April 4, 2014
After teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus explained the importance of persistent prayer. The art of persistent asking seems to be something we’re born with, yet outgrow. Consider the child asking for a cookie. No one has to teach the child persistence. Even the mother with the most determined resolve finds herself giving in to the child’s repetitive request. Why does Jesus use so many “persistent” asking stories, such as the knocking neighbor (Luke 11:5-8) or the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8), to illustrate how to pray? Is it because the Lord is hard of hearing? Or hesitant to respond? No. The Lord hears and the Lord loves to respond to us. The emphasis on persistence seems more likely to point to our own hearts. That we will be child-like in our dependence on God. The Kingdom economy is one of asking and receiving with childlike faith.
April 3, 2014
Jesus found joy in the way the Father revealed his true identity to those with childlike faith, yet concealed it from those who thought themselves wise. Jesus delighted in the Father’s sovereign plan. It brought him joy to the full. He shared the Father’s pleasure in this. This is the joy that is available to the Christian, an unconquerable exultation that flows to those filled with the Holy Spirit. This is not the conditional coincidence of happiness, but the perpetual state of the one whose contentment rests in Christ alone.
April 2, 2014
This Mosaic law along with the double importance that the Passover Sabbath began at sundown was the motivation behind the Jews’ insistence that Pilate remove the bodies of Jesus and the two thieves from their crosses before sunset. Strange that they cared so much for this minor law, yet willingly broke the commandment not to murder. Also, it is significant that the law says that anyone who is executed on a tree is “cursed.” This emphasizes the degree to which Christ took on our sin and death that he became “accursed” for us. So, the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13).
April 1, 2014
Jesus took his inner circle of disciples up on a mountain to pray. As usual, they fell asleep, but they awoke suddenly to discover a change. The veil separating this world from the next had been pulled back and they could see to the other side. They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus about his soon approaching exodus from this world. And they witnessed a glimpse of Christ’s true majestic glory. John would again see Christ unveiled before leaving this world, as recorded in the Revelation, and it would leave him laying on the ground at Christ’s feet. God the Father silenced Peter’s mumblings as he awakened bleary-eyed and talkative with, “This is my Son, my Chosen one. Listen to him.”
March 31, 2014
This is the most important question Jesus asks. Some answered other prophets, some called him teacher, but Peter called him “the Christ,” the Messiah. the Anointed One of God. This question is still the most important that each of us must answer. Perhaps C. S. Lewis described the importance of how we answer this question best:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
March 30, 2014
I’m not sure that I’m as old as the Psalmist, but I am getting a little gray and I do have grandchildren. I understand his perspective I think. And so, I join in his prayer for God’s help to pass the baton of faith to my children’s children. Not only in my family, but in God’s family (which is the church) as well. I desire God’s power and presence in my life to increase as my own strength decreases. More of Christ and less of me. Lord, “let me proclaim your power to this new generation!”
March 29, 2014
The addition and subtraction from God’s Word began even in the Garden. When the serpent questioned God’s command, Eve added to it saying, “You shall not eat of the fruit of this tree, neither shall you touch it lest you die” (Gen. 3:3). God never said anything about “touching” it. This was her addition. Then the serpent made his subtraction saying, “You shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). I wonder did the devil hand it to her so that she might “touch it” first? And after touching it and not dying, decided it was good. It is no surprise that the devil works to subtract from God’s Word, but isn’t it surprising that our flesh works in league with him by adding to it? I suppose we think we are doing a good thing when we add to God’s commands, that we are moving the railing back farther from the precipice. But external law cannot control the flesh. Adding to the law, we make it so hard that we break the spirit of the law and instead become utterly lawless. Be careful not to add or subtract from God’s Word, turning neither to the left or to the right (Joshua 1:7). Instead, receive the righteousness of Christ Jesus, who kept the law perfectly, so that the commands of God are written on your hearts.
March 28, 2014
The wicked man is like a plant without roots. It will wither in drought and be blown away by storms. But the godly are like a plant that draws water from deep roots during dry spells and clings to the rocky soil during storms. Both plants look similar in good weather, but bad weather reveals them. What do dry spells and storms reveal about you? Repent and sink your roots down into the Living Water and around the Rock of God’s Word.
March 27, 2014
Believers who have gone through a season of poverty depending on the Lord, know His divine care. They have found the Lord’s Word is faithful and that He does not let His people go “begging bread” (Psa. 37:25). God disciplines us to teach us that He is the One to depend on, not our money and possessions. Deut. 8:3 was a favorite passage of Jesus. He quoted it to the devil in Matt. 4:4 when He was tempted to turn the stones to bread. He referred to it in John 4 when He told the disciples that His “food was to do the will of the Father.” Have you learned to trust the Lord’s provision? His Word is better than wealth.
March 26, 2014
Jesus doesn’t like funerals. When he encountered the crying widow of Nain marching behind her only son’s coffin in a funeral procession, he interrupted their progress. He was moved with compassion for the widow whose only link to a hopeful future lay in the casket. The rights and possessions of her husband belonged to her now dead son. She would be left destitute and alone. But Jesus crashed the funeral and told the widow, “Don’t cry!” How offensive this would be if he were only telling her to deny her feelings. After all, what else could she do? She had no power to overcome death. She had every right to those tears! Who is this that he would stop a funeral along with its tears? He is Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. When death meets Life, Life wins. And tears end and laughter begins.