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A CHILDS FAITH ENTERS THE KINGOM

A CHILDS FAITH ENTERS THE KINGDOM 

I’ve been talking lately about principalities and powers of darkness and the angelic rebellions in the heavens that Jesus overcame for us on the cross. But aligned with that there is the wonderful ministry of the angels who obediently serve God the Father by serving us as his children. God delights to see his children protected and cared for at as early an age as possible. The Bible says that God has assigned angels to help them on this journey of\ the inner life of their souls, as Jesus said to his disciples,
Matthew 18:10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
I don’t yet fully understand how that works but I think a lot happens that we don’t realise is happening. 
Our heavenly Father never ceases to see us as his children, but we may cease to honour and know him as our Father. Growing older is not always growing wiser and the reality of having to become mature and independent is a hugely significant responsibility. Fortunately, God allows us to go through our foolishness and our failures and to relearn and to get back on track, and Jesus had to admonish his disciples on one occasion about having to do some of this relearning. It occurred at the same time that he told his disciples to never despise the little children whom they regarded as a nuisance. The little children were playfully enjoying being around Jesus, but the disciples said that they were getting in the way of them getting the most out the serious things Jesus was teaching them. He then taught them the most important and serious thing that they needed to know and relearn – that they had to become like little children. At that time some parents in the crowd had brought their children to Jesus for him to bless them
Matthew 19:13 Then little children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for their simplicity and joy and trust express the kingdom of heaven.” And He laid His hands on them...
Luke adds deeper meaning to this story and quotes Jesus saying ‘Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter into it.” (Luke 18:15). 

I want to speak today about a child’s faith that was immortalised in Scripture – the child’s name was Isaac. God had told Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was well past childbearing age that they were going to have a child, and that through that child Abraham would bring blessing upon all the families in the earth (Genesis 18:10). That finally came to pass miraculously, and they were greatly blessed. But then God told Abraham to sacrifice this promised child Isaac on an altar at a place called Mount Moriah. The Bible says that Abraham obeyed God and that his faith was accounted to him as righteous. That means that his faith put the desires of his heart in alignment with the desire of God’s heart.

We are encouraged to learn from the faith of Abraham, who walked up the hill with his son Isaac to offer him to the lord as a blood sacrifice. But something needs to be said about the extraordinary faith and obedience that was shown by the child Isaac who walked up the hill to be sacrificed. As they walked up the hill in the story in Genesis Isaac says to his father ‘look there is the wood and here is the fire but where is the lamb for sacrifice. And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
Isaac with a ‘Yes Dad’ in his heart prepared to become that sacrifice on the altar under the knife saying, 

Then an angel enters the picture and calls Abraham to put the knife away – that reflects the words of Jesus about angels always seeing the face of the Father for his children.  And the story goes on in Genesis to say ‘Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in some bushes by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place The-LORD-Will-Provide’ (Jehovah Jireh - Genesis 22).
Isaac as a child had just as much faith and hope in that resurrection as Abraham, and Jesus knew and undertsood that same child-like faith and trust for himself. Isaac as the son of Abraham obeyed his father and Jesus as the Son of God obeyed his Heavenly Father. Jesus understood what Isaac felt when he himself was on the cross committing himself as a sacrifice to his Father for our sakes as his brothers and sisters and knowing he would be resurrected. 

The Bible says about Abraham’s faith for Isaac that Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death"(Hebrews 11:19). This means that Abraham's faith in God's power to bring Isaac back, even if he were to die, was strong enough to fulfill God's promise of blessing all the families of the earth through his son Isaac. This was the first evidence of resurrection life put into action in the Bible. This was not only extraordinary faith and obedience – it was an extraordinary hope - Abraham, hoping against hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations (Romans 4:17).

Abraham faith and Isaac faith is all about the resurrection faith of trusting Father God through the difficulties of life with a ‘hoping against hope’ that our ‘Yes Dad’ in all things brings God’s good will and Heavenly life on earth for our lives. There would have been no resurrection life faith for Abraham to pass on to us if he had not been willing to offer his son Isaac to God on Mount Moriah. And there would have been no resurrection life faith for Isaac to experience if he had not trusted his father, Abraham. There would have been no resurrection life from the dead for Jesus to give to us if he had not offered his life to his Father for our sakes on the cross. And Jesus wanted his disciples to understand what he meant when he said that unless they received the Kingdom of God with that trusting childlike faith, they would not fully enter into the Kingdom in the power of his resurrection. That resurrection only be experienced by us through his death on the cross. Jesus had told them earlier that he was going to be killed and be raised on the third day. The disciples of Jesus did not want him to die on a cross and Peter was speaking for all of them when he admonished Jesus at that time, saying  ‘No Jesus, that is not going to happen to you’, and Jesus said ‘get behind me Satan, you don’t understand the things of God, only the things of man’.

Even though the sacrifices of Abraham and Isaac and Jesus were momentous acts of faith and hope Jesus wanted the disciples to know that no matter what the scale of sacrifice was, their ‘yes Dad’ to God’s will in times of difficulty would always supernaturally bring God’s will in Heaven upon the earth. ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’ is not just a noble phrase from the Lord’s prayer, it is a true statement of faith and hope from a child of God who expects to see the most difficult of situations turn into an expression of God being glorified, or on display, in their everyday lives. Jesus wants us to experience a life of full spiritual satisfaction as a child of God by seeing ourselves as his brother or sister and being cared for by a loving Father in Heaven. There is a life of childlike faith in most children that trusts that mum and dad are sorting out all of the important things in life for them and fixing everything that gets broken and life works out better when you do what you are told, and life goes on and you presume that you are going to live forever, and most of that thinking changes when we become adults.

When we look at a cross, we see a vertical beam crossed by a Horizontal beam. The vertical beam is the will of God coming from heaven down into the earth, and the horizontal beam is the will of humanity that crosses the will of God. Where the point of crossing occurs is where our will obeys God’s will – that is the place of our ‘yes Dad’. And that point is where the heart of Jesus would have been located when he hung on that cross. That sacrificial act of obedience took his Divinity and humanity into his resurrection glory in Heaven and it included all of us. When we believe in what he has done for us and receive the Spirit of his resurrected life into our hearts we begin to share not only that crossing point of sacrificial obedience with his heart, but we share the resurrection life that lifts us above the earthbound tyranny of the ways of this world. 

Jesus knew what he was talking about to the disciples when he spoke about becoming as little children in order to enter the kingdom life of God here in the earth.
An obedient child of God who has a ‘yes Dad’ to God in their heart will hear their Heavenly Father saying to them. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, and when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD’, (Jeremiah 29.11) Amen

 

THE SEVENTY NATIONS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE

THE SEVENTY NATIONS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE

We are continuing the account of the second phase of the ministry of Jesus, after he said that he was setting his face toward Jerusalem. (Luke 9). Jesus was heading toward the final victory over human sin and corruption by his death on the cross, so he sent seventy disciples to go before him and bring a foretaste of the blessing of the Kingdom of God in his name. 
Luke 10:1 towns and villages he planned to visit later.

The Lord now chose seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead in pairs to all the 
The number seventy is significant in this story of the ministry of Jesus. 
Firsly, it represents the principle of delegation of governmental authority, as also seen in the command to Moses to delegate authority to seventy elders to help him in counselling the people of Israel in the wilderness. And the Jewish Sanhedrin was the delegated authority of the ruling council in New Testament times, consisting of 70 elders, following the precedent set in the Old Testament. In this story of the seventy disciples Jesus was not only heading towards Jerusalem to overcome human sin and corruption on the cross but was also heading toward overcoming all the rebellious principalities and powers of darkness that had corrupted the world throughout the ages. 

There were three major acts of spiritual rebellion to be overturned by Jesus when he came to establish his Kingdom.
The first act of spiritual rebellion was by Satan, the angelic prince power who appeared as the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God.
The second  spiritual rebellion was by angelic powers just before the flood of Noah in Genesis Chapter 6. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day Jude 1:6)
The third spiritual rebellion was at the tower of Babel, soon after the flood, where the entire world was divided by God into seventy nations. The people had built a tower that they said would exalt them to Heaven. God divided their languages and sent them out into all the world. Read Genesis Chapter 10 where these seventy nations are named. They all came under the influence of spiritual principalities and powers of idolatry. Many of those nations throughout history had rulers who saw themselves as gods, such as Egypt, and Rome (Caesar is Lord). Canaan and Tarshish (Spain) are mentioned. And in Daniel the prince power of Persia and the prince power of Greece, and Babylon. 

Soon after the tower of Babel God called Abram out of one of those nations, from a place called Ur of the Chaldees (the nation of Babylon), to establish the Holy Nation of Israel. 
The nation of Israel was ruled by the one true God, and Israel went into battle against many of those scattered nations who opposed their entry into the promised land. Israel finally took the physical territory of the land, but they did not necessarily overcome the idolatry and spiritual darkness that remained in those regions. But Jesus was to come out of and through Israel, and overcome all principalities and powers in the heavens and on the earth. 
Jesus was giving these seventy disciples the authority to speak in his name and to confront the territorial powers of darkness that had held power over those Gentile and Jewish places for many generations since the tower of Babel.
Reading on in the story… 
These were his instructions to them: 
Luke 10:2 “Plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers to help you, for the harvest is so plentiful and the workers so few. Go now, and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. Don’t take any money with you, or a beggar’s bag, or even an extra pair of shoes. And don’t waste time along the way. This was a disciplined strategic mission.
“Whenever you enter a home, give it your blessing. If it is worthy of the blessing, the blessing will stand; if not, the blessing will return to you.
“When you enter a village, don’t shift around from home to home, but stay in one place, eating and drinking without question whatever is set before you. And don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, for the workman is worthy of his wages!
“If a town welcomes you, follow these two rules:
(1) Eat whatever is set before you.
(2) Heal the sick; and as you heal them, say, ‘The Kingdom of God is very near.’
“But if a town refuses you, go out into its streets and say, ‘We wipe the dust of your town from our feet as a public announcement of your doom. Never forget how close you were to the Kingdom of God!’ Even wicked Sodom will be better off than such a city on the Judgment Day. This demonstrates the strategic confrontation against the ancient spiritual rebellion that still pervaded the territory. 
What horrors await you - cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did for you had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, their people would have sat in deep repentance long ago, clothed in sackcloth and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. Yes, Tyre and Sidon will receive less punishment on the Judgment Day than you. And you people of Capernaum, what shall I say about you? Will you be exalted to heaven? (This echoes the Tower of babel language) No, you shall be brought down to Sheol”
Then he said to the disciples, “Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And those who reject you are rejecting me. And those who reject me are rejecting God who sent me.” When the seventy disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Even the demons obey us when we use your name. ”Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan falling from heaven as a flash of lightning! And I have given you authority over all the power of the Enemy, and to walk 
among serpents and scorpions and to crush them (symbolic of evil spirits – Revelation 9:10). Nothing shall injure you! However, the important thing is not that demons obey you, but that your names are registered as citizens of heaven.”
Then he was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the worldly wise and for revealing them to those who are as trusting as little children. 

So the sending out of the seventy disciples was a turning point in the final overcoming of the Kingdom of God that was to be accomplished for us at calvary - a complete victory over evil spirits. When Jesus said he had overcome the world he was not just talking about human corruption, but about the corruption of the world by the rebellion of dark and demonic angelic forces throughout the ages.
And Paul tells us that Jesus has overcome all principalities and powers of darkness – Colossians 2:15 He has disarmed principalities and powers, and has made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them... Paul also tells us that we are seated in our Heavenly position with Jesus far above all principalities and powers. (Ephesians 2:6). 

We are living in days when there is much spiritual activity, both of the Holy Spirit and of the powers of darkness that seek to blind peoples’ minds from the light and truth of God. There are Principalities and powers of darkness influencing leadership in the cultures of all the nations of the world at the moment. And there are nations where those powers will not prevail because those who believe in Jesus and his Kingdom choose to live in obedience to God and his Word – and God is fighting for them. On a personal level our offensive weaponry in our direct encounters with the power of darkness is our faith that God is in command of our lives and is fighting for us. We don’t shout at the devil – we have Jesus speaking to us and through us – the one who has overcome darkness for us.
Deuteronomy 3:22 You shall not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you. 
Our defensive weaponry in our direct encounters with the powers of darkness is the saving and protecting power of God through faith in the abiding presence of God the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us to stand against the powers of darkness by ‘putting on the full armour of God’ 
Ephesians 6:13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the times of evil, and having done all, to stand firm. 
We are equipped to overcome personal attacks of darkness upon us that are designed to weaken our trust in God and to get us into emotional conflict with others and into internal conflict within ourselves.
14. So stand firm in this way, with a belt that is buckled with truth…
The buckled belt speaks of alertness and readiness to move forward with the truth that defines who we are and where we stand with God. We are confident that we are OF him and FOR him and that he is FOR us.
…and having the breastplate of an obedient surrendered heart.
This is the alignment of our heart with his heart and surrendered to his will for our lives. Our heart’s desires are then safe from the deceitful enticements of darkness. 
15. And have shoes on that allow you to walk the talk of the wonderful message of a shared life with Jesus. 
We are literally walking in his shoes, standing where he stands and going where he goes. This prevents the enemy from getting us off track with his diversionary tactics.
16. Hold up the shield of faith with complete trust in God. That will stop any flaming missile that the devil hurls at you.
The devil will manufacture the missiles of deceit and malice and aim them at us then fire them through the aggrieved heart of somebody else straight at our heart, where our deepest and most vulnerable feelings reside. Our faith that God knows our heart deflects those missiles and we can trust him to defend us.
17. Wear the crash-helmet of safety that protects your mind from darkness and deception and cut through the lying darkness with your spiritual sword, which is the Word of God.
Our mind is the prime target in spiritual warfare, so we focus and affirm ourselves through his Word and then speak that into our hearts and then into the darkness, and the darkness has to flee. I want to just pass on to you now is how I like to treasure the present moment. I like to wake myself up to the fact that now is now, yesterday was yesterday, 10 minutes ago was 10 minutes ago and the future is in God's hands. Now is the hour, the day, the place that is of salvation - feeling safe - it is now. 
So what do I do with my mind in the present moment - what am I to think. I'll tell you what I think - I think ‘this moment Lord is not mine it's yours, you created this moment and you're the one that is actually reordering the entire universe, and you are reordering my world and my mind at this present moment. I don't want to frustrate that grace and fill it with stuff in my mind that's diversionary or negative or fearful or anxious. I'm going to give this moment to you - it's yours. But when I think that moment is mine I may start to think but this moment going to pass away - what happens when this moment is gone?  Well  what you do you is just say that in this moment I'm going to be looking forward expectantly to see you bringing your future with your good will for my life into my view, and so this moment is just going to have to expand until I see that and say thank you Lord. And I tell you that moment can be a very very long wonderful time! We are in charge of our minds but we practise that over and over again. We don't wait till we're in a crisis and say what was that I’m supposed to do again? No, I continue to get with God and start speaking about what am I doing with this moment now.  

Those 70 disciples were set out with discipline – so make that your priority to overcome evil. We are being sent out as his disciples with discipline and the first thing is an ordered mind - a disciplined mind. Paul wrote to Timothy and he said ‘God hasn't given you the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of an ordered mind’. 
Thank you Lord for giving us the fortress of your presence that we can overcome all darkness be in alignment with you and speak - and the enemy will flee - in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

 

FORTY DAYS ON EARTH

FORTY DAYS ON EARTH

After Jesus had descended into Paradise and hades he took the keys of hell and death and re-inhabited his entombed body. He then sealed the offering of his shed blood on Calvary to his Father in Heaven for the purification of the sins of the whole earth. He returned to the earth that same day in a resurrected body that could never ever die again. This resurrected body was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body. After that, He appeared in another form (heteros morphe – an altered form or nature) (Mark 16:9)

Jesus returned to the earth in Jerusalem where he heard that the temple priests had fabricated a story that his body had been stolen by the disciples and that they had overcome the temple guards and raided the tomb. He set off walking from Jerusalem in the direction of Galilee, where he had said he would meet with his disciples. He saw two men walking together in serious discussion and he greeted them and joined them as they walked, but Holy Spirit had supernaturally veiled their eyes from recognizing him (Luke 24:13). They were taken aback that this stranger seemed to know nothing of what had happened in Jerusalem over the last few days. They explained patiently to this stranger the things about Jesus, that he did miracles and that he was a great prophet and how their chief priests and rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified. They said to Jesus they were hoping that it was Jesus who was going to redeem Israel as he had said that he would rise on the third day, and today was the third day.

As they walked the 12 K journey to Emmaus Jesus quoted to them passage after passage from the writings of the prophets, beginning with the book of Genesis and going right on through the Scriptures, explaining what the passages meant and what they said about himself, and  something happened in their hearts as they listened to him. They appealed to him to stay with them as they finally arrived at Emmaus, even though he had told them he was going further, so Jesus accepted their offer to at least stay and have a meal with them. During the meal Jesus took some bread, and prayed a blessing over it, and as he broke the bread their eyes were opened and immediately, they recognized who he was and at that very moment Jesus vanished from their sight. This could well be called the firstfruits communion service - a prophetic illustration of how our times of fellowship and communion in remembrance of Jesus open up to us a deeper revelation of who Jesus is as we sit in the presence of God in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

After Jesus had disappeared the two men decided to go back into Jerusalem and find the disciples who were in hiding, afraid of what was going to happen to them because of the rumors that were going about that they had stolen Jesus’ body. They found them and were whisked inside and the doors were locked behind them. They told them of their journey with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and their miraculous meal with him where he had suddenly vanished. While they were still talking Jesus appeared in their midst while the doors remained locked. The disciples panicked, and thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus explained to them that he was not a ghost because a ghost didn’t have bones and flesh, and he asked them to touch his hands and his feet and to see for themselves. 
 
Jesus stretched forth his hands and his peace hit their hearts. He breathed his Spirit upon them and they received the impartation of his peace. They immediately felt at one with Jesus and with each other. But this was just a mere foretaste of what was to come, as it would only be after his final ascension and being seated at the right hand of Father that Holy Spirit would be sent to dwell within them. On the day of Pentecost Holy Spirit would be sent from Father and from himself upon all humanity. 

He asked them if he could have something to eat, so James brought back some steamed fish and some honeycomb and Jesus accepted it and ate it. Jesus noticed that Thomas was not amongst them and he told them he would see them in a few days at Galilee, and he vanished once more.
The disciples all gathered at Galilee eight days later and Jesus again miraculously appeared to them and this time Thomas was present. He knew that Thomas had not believed that he had risen, even though the other disciples had said that they had seen him. Jesus held out his hands towards Thomas and told him to have faith and believe and to touch his hands and his side where he had been pierced. Thomas did this and said, ‘My Lord and my God’. Jesus acknowledged that in seeing and touching he now believed. He went on to tell Thomas that there would be many who will believe without even seeing him and that they would be greatly blessed for that kind of faith. 

Jesus appeared to them again one morning after seven of them had been out fishing all night and had caught nothing. He stood on the shore and watched them fishing but they didn't realize that it was him. They had taken two boats out, one larger boat, rigged for catching and one auxiliary boat, which helped with baiting and with the haul. 
Jesus shouted out to the fishermen from the shore asking them if they had yet caught anything and they said no they hadn’t. Then Jesus told them to throw out the net on the right-hand side of the boat, and they would get plenty of fish, and when they did they couldn’t draw in the net because of the weight of the fish. Then John called out to Peter ‘That is the Lord’, and at that, Peter put on a robe and jumped into the water and swam ashore. The rest of the disciples stayed in the boat and pulled the loaded net close to the shore. They looked over to where Jesus was, sitting with Peter and they saw that a fire was kindled and fish were frying over it, and there was bread.
Jesus told them to bring some of the fish they had just caught, so Peter went and helped them drag the net ashore and bring some fish. There were 153 large fish and yet the net hadn’t torn. Jesus then invited them to come and have some breakfast and Jesus went around serving them the bread and fish. That was the third time Jesus had appeared to them since his return from the dead.

After they had all enjoyed breakfast together Jesus called Peter aside. He knew there were things that had to be said between them. Peter’s soul was in a turmoil of regrets, shame and guilt. Time and again he had asked himself why he didn’t stand up for Jesus instead of disowning him three times when he was asked if he knew him. He had remembered when the rooster crowed that Jesus had predicted that he would deny him three times. What was Jesus going to say to him now – would Jesus disown him, even rebuke him three times? But Jesus asked Peter three times, in three different ways whether or not Peter loved him. The first time Jesus used the word phileo which means brotherly love and Peter said yes of course he did, and Jesus said to him feed my lambs. Jesus asked him a second time, using the same word, phileo and Peter said emphatically Yes lord – you know I do! And Jesus again said to him feed my lambs The third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved him he used the word agape which means a sacrificial love, higher than any other kind of love. Peter said Yes Lord, and he meant it with all his heart. And this time Jesus said to Peter feed my sheep. And so Peter humbly gave himself up to the ownership of God’s love. As a true representation of a flawed humanity owned by God’s love, Peter was mercifully forgiven and accepted. It was also this moment that owned him, not his past, or his uncertain future. 
This would also continue to be his greatest gift to God, the gift of his each moment to God. As Peter would go on in life, he would have faced his many imperfections, and he may well have learned to return to that special moment on the seashore, where he could surrender to the ownership of God’s love and shed his fears, growing in faith and being transformed into God’s nature.

The bible says that Jesus met with over five hundred people over those forty days, and in the book of Acts it describes the final time that he met with his disciples when they asked him if this was now the time for him to free Israel from Rome and restore his people as a mighty nation, and again Jesus realized that they still did not understand the nature of his Kingdom, but that they would soon learn. He told them that only his Father had set these times, and they were not for them to know. He also told them that they would testify about his death and resurrection with great power. He instructed them not to leave Jerusalem and that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit in just a few days and receive the promise of the Father. 

Suddenly a dazzling light shone within a billowing white cloud above them. Jesus turned to them all and raised his hands in blessing. He did not need to say goodbye. As he began to rise slowly heavenwards he was enveloped in the cloud, and as they stood together looking into the cloud that had taken him they saw the shining figures of the now familiar two men in white standing to one side who told them that the same cloud that they saw taking Jesus into eternity would also bring him back one day to that same place - in total glory and triumph, and The Plan of Salvation will have been fulfilled.

And so, they waited just as he had instructed them, and after ten days the Holy Spirit fell upon them on the day of Pentecost. Jesus had told them he would join their lives to his risen life and they would become one in Spirit with him. The Holy Spirit would take Father’s love, and his own words, and place them in the hearts of men and women, as a deep consciousness of his indwelling and abiding life. 

The Holy Spirit had accompanied Jesus every moment of his life on earth. He had joined himself to the human spirit of Jesus and had felt every feeling that Jesus had felt. He had known every one of his thoughts, and he had communicated every thought from Father God to him. Those thoughts became words in the mouth of Jesus, and The Holy Spirit caused those words to have life and power to all who heard Jesus speak. In this way Holy Spirit had also experienced life within humanity on the earth. 
The Holy Spirit would become the bond between Heaven and earth for all time. He would fall like rain from Heaven upon the souls of mankind, seeking to awaken the spirit of humanity to the cosmic truth of what Jesus had done in joining mankind to God. 
Humanity could now live in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and win its struggle against the mindset of lostness and separation called the law of sin and death. 
Within the human pain of this struggle against lostness and separation would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. It is the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the human heart, subduing human nature, that it might resonate with the nature of God. His ministry of intercession is working moment by moment in our lives to bring about the healing and saving of our souls. Whenever this truth is embraced by a human heart, that heart will at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be.

 

 

 

 

RESURRECTION AND AGE TO AGE LIFE

RESURRECTION AND AGE TO AGE LIFE

As Jesus was dying on the cross he said ‘Father into your hands I commit my Spirit’ The Bible says that he then descended - in his Spirit - on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. Jesus had spoken about these places when he told the story in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar. The rich man who lived sumptuously in arrogant self-indulgence all of his life ended up in Hades and Lazarus who lived the life of a humble beggar at the gate of the rich man’s house ended up in Paradise, with Abraham. 

Jesus had now descended to these places. Paradise was where there were millions of souls who had been waiting for him from the beginning of time. These had lived their lives on earth in hope, many of them guided by the Commandments through Moses, but many simply by a good conscience. They were locked away from eternity till Jesus would now come to get them. Jesus would also visit Hades the prison of lost hope.

The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the Gospel, the plan of the Father to send Jesus into the world to set people free from the captivity of sin and to bring his New Creation life to humanity (1Peter 3:19). Jesus would have sat with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and many others in Paradise as well as his newfound friend that hung next to him on the cross and to whom he said, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’! He spoke to with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day when he would ascend into Heaven and set the captives free. (Ephesians 4:8) from the captivity of time, as they had waited till heaven came to get them. Jesus also declared the message of the Gospel to those in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. 

The Book of Revelation also tells us that Jesus was given the keys of ‘Hell and death’ at this time, and with the key of freedom he was able to unlock those prisoners of the past  and take them into an age to age existence to await an eternal destiny.
Revelation1:17,18 Fear not; I am the first and the last: -- I am he that lives and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death.

On the third day when Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and the grave. His resurrection changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and now humanity could become a ‘New Creation Being’, joined in the Spirit with Jesus (2Corinthians 5:14). 

The time had now come for them all to leave, and Jesus led some on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home in Heaven, while others to a place reserved to await an age to come. A company of them was escorted by hosts of angels, ascending ever upwards until they first reached the earth, (Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8, Psalm 24)), and there they stopped for a brief period of time, because there were things for Jesus to do there. The first thing that he had to do was to go to his tomb where his earthly body lay in its shroud. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel went ahead of Jesus to the tomb and found the guards there that the temple priests had appointed to stand watch at the tomb. As the angels alighted the ground shook and the massive stone rolled away as a huge burst of lightning hit the place sending the guards reeling headlong to the ground. They leapt up in fright and bolted. Jesus entered his tomb and united himself again to the wounded shell of his body, leaving the shroud lying separated from the headpiece which had been folded away neatly (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from that temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about and would have recalled vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby, and his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. 

At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices according to the custom, to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way to the tomb, they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived, they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

‘Are you looking for Jesus?’ Gabriel said. ‘He has come back to life as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples that he will be coming to see them, and that they are to wait for him in Galilee.’
The women ran to tell the disciples but one of them dropped behind and walked slowly through the garden, still confused and weeping. She almost collided with Jesus who was also walking in the garden, and she apologized, not recognizing him, thinking he was the gardener. This was Mary Magdalene. And he called her by her name and said, ‘It’s alright Mary, it is me.’

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and she shared the things that he had said to her.’ (John 20.17)

And now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven. The blood of animal sacrifice had been offered for the sins of the people by the High priest of Israel in the holy place of the temple for the last fifteen hundred years for the nation of Israel (Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9) but Jesus had just marked the end of blood sacrifice for sin for all time by sprinkling his innocent blood on the ground at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth.
Hebrews 9:11 But Jesus came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation. 

A strange phenomenon then occurred in Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones. And when the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. Many bodies of the saints who had died were raised up and came out of the tombs after his resurrection, and they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:52) After the very brief visit to their astounded friends and relatives on earth in their new recognizable forms, they then had to regroup with Jesus and resume their journey to Heaven (Imagine the strange reality of this spiritual world). The magnificent procession began to ascend from their graves to the sky in glorious splendour with its escort of glorious angels. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming his majestic entrance.
Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!

At this command the heavenly music began. The sounds of pipes and trumpets, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, and a beautiful range of stringed instruments created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. 
Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 
This was the moment - purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his glorified New Creation Being of power. Ephesians 1:19-21. how powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the centre of all consequence and meaning in the universe.
All the angels and all those who had come with Jesus on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honour and joined in the magnificent celebration. His time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day, still bearing the marks of the cruel wreath of the crown of thorns from his flogging from the guards of King Herod, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. 
The reason that Jesus had to return to the earth on that same Resurrection Sunday is that on the Sunday morning after the Passover Sabbath there was another feast that was part of the Passover Feast being celebrated by Israel. This was called the wave offering of the firsfruits – the sheaves or bunches of wheat or barley shoots that were the firstfruits of the harvest season. This festive day of the Passover feast was prophetic of the resurrection of Jesus on that day. The Bible twice declares to be the firstfruits of the resurrection (1Corinthians 15:20,23) 
After the Passover Sabbath when you reap your harvest, bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest on the day after the Sabbath. He shall wave it before the Lord in a gesture of offering, and it will be accepted by the Lord as your gift… Fifty days later on the Feast of Pentecost you shall bring to the Lord an offering of a sample of the new grain of your later crops. (Leviticus 23:9-15). Jesus became the prime sheaf of the wave offering on that Sunday and the other company of people who also rose and appeared to many people in Jerusalem made up the rest of the sheaf. So Jesus returned to the earth that same day in a resurrected body that could never ever die again. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, and meeting with his disciples and being seen alive again by hundreds of people This resurrected body was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body.
The remarkable certainty of how only Scripture can interpret Scripture is seen in this astounding eternal prophetic narrative of the Only One God the Father sending his Only One Son Jesus to bridge the gap between Divinity and humanity - through the sending of the Only One Holy Spirit to all of humanity. This means that there is an Only One way to live life on this earth with purpose and meaning and fulfillment. Any other narrative of life on this earth, no matter what it promises the human soul, is fraught with anxiety and uncertainty and helplessness and even despair. God has lovingly offered us his Gift of life – it is done – it is finished. It awaits our ‘yes’ of believing Him and putting aside any other philosophy or ideology. That is called repentance and faith – Thank you for the Cross Lord.

 

CALVARY 2025

 

CALVARY 2025

After the Last supper Jesus led his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he asked them to sit close by while he prayed. He took Peter, James, and John with him and told them about how much his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow, even to the point of death. He asked them to stay close and to share his prayer watch with him. A little farther on he fell to the ground in his agony, sweating drops of blood, and he prayed ‘Father, if it is possible for you, take this cup of suffering from Me. Yet not my will, but Your will be done.’ He returned to find the three disciples sleeping. “Simon, are you asleep?” He asked. “Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so you won’t fall into temptation - your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak. He went away and prayed to his Father again, and again He returned and found them sleeping, and they had no words for him. The third time this happened he said, ‘Are you still sleeping? Enough—the hour has come, so get up and let us go. My betrayer is here. The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

 

Judas then arrived with a large crowd sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people and armed with swords and clubs. Judas had arranged to identify Jesus to the guards by embracing Jesus as the man to arrest and Jesus was then betrayed by a kiss from Judas as Jesus had predicted. Then men stepped forward to arrest Jesus, and Peter drew out his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. But Jesus picked up the severed ear and placed it back on the guard’s ear and he was miraculously healed. Nonetheless Jesus was arrested and dragged away, and this dramatic turn of events was all too frightening for the disciples and they all scattered and ran – just as Jesus had predicted.

Jesus had also predicted that Peter would deny him three times. and it was not long before Peter’s time of trial came to pass where was accused by a woman outside of the courtyard where Jesus was being tried by the priests for blasphemy. The woman said to Peter that he had been with Jesus and Peter denied the accusation three times with curses and swearing and then he heard the dreaded crowing of a rooster. And Peter then knew that what Jesus had predicted he would do in denying his beloved Lord had been fulfilled, and he wept bitterly.

 

Jesus was then tried and found guilty of blasphemy by the Jewish leaders and then taken to Pontius Pilate to be executed. Pontius Pilate could find no wrong as far as Rome was concerned about Jesus being accused of blasphemy, but the Jewish leaders said that he was also stirring the people against Rome by saying he was the new King of the Jews. And they charged Pilate as being accountable for punishing that by crucifying Jesus as a criminal. Pilate caved in to the crowd because he feared a riot, but deep in his heart, he believed Jesus was innocent, and also that he was their King.

Pilate told a Centurion to arrange for a squad of guards to escort Jesus to Calvary. The already large crowd continued to grow as Jesus staggered and buckled under the weight of the beam but he continued to drag it behind him. It was the custom to write a description of the crime committed on a clay plate and fix it to the top of the cross. Pontius Pilate had written an inscription that read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS”

An angry voice called out above the crowd “Who wrote that inscription? – it’s wrong”, and one of the temple priests had protested that It should have said that ‘He said he was king of the Jews’. However, Pilate had made it very clear to them earlier that he had written that inscription and it had to stay as it was.

 

When the trek to Calvary was completed, it would take six full hours on Calvary for Jesus to die. Two criminals were already hanging on crosses either side of the hole where Jesus’ pole was to be fixed, but these two men were tied to their crosses, not nailed. Jesus was finally hoisted up and then the pole was crudely dumped into the hole prepared for it, evoking stifled cries of shock and dismay from the crowd. But overriding these noises was the swelling chant of taunts and slogans coming from the crowd. Then the priests and the leaders of the Jews joined in telling Jesus to come on down from that cross and prove himself as the Son of God.

As Jesus hung there the criminals beside him were weakening, groaning in their pain, when one of them turned to Jesus. He now wanted to have his last few words of bravado heard in this dark prison of life and death he had made for himself. “they’re telling you to get yourself down, but how about us? That would be a real miracle, even I would believe you.” He was delighted with the impression this made on the crowd, as they clapped and cheered him. But the man on the other side shouted at him angrily.”

“Are you mad? Don't you even fear God? Don't you know who this is? We deserve to be here, but he doesn’t. He has never done a wrong thing.” He then turned to Jesus and said

“Lord, will you remember me when you are in your mighty kingdom?” Jesus turned his head and looked at him with love, saying “Today you are coming home with me to Paradise.” Jesus looked down at his mother standing next to John and he spoke to her through parched lips.“Mother let him be your son.” His head then turned towards John.  “Son let her be your mother.” John stood with her as she watched her son's life draining from him. High noon surrendered to a deep darkness which remained for three full hours. Darkness took over that day in those last hours, and put a stop to some things. Shouts of bravado that just moments ago would have roused bold echoes now hung hollow in the still air, and those mockers that had stood close to the action at the foot of the cross now slid back into the crowd.

 

The gigantic spirit of Jesus absorbed the full impact of Satan as all hell's hateful fury hit him, and as every vile thing ever done by countless millions of crippled hearts down through the ages and for the ages to come assailed his being. Thunder cracked and the earth began to shake. The great spirit of Jesus swallowed every vile accusation that Satan hurled at him, and he took them all into himself and locked them safely within his vault of perfect love. He was completely innocent of any one wrong deed. He rallied his strength once more, but another missile of horror careened into him more powerfully and more deadly than anything before. He was living out the prophetic fulfilment of the first verse of Psalm 22 spoken by David. ‘My God My God why have you forsaken me?

’The source of this horrific thought was not Father God. Darkness had assailed the human heart of Jesus, the Son of Man, of the lineage of David, and in an instant, he knew the answer to his question. He had not been forsaken by his Father, but in his humanity, he had experienced forsakenness for a moment, so that no living soul from this time on would ever have to feel forsaken by God again because of their human weakness.

God did not forsake Jesus, and he did not forsake Adam and Eve and he does not

Forsake us. people forsake other people but God does not forsake us. Jesus was always aligned with God's will and throughout his entire life he could identify exactly with what we go through but he never deviated from God's will. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted in all points just as we are, so he was tempted to feel forsaken here just like we would be, as that is a human feeling.

Instead of departing from his Father, Jesus, on the cross begins quoting Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He turns to the Word—to truth itself. Jesus, who inspired the psalm through David, knows the full story it tells.

Though it begins with a cry of abandonment, the psalm moves from hopelessness to hope, and finally to praise and gratitude. There’s a shift amidst the pain and chaos of mocking and the dividing of garments where Jesus proclaims the turning point and what began in sorrow ends in victory. Jesus declares in the psalm “I will praise you in the great congregation; I will sing your praises among my people.”

This shows that Jesus never departed from his Father in spirit. That connection strengthened his soul. He faced every temptation and triumphed—not by escaping pain, but by holding fast to truth. His journey shows us how to move from feelings of abandonment to faith, from despair to healing. We are not alone. We walk the path of restoration with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not separated, but deeply united.

 

Jesus had something more to say but his throat felt parched so a soldier put a sponge up on a pole to Jesus, who could now say loudly and clearly what had to be said in his last moments “Father into your hands I now offer my Spirit.”

Then in one last gasp he shouted loudly for all about him to hear. “It is finished!”

Then he died. And he and we were placed securely in The Father's loving hands.

At the moment of his death the cosmos convulsed. An earthquake tore a searing gash into the mountainside and people were toppled off their feet. Rocks split apart and the graves and tombs on a nearby hill cracked open. People ran in fear from the place, but they did not know where to go. At that moment there were priests in the temple about to sacrifice the Passover lamb, and when their knife pierced the sacrificial animal the true Lamb of God offered himself on Calvary as the final sacrifice for all sin. The priests were thrown off their feet by the earthquake. The temple shook as huge stones fell from the parapets and the great veil in the temple proper which separated the place of God’s presence in the holy place from the rest of the temple, was lightning torn, top to bottom.

 

When that veil was torn it signified that Christ as both man and God had not only done away with the separation of mankind from God in the temple, but he had done away with the separation of mankind from God in all the earth. He had gone ahead for all of us to live in his abiding presence. We can now have faith to come confidently into this holy place in our own hearts because of his mercy upon our imperfect humanity and we can receive the power of his life within us to do what is right and pleasing to God.

The veil that was torn when Jesus died on the cross on that awesome day was a declaration of the certain hope of our salvation and loving forgiveness and has become the anchor for our souls.

 

The moment Jesus died the cosmic law of sin and death was being overturned to make way for a new cosmic law to come into effect - the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and that new cosmic law did not exist in Eden with Adam and Eve. It would occur only after Jesus rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to give us the risen life of Jesus within, and a new heart like his own. Our hearts can now be fulfilled with a new desire that freely chooses to fulfill the desires of God’s heart. Thank you, Jesus, for overturning the law of sin and death, and for giving to us the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. May we enter through that torn veil and live that life with your heart towards the Father. Amen

Paul O’Sullivan – pauloss@icloud.com

PREPARING FOR THE PASSOVER

PREPARING FOR THE PASSOVER 
After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead Caiaphas the High Priest unintentionally prophesied that Jesus’ death would not be for Israel only, but for all the children of God scattered around the world, and from that time on the Jewish leaders began plotting the death of Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus then stopped his public ministry and left Bethany, near Jerusalem, and went to the edge of the desert, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there for a while with his disciples before returning to Bethany. Reading on now in the next chapter of the Gospel of John.
John 12:1 As the Passover approached, many people came to Jerusalem early for the cleansing rituals, and in the Temple they whispered, “Will Jesus come?” And hearing this the chief priests and Pharisees warned everyone to report him so they could arrest him. Six days before Passover Jesus arrived in Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead. A dinner was held in Jesus’ honour and while Lazarus reclined with Jesus Martha served, and Mary came and poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair, with the fragrant aroma filling the house. 
Judas Iscariot objected to Mary doing this, pretending to care for the poor, though he often stole from the disciples’ funds, and Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She’s preparing me for burial. The poor you will always have with you, but not me.” Crowds gathered, wanting to see both Jesus and Lazarus, while the chief priests even plotted to kill Lazarus, since many were believing in Jesus because of him. The next day, news of Jesus’ arrival spread, and as Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover week the whole city was stirred. People in the crowd were saying “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee, and the large crowd came out to meet him waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosannah. blessed is the King of Israel!” 
Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a young donkey, fulfilling the prophecy from Zechariah: “Don’t be afraid, people of Israel. Your King comes, riding on a donkey’s colt.” But the disciples only understood this later, after Jesus was risen in glory. 
Jesus then went into the Temple into the court of the gentiles and drove out the Temple money changers, angrily overturning their tables while they were selling doves at exorbitant prices to the visiting Jewish pilgrims. He said, “The Scriptures say, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer,’ but you’ve turned it into a den of thieves!” And the blind and the crippled came to him in the Temple, and he healed them, but when the chief priests and religious leaders saw the miracles and heard children shouting, “God bless the Son of David!” they were angry. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked Jesus. “Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you read the Scriptures? ‘Even children and infants will give praise.’
Those who had witnessed the raising of Lazarus spread the word, which drew even more people, and the Pharisees were getting desperate and said, “We’ve lost, everyone’s following him!” Some Greeks who had come for Passover asked Philip if they could meet Jesus and Jesus responded, “The time has come for me to be glorified. Like a grain of wheat, I must fall into the ground and die in order to produce a harvest of new life in the earth. Those who cling to life will lose it; those who give it up for my sake will gain eternal life, and anyone who wants to follow me must go where I go, and the Father will honour them.” Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify your name,” and a voice from heaven replied, “I have, and I will again.” Some thought it was thunder; others said an angel spoke. But Jesus told them, “The voice was for your sake, and now is the time for a time of crisis that will test and assess the world. When I’m lifted up, I’ll draw everyone to me,” referring to his death.
 The crowd was confused. “Isn’t the Messiah supposed to live forever?” Jesus answered, “Walk in the light while you have it. Then you will become children of light.” After saying this, he left and stayed out of sight for a short time, and despite all his miracles, many still didn’t believe. But Isaiah had prophesied this, saying their eyes and hearts would be hardened so they wouldn’t turn and be healed. Yet some leaders did believe, but kept silent, fearing the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue because they valued human praise more than` God’s. Then Jesus came back to speak once again to the crowd and cried out, “If you trust me, you’re trusting God who sent me. I’ve come as light into the darkness. I didn’t come to judge the world but to save it. But those who reject me and my words will be judged by the truth I’ve spoken. These are not my own words—they’re from the Father, who gives eternal life. And I say exactly what he tells me to say.” Reading on into the next chapter of John – Chapter 13:1
On the evening of the Passover supper, Jesus knew his time on earth was ending and he would soon return to the Father, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot to betray him during the supper. Jesus, fully aware of his own divine origin and destiny, showed his deep love for his disciples by getting up from the table, removing his robe, wrapping a towel around himself, and beginning to wash their feet. When he reached Peter, Peter protested, “Lord, you shouldn’t be washing my feet! Jesus said, “You don’t understand now, but you will later.”
Peter insisted, “Never! “Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t share life with me.”  Then wash my hands and head too!” Peter said. Jesus told him, “A person who has bathed only needs their feet washed to be fully clean. And you are clean—though not all of you,” referring to Judas who would betray him. After washing their feet, Jesus put on his robe and asked, “Do you understand what I’ve done? You call me ‘Lord’ and ‘Teacher’—and rightly so. And if I, your Lord, have washed your feet, you should wash one another’s. I’ve just given you an example of what serving means —you know that I have served you so serve one another, and you’ll be blessed. “I’m not speaking to all of you; I know whom I’ve chosen. But the Scripture must be fulfilled: ‘The one who shares my bread will betray me.’ I’m telling you now so when it happens, you’ll believe. Anyone who welcomes my messenger welcomes me—and the One who sent me.” Deeply troubled, Jesus said, “One of you will betray me.” The disciples were all stunned, and each one said to him ‘Is it I Lord, except for John who leaned in and asked, “Lord, who is it? ” Jesus answered, “It’s the one I give this piece of bread to.” Then he dipped it and gave it to Judas Iscariot. As soon as Judas ate it, Satan entered him. Jesus said to Judas, “Hurry—go and do what you must do.” 
The others didn’t understand—some thought Jesus was sending Judas out to buy food or give money to the poor. Judas left quickly, stepping into the night. Once he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and God will be glorified in him. Dear children, I’ll be with you only a little longer. You’ll look for me, but you can’t come where I’m going. “So I give you a new command: love one another as I have loved you. Your love for each other will show the world that you are my disciples.” Peter asked, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “You can’t follow me now—but you will later. “But why not now?” Peter asked. “I’m ready to die for you!” Jesus answered, “Die for me? Before the rooster crows tomorrow, you’ll deny three times that you even know me.”
The Last Supper was the last time Jesus would gather with all of his disciples in one place and teach them and model to them the way of serving and loving one another. When he broke the bread and drank the cup with him he said ‘do this in remembrance of me’. He was telling them of his expectation of how they would live for him with loyalty and unity and sacrificial love for one another and for the world. But he also told them the reality that in the hours to come one of them would betray him and one of them would deny him and that all of them would scatter and desert him when he surrendered himself to those who would take him and kill him.

The disciples were incredulous to all of this, still not understanding the meaning of the things Jesus did and said, and this was what Jesus had expected. But the actions and words he expressed that night were immortalised, and would be lived out, serving as a remembrance for his disciples and for all of humanity who would believe. Heaven would soon bestow faith and the grace upon the earth through the Holy Spirit, and the events of that evening would encourage and inspire and challenge every soul that hears this story.

The man Judas allowed darkness to take over his being because of his wilful anger and resentment because of his lost hopes to bring about his idea of justice. He regretted what he did immediately after his treachery.  Judas was unable to surrender the demand of his self-centred justice that drove his life. Instead of letting Jesus die for him and give him a new life he took his own life in his despair. Nevertheless, Jesus still died for him and said to his Father on the cross ‘forgive them Father they know not what they do.’ Not one of them knew what they were doing. Perhaps Mary his mother understood because it was the sword that continually pierced her heart, which was prophesied to her by Simeon when Jesus was dedicated as a baby.

The man Peter denied him just as Jesus predicted but his sin was not angry or resentful but a fear of being associated with the shame of what he saw as the failure of Jesus’ mission. He lived to receive the forgiveness and repentance and faith in the totally committed love of Jesus for him. He received the commission to live in partnership with Jesus as a witness of his resurrection. 
When we can believe in the totally committed love of Jesus for us and we can accept our imperfect selves as being loved with so much compassion, we can then allow that love and compassion to flow out from us into the imperfect lives of the people in our personal world. We, like Peter receive that commission to be in partnership with Jesus in reconciling people to God for forgiveness and receiving the faith and the grace to be transformed into his likeness as a New Creation. Amen

NOT UNTO DEATH

NOT UNTO DEATH 
Jesus and his disciples had fled Judea where the Jewish leaders had tried to stone him and had gone out to the rugged mountainous area far from Judea. It was only a few weeks till Passover and Jesus had set his course to be in Jerusalem for the Passover feast - where he would become the Lamb slain for all Mankind from before the foundation of the world. He had been doing many signs and wonders and crowds were following him everywhere and the Jewish leaders were becoming more and more agitated and threatened by his fame and popularity. While they were out there a messenger came to Jesus that his good friend Lazarus was sick and in need of help. The message was sent by the two sisters of his friend Lazarus in Bethany, which was close to Jerusalem in Judea.
We read the account of this in John’s Gospel.
John 11:1 Lazarus, who lived in Bethany with Mary and her sister Martha, was sick. So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Sir, your good friend is very, very sick.”
But when Jesus heard about it he said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 
Although Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days and made no move to go to them. Finally, after the two days, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go to Judea.” But his disciples objected. “Master,” they said, “only a few days ago the Jewish leaders in Judea were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?”

But that did not deter Jesus, and he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, but now I will go and awaken him!” The disciples, thought Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night’s rest and said, “That means he is getting better!” But Jesus meant that Lazarus had died. Then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, I am glad I wasn’t there, for this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let’s go to him.

It seems that Jesus had to remind himself that what he often said was not understood or even heard by those who heard it. And two days later when Jesus knew the time was right, he took his disciples to the place where Lazarus had been buried.
When they arrived at Bethany, they were told that Lazarus had already been in his tomb for four days. Bethany was only a couple of miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish leaders had come to pay their respects and to console Martha and Mary on their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed at home.
Martha said to Jesus, “Sir, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. And even now it’s not too late, for I know that God will bring my brother back to life again, if you will only ask him to.” Jesus told her, “Your brother will come back to life again.” “Yes,” Martha said, “when everyone else does, on Resurrection Day.”
Jesus said, “I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies like anyone else, shall live again. He is given eternal life for believing in me and shall never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?”
“Yes, Master,” she told him. “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one we have so long awaited.” Then she left him and returned to Mary and called her aside from the mourners and told her, “He is here and wants to see you.” So Mary went to him at once. Jesus had stayed outside the village at the place where Martha met him and when the Jewish leaders who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’ tomb to weep; so they followed her.
When Mary arrived at where Jesus was, she fell down at his feet, saying, “Sir, if you had been here, my brother would still be alive.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jewish leaders wailing with her, he was moved with exasperation and deeply troubled. “Where is he buried?” he asked them. They told him, “Come and see.” Jesus wept. And some of the Jewish leaders saw that as a sign of how much Jesus loved Lazarus 
But some said, “This fellow healed a blind man—why couldn’t he keep Lazarus from dying?” And that caused Jesus to feel deeply troubled and he groaned inwardly at their unbelief in him.

Jesus indeed wept. This was a moment of deep and mixed human emotion for Jesus, not just for the grief that his beloved friends were suffering but also because he had agonised deeply within his spirit many times because of how little his disciples and other followers and critics understood what he said and did in bringing a new Kingdom Age to the earth. And not least he was confronting the reality of his own imminent torturous death and resurrection. He was creating a new spiritual age of faith and love and divine power, not one of human ability and materialism and political power. Noone realized that Jesus did not make up his own mind about when Heaven’s power would touch the earth, and whether someone would or should be healed. It was not done by his own reckoning. He had told his disciples on more than one occasion that he could do nothing until he heard his Father tell him to do it, but people interpreted his supernatural acts as being for people who in their opinion deserved them or were worthy of them. 

Then they came to the tomb. It was a cave with a heavy stone rolled across its door.
“Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. But Martha said, “By now the smell will be terrible, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said, “But didn’t I tell you that you will see a wonderful miracle from God if you believe?” 
So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me – I know You always hear me, but I said it because of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me”. Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out, bound up in grave cloths and his face muffled in a head swath. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” And so at last many of the Jewish leaders who were with Mary and saw it happen, finally believed on him. But some went away to the Pharisees and reported it to them.
Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened a council to discuss the situation.
“What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “For this man certainly does miracles. If we let him alone the whole nation will follow him—and then the Roman army will come and kill us and take over the Jewish government.”
And one of them, Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, “You just don’t understand - let this one man die for the people—why should the whole nation perish?”
This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as High Priest—he didn’t think of it by himself but was inspired to say it. It was a prediction that Jesus’ death would not be for Israel only, but for all the children of God scattered around the world. Then the Jewish leaders began plotting Jesus’ death.
The death of this man Jesus would bring divine life into the world.
The Bible says Through the disobedience of one man, Adam, death came to all men, but through the obedience of one man Jesus life has come to all mankind. (Romans 5:18)
People had a wrong perception of what true faith was, and this constantly troubled Jesus - the Bible says ‘consider Him who endured such contradiction from sinful flesh against Himself, (Hebrews 12:3). Their thoughts were not God’s thoughts nor their ways God’s ways. People followed him out into the fields to hear this greatest teacher and prophet of their time. Many said that he was The Messiah and that he would set up the kingdom of God on the earth. But to the materially and politically minded Jews this meant an army with a leader sent from heaven that would overthrow the Roman Empire and free them from its oppression over them 
Jesus knew something about the resurrection of Lazarus that nobody else knew because his Father had revealed it to him by the Spirit. The consequence of the illness was death. But the purpose of the illness was not death, but glory to God – God on display for all to see - Resurrection. Jesus had spoken the words of life into the spirit of Lazarus and his spirit heard the voice of his friend Jesus saying to him ‘Lazarus come out ‘and his body received that lifegiving word and he came back to life. And something came to life in the spirit of all who believed in Jesus at that moment. The offence of Adam resulted in a mindset of separation from God for all of mankind and that is the pain that every human soul suffers throughout life. Spiritual death is the inner suffering of feeling separated from God. Jesus came to banish the curse of the separation mindset and he bring us into oneness with his life, resurrection life – the joy of the presence of God with us.

Jesus banishes all sense of separation between us and himself in our minds and hearts. There is no more spiritual death and no need to feel separated from the powerful resurrected life of Jesus within us. Jesus waited for his Father to speak from Heaven to call forth human life from Lazarus, and we listen for Jesus to speak from Heaven to call forth his spiritual life from within us. The Holy Spirit helps us pray our heartfelt prayer and Jesus intercedes from his heart and the Father brings about his good and perfect will. No prayer is wasted or discarded. From such a humble and heartfelt prayer healing and salvation for spirit, soul and body flow to us - and through us for others - and nothing is impossible with God.
So bless you all and I just want to pray now that as you go through this week when you feel that inner conflict, that is simply a little signal saying I'd like you closer to me. It's God allowing that to happen because we can't live with an inner peace if we're separated from the source of peace and love. He welcomes us home and it doesn't matter who we are - we say I'd like to be there, and he starts showing you that he is there - it's a miraculous thing. You just know all of a sudden that things change and you say to yourself, that couldn't have been a coincidence – but you think it must have been coincidence, and it happens again and God says that was a God incidence - keep asking and you will receive keep seeking and you will find. We're living in days when God is drawing us closer and closer from his big yes to our yes - as little as it might seem, our little yes, and that just needs to be a ‘thank you Lord for being there’. So thank you Lord for being with us this morning and drawing us closer to you. You are the resurrection and the life, and you live within us. Amen

 

THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR

THE PHARISEE AND THE TAX COLLECTOR

This parable compares the prayer of a proud Pharisee with the prayer of a humble tax collector, and the parable highlights the fascinating mix of power and social status between the different groups that Jesus moved amongst on his journey into Jerusalem. The Roman governors and soldiers held the ultimate and most enforceable power base and made their powerful presence felt by everybody with their unforms and swords and spears. Next on the list were the Pharisees and Sadducees and other Jewish religious leaders who had a religious tribal power base, and they made their power status felt by their robes and rituals and blatant virtue signalling of their righteous adherence to the ordinances and commandments of the Jewish Law. 

Then there were Jewish landowners and traders and slave owners whose money gave them a self-satisfied sphere of influence. Then there were the general labourers and slaves in the community who went about their business of making ends meet. Then there were the poor and needy and lame and blind who were powerless and lived just to survive. Another group that was strangely alien to everyone were the tax collectors. They were Jewish men who acted as the puppets of the Roman officials under strict orders to glean as much revenue as they could and they were disliked and unpopular with the entire Jewish community – their only power base was intimidation. A unique group that had a peesence within the community were the disciples and followers of Jesus, which included his mother and other women who provided support and provision for Jesus and the twelve. 

Jesus had a particular relationship and influence with each of these groups. His relationship with the Romans was a little awkward and indifferent on their part but they sensed his inner power and authority and he had gained their respect because of his character and integrity, that brough supernatural healing and comfort to many people, even amongst their own, including a centurion whose son he had saved from dying. But in the end, it was a Roman governor that admired the stature and goodness of Jesus who came under pressure from the Jewish leaders and reluctantly ordered him to be crucified on a cross at Calvary.
To the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders Jesus was not just a rival but an enemy and a threat. They too saw his upright character and integrity, and they too sensed his inner power and authority that brough supernatural healing and comfort to many people, but this only made them feel more threatened and they were out to get him, to disempower him one way or another. And this was especially so because of the admiration and awe of the general Jewish community towards Jesus whom many believed was the Messiah they had been waiting for. The Pharisees were out to trap him at every turn and to prove themselves more righteous and knowledgeable of the Law and more approved of by God than Jesus was.

And Jesus had a strange but telling relationship with tax collectors. They were in a bind, caught in the middle of having to serve the military might of Rome and trying to hold their heads up in front of their fellow Jews who resented them as traitors or turncoats. But someone had to do the job, and Rome had all the say. Jesus saw into the hearts of some of these men and knew their shame and guilt and confusion and saw miraculous transformation in the hearts of three of them. Jesus called Matthew the tax collector to become one of his twelve disciples who loyally recorded the living words of Jesus for the whole world to read. Jesus touched the troubled heart of Zacchaeus the tax collector who climbed up a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus passing by. Jesus told him to come down from his tree and said he wanted to come into is home and called him a son of Abraham, which offended the crowd. But Zacchaeus then repented of any cheating and intimidation of any people in the crow and personally repaid them four times as much as they had paid in their taxes. The next tax collector that Jesus honours is the one who humbly prays his prayer to God in the temple – in this parable in Luke Ch 18.

Luke 18:9-15 He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed this about himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

This very straightforward parable speaks of how God despises pride and honours humility, and the power conscious Pharisees to whom it was directed would have felt resentful that Jesus was not honouring their religious virtue signalling. The things that they performed in accordance with the Law were in order, as was their criticism of the sinful acts of extortion and adultery and injustice. But after they heard this parable, they hardened their hearts and doubled down on finding a way to do away with Jesus as we see written in the following chapters of Luke.

Jesus is teaching us here that the greatest sin was their pride that compared themselves with others that they esteemed as less spiritual or honourable than themselves. The Pharisees who heard the parable not only despised the tax collector as being less spiritual than themselves, but they judged him as despised in the eyes of God as well. 
And Jesus knew they even judged himself in the same way. Pride can end up judging God as well as other people, just as the pride of Lucifer judged God and then caused Adam and Eve to judge God, telling them that God had deceived them and deprived them by withholding the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from them. 

The humble tax collector in the temple was honest about what he had done and judged himself and not God. He took responsibility and asked God for mercy, humbly trusting God’s goodness and loving mercy and giving God the right place in his life. He got his relationship with himself and with God aligned with truth and with reality – totally unlike the Pharisee. That is why Jesus said that that man went home justified – true to himself and true to God.

The proud person lives in deception and the humble person lives in enlightenment.
When a humble person takes a lowest place God raises them into just the right place for their life. They come into alignment with God and are more likely to hear his truth and to understand it and to do it. They don’t have to compare themselves with others or judge them because they can leave that with God – that is having faith in a just God, and that is living a contented life.
In the Old Testament God calls himself the High and Lofty One. He is not being proud in saying this but simply stating the relationship between Almighty God and humanity. He says in Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Jesus is the prime example. The Bible says he made himself of no reputation. He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death…Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name. (Philippians 2:5)

The apostle Peter says to us Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (1Peter 5:6-7)

That does not only mean he cares for you but that he is doing the caring so that you don't have to become full of care - not careless but carefree. And now bring all these things to God knowing that you're in alignment with him and see yourself as he sees you. That's not being proud, that's being grateful. He came down to hit that horizontal line and he says just go there - don't try and get up higher yourself and don't put yourself down so low that you feel too unworthy to connect with me. Get horizontal and be a human being as my son was and I'll meet you right at the middle and I'll align you with me vertically and everything around you on that plane in which you live will start working out for the things that I want for you. I have the final say and I bring all things together for good to you and you'll hear the truth and you'll know that you’re loved and you'll get understanding. And you’ll receive the healing that you need in spirit soul and body amen. 
How ignorant and unaware were those who put Jesus on a cross as the most shameful dishonourable death there was - that they were actually making an illustration of God as the vertical and the horizontal for all life - a place where God’s will cuts across the will of man, and there is a place in the centre of that cross where God meets us. When Jesus was on the cross the place where the vertical met the horizontal was right at his heart and that is his heart for us. He says all I desire is your heart for me at that spot and I'll get you there. Ask him to take you to that place and he will – Amen.

 

ENTITLED LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD

ENTITLED LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD 

We are looking at the parable of the labourers in the vineyard who all get a full day’s wages whether or not they worked a full day or just a part of the day. This caused some workers to get offended because they felt entitled to receive more than they were given.
We will study this parable of Jesus in a moment in Matthew Ch.20 that shines a light on today’s culture of entitlement.

We live in a world where many suffer at the hands of selfish and entitled power brokers. Disillusionment runs deep as political and corporate leaders make promises then fail to deliver. And while some leaders genuinely seek solutions, the complexity of societal issues and political manoeuvring leaves people uncertain about who they can trust.
Take Argentina as a present-day example. Years of soaring inflation (up to 100%) and massive government spending on healthcare, education, energy, and food led to a bankrupt nation with 40% poverty and unemployment. The new government responded with austerity—cutting subsidies and cash payouts—but now police are cracking down on raging riots as properties get burned and destroyed. Once entitlements are given, they are difficult to revoke.

Entitlement funding is not right or wrong – it’s a matter of how appropriate and how wisely they are applied. In many Western democracies also, governments pour billions of public dollars into entitlement programs, often seen as tools to secure votes yet these expenditures are unsustainable. Too many power-hungry factions and empty promises can end up causing cycles of corruption and overcorrection. And when drastic corrections are made, they trigger chaos, and amid the turmoil, loud voices clash, but real dialogue is rare, and solutions seem elusive.

To break this spiral, we need honesty, transparency, sound policies, and competent leadership—especially at local levels—to restore order and trust. The politics of the world respond to power - not logic, so follow the logic. If logic is being applied things will work wisely and problems will get solved and there will not be the waste of billions of dollars of public money. Power not only corrupts, it also creates confusion. 
In the Bible Jesus is called the logos - the logic - and when he is given the rule in our personal lives, things can get done wisely and caringly and effectively.

And therefore people who know their God can pray for the power of the Kingdom of God to be seen in the earth to reorder the chaos of a self-serving global culture. The Bible says Pray for one another and for rulers and all others who are in authority over us, or are in places of high responsibility, so that we can live in peace and quiet, spending our time in godly living and dignity (semnot??s) (2 Timothy 1:7). 
Our faith in this prayer can bring God’s grace into action for us and allows God to reorder our lives personally. Everything starts with us and God’s grace.

So let us read the parable of the labourers in the vineyard in Matthew Ch.20. 
Matthew 20:1 For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them one denarius a day and sent them out to work. A couple of hours later he was passing a hiring hall and saw some men standing around waiting for work, so he sent them also into his fields, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. At noon and again around three o’clock in the afternoon he did the same thing.
At five o’clock that evening he was in town again and saw some more men standing around and asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’ Because no one hired us,’ they replied. ‘Then go on out and join the others in my fields,’ he told them.
That evening he told the paymaster to call the men in and pay them, beginning with the last men first. When the men hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a denarius. So when the men hired earlier came to get theirs, they assumed they would receive much more. But they, too, were paid a denarius also.
“They protested, ‘Those fellows worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as those of us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’
‘Friend,’ he answered one of them, ‘I did you no wrong! Didn’t you agree to work all day for a denarius? Take it and go. It is my desire to pay all the same; is it against the law to give away my money if I want to? Is your heart evil because I am good?’ That is why those who put themselves last end up being first and those who put themselves first end up being last. I desire to include everybody, but not everybody desires to be included.
What he is saying here that he wants to give his goodness and grace to everybody but not everybody wants to receive it. 
His response to the complaints of the early workers in the parable is to address their sense of injustice and entitlement. This parable of Jesus also speaks into the kind of self-serving confusion we see all around us today. His answer reveals the simple but deep eternal truths about God’s grace, and sovereignty, and the nature of his Kingdom.

Jesus forgave sinners and healed the sick and fed the poor in the name of his generous and sovereign Father. The leaders of Israel were resentful of this and felt entitled as having special claim on God and his kingdom because they had been performing and outperforming one another in the outward works of the Law for centuries. Who was this Jesus person to be so gracious to non-performers or even outsiders?
Jesus was preparing Israel and the world to receive the magnificent sovereign grace of God and become partners with him in his vineyard. And his word and his kingdom were about to come to everyone as a free gift. In Jesus, all has been accomplished, and we can confidently expect all good things from him. 

This parable teaches us that God speaks to us and makes faith and grace available as his gift, but it is our task to listen, and the word heard becomes the word received and then faith allows that word to be lived through us by God’s enabling grace. Grace is the power of God at work in our partnership with him, where God works far more powerfully and competently and productively within us than we could ever do on our own and we are entitled to receive his grace - Come confidently to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need Hebrews 4.16. We are actually the entitled labourers in the vineyard – what a twist that is – it is God’s Divine logic!

Jesus said to the complainers Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.” The early workers were not upset because they were treated unfairly, but because others received generosity that they didn’t think was deserved, and this exposes a deeper issue - resentment towards God for extending his grace to others. 
Jesus said Is your eye (heart) evil because I am good?’. H is saying here ‘is your eye - your view or perspective of God - hateful because God is good and generous to everybody whether they deserve it or not. We can all tend to limit God’s goodness and grace.

Whoever receives the gift of grace spends time working together with a loving Jesus and not making comparisons or complaining about it. When we know that this grace is on offer from God through Jesus for everyone then we begin to rejoice and pray for it to abound everywhere. Where grace abounds in people there is more wisdom in the way they work and more agreement about how they work together. In the parable the workers received exactly what they were promised and so do we. God is fair and just, and his grace overcomes our human tendency to compare ourselves with others and makes us grateful to be working together with him. Our greatest reward comes from trusting in the goodness of what we have received and from trusting in the one who gives it to us. Be courageous and bold - we have an entitlement because we come under the title of our Lords name. We are entitled to work together with him. People might ask ‘what's your privilege in life? Our privilege is to work through the strength of Jesus. That may not sound logical to many people, but I don't believe that deserving it makes any difference to God. It is about believing it and asking. It is confidently saying Lord I need to know your mercy because I know I'm not I'm not there yet but your mercy is covering my insufficiency - but one thing I know that I can have from a heart that is as true as it can be to you Lord is your enabling power within - your life to do a thing that only you can do through me that I can enjoy doing. And not comparing - even compared to my own aspirations. We have a great and loving God, so never never limit that entitlement to his grace. Amen

 

 

GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE

 

GODS CHOSEN PEOPLE 

This parable sits between the parable of the cursed fig tree and the parable of the King who brought people in from the highways and byways to his son’s wedding - when the privileged guests rejected his invitation.
Today’s parable tells the clear story of how Israel ceases to be the expression of the Kingdom of God on the earth as a holy nation that was chosen and called to be a light to all the nations of the earth. They were to be the reflection of God’s love and goodness and salvation to the Gentiles. The parable show us how the New Testament Church was to become the holy nation chosen to express the Kingdom of God in the earth and to invite the rest of humanity to enter in. Holy means consecrated to God and set apart to reflect his love and goodness and uprightness in the earth.

Matthew 21”33 “Jesus spoke another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. He then sent another larger  group of servants, and they treated them the same way. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. 
Jesus then asked the chief priests and Pharisees “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
It was God who brought all this about, and it is a wonder in our eyes’
I’m saying to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of the kingdom. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard this parable, they realised that He was speaking about them. But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet.

That verse says that the stone that the builders rejected becomes the cornerstone upon which a holy and heavenly life on earth can be built. That is reflected in many places in the Bible, in Psalms, in the Gospels and in Acts, and in Isaiah and in Ezekiel. God’s desire was for people in the earth to bear the fruits of his Kingdom and to partake of his Divine nature and to have Jesus on display in their lives. This was available to happen through Israel and even to Israel, but they rejected Jesus as the cornerstone. 
God first spoke this plan to Abraham when he chose Israel to be a light to the nations, a people set apart to reflect his Divine nature and guide the world toward him. He also confirmed this through Moses, telling them “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession… you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”(Exodus 19). But he made it clear that this calling was never just for Israel’s sake - “It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name… Then the nations will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 36:22-23). Yet Israel made it all about their name and not God’s name, and history shows that Israel struggled to fulfill this mission. Instead of looking outward, they mostly turned inward, focusing on their national identity rather than their divine purpose. They fell into idolatry and disobedience and ended up in exile and suffered under the tyranny of Assyria, and later Babylon, both of whom God used in judgement upon them (2 Kings 17:7-23).
But God was merciful, and he continually reaffirmed this calling through the prophets, because Israel was meant to serve as a spiritual bridge between God and the world as a priestly nation. A priest mediates between God and people, and Israel’s role was to bring His truth and his justice and his presence to all nations. “I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles. to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isaiah 46). 
So God’s plan to bless the nations through Israel would still come to pass, despite their failure in that mission because God’s eternal master plan was for Jesus as a Jew to be the true light to the world. “The people living in darkness saw a great light.” (Matthew 4). Jesus embodied everything Israel was meant to be as the Light of the world (John 8), revealing God’s kingdom not only to the Jews but to all people, and before he ascended to heaven, he gave this commission to his disciples – not just to speak the Gospel but to Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28).
The Church, made up of all who follow Jesus now carries Israel’s original calling—to bring the awesome light of God’s kingdom to the world. The Church is the new priestly nation as the apostle Peter writes in1Peter 2:9 – They are the new vinedressers in the parable of the vineyard and the mission has passed from Israel to the Church. But although the Church is now the messenger of the Gospel, Israel still remains significant in God’s prophetic plan, which speaks of a time when Israel would once again be at the heart of global events – and the Bible says that that all Israel will finally know their Saviour (Romans11). God’s promise to use Israel as a light to the nations was never abandoned—it was fulfilled in Jesus and expanded through the Church and today both Israel and the global body of believers have a crucial role in preparing the world for what is to come. Israel’s very existence today remains a testimony to God’s faithfulness, and despite intense opposition, they endure as a nation and the world’s attention is fixed on Jerusalem as they continue to fulfill prophecy. Zechariah prophesied concerning Israel that in the last days all the nations of the earth will gather against it (Zecharia 12)– as the Gospel continues to spread across the earth through the Church.
In this time of global upheaval, of wars, moral confusion, and a deepening divide between truth and deception God’s plan is still unfolding, and the Church is called to shine brighter than ever, bringing the message of Jesus to a world in desperate need of hope. As darkness increases, so must the light of God’s people. His kingdom will become more fully established and history will unfold and move toward the return of Christ in God’s good time. Until then, both Israel and the Church are called to be a testimony of God’s faithfulness in a broken world.
There was one thing Jesus said in the parable that held both warning and great promise both to Israel and the Church – ‘It is not for your sakes, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name… Then the nations will know that I am the Lord.’ (Ezekiel 36). Israel made it all about their name and not God’s name, and history shows that Israel always struggled to fulfill their mission. Instead of looking outward, they mostly turned inward, focusing on their national and religious identity and privilege and entitlement, rather than on their divine purpose. The same thing serves as a warning for the Church
The Church has been invited to live in the name of Jesus and that means more than adding his name to the end of our prayers – it means reflecting his life within us. Our name is in his name because our identity is hidden with Christ in God. We don’t do things in the name of our personal spiritual identity, or religious affiliation or reputation, or fame and success or in the name of the Church. We do things in the name of Jesus. God’s name portrays his nature and goodness and power to bless all those we know in our world. If we truly bear his name, we are empowered by his grace to reflect his nature, and when we do, he assures us that we will live the most fulfilled and meaningful life that can be lived – an abundant life. Amen