? Trusting Jesus no matter how I feel, or how I perform, or how deeply (or not) I understand a matter?

 

When I draw my final breath in this life, what can I do other than trust Jesus?

 

As I have said before, on my best days my Father needs to change my nappy; may God never let me lose sight of this truth.

 

One of the reasons I so look forward to crossing that river between this life and the next, is that my memory will be purged of toxicity, of poison, of regret and remorse, of things which I can’t bear to think of. I don’t say that this ought to be anyone else’s journey, I simply say to you that this is my journey.

 

Is my faith so weak that I cannot embrace the totality of God’s forgiveness, that I cannot bask in the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb? Again, this is enigmatic to me. Yes, I do bask in the blood of the Lamb, claim it, proclaim it, rejoice in it. But this is, for me, a journey, a process, a climb up Zion’s mountain – perhaps I need to train myself not to look back, not to look down. Ha!

 

I climb with a limp. I say to Jesus, “Lord, where else can I go? You have the words of eternal life.”

 

What some may see as my faith, I see as my desperation – for indeed, where else can I go? Where can anyone go?

 

When Jesus says that we can’t change our hair or height by thinking, He means it. We are so foolish, are we not; to think we are in control…so foolish to think we are in the driver’s seat. So foolish to think we can add a day, an hour, a moment to our lives.

 

So realizing that I must trust Him is, for me, less a matter of faith than a matter of simple reality – if this is faith, well and good, all I know is that this is the essence of life.

 

Tom ____ once said to me, “You have a simple faith.” He meant it as a compliment, and I’ll receive that testimony.

 

O dear friend, what matters to me is less about how I feel than whether others are coming to know Jesus. I have eternity ahead of me in which I will no doubt feel pretty good, but between now and then I need to follow Jesus and share Him with others. We are on a battlefield fighting for the souls of mankind, I don’t want my feelings to be a distraction…and I know they can be…they have in the past, they may be again…but I must live in the Cross of Christ and allow the Cross to live in and through me.

 

As Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

 

I have a friend in Amelia County who is a flight instructor. He teaches his students to fly by instrumentation, not to look outside the cockpit. He has a hood that he places on students so that they cannot see outside the plane, all they can see is the instrument panel. If they fly by sight in bad weather they may die, suffering from spatial disorientation.

 

The students may not “feel” great as they learn to fly by instrumentation, but they and their passengers will live. Neither you nor I really want to be passengers on a plane with a pilot flying by his feelings.

 

I can be a very emotional person. I have a tambourine which I’ve played in many a worship gathering. I can shout, I can run down a church aisle (which I have, even in our Congregational church!), I have danced in worship gatherings…but I know that I must fly by instrumentation…for the fair weather can quicky change…and for the glory of God and the salvation of others I must keep my eyes on Jesus, always on Jesus.

 

We can’t go back, at least I don’t think so. O I suppose we can go back in terms of obedience (but even there I’m not sure, hopefully we are wiser and more faithful), but in terms of feelings…well…we do change don’t we? We age, we mature, we bruise, we break bones, we have our hips knocked out of joint…we are no longer children, we are no longer young, we are no longer middle aged.

 

Yet, this can be the sweetest time of life in many ways, not the least of which is sharing the grace of our Lord Jesus with others…and living in anticipation of that great Day which is nearer to us today than it was yesterday…we are ever closer to that City whose Builder and Maker is God.

 

What shall we say to these things?

 

If God is for us, who can be against us?

 

Much love dear friend,

 

Bob

Waiting in Silence (2)

 

Let’s follow up the meditation on waiting on God with silence with some thoughts on meeting our Lord Jesus and our Father each morning.

 

We can have assurance that our God wants to meet with us, speak with us, reveal Himself to us, and that He will listen to us; our God is our Friend and His heart yearns for intimate relationship with us, His daughters and His sons.  The question is not, “Will God come to meet me?” It is, “How will He come? How will He reveal Himself to me?”

 

Our God “is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). Jesus promises us that if we ask we will receive, if we seek we will find, and that if we knock that it will be opened for us (Matthew 7:7 – 11). Our Father loves us to come to Him, to seek Him, to ask, to get to know Him – after all, we are His children – and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

 

As we learn to begin our days with Him, we will learn to spend our days with Him.

 

When I speak of waiting on God in silence I mean two things; the first is that there is no outside noise, the second is that we wait to hear from Him and that we do not do all the talking. No outside noise means primarily electronic noise, it includes screens – it is time to mute your phone or put it on airplane mode – keep it away from you. Our eyes, our ears, our minds, our hearts, our total selves are to be waiting on God.

 

The second element of silence is that we quiet ourselves and focus on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We settle our souls down into silence – but please note – silence does not mean nothingness! We do not empty our minds, we do not empty ourselves, we do not seek thoughtlessness – we seek the True and the Living God.

 

We do not wait for “nothing,” we wait for the LORD, we expect His arrival, we anticipate Him, we look forward to seeing Him, to hearing Him, to being touched by Him, to touching Him, to sensing Him.

 

Since God comes to us in and through His Word, since God comes to us as His Word, we know that we will meet with God as we enter His Word and as His Word enters us. With this assurance we can choose a Bible passage, read it out loud, ponder it, pray it, linger in it, read it out loud again – all the time waiting and watching and sensing the moving of the Holy Spirit.

 

Some mornings will be different than others, but they will build upon each other, weaving a tapestry of communion and friendship with the Holy Trinity and the saints. We may not discern the Divine patterns God is producing within us, but they will be there – some may be straightforward, many will be intricate, all will take a lifetime.

 

As we partake of the Bible in Christ Jesus, we partake of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4).

 

You might want to keep two writing pads or notebooks with you as you commune with God in the morning. One is to jot down reminders, such as “take out the trash,” or “call the dentist” When thoughts such as these intrude, rather than trying to remember them, if we write them down then we can continue to focus on Christ and His Word.

 

The other pad or notebook is to journal what you sense the Holy Spirit saying to you. Some mornings you may only write a line or two. Other mornings you may record a paragraph or more. Still other mornings you may not write anything down, this does not mean you haven’t been in His Presence, it just means nothing struck you as something to be recorded for you to look back on. Of course, you may decide to jot at least one thought every morning, perhaps a word or two related to the passage you’re reading, this may be important to some of us, while others may not be inclined to do so.

 

Meeting God in silence and intimacy is not to be found in technique, it is to be found in relationship with Him in His Word, and flowing out from His Word this relationship will be found in all of life, including in Creation and in our neighbors and in His People, the Church, the Body of Christ.

 

Techniques can be training wheels on the bicycle when we are getting started, but at some point we need to ride without them. This is not to say that we don’t maintain certain patterns of prayer, communion, meditation, and reading the Word on this pilgrimage; it does not mean that we don’t adjust or change our patterns, but it does mean that we become adult sons and daughters of God and that we learn to commune with God as His friends, as those who love to be with Hiim even as He loves to be with us.

 

If this new to you, you may want to take a passage such as Psalm 1 or Psalm 23 or Psalm 27 and ponder it every morning for seven days, allow it to be your entrance into waiting on God in silence, into listening for Him, into conversing with Him. Or you may want to take an extended passage such as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 – 7) or the Upper Room Discourse (John chapters 13 – 17) and remain in that passage for a month or two or even three.

 

If it is a short passage, such as one of the above psalms, I suggest reading the entire psalm out loud at first, and then in silence reflecting on what you’ve read while asking God to speak to you, to come to you through His Word. So you might read all of Psalm 1 out loud, then go back and ponder the first verse, followed by silence as you wait; then ponder the second verse, followed by silence as you wait – always listening for the impressions and insights of the Holy Spirit, always expecting to see Jesus, always anticipating the warm love of your Father touching you. And, of course, don’t hesitate to journal, even if it is a word or two to get you started.

 

Our minds are not empty as we wait for God in silence, they are being filled with God’s Word, with His image, with His distinct voice in Jesus Christ.

 

If you choose an extended passage, such as one of the above in Matthew and John, then you might read a section of the passage out loud and then go back and employ the basic pattern I outlined for a short or medium length psalm. For example, if I am pondering the Sermon on the Mount in the morning, I might begin the first morning by reading Matthew 5 out loud and then go back in meditate on verses 3 – 12, the Beatitudes. I might remain in the Beatitudes for a few days before moving into verses 13 – 20; I am not in a hurry, this is not a race, I am not in a car seeing how many miles I can drive in a day. I am in the Bible to meet God, to know Him, to grow into His holy image in Jesus Christ.

 

Bible study has its place, but this is not the place for Bible study, this is the place for you and God; this is the place for a relationship so intimate that you will find that some things cannot be put into words. This is the Burning Bush.

 

Please, please, please, do not use a study Bible during these times, please don’t do it. It is fine to use a Bible with cross references, but it is not okay to use a study Bible when we are waiting on God in silence. If you use a study Bible your eyes will stray to the notes and those notes will influence your thoughts and lead you into tangents. There is one mediator between God and man, and it ain’t a study Bible. If you have a question about historical context, or about the way a certain word is used, or about a subject – write it down in your notebook so you can go back and follow up.

 

I realize most people don’t “get this,” but I have seen the damage we allow study Bibles to do over decades, while they may have their place, and I use the word “may,” whatever that place may be is not during our early morning times of intimacy with God.

 

Well, just wanted to share some thoughts. God loves you so deeply and He desires with all His heart for you to know Him intimately, I hope you know that.

 

He will meet us in His Word, yes He will.

Waiting in Silence

 

“My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:1 – 2).

 

“My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (Psalm 62:5 – 6).

 

Pascal said that the most difficult thing for a man to do is to be alone for an hour. A person without distraction will eventually ponder himself, and he may also consider God, His Father and Creator. Being alone is difficult because we do not want to consider ourselves critically, and we don’t really want to confront God, we don’t want to submit to Him.

 

Pascal also thought that the chief benefit a king has is that he is wealthy enough to have perpetual distractions. If you have perpetual distractions then you can avoid looking in the mirror critically and you can avoid thinking about God, you can avoid confronting God.

 

Of course, when the king dies his distractions will be over and he will pay attention to God for the king will have no choice. The same is true of presidents and generals and entertainment icons and the ultra-wealthy; it is true of us all. 

 

We are a people who consume distractions, and in consuming distractions we trade the image of God within us for poison in our souls. We invite the noise of the world, the flesh, and the devil into our heads and hearts and souls, rather than place ourselves before God in silence – and it all usually looks so good! Who wants to spoil the party?

 

In verse 1 the psalmist makes a statement, “My soul waits in silence for God only.”  In verse 5 he gives a command to his soul, “My soul, wait in silence for God only.”

 

There are times we need to have a good talk with ourselves. “Eye, don’t look at that! Hand, don’t do that! Ear, don’t listen to that! Soul, wait in silence for God and only God!”

 

“From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken” (62:1b – 2).

 

“My hope is in Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken” (62:5b – 6).

 

The idea of salvation brings with it both deliverance from peril and being made whole. Our salvation is our way of life; our way of life indicates what we believe to be our salvation. What our souls feed upon is what we consider to be essential for its life, it is what we believe we can’t do without. What do our hearts and minds consume?

 

The psalmist is clear that God is his salvation, his rock, his hope, and his stronghold. A stronghold is that which can withstand assault and is a safe place. What is our stronghold? To what or to whom do we look for deliverance? Where do we place our hope?

 

Can any of the distractions around us help on that day when we draw our final breath? Can money or entertainment or corporate position or fame or physical appearance or education or pleasure (in whatever form it may be) or power? Can any of these things truly provide wholeness and safety and peace for us? Can any of them give us never-ending hope and security? Can any of them give satisfying and continuous fulness to our soul? Do we see the false promises in our frenzy of marketing, advertising, and wave after wave of political and economic movements?

 

Man became a living soul when God breathed into him – without the breath of God there is no life, there is only walking death, slumber in an opium den.

 

When we know that God is our only salvation, our only hope, our only stronghold – then we know the importance of silence before Him, of waiting on Him, of being centered and focused on Him; listening for Him, listening to Him, and then responding to Him in obedient love and faithfulness in Jesus Christ.

 

“I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests upon its mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me” (Psalm 131:2).

 

When we are weaned from the ways of the world system, from the “lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16), then we will have come into the stronghold of God in Christ, then the house of our soul will have been founded upon a rock (Matthew 7:24 – 27).

 

Distractions suck the life from our souls; waiting on God in silence, receiving Christ, embracing Christ Jesus and being embraced by Him – in Him alone there is Life, Life today, Life tomorrow, Life forever.

 

“They that wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

 

Shall our souls wait in silence for God only…today?

Our Father

 

 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him…. The father said, “This son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:20, 24).

 

I have a friend who, like some of us, had a problematic relationship with his dad; it was emotionally and psychologically volatile. As a young man my friend had left home and was living in another state, when his life came crashing down on him. Darkness and despair enveloped him, he had no hope, no where to turn, no refuge, no safe place. What to do? Where to go?

 

He called his father.

 

When his father heard the anguish in his son’s voice he simply said, “Come home son.”

 

Every mile my friend drove on his return to his dad was a mile closer to acceptance, to love, to a safe place; every mile brought him closer to his Daddy.

 

In the story that we term The Prodigal Son, one of the great stories in humanity, indeed, in the universe, the father sees the son a long way off and runs to him, embraces him – holding him tight! – and kisses him. I imagine tears of joy and relief were shed by both the father and the son.

 

Do you think that after the grand celebration, as morning dawned the following day, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we have breakfast, we need to talk about the past few years and the way you’ve lived”?

 

Do you think that on each following day, for the rest of their lives, that the father said to the son, “Now son, before we do anything else today, we need to talk about the time you took your inheritance and wasted it, the time you rejected me and our family, the time you squandered your life”?

 

Do you think that the father treated his son like a servant? Like an outcast? Do you think that each day the son had to earn his father’s love and trust? Do you think that the son could never measure up to the father’s expectations and that the father continually reminded the son of his failures?

 

Do you think that if the son needed anything, money, clothing, food, that he had to beg and plead with his father?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays in this story?

 

Is this the kind of father that Jesus portrays to us in His own life and teaching?

 

“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who reverence Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who reverence Him” (Psalm 103:11 – 13).

 

The Bible teaches us that we are the sons and daughters of God in Jesus Christ; that the very Spirit of our Father lives within us, so that we cry to Him, “Abba (Daddy) Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

 

Consider that our Father made our elder brother, Jesus Christ, “who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

 

Consider that Jesus, in dying on the Cross and rising from the dead, did so in order to proclaim the Name (Nature) of the Father to us, His sisters and brothers (Heb. 2:12; Psalm 22:22).

 

Do we really think that such a Father has any desire to remind us, again and again and again, of our time away from Him, our time in the hog pen, our time in a far country? Such a nature, such behavior, would trample on His love and the sacrifice of Jesus, it would make caricatures of them – there would be no good news in the Gospel, it would be just another “bait and switch” religion.

 

Allow your Father to hold you tight today, allow Him to speak to you and to reassure you that you are His daughter, you are His son. Allow Him to bring you back home into the House to which you have always belonged, into the Family in which you will live eternally.

 

You are no longer a stranger, no longer a sinner, no longer an outcast – you are a daughter and a son of the Living God, made pure and holy in Jesus Christ, a saint (holy one), and an heir of God and a coheir with Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:14 – 25).

 

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?...I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38 – 39).

 

Can you hear your Father saying, “Come home”?

Our Light and Our Salvation

 

Psalm 27 is part of my reading today, it being the 27^th of July. This is an old, old friend and is ever sweeter as the years pass, sweeter as we spend time together.

 

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread” (27:1).

 

In that Day there will be only one Light, that of the Father and the Lamb (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). If this will be the case then, why not live in that Way now? Why not learn to live in the Light of Christ and the Father, and only in that Light?

 

This requires “Yes” to Jesus Christ and “No” to competing lights and voices and ways of life. The most dangerous competing lights are those which look good and seem reasonable. People may understand when we reject things that are obviously evil, but they seldom understand when we reject things that appear reasonable, good, and even “Christian.”

 

Are we asking ourselves, “Where is Jesus in this? Where is the Cross? Do I see Jesus?” Paul writes, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

“For my father and mother have forsaken me, the LORD will take me up” (27:10).

 

This may be true of biological parents, but it may also be true of the traditions and cultures within which we are raised. The tradition in which Jesus was raised not only forsook Him, it tortured and crucified Him. The hierarchy of the religion in which Jesus was raised plotted His death and sought to destroy His followers. As they have done to the Master, they will do to His disciples, “A slave is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

 

This can be a very hard thing, choosing Jesus over tradition, choosing Jesus over the pragmatic, choosing Jesus in the midst of religious peer pressure. However, if we are seeking His Face, if we have declared, “Your Face, O LORD, I shall seek” (27:8), then we really have no option. We are as Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

 

My sense is that an element of our pilgrimage is to constantly ask whether we are walking in the Light of Jesus or in lesser lights, including lesser “Christian” lights. Are we hearing the Voice of the Father saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased, hear Him!”? (Matthew 17:5).

 

As we lift up our eyes, are we seeing only Jesus? (Matthew 17:8).

More Than A Face In The Crowd

 

 

What is the largest crowd you have ever been in?

 

Perhaps a college or NFL game? A Major League baseball game? Maybe a parade in New York City? Maybe your town’s 4^th of July parade?

 

My dear brother-in-law Rod, who is now in the Presence of Jesus, once drove from his home in Iowa to visit us when we lived in Baltimore. He had been with us two or three days when we arrived home from work to find a note from him which read, “Too many people here, going home.”

 

“Home” was the town of Luther, Iowa where he and Vickie had grown up. It had about 300 people when they were growing up, and in 2026 it has about 150 people.

 

The world population is about 8.3 billion people right now, and the United States has about 350 million of those people. When I was born in 1950 the USA had about 150 million.

 

Sometimes I’ll hear someone talk about feeling insignificant when they look at the heavens, or when they consider just how many people there are. No wonder a psalmist asked God, “What is man that You take thought of him; and the son of man that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).

 

When I hear talk of insignificance, I immediately think of just how special that person is to God, of how much God loves that man or woman or young person. When we gaze into the heavens, rather than think that we are insignificant, we have the opportunity to think that the Great God who created those heavens loves us, knows us, and deeply desires that we know Him in a loving relationship.

 

Have we forgotten that “God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16)?

 

Yet, even when we read this statement, we may think, “Well, God may love the world, but I am only a face in the crowd, one person out of a huge population, one person out of all the people who are living and who have ever lived and who ever will live. I don’t matter. God doesn’t know I exist.”

 

“He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them” (Psalm 147:4).

 

The European Space Agency says that there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way (our very own galaxy), and that beyond the Milky Way there are millions upon millions of other galaxies. There are many more stars than people, and I have an idea that God gives each star a unique name – if a star is named “Bob” that star is, I imagine, the only “Bob” in the star population.

 

You may recall that Jesus says that He will give those who are conquerors with Him “a new name” written on a white stone, “which no one knows but he who receives it” (Rev. 2:17). I hope I’ll be able to pronounce my new name! The point is, of course, that while God has special names for all the stars, He also has special names for you and me. As much as I appreciate the late George Foreman, God isn’t naming us George 1, George 2, George 3.

 

For years I heard it said, “If you were the only person on the planet, Jesus would have come to die for you.” I heard it said many times, and I said it to lots of people. It sure sounded good, and it sounded really great when I told others, but did I really believe it? Did I really think that if I was the only person on earth, Jesus would have come to suffer and die for me, bearing my sins and my deeply sinful nature which was in rebellion against God?

 

Since I was a young disciple, one of my core verses has been Galatians 2:20; we can know something and not know something; we can think we know something but not really know it, not truly “see” it.

 

Almost 30 years ago our church was doing a series of ALPHA courses, using Nikki Gumbel’s marvelous DVDs. I had watched the series so many times I was on autopilot this particular evening, sitting in the back of the group by myself in our fellowship hall, with most people sitting at tables together. My mind was wandering…when Nikki quoted Galatians 2:20:

 

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

 

All of a sudden, my ears, mind, and heart were captured by the words, “Who loved ME and gave Himself up for ME.” I let out a whoop and a holler and a “glory!”

 

“Me! Me! I shouted to the group. He loved ME and gave Himself for ME!”

 

It was true after all…I had recited that verse for decades and never seen it – what assurance! God didn’t just love the world, God loved ME! He loved me and gave Himself for ME!

 

And my dear friend, He loves YOU and gave Himself for YOU!

 

You are more than a number, than a face in the crowd; much more than an accident looking for a place to happen – God has an eternal plan for you to be wrapped up in His arms of love; He loves YOU with every beat of His heart!

Jello Molds

 

Treating the Bible Like Jello

 

Do we treat the Bible like Jello?

 

When we read and teach the Bible do we pour the text into our distinctive molds? Do we add fruit to it? How about toppings?

 

Do we make our own core identity the core of the Bible?

 

A friend of mine once did a sermon series on “the Presbyterian view of spiritual formation as seen in the Gospel of John.”

 

I thought, “Really?”

 

Why not teach the Gospel of John as it is written?

 

Or, if you have a pastoral sense to focus on spiritual formation in the Gospel of John, then why not simply approach it as, “Spiritual formation as seen in the Gospel of John?”

 

Do we want our people to be Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, or Christians? Well, the pragmatic answer is that we want them to be in the mold of our tradition, whatever that might be. Should we want this? I can’t see that we should want it.

 

Would we not be better Baptists or Pentecostals if we were Christians first – disciples of Jesus Christ first? Men and women and young people being formed into His image first and foremost?

 

How many treasures of the Word and of Christ Jesus do we miss when we treat His Word as Jello? On the other hand, if we would learn to receive the Word as it is written and made alive by the Holy Spirit, then the possibilities are infinite because of our Lord Jesus is infinite.

 

My friend was just doing what he was taught, and he was just doing what most of us do…and what most congregations want their pastors to do.

 

I wonder how many Jello molds I am still using?

 

 

Sweet Than Honey

 

“They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” Psalm 19:10.

 

Psalm 19:7 – 11 was among the Scripture songs we used to sing and it often comes back to me when I ponder this psalm. I love the dual witness of Creation and the Word – they bear witness to one another, they complement one another, they are a duet singing the revelation of God in Christ.

 

Can we truly say that God’s Word is “more desirable than gold,” and that it is “sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb”?

 

Honeycomb used to be sold in grocery stores; while I still see honey, I haven’t seen honeycomb on the shelf for many years. As a lad I used to love putting honeycomb in my mouth and extracting the honey by chewing.

 

Is this not the way we are to ingest the Word of God? We chew it slowly, allowing it to work its way into our hearts and minds and souls. We ruminate on God’s Word, it is outside, it comes inside, it works its way within us as we receive it, ponder It, meditate on it, ruminate on it (see Psalm 1:2, to meditate is to ruminate). We are to “receive the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

 

This is personal, is it not? This is an experience, yes? We receive the Word, we taste the Word, we ingest the Word. We become what we eat.

 

We live in a resort area that has over 20 million visitors each year. There are many ice cream shops in the area, for after a day at the beach or on the golf links, people, young and old, hanker for ice cream. The other evening, as we were driving home, every ice cream shop we passed was packed with people. Their parking lots were full and there were lines to get in the door – in the summer here one must be patient if one desires ice cream.

 

Do we have a sweet tooth for the Word of God? Is God’s Word more desirable than gold to us? Is it sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to us?

 

I often pray that God will give me a desire for His Word, that I will desire Him and His Word more than ever, that His Word will fill me through and through and flow outward to others.

 

How does God’s Word taste to you today?

Our Anniversary - Heirs Together

 

“You are joint heirs of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7).

 

Peter writes that husbands ought to honor their wives, with whom they are joint heirs of the grace of life, “so that your prayers may not be hindered.” There is an alternate reading in the TR for “hindered” which can mean, “cut off” or “cut down” (such as “if your hand offends you, cut it off”) and I find this interesting, for even if our current best manuscripts heavily support the idea of prayers being “hindered,” at some point there were copyists who conveyed the violent image of a husband and wife’s prayers being cutoff or cutdown. Both senses ought to get our attention (the two words are closely related in Greek).

 

1 Peter 3:7 is a picture of Christ and the Church, just as is Ephesians 5:22 – 33 (and just as is Proverbs 31:10 – 31). We are joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17, 32; Gal. 4:7; Rev. 21:7) and this is particularly true of us as His Bride – for there is a “unity of person” in marriage…the two become one. This idea of “unity of person” was embedded in English common law and was recognized, at least until recently, in many state laws in the United States. As a real estate broker in Maryland and Virginia this was a critical legal concept when transferring title to real estate, husbands and wives took title as “tenants by the entirety," they took title as “one person.”

 

The Bride becomes one with the Groom in Scripture, this is our calling in Jesus Christ, our destiny is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and a glorious unfolding of His love for us in eternity.

 

Our marriages in Christ are to participate in this glory, in this sacramental union. So much so that husbands and wives receive the grace of God as joint heirs – as one person in Christ. So much so that should there be a breach in the marriage, in communion, in mutually caring for one another, in mutual deference and submission (Eph. 5:21), in forgiveness and forbearance and patience; that the prayers of the spouses will be hindered and possibly cutoff, chopped down, castoff.

 

While all marriages have their particular DNA, if you will, in Christ they have His DNA…whatever else they may bring into the marriage. One of the questions married couples can always ask is, “Where is the Lordship of Jesus in this?”

 

I once asked this question, and only this question, of a couple in a crisis marital situation; they were on the precipice of separating. Our Father gave me a sense that I should do this since they were professing Christians. When they left our home after about two hours, they still had work to do in Jesus, but the threat was over and the direction was sure. No matter what one said about the other, no matter what issue they wanted to bring before me, I kept asking, “Where is the Lordship of Jesus Christ in this?”

 

Many years ago my friend Steve Allsbrook shared the following poem with me, saying, “When I read this I thought of you and Vickie.”

 

The poem has become more precious over the years, as has my wife, as has our marriage, as has our dear Lord Jesus.

 

 

 

The Word

 By John Masefield

 

My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,

And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,

May we be rich in love's refined gold,

May love's gold coin be current with us still.

 

May love be sweeter for the vanished days,

And your most perfect beauty still as dear

As when your troubled finger stood at gaze

In the dear March of a most sacred year.

 

May what we are be all we might have been,

And that potential, perfect, oh my friend,

And may there still be many sheafs to glean

In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.

 

And may we find, when ended is the page

Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.