Spiritcode

The Early Church

THE EARLY CHURCH

The members of the early church still saw themselves as belonging to the Jewish religion even though they now had a revelation of the life of Jesus within them through the work of the Holy Spirit. They went to the synagogue every Saturday like good churchgoers, but they could not celebrate their newness of life in the Spirit together in the formal structure and liturgy of the synagogue so they met in households where they could grow their new way of life together in an informal friendly way and in the freedom of the Spirit.                
Their style of celebrating this way of life is described in the Book of Acts.

Acts 2:42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. 

Apostles’ Doctrine.
The early apostles spoke God’s word and trusted the Holy Spirit to teach each person how to hear from Jesus and how to live their life in partnership with him in a way that pleased the Father. That was the challenge that the apostles and prophets and pastors and teachers gave to each individual and to each group who gathered together in Jesus’ name, to build up their faith in their walk with God. This was something entirely new and scary because of the personal and individual freedom and responsibility that it brought but Jesus had said ‘I am the way the truth and the life’ and ‘no man can come to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6)

Fellowship
Our fellowship (koinonia) is an ongoing conversation of sharing the blessing of the ‘Jesus within us’ life. The Community of Faith is us together heeding another person’s experience of Jesus, no matter how different that experience might be to ours. Paul wrote to the church in Rome commending them on their inner knowledge of Jesus and he was confident that they could speak comfort and wisdom into one another’s’ lives.  
Romans 15:14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to put one another in mind of God’s Word.

Breaking of bread – Communion
We sit ‘at table’ with one another and beak bread and drink the cup together. There doesn’t have to be an actual table – just people of faith remembering the bread as the body of Christ and the cup as his life-giving blood. That table is a place of the revelation of God to us of who he is and what he does.
Abraham sat at table (??ulh?ân; a table - or spread out as a meal) and offered three loaves of bread to The Lord Adonai who revealed himself as God in the form of three angels.
Genesis 18:2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, “O Lord, if I have found favour in your sight, do not pass by your servant… And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, ‘please quickly make three cakes of bread of fine flour!’ and he set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 
There he received the revelation from God that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
King David sat at table with the Lord (Psalm 23) and experienced total security even in the presence of his enemies and received a revelation of the living hope from God for the future comfort and fulfillment of dwelling in the house of the Lord forever. 
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus did not recognize who Jesus was until the Holy Spirit opened their eyes and revealed the risen Jesus to them, as they sat with him ‘at table’ (kataklin?? - recline at a meal) and they broke bread together.
Luke 24:30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
Holy Spirit still does this with us today ‘at table’ with the Lord and with one another.

Prayers
Communion is a time to have prayer together ‘at table’.
1Timothy 2:1 First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and gracious in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth

Was Blind but now I see

WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE

When Jesus was ministering in Galilee, he healed three blind men.  One man was blind Bartimaeus 
Mark 10:46 And so they reached Jericho. Later, as they left town, a great crowd was following. Now it happened that a blind beggar named Bartimaeus was sitting beside the road as Jesus was going by. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus from Nazareth was near, he began to shout out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
When Jesus heard him, he stopped there in the road and said, “Tell him to come here.”
So they called the blind man. “Be encouraged,” they said, “come on, he’s calling you!” Bartimaeus pulled off his old cloak and threw it aside, jumped up and came to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. The blind man said, “I want to see!”
And Jesus said to him, “All right, it’s done. Your faith has healed you.”
And instantly the blind man could see and followed Jesus down the road! 

Another man who was healed from blindness was healed by Jesus putting spit in his eyes
Mark 8:25. And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Another man healed from blindness by Jesus didn't have Jesus spit in his eye but rather Jesus spat on the ground and made mud.
John 9:7 As he was walking along, he saw a man blind from birth.
“Master,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?” “Neither,” Jesus answered. “But to demonstrate the power of God.
Then he spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle and smoothed the mud over the blind man’s eyes, and told him, “Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. So the man went where he was sent and washed and came back seeing! 

Now for some speculation - We can imagine how these wonderful faith healings would have been compared and examined closely by Bible teachers (back then and still today) to discover the deeper meanings behind these experiences of faith. This would probably have given rise to earnest truth seekers and perhaps a few opportunists to hold a conference to discuss which was the most effective and appealing teaching method for being healed from blindness. After that conference three new denominations could very well have been formed all in the name of Jesus.  
There would have been the Bartamites the Spittites and the Muddites. 

The key to the Bartimite doctrine would be his throwing off the cloak before Jesus prayed. The historical context shows that this cloak that Bartimaeus was wearing was most likely an official begging coat for licenced beggars.
This could begin a new method of faith that could develop into some kind of practice still seen today about say, treading on your glasses while waiting in a prayer line with the expectation of being healed of sight defects. I watched this happen to two of my colleagues many years ago when I was in ministry training college. My two friends stomped on their spectacles as they received prayer from a visiting evangelist, and they had to go to the optometrist a few days later and each get a new pair of glasses. 

The Spittites. This doctrine would not only reveal truth concerning the spittle from Jesus’ mouth, which can speak of the living water of the Holy Spirit, but it would also introduce the new method of first praying, and then asking the person if they can see, and then laying on hands a second time to impart more faith for a better result.

The Muddites. The Muddite teaching emphasises that it was not only the living water of the spittle but it adds the method of mixing the spittle with the dust of the ground, which could speak of the Holy Spirit being joined to mankind. And furthermore, because the blind man had to wash in the pool of Siloam before he received his sight it could lead to the person being baptized into the local Muddite Assemblies church. 

However, what these three men really had in common was that they had been blind and now they could see - and they had all encountered Jesus and the love of God. Christianity challenges each individual to meet with Jesus in his or her own situation. The moment we make an exclusive doctrine out of a method we can bring division to the body of Christ. We place something else above Jesus and God’s love to indulge our own self-interest and it is like a market place of ‘get in on the latest and the best doctrine’ deal on offer. (only love conquers indulgent self-interest). 
Self-interest is a perfectly normal and responsible attitude for a person to have, to survive, stay as healthy as possible and be productive enough to do all this and to care for others. But when self interest becomes a problem of anxiety or wilfulness and me me me, and the dodgy doctrine deals have not worked the answer is to know that you are loved by someone who always acts for your best interest because they love you. That is what the Holy Spirit imparts to our hearts concerning Jesus and the Father.

Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus about being loving and wise in the teaching and applying of the truth of God’s word in the church. Paul wanted them to become a community of faith and love that expressed God’s love and faith and power into their world.

Ephesians Chapter 4:11-16. And he appointed some to be apostles and some to be prophets and some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers of his word
12. Who would equip those who live for God to live a life of serving others (equip the saints for the work of the ministry) and be formed together for the expression of Jesus to the world.
13. Until we all come into the unity of the faith in the knowing of the Son of God, to become a complete person who measures up to having the fullness of Christ within us.
14. When this starts to happen, we won’t be like children tossed about in all directions and running here and there after every new alluring teaching from cunning teachers who load the dice to prosper their own ends and ambitions. 
15. But when truth is proclaimed, and it is empowered by God’s love it causes us as a body to grow and develop in oneness and harmony with Christ who is the head of that body. 
16. From this placement of the body with its head, which is Christ, comes the perfect collaboration of a completely balanced and effective body, as each part contributes the best it has in the best possible way so that the whole body becomes the expression of God’s love and power.

The early apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers were ministries appointed by God that were trying to transition people from religion with its rituals and regulations into depending upon Jesus in a spiritual relationship with him.  They were talking to people from many different cultures and religions which all had written laws and rituals of some kind. These people had learned to feel more secure when they had ritual sacrifices and a ritual code of truth that specified exactly what method of application would get them some desired outcome or favour with God. That belief system was not faith in a living God, but faith in a methodology. Real faith is our believing in a living loving God who dwells within us working in our hearts to bring about his will in our lives as we surrender our needs and petitions to him. All those ministries I just mentioned spoke God’s word and trusted the Holy Spirit to teach each person how to hear from Jesus and how to live their life in partnership with him in a way that pleased the Father. This was something entirely new and scary because of the freedom that it brought.  But Jesus had said ‘I am the way the truth and the life’ and ‘no man can come to the Father except through me’ and that was the challenge that the apostles and prophets and pastors and teachers gave to every individual, to build up their faith in their walk with God.

When Paul was knocked to the ground on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, Jesus told Paul that he had chosen him to be his apostle to the Gentiles, or non-Jews. Paul had to bring the revelation of ‘Christ in you’ to unbelievers who had a multiplicity of views on religion and God and spirituality. 
Paul set about laying down what was the first goal of the Church, which was to come into the ‘unity of the faith’ – ‘Until we all come into the unity of the faith in the knowing of the Son of God, to become a complete person who measures up to having the fullness of Christ within us’ (Vs.13) 
The Community of Faith does not judge or criticize another person’s genuine experience of Jesus, no matter how different it might be. Our ongoing conversation can be sharing the blessing of the ‘Jesus within us’ life. Paul wrote to the church in Rome commending them on their inner knowledge of Jesus and he was confident that they could speak comfort and wisdom into one another’s’ lives.  
Romans 15:14 I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to put one another in mind of God’s Word.
It is good for a local church gathering to have proven ministries in their midst that can encourage God’s people pastorally and prophetically and teach them in the counsel of God’s Word. And it is all about each one of us having a personal knowledge of Jesus being active in our lives. 
That kind of local church community is genuinely evangelical because the people live out the Gospel that speaks through their lives.

In the next verse (Vs.14) Paul warns us to not go after alluring teachings that promote methodologies for getting your prayers answered the way you want them to. All this does is bring about more division because people start focusing on the crafty methods to get their prayers answered rather than trust in the person of Jesus. The motivation behind these teachings/teachers is often human pride or ambition or financial gain and reputation.
Many of these methods, styles and brands of faith have been exposed in the last few years of this century and there is a lot of soul-searching going on now as people are being challenged to live for God and not for themselves.

There are many people seeking truth with a genuine heart and conscience that are of other faiths and spiritual practices. There are many who may have a concept of a God who is out there or up there somewhere and they must not be rejected and judged. God will judge each person one day and he alone knows their heart and conscience and their destiny. The Holy Spirit has been sent into the world to actively pursue the hearts of all of these people, as he did to Paul and has done to all of us.
But how sad it is that many seekers of truth see Christianity as divided and as worldly and as confused as any other religion. It does not have to be like that. 
We can be part of God’s drawing of people to himself as the one true God as we live in the ‘unity of the faith’ and allow Jesus to live out his life from within us. 
Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him about being part of this work of God.

1Timothy 2:1 The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Saviour God wants us to live.
He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth we've learned: that there's one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered his life in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free, the evidence of this coming at the appointed time. This and this only has been my appointed work (I tell the truth I am not lying).

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

 

 

Wisdom from The Father

WISDOM FROM THE FATHER notes

God would walk with Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden every day and he would tell them about the wonderful creation that he had created for them. In this way he filled their hearts with knowledge about who he was and about who they were, in a perfect relationship with himself and with one another. And he told them how much they were loved. He didn’t have to teach them any rules or regulations that would instruct them in moral or ethical choices concerning their relationships to one another because that was perfect, therefore he did not have to instruct them in the relational wisdom of the Ten Commandants. He had only given them one commandment and that was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

Unfortunately, Adam and Eve disobeyed this critical commandment, and this permanently damaged their relationship with God and with one another. At that moment humanity gave entrance to the destructive forces of broken and disordered relationships. Darkness had simply tempted them to sin grievously against the greatest of all God’s values for his earthly family, that of loving and trusting relationships. They had failed to trust the one who was the source of everything concerning who they were and what was theirs. 
They and their descendants would from now on struggle with a damaged conscience concerning the difference between good and evil for many thousands of years. The heart of mankind was filled with a mistrust of God. Humanity had become separated in its mind from the knowledge of God and had begun to find other options to replace God with gods of its own choosing and its own making. People began ambitiously struggling to fashion their own identity and destiny and their soul found no rest in this separated state of mind. They also began to mistrust one another and to do one another violence and harm and to steal from each other and to lie to each other, and about one another.

In due time God spoke to another man called Moses on the top of a mountain and he gave him the solution to all of this relational damage and harm that people did to themselves. He gave Moses the Ten Commandments, which was God’s wisdom concerning how to heal and restore and strengthen relationships between God and mankind and between people with one another. These relationships would be lovingly defined and wisely regulated by a loving Father God. Moses would have the task of overseeing the instruction of the Commandments to God’s people Israel for forty years in their journey through the wilderness, after God had miraculously set them free from their four hundred year bondage of slavery in Egypt.
The Ten Commandments were purely and simply the wisest and most straightforward external means that God could use to regulate what was most precious to him in the lives of his people in their community, and that is loving, joyful and fulfilling relationships with himself and one another. Everything else in life is secondary to this and grows out from this.

God also spoke intimately to a man named David, the king of Israel whom the Bible calls ‘a man after God’s own heart’. He was devoted to the wisdom of God that resided in the Commandments. David wrote powerfully in the psalms about his longing for the wisdom of God’s Commandments to transform his heart and soul.
Psalm 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.

God’s personal loving intervention into the lives of his people Israel was the prelude and the curtain raiser for the way humanity was being prepared to receive God himself in human form in the person of Jesus who would personally reside within humanity and join us to himself forever. Jesus embodied the ultimate truth of his Father’s Commandments and there came to mankind through Jesus a new way for this perfect wisdom concerning relationships to be grafted into the very being of the human heart and to make that heart willing to relate lovingly to God as a Father, and to other people as Jesus did. Jesus also spoke of the Commandments as being the expression of this perfect loving relationship between God and his people and between people with each other. 
One day a religious lawyer asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment and Jesus replied. ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
Jesus spoke life into his teaching of the commandments and turned his emphasis of them from ‘’you shall nots into ‘you shall be transformed’. The apostles then continued this New Testament emphasis of redeeming faith in their teaching on the Commandments.
It was prophesied in the Old Testament that there would be new life-giving way of living the Commandments from a willing heart of faith through the loving work of Jesus. This prophetic word of Jeremiah was also recorded for us in the New Testament as being for all of humanity, not only for Israel.

Hebrews 8:10 ’For this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no one will instruct his brother or teach his neighbour regarding knowing the Lord for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’

The following presentation of the Commandments from Commandment One through to Commandment Ten is a reading of the words of love and wisdom and entreaty that I believe our Father God would speak to us today. 
The first four Commandments deal with our relationship to God and the next six Commandments deal with our relationships with one another.

I will first read the Commandment from Scripture (Exodus Chapter 20) and then I will share the transformational aspect of each Commandment as I see it reflected in the Gospels and the New Testament Scriptures.

1. I am The Lord your God. You will have no other gods before me.

I alone as your loving God can give you a life that is worth living if you trust me and look to no other god. Depend fully upon me for wisdom and guidance in your life choices and for fulfillment in loving relationships. Even your demands for total independence from me or stubborn rejection of me do not make me go away or stop me from intervening in your lives.

2. You shall not make yourselves any idol nor image or ever bow or worship it in any way; for I, the Lord your God, am jealous of you. 

Learn to accept that I give your life its true meaning, which is that you mean everything to me and I want to mean everything to you. I am jealous for you and that means I don’t want you to invent another self-conceived god instead of me. And don’t create some self-image – another identity that replaces the identity I have given you. I have created you in my image. 

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Only put God’s name to something you know he am doing in you and through you. You will know you have truly done this when you receive his peace in your heart through surrendering it prayerfully in faith for his will to be done in the matter. It is futile to presumptuously use God’s name to promote your own projects. If you do this you must own it all and take all the consequences of your presumption. In the same way it is unethical to presume the use of other peoples’ names and reputations for your own advantage. God’s name has great authority and power and it reflects his very nature, so he desire that you learn to bear his name and allow people to see his nature come through in the things that you do in his name.  

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

God worked on his creation for six days and rested on the seventh day. he took this rest so that he could enjoy that creation with his new family on the earth. So learn to take time out from your constant work to draw aside and give time to be with him and enjoy his company and the company of your family and friends whom you love. In that time of rest in his presence, you will receive faith that he is working with you and for you for his will to be done in your life. You will go out from that time of rest with peace in your heart giving thanks to him for his grace upon you and his provision for you.

These next six commandments deal with our relationships between one another.

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land

It is good and right for children to honour and obey their parents, despite the parents’ imperfections, and the Bible also says that parents should not provoke their children to frustration and anger (Ephesians 6:2). Parents can impart wisdom and understanding of life principles through good instruction and especially by good example and God will bless through a secure authority that serves but not one that is insecure and self-serving because self-serving authority is ultimately rebellion against God’s loving authority that serves his people. Under secure and caring authority children can then hopefully learn to respect and trust the authority that God has placed over them in other areas of life and become responsible and accountable in their decision making. They will in time become equipped to give others help and wisdom and guidance and will do well in life and people will trust in them and walk in the way of peace instead of in suspicion and anger. This can help them exercise caring and competent authority towards other people in their area of influence.

6. You shall not kill

No one likes to be around angry and suspicious people because anger and violence leads to killing relationships and that is what leads to killing other people. 
People can learn to accept others for who they are and build friendships with kindness and trust. They can gain control over emotional reactions and become a reconciler and be ready to forgive people when they don’t live up to expectations. 

7. You shall not commit adultery 

The strict definition of adultery is unlawful sexual activity in marriage. However,
Jesus expanded this definition to include the inner attitude of the heart of wrong desire and not only the outward activity when he said ‘But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28). This lustful intent is simply self-gratification and is a form of unfaithfulness. We can be unfaithful at any level of committed relationships, whether it be towards God or in friendships or even in work relationships where we can be disloyal to our employer and not put in a faithful performance. That is also cheating.
God’s love for us is a commitment of loving sacrifice and his love for us remains faithful even when we are unfaithful to him (2Timothy 2:3).
He wants to reveal his loving faithfulness to us so that we can be drawn to him and drawn away from harmful self-gratifying habits and become free to become fulfilled in faithful relationships
This is the pathway of return for many prodigal sons and daughters to the embrace of a loving Father where they learn the value of a loving relationship and are given worth.

8. You shall not steal

Stealing happens when a person loses sight of the worth of other people and what belongs to them, and in time they finally lose sight of their own worth as a person. 
God desires to touch the life of that person, to show them that they are of greater worth and value to him than all the other forms of creation and if he feeds the birds of the air and beautifies the flowers of the field how much more does he want to provide for them (Matthew 6:26). 
God wants to teach us all to value other people as he values them and to value what other people have worked honestly for. 
Paul writes ‘Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need Ephesians 4:28).
This is how God transforms people from being takers to becoming appreciated as givers.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour

Satan is called 'a liar and the father of it' and the power that he wields starts with his own self-deception and ends with his deceiving of others. He told the first lie that was ever told on earth which led to the destruction of mankind’s relationship with God. He told them that God had deceived them by saying that they would die if they ate of the tree. Satan lied to them, telling them that they would not die and that they had been overlooked by God and deprived of his wisdom and spiritual and material provision.
And all of that demonstrates the power of what is called false witness. 
That lie causes the devaluing of another person’s name and reputation and honour, which means demolishing their essential being and nature.
The person who lies never has to change, because they never have to see themselves as they really are. God wants to show people who they really and lovingly persuade them that they do need to change
'You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free'.
They become set free from destroying their world with the power of lies, and they become people who build their world with the power of truth and love.

10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour 

When a person covets another person’s identity or status or what they possess they live out the lie of taking the things of someone else’s’ life into the desolation and discontent of their own soul. 
They have forsaken God as being the source of their identity and blessing and fulfillment and replaced God with the identity or possessions or privileges of another person. They have created another god, a false idol, into whose image they want to be formed.
It is only when they can let God mercifully show them the futility of living the wrong life with the wrong goals that will only frustrate and torment their souls, that they can graciously surrender to God’s passionate and determined good will for their lives.
This opens up for them a courageous new horizon that they become drawn towards with the Heavenly energy of God’s loving grace and faith. ‘Behold I make all things new’.
God can show that person the futility of living the wrong life pursuing imaginary goals and he gives them the grace to surrender that past pursuit and sets before them a courageous new horizon which gives them a future and a hope.

 

 

Secret Prayer

SECRET PRAYER
  
Much of what Jesus taught his disciples had to do with being sincere and real. They had grown up under the influence of an external Jewish religion where there was an outward show of pretence in the prancing around of their religious observances, from giving to fasting and praying. Jesus wanted to teach them to become real in the inner faithfulness of their heart towards God, and not to be concerned with the praise of man. 
Matthew 6:1 “Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, for then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. … When you do a kindness to someone, do it secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.

At this particular time of instruction Jesus was especially interested in telling them about the need for this inner quality of the heart in regard to prayer.
Matthew 6:5 “And now about prayer. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who pretend piety by praying publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. Truly, that is all the reward they will ever get. 
So go into your room and close door behind you and be with the Father in secret, and the Father who sees in secret will reward your going out… for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Jesus taught them to do as he did when he would leave the company of others and settle into a place of silent humble stillness where he would capture the truth of who he was in the presence of his loving Father. He would walk out from that place of prayer with a clear understanding of the will of his all-knowing Father. He taught his disciples his process of ‘secret prayer’. He had to close the door on the outer busyness of life and on the many human demands and challenges that acted upon his mind and emotions.

Jesus taught them how to close the door of their minds and emotions to their own outer troubling circumstances and to be with the Father in secret, where they would find his reward of peace and find faith to overcome the world in his strength. 
Jesus said to them. ‘follow me’, and he is also saying the same to us in these Scriptures, about how to follow him into his secret prayer life with his Father.

When Jesus went up onto a mountain to pray, he would not have had a room to go into, and there doesn’t have to be any formal room as such. The word for room (tameion) means an inner chamber. That inner chamber for Jesus was his heart, and that was where he met with his Father. That is also where we meet with our Father, in secret.  When Jesus ‘closed the door behind him’ he was talking about shutting out the soul’s current burdens and perplexing challenges of life. Closing that door was a deliberate decision of his will. 
When Paul wrote about his ‘reaching forward to those things that are ahead’ (Philippians 3:13) he first of all talked about ‘forgetting those things that were behind’ That wasn’t about Paul having amnesia, it was as with Jesus a deliberate act of the will!
Paul was very open in the Scriptures about the mental perplexities and the emotional disappointments he suffered, and he didn’t deny them or suppress them, but he also didn’t obsess about them. He knew the only faithful and intelligent way forward was to put them aside by closing the door of his soul on them while he let his mind occupy a better and more powerful place of the peace filled presence of God which is always there waiting to be occupied by all those who believe. He went on to say ‘…let any of us who think maturely act this way…’(Philippians 3:15)

There are three clearly defined parts to this orderly process of secret prayer that Jesus taught 
‘Go into your room and close the door behind you…’ 
The first part, before going into the room, is to do some ordering of the soul concerning the scrambled array of competing burdens and concerns both past and present that can flood the human mind. We need to diligently check what those things are that we leave outside the door when we close it because they will still be there when we come out of that inner place of being heart to heart with God. And while the Father knows all these hidden things, we need to be clear about them too, so that we can finally surrender them willingly into his hands. This diligence takes a little time, but the Holy Spirit helps us by shining the light where it is needed. 

‘Be with your Father in secret…’
The second part is to open the door of our heart to the flow of love and goodwill of the Father so that when we close the door on the past, he can reorder our soul and energize our heart with faith for the future. This is not a time of discussing our needs with God but purely a time of receiving the flow of his life into ours. That flow of life is the divine energy that created and ordered the Universe through the Logos of his Word, and that energy continues to work creatively upon us. During that time we can echo the words of David ‘My heart is fixed, my heart is ready (Psalm 57:7) as our faith expands in anticipation of God’s will being worked ‘in secret’ into our heart and into our circumstances. 

‘…and the Father who sees in secret will reward your going out for your Father knows what you need before you ask him’.
The third part is to come out of that inner place and into our outer world knowing that our Father has ordered our future and prepared our heart with faith to discern his will for our life concerning those areas of our present circumstances.
We now present these needs that the Holy Spirit gives us witness to, and that he wants us to willingly surrender to the Father. He gives us his faith that these things are being brought into the perfect will of God, and that faith and peace is the reward of the Father. The Bible says that Jesus lives forever to intercede to God on our behalf (Hebrews 7:5). We have surrendered these to the Father and we know Jesus ‘has our back’, as it were. We then give thanks for this and allow his peace to fill our hearts as we go out from there and into the activities of our lives. And now we are assured that we will see in his time what he has done and give more thanks, when our faith becomes our sight.          
Jesus went on to give them a general outline of how they could speak personally and openly to God, both in reverend awe of his greatness but also in the warmth and consolation of his love and goodness. 
He taught them what we call ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ (Matthew 6: 8)

Dear Heavenly Father I respect and honour you as God over all things. I regard your Heavenly Kingdom order as being perfect in every way and I ask that you bring that perfect order more and more into this world so that your will can be done by us here on earth as you devise your perfect will for us from Heaven.
I depend upon you for everything that I have in this earth that sustains my life and keeps me going. Help me to live in the peace of your forgiveness and to show that same forgiveness to others who have done me wrong.
Please keep your hedge of protection from evil around me and my loved ones and strengthen our souls against being tempted and drawn away from your path by wrong desires. May the power of your Heavenly Kingdom be gloriously on display for all to see in this age and for all the ages to come. Amen

 

Sin and Faith and Missing the Mark

SIN AND FAITH AND MISSING THE MARK

Luke 7:36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for lunch and Jesus accepted the invitation. As they sat down to eat, a woman of the streets heard he was there and brought an exquisite flask filled with expensive perfume. Going in, she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping, with her tears falling down upon his feet; and she wiped them off with her hair and kissed them and poured the perfume on them.
When Jesus' host, a Pharisee, saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, “This proves that Jesus is no prophet, for if God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman this one is!"

The Pharisees judged the woman harshly and they also judged Jesus harshly in this situation. This was bad press for Jesus – ‘Immoral sinful woman publicly kisses the feet of Jesus at a party

Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts. "Simon," he said to the Pharisee, "I have something to say to you."
"All right, Teacher," Simon replied, "go ahead." Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people--$5,000 to one and $500 to the other. But neither of them could pay him back, so he kindly forgave them both, letting them keep the money! Which do you suppose loved him most after that?"
"I suppose the one who had owed him the most, “Simon answered. "Correct, “Jesus agreed.
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look! See this woman kneeling here! When I entered your home, you didn't bother to offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You refused me the customary kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. You neglected the usual courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has covered my feet with rare perfume. Therefore her sins--and they are many--are forgiven, so she loved me much; but one who is forgiven little, shows little love."
And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven. “Then the men at the table said to themselves, “Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Jesus described the beautiful logic of a person who owed much greatly appreciated being forgiven much. She loved Jesus in return for this forgiveness and she publicly demonstrated her love to him. Jesus compares her love and honour for him with the neglect he received from the owner of the house.

The woman was a sinner (harmaton - one who misses the mark) and she was forgiven for all her sins, which were many. Sin (harmatia - missing the mark) means disobeying The Commandments and religious rules in the Old Testament.
The men at the table had said “Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

In that one final sentence Jesus prophetically declared the difference between missing the mark or target in the Old Testament and missing the mark or target in the New Testament. She was being judged by people of missing the mark according to the Old Testament but she was responding by faith in Jesus and hitting the target according to the New Testament, which had not yet come into effect!

The mark to be missed in the Old Testament of being judged by the Commandments had been met fully by Jesus whom the Bible tells us was without sin. Jesus took his sinless life through the cross and was killed even though death had no claim on him according to the Scriptural law of sin and death 
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death came upon all men because all sinned…
He then rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven and then sent the Holy Spirit upon humanity. Then there came a new way that sin was to occur with a new kind of mark to be missed. The New Testament mark to aim for was of belief in the fact that we have received the gift of the sinless life from Jesus’ death and resurrection and can now live in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is why Jesus said very clearly 
John 16:7…if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit (paracletos) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin … because they do not believe in me.
So the new definition for sin that the Holy Spirit is constantly convicting the hearts of all people about today is unbelief in the indwelling life of Jesus. God wants that life of his to be expressed through us. 
The Bible says ‘the just shall live by faith’(Galatians 3.11. Romans 1:17)

There are other words in the original language in the New Testament Scriptures used for deliberately disobeying God that occur a few times only, such as lawlessness and transgression, but the one and only word for sin as missing the mark , hamartia, is used over two hundred and fifty times as in the above Scriptures and elsewhere throughout the New Testament Bible.
Missing the mark, or sin in the Old Testament is hata – turning from the path or missing the mark. That was a much easier target to see and to judge in the Old Testament because it was the observable outward behaviour concerning the Jewish rules and the Ten Commandments. There were many sinful acts of behaviour to be observed such as idolatry, anger, violence and killing, sexual immorality and unfaithfulness, stealing, lying, coveting and these were judged by man and by God. The mark that we miss in the New Testament is an inner hidden quality of the heart of faith that only God can judge. 

The overarching fact is that God still requires that we obey his Commandments. 
Matthew 5:17… Jesus said… ‘I come not to destroy the law but to establish it’. 
How do we fulfill God’s requirement of us to obey his Commandments?
Paul writes that our heart of believing in the life of Jesus within us is the only way that we can please God and willingly desire to obey his Commandments. This is because of the work of the Holy Spirit within us giving us the same desire as Jesus had to do the will of his Father. This is God’s gift of grace to us.
Romans 8.4 the righteous requirement of the law might now be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to our human nature but according to the Spirit. So that the right living that the law commanded could now flow freely from us who live a shared life together with Jesus in his divinity instead of a life isolated and limited by its own flawed condition.

Why would someone miss the mark (sin -hamartia) under this New Covenant of grace?
A person would miss it if they were totally ignorant of any knowledge of God and his covenant. They would miss it if they worshipped other gods. They would miss it if they were not interested in God. They could also miss the mark if they had been told incorrectly that it was about rules and Commandments and outward observance rather than about being about grace and faith and an inner commitment of the heart of faith. These errors of understanding remain and abound today.

This new understanding took time to transition out of the religious mindset of the Jewish apostles who thought it was still a matter of being under the Law of the Commandments and the Jewish religious rules, while still passionately believing that Jesus Christ was God and that he died for the forgiveness of our sins. Those early apostles were taught by the Holy Spirit how to receive the revelation of this New Covenant and through those struggles of faith they came to understand that they could preach the full Gospel of grace and faith to the Gentiles also. 

The apostle Peter was told to preach the good news to a Gentile centurion called Cornelius and he resisted that command from God at first because it broke the Jewish Laws of entering the home of a Gentile, not to mention the eating of Gentile food which was sinful and unclean for a Jew (even a Christian Jew, according to Peter). Peter did as he was told and he was amazed to see the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to them and filling them with his divine life. Peter later describes to the other apostles the supernatural work of God upon the hearts of the Gentiles 
Acts 11:15 ‘If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? God has granted repentance that leads to life to the Gentiles also. Peter went on to say ‘And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9).

It was finally Paul who unfolded the truth of the universal grace of God through Jesus Christ. Universal grace means that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind and that all are forgiven. And we saw that the apostle John writes that the Holy Spirit is at work in ‘the World’, not just in ‘the Church’, and that means every human heart. Paul also states ‘For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of those who believe. (1Timothy 4:10). 

That is not ‘universalism’ because the question remains – how many people believe what God wants them to believe?
Many who call themselves Christians today may be unaware of what ‘sin’ is and unaware of what the mark is that they are supposed to aim at, namely, a full commitment to living as a partaker in their inner life of the divine Spirit of Christ.

I have to seriously ask myself that question every waking hour of my life. Do I believe? 
All I can say is “Lord I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

It is easy to look at peoples’ behaviour in the outside world and legalistically judge them as ‘sinners’, but Paul warns us against doing that; 
‘For what have I to do with judging outsiders (1Corinthians 5:12).
So who gives account to Who and who gives account to what? 
In the Old Testament God’s people were accountable to God and UNDER the Law, so they were accountable to the Law and judged by the Law.
In the New Testament we are ALL accountable to God and UNDER grace, so we will each give account to God about receiving his grace that works by faith. 
2Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you 
……………………………

1Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of each one’s heart. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

The Church has become more occupied with judging one another than with loving one another. God might say to someone on that day – look your doctrine was too pushy and legalistic and brought condemnation however I loved your heart of sincerity to do your best for my Kingdom or yours was too pushy and self-serving and promised healing and prosperity on demand and brought confusion – however I loved your heart of generosity to do your best for my Kingdom. Or he might say ‘you felt so bad about yourself that you kept giving up and running away and doing yourself more harm than good, but I Ioved your humble heart of transparency’ give me a hug. PLUS TEN OTHER SCANARIOS - And then he might say – come on all of you and give one another a hug and stop arguing about how everybody missed the mark and by how much they missed it. 

Romans 14:7
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. 
Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. 

So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in that manner is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding…

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts condemns himself if it is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin – misses the mark...
Faith is surrendering your spiritual agenda into the heart and hands of God who alone can bring about the supernatural outcomes.
Paul nonetheless sets that mark as the highest goal of life – the upward call/invitation of God. He is saying that if you don’t have faith in this grace that works in you through the Holy Spirit then you are missing the mark one way or another. 
Paul admits his own struggle.
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have fully made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward that mark which is God’s Heavenly invitation to us all. 

It is God’s great love that draws us towards himself by the Holy Spirit to respond to his invitation to reach this mark because our being with him is the highest mark that he desires for us to reach. He knows that is what will fulfil our heart’s desire because that is what fulfills his heart’s desire. And his great love is matched by his great mercy as he sees us stumbling forward. He sees our imperfect efforts, but when he also sees a perfect heart of intent that is what blesses him – and us. 
There are barriers in our human thinking that prevent this truth of grace from becoming established in our hearts. One barrier is that we can feel that we are too insignificant or unworthy to receive this kind of gracious love from God. That could be the greatest barrier of all because it seems like such a paradox that such an Almighty Holy God would be interested in such flawed human beings like us. The Bible shows that thinking like that is a lie. 
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 bring to life the spirit of the lowly, and to bring to life the heart of the contrite ones.

Even with the highest intention of our heart of faith we can still get disappointed in our falling short of fully believing and trusting in this gift of grace. We find ourselves saying with Paul ‘the good that I want to do I do not, and the bad things I do not want to do I do’.
But Paul knew that the Spirit of the life of Christ within would always lift him above the limits of his frail and feeble human nature if he pressed towards the mark and didn’t give up. When we do that we are exercising the greatest kind of faith and love towards God that exists, just like the woman who kissed the feet of Jesus. 

The only way we can truly appreciate and give thanks to our God who is in the highest place, is to know him as the one who loves us in our lowly place and that is in fact the most perfect place.  We need never be ashamed of our place of lowliness because that is where he wants to dwell with us. This is the glory of the cross and the resurrection. We can now truly sing ‘Amazing Grace who saved a wretch like me’.

 

Ascension

ASCENSION

After Jesus descended into Hades and paradise with the keys of hell and death the Bible says he set the captives free and led them into the Heavens (Ephesians 4:8). On his upward journey he visited the earth and took upon himself his entombed body and met Mary Magdalene in the garden near the tomb and told her he had to present himself to his Father in Heaven. The angels at the tomb had told Mary and the other women to tell the disciples that Jesus would meet them later in the day at Galilee. When he had finished making the presentation of his blood to his Father for the purification of the sins of the whole earth, he returned to the earth that same day 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. In this spiritual yet natural body Jesus could appear anywhere and at any time. He could feel and be touched, he could breathe and eat, and walk and talk, all of which he did when he resumed his earthly visit.

Upon his arrival back on earth he set off walking from Jerusalem in the direction of Galilee, where he had said he would meet with his disciples, and it was then that he saw two disciples walking together up ahead of him in serious discussion and he recognized them. The Bible says. He appeared to two disciples in another form (heteros morphe – an altered form or nature) as they walked and went into the country (Mark 16:9).

These were men who had been among the many disciples who would come to listen to him and ask questions. He began to make up ground on them because he wanted to talk to them, and as he gradually closed in on them, he mused upon his first impressions of his return to this familiar territory. He was struck again by the bewilderment and confusion in this world of uncertainty that people cling to so fervently as he heard snippets of conversation in Jerusalem concerning the last three days. 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 also heard that his disciples were still doubting that he had risen from the dead, even though some of them had come to the tomb and seen it empty, and some women had spoken to the angels.

He finally caught up with the men and greeted them and joined them as they walked, but Holy Spirit had supernaturally veiled their eyes from recognizing him. He quietly listened as they spoke and detected the same mood of bewilderment, if not depression, that seemed to be hanging over everybody. He politely commented that they seemed to be bothered about something that was going on locally, and he asked what that might be. The one called Cleopas gave Jesus a puzzled look and said to Jesus that he must be the only visitor in Jerusalem that hadn’t heard about what had happened. So when Jesus asked Cleopas to spell out what he meant the other man began to patiently explain about the man called Jesus, a great man whom they had both followed and believed in. He enthusiastically recounted some of the miracles he had worked, and that he was a prophet, the greatest of them all. Cleopas broke in and added that Jesus stood up for justice, and taught them about God. They thought he was going to turn the world upside down and make everything new for them. Jesus pushed them further for more details and they said they had expected that there would be freedom and prosperity for the Jews for a start. 

There was a pause, then one of them gave a sigh and told Jesus how the temple priests had convicted Jesus as a criminal and how he was crucified by Pontius Pilate, and that today was the third day since these things happened. When Jesus asked them to explain the significance of the third day the two men looked at one another awkwardly and one of them shrugged and said that the man Jesus had said he would rise from the dead after three days. Cleopas took up the story again and explained that some of the women even went to the tomb and found it empty and reported they saw two angels who said he was alive, and that some of his very own disciples also went to the tomb and found it empty. He too shrugged as he finished talking.

Jesus nodded and remained silent for a few paces as he walked alongside the two men. He then very pointedly asked them why on earth they didn’t just believe what they had been told by Jesus himself. The other man a little impatiently, replied that they hadn't seen anything, so what were they expected to believe? It was then that Jesus declared to them that the time was coming when they would believe even though they didn’t see. He then began to speak about all the Scriptures concerning himself. He spoke in detail of the Plan of Father to send The Son into the world. He taught them from the words of Scripture about prophesies which outlined the details of his birth, and his life and death, and his resurrection. Something happened in their hearts as they listened to him, and the time flew by, and the next thing they knew they were close to Emmaus, which was their destination.

They didn't want Jesus to stop talking so they appealed to him to stay with them, even though he told them he was going further. They asked him to at least stay and have a meal, so Jesus accepted their offer. During the meal Jesus took some bread, and gave thanks for it, and as he broke the bread their eyes were opened and immediately they recognized who he was. This was the ordinary, extraordinary moment, sitting at a table, life happening, very natural yet very spiritual, eye to eye heart to heart. Jesus heard Father speaking to him from heaven, telling him that this was the way it was going to be. Holy Spirit would be the one who would open their eyes to see him and know him as he really was, and that was the way The Plan would be implemented from heaven to earth. Jesus then heard Holy Spirit whisper to him; “People will speak the truth about you, and I will reveal you to them.” The next moment Jesus vanished from their sight

After Jesus vanished from their sight 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. The disciples were ecstatic that Jesus was back from the dead, and 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 could still see their bewilderment, and he knew he had to convince them in some ordinary way that he was real and alive again. So he asked them if he could have something to eat. James scurried to the fire and brought back some steamed fish, and some honeycomb, and held the mixed platter out at arm's length as Jesus accepted it and ate it with gusto. He looked around the room and noticed that Thomas was not amongst them. He asked them why they didn't go to Galilee where he said he would be going to meet them. They shuffled about without giving an answer, and Jesus told them he would see them in a few days at Galilee, and he vanished once more.

The disciples gathered at Galilee where Jesus had said he would meet them. Peter had been waiting with the others and had then become restless and asked James and John to come fishing with him to get some food for Jesus to eat. While the three were out fishing Jesus suddenly appeared to the others as they sat patiently, waiting for his arrival. When Thomas saw Jesus appear he walked hesitatingly towards him and stopped in front of him. Jesus knew that Thomas had not believed that he had risen, even after the other disciples had said that they had seen him. Jesus held out his hands towards Thomas and told him to touch his hands where the nails had pierced, and to touch his side where the Centurion’s lance had entered his side. Thomas broke down and wept and told Jesus that he believed. Jesus gently acknowledged his faith, 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 comforted him and he left them before Peter and James and John had returned. Jesus was to meet with many others during that forty days visit.

Jesus appeared to the disciples 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. He shouted out to the fishermen from the shore, asking them if they had yet caught anything. A disgruntled ‘No’ came from Peter to this expert on the seashore, who responded to Peter by telling him to cast his net on the other side of the boat. Peter was about to explode when he heard John cry out that the expert on the seashore was indeed Jesus, The Lord. Peter then yelled to the others to do what Jesus had said. So they threw the nets to the other side and began to pull so many fish into the boat that they could hardly keep the boat afloat. But by this time Peter had plunged into the sea, swimming for all his might to get to his friend on the seashore, leaving the crew on the boat to work together on the haul. When Peter lurched his way up onto the shore he headed straight for Jesus and collapsed in front of him. He saw that Jesus had already prepared a fire with burning coals and had fish and toasted bread ready for them to eat. He didn't ask Jesus how he got the fish. Jesus reached down and helped Peter into a sitting position and told him to go and get some more fish from the catch so they could make breakfast for the others. 

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, and could that have made a difference? He had remembered when the rooster crowed that Jesus had predicted that he would do just that. 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 love of Jesus owned Peter, and Peter passionately 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 the past, or the uncertainty of the future. This would also continue to be his greatest gift to God, the giving of each moment to Jesus. After having his spirit and soul fed with these words of love from Jesus, Peter was commissioned three times by Jesus to feed God’s lambs and feed his sheep. As Peter would go on in life, he would face his many imperfections, and he would learn to return to each present moment, as in that special moment, where he could surrender to the ownership of love, shed his fears, and grow in faith as a partaker of the nature of God.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus met with hundreds of people over those forty days (1Corinthians 15:7) and he worked many supernatural signs to prove he was indeed risen from the dead. He shared with them that the heart of the Father had always been to have a family of sons and daughters and to share his love with them - the same way that Father had shared his love with Jesus himself. Satan had tried to block this Plan from the beginning of time by blinding the mind of humanity with darkness, causing a chasm of separation from the living God to exist in their minds and to devise independence in their souls. But Jesus had overpowered darkness and Holy Spirit would come to them and bring them the power of the life that he now lived. He told them he would join their lives to his risen life for them to become one in Spirit with him. Holy Spirit would place Father’s love, and his own words in the hearts of men and women as a deep consciousness of indwelling abiding life. He told them they would together be as his Body in the World, and each gifted with grace and faith from Heaven. People and things that happened around them would change, as they themselves became more and more changed into being more like him.

He finally gathered the eleven disciples together and gave them teaching concerning the Kingdom of God because there remained still a glimmer of hope in many of them that very soon he would establish Israel as a political and sovereign nation in the earth. He explained that the timing of Israel’s future Kingdom status in the earth was in the command of the Father, and that those times were not for them to know. 
He made it clear that this present earthly mission did not include a national political agenda, but it was to create an inner spiritual Kingdom which he would rule over from Heaven. He said that when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, they would receive power to testify about his death and resurrection with great force to the people in Jerusalem, and throughout Judea, and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

Then Jesus led them out along the road to Bethany, and when they reached the Mount of Olives, he told them not to leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them in fulfillment of the Father’s promise, a matter he had previously discussed with them.
“John baptized you with water,” he reminded them, “but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit in just a few days time.

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 two angels standing to one side, one of whom told them that the same cloud that they saw taking Jesus into eternity would also bring him back one day in total glory and triumph. 
The Plan will have been fulfilled.

 

 

 

Resurrection

When Jesus gave up his Spirit to his Father 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 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. (Luke 16:19) 

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 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. 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 them and with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day.
This mission of setting those people in paradise free was one of setting them free from the captivity of time, as they had waited as captives till heaven came to get them. Many listened and heard this message of freedom at this time. Jesus also declared his work of salvation to those in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
The Scriptures speak of this moment about Jesus.
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. Jesus would wait there until the end of the third day.

John writes in the book of Revelation about the declaration of Jesus having received the keys of ‘Hell and death’ after his resurrection
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.
With one of the keys darkness would one day be locked away and set aside for another encounter with God, reserved for an appointed day at the end of time. With the other key he would now unlock the prisoners of the past from their patient pause and take them into an eternal heaven.

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 that changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. 
God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ. 
Our creator Jesus who made everything in heaven and earth, both in the spirit world and in the material world brought together all things into oneness with himself, to be upheld by the Word of the ‘power of his resurrection’. 
Colossians 1:16 He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to bring all things into a state of harmony with himself, whether on earth or in heaven, bringing them into unity with himself by the blood of his cross. 

Prior to this moment all created being was separate to the ‘uncreated Being’ of God.  
Jesus, who was both created being and uncreated being, had by his death and resurrection now set the stage for humanity to become a ‘New Creation Being’, one in Spirit with The Lord. 

On the third day the time came for them to leave, and Jesus led them on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home. The entire company was escorted by Michael and Gabriel and the hosts of angels around them, as they ascended ever upwards until they reached the earth, from where they, and Jesus most recently, had come – from the grave to the sky. There they all 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. Michael and Gabriel flew before 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 headpiece and shroud lying separated from one another in the tomb (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from the temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about, recalling vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby. He remembered 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 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's me, it really is.”

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not cling to 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 that he had said these things to her.’(John 20.27)

Jesus made it clear that his immediate mission was to complete the work of purification for sin through blood sacrifice that had occurred for the last one and a half thousand years. Every year on the Day of Atonement the High Priest had sprinkled the blood of animal sacrifice over the mercy seat seven times, in the most holy place, for all of Israel to be ceremoniously cleansed from their sins. The phrase ‘seven times’ in the Bible is always prophetic of the completion and finality of God’s work of salvation in the earth. 
Jesus had just sprinkled his blood at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth for all time. An end had been made of blood sacrifice, and now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven, as the Scripture declares.
He 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 (Hebrews 9:11).

Jesus would ascend to Heaven and then return and meet with Mary Magdalene and many disciples later that same day.
A very strange thing was also happening in other parts of 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, as the Scripture attests. 
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.)

In the meantime, Jesus had to regroup with all those he had set free from Paradise. The magnificent procession began to ascend in splendour with its escort of glorious angels, from the grave to the sky. 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 sound of thousands of pipes, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, the deepest of vibrating bass and the ascending range of every stringed instrument created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. ‘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. (Hebrews 1:3)
This was the moment, purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his Being of power.

Ephesians 1:19-21. how vibrant and 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 thorns from his flogging, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, to seal The Plan of his Father and see it implemented for the rest of time. At the end of those forty days he would return to Heaven, to begin his new mission upon the planet through the Holy Spirit. 

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 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. After those forty days on the earth Jesus returned to Heaven and ten days after that, Jesus and Father sent Holy Spirit to the earth on the day of Pentecost. 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. 
This New Creation Being could walk in God’s ways in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Through grace and faith humanity could win its struggle against the mindset of lostness and separation called the law of sin and death, and within the human pain of this struggle would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. This struggle and wrestle would exist throughout time as the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the hearts of humanity. It would be the sign of the divine heart exercising its love in the subduing of human nature, that it might resonate with the nature of God. Whenever this truth would be embraced by a human heart, that heart would at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be. To be continued.

 

 

Calvary

CALVARY

Jesus had been sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate and then tortured and flogged by the cruel guards of King Herod, and finally commanded by Pilate to carry his cross to Calvary, or Golgotha, which means ‘the place of the Skull’. Pilate told the Centurion to arrange for an escort of guards around Jesus to escort him to the windswept hill. One of the Centurion's men put the heavy beam on Jesus' bleeding shoulder as they left the yard and went into the crowded street. The already large crowd continued to grow, some of them followers and friends, others bitter enemies, and yet others who were just confused and angry. 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.

A few paces further on Jesus staggered again but this time fell headlong to the ground. He could see blood flowing freely from Jesus now and he knew that he had to keep him on his feet. He must not let Jesus die here on the street. A burly lumbering man who, by the look of his clothing was visiting from some other region, was close by Jesus as he stumbled forward. The Centurion called out to the man.
“You, help him. He is too weak to carry that on his own.”
The man from Cyrene did what he was told and took the beam and strode on into a journey that was to be immortalized in endless time, as a reminder to all of us to not just be onlookers but to take up our share of the burden of the cross. When the trek to Calvary was completed, it would take six full hours on Calvary for Jesus to die.

Mary the mother of Jesus along with some of her companions reached the flat terrain at the top of Calvary and moved close to the area where Jesus was being nailed to the cross. they could hear the dull clink of hammers beating against metal, bone, and timber, mingled with the muffled sound of pain. Mary was also joined there by the disciple John; the other disciples having preferred to hang back from the crowd. 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. Some time was spent securing its placement so that it stood erect and stable in the rocky ground. A range of utterances rushed from the mouths of people standing watching when the cross fell into place and when the nails tugged on the body they were pinned into. Some of the sounds were stifled cries of shock and dismay while others were more like startled yells of alarm. 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 the chant. “You were pretty good at saving others, but you can’t even save yourself.  If you are the Promised One, our Messiah, then come on down from that cross and prove it to us. Weren’t you going to pull down our temple and rebuild it again in three days? Well, why not get yourself down from that cross?”

John winced when he heard Jesus splutter as a soldier tried to push a sponge of sour wine and myrrh into Jesus' mouth. Jesus turned his face aside and refused the swab. Centurion ordered the soldier away and the man joined the other soldiers who were throwing dice to see who was going to keep Jesus’ robe. Dust was spitting itself into peoples' faces on this strangest of days and gusts of wind blew as storm clouds raced faster than usual across the sky, causing a flickering of sunshine and deep shadow. As Jesus hung there the criminals beside him were weakening, groaning in their pain, when one of them turned to Jesus. He had earlier on joined the choir of obscenity, picking up the ugly chant with gusto. 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.” 

John put his arm around Mary's shoulders as she looked on, with tears rolling down her cheeks and her countenance numbed from all expression. John tried to shield Mary from watching but she wanted to see her son. She remembered tending his little body when he was a baby, that life that was part of her life. It was then that Jesus looked down at his mother standing next to John. He spoke to her through parched lips.
“Mother let him be your son.” His head then turned towards John.  Mary looked at John and clung on to his arm.
“Son let her be your mother.”
John stood with her and watched her son's life draining from him. As they stood shielding their faces from the biting dust that came in bursts, and their eyes from the intermittent dazzle of the sun, they were astonished to see the sun dimmed and the dazzle become a weak gleam. 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.

There were Angels suspended within this pall of sadness that shrouded the desolation below as Heaven waited in eternity and three hours of darkness passed on earth.

Then Satan shot himself like a dart into the one that hung between two criminals on a lonely plateau of the place of the Skull. 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 magnitude of this kind of collision, the sum of all sin hitting the sum of all innocence, shakes all created things. 
A swirling sea of fear clawed at Jesus and sought to pull him under, but he hoisted his faith above the fear with absolute trust in his Father's love. His great spirit 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 owned it all. He had become the reservoir of all evil in one moment of time, yet 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, sweeping over him and submerging him into an impotence and a canceling of all hope. It was black and fathomless, nothingness. It was like annihilation. This was the cup that he told Father he would accept, but he did not know it would be like this. 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. 
From this first verse and through many of the next nineteen verses David prophesied the agony of Jesus as Son of Man upon the cross, with such utterances as.
Psalm 22:16 A company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet - they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots…

And then, within the agony of the Son of Man the resurgent faith of the Son of God declared itself triumphally in the following verses.
19. But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!... Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard him, when he cried to him. 
As he hung there, he embraced the tragic weakness of humanity and touched the feelings of forsakenness for every human soul throughout all ages. The vast bank of love that filled heaven filled his heart and went out to a beloved humanity. He looked at the mocking faces standing round the cross and he loved them. He sent his voice into a waiting heaven and cried out.
“Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they are doing.”
He had done it. It was finished. The Plan OF SALVATION could now be put into effect.

Jesus had something more to say but his throat felt parched, and he wanted to speak with strength.
“I'm thirsty,” he croaked out.
The Centurion, who was ever there on duty, called the soldier over who had shoved the sponge in Jesus' face earlier.
“Give him the wine sponge” he ordered.
The soldier jumped to the command and put the 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.

Who brought about the death of Jesus? Was it Jesus, His Father, The Jews, The Romans, our sin? All of these played very significant parts, and there are Scriptures for each of their roles. But it was finally Jesus who said these words. 

John 10:17…I lay down my life for my sheep - I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I have received from My Father.”
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 from 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 carrion crows were in for a disappointment that day. They were not to know that the next day was the Sabbath, and that it was against temple law for dead bodies to be left hanging on a holy day, so all the criminals had to be dead before sundown and taken off their crosses. The two criminals who were tied to their crosses were still a long way from death so Centurion had his men break their legs so that they would die quickly. The Centurion then had the task of ascertaining if Jesus was indeed dead. He called over one of his guards. “Give me a lance,” he commanded.
He took the shaft and instructed the guard on how to plunge it into Jesus body, under his heart, where the pericardial sac would have amassed body fluids if he had expired. Water gushed out and the Centurion knew the day's work was done. Having witnessed the earthquake and all the things that were done he knew that this man was indeed the Son of God.

The Prince of Darkness now realized that this man’s body, which had just been destroyed on Calvary and which had contained no fault or sin could not suffer the consequence of sin, which is death, and therefore could no longer be kept captive in the grave of this lower world, as Jesus says through David in the Psalm
You will not let my soul rest in the grave, you will not let your Holy One see corruption (Psalm 16:10).

Scripture is clear about the consequence of death from sin, right from sin’s beginning when Adam believed the lie that Satan told Eve about them becoming as wise and as powerful as God if they ignored what God said about not eating from the tree of knowledge. 
That lie made them feel that God was withholding from them the wisdom and power that they could have without him. They thought that they would be more fulfilled by ignoring what God said rather than by trusting in a heart relationship with him.

That sin resulted in the heart of humanity being separated from the life of God and led to their physical and moral corruption and final physical death. (Romans 5:12).  All of humanity followed Adam’s pathway of the ‘law of sin and death’ as it is written; ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God’. And the Bible describes the process. ‘Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death’ (James 1:14). 
In the forty-day of fasting and temptation of Jesus in the wilderness Satan had been given free rein to tempt Jesus to the fullest extent, and Scripture declares Jesus as innocent from both sin and its deathly consequence. ‘We know that Jesus had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned.’ (Hebrews 4:15) 

Jesus was without sin because he trusted his Father with all his heart to fulfill his heart’s desires. His human desires which are common to us all were subdued by his higher heartfelt Godly desire and so they did not conceive and give birth to sin, and therefore did not bring forth death.
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. 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.

As Jesus hung on the cross and offered his spirit to his Father his spirit left his dead body hanging on the cross, and he saw a bolt of lightning and Satan being caught in it and hurled downwards. Jesus had foretold this to his disciples on two occasions, saying. I saw Satan as lightning falling from Heaven… (Luke 10:18). And also,
Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." This He said, signifying by what death He would die. (John 12:31)

Jesus also knew that before he ascended, he must first descend into the place of departed souls and he began to travel downwards himself, and knew he was on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. 
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.    To be continued…

The Passover Supper

THE PASSOVER SUPPER

Passover was the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem when crowds of Jews from all over the Empire were gathering for the feast. Jesus had arrived triumphally seated on a donkey into Jerusalem earlier in the week and the crowds had welcomed him as their prophet, miracle worker and King to be, shouting Hosannah and casting palm leaves on the ground before him. People were amazed and awestruck at his commanding presence when he tipped over the tables of the greedy money changers in the temple, and all of this brought Jesus under fiercer and more intense scrutiny from the temple leaders than ever before. Questions were hurled at him to entice him into confrontation regarding moral and legal issues of their temple religion. But Jesus was not about to be baited like an animal of prey. He fielded their questions with a calm authority, and it was the tormentors who became enraged by the superior wisdom and integrity of their victim to be. Crowds of Jews looked on in expectation. Many wanted a show of power and strength to come from Jesus after these thrusts and parries, for surely this was the time for him to start his kingdom, but they were to be disappointed. Jesus was on a path that would lead to a far greater demonstration of such power that the whole cosmos would be shaken by it, and he knew that even though the time was short, it was still not yet.

After three days of this exhausting exchange with the leaders and the constant attention from the crowds Jesus took the twelve aside and told them that he wanted to go and spend some time in prayer with his Father. He told them he wanted to share the Passover feast with them that evening. Jesus told them he had organized somewhere for them to have the meal. “Where will it be Master?” asked Peter.
“In about three hours I want you and John to go to the city square where you will find a water carrier with a pitcher of water on his shoulder. He will be looking out for you. You are to follow him to the place he leads you to and go in and ask the owner to take you to the guest room, a large room upstairs. He will be waiting for you and will show you where everything is and you can then prepare the feast for us. We will be along soon after.” With that Jesus told the others to go off and spend some time in prayer and preparation for the event, while he would pray by himself, and meet them back at the place where they now were.

The two disciples found the man carrying the pitcher of water in the square just as Jesus had said, and they followed him as he entered a two-storey building. There they met the owner of the house who led them to the room that had been prepared for them. This man had been instructed by God in a dream to set aside the room and he had obeyed without question. After his time of prayer Jesus met with the others and they went to the room. It was evening time and there was a large table set out with the Passover meal, and there they sat at the table with Jesus in the middle of them.

Passover was the festival time that celebrated the event of Moses bringing the Nation of Israel out of their slavery from Egypt. The Passover meal was not just a meal but a series of meals, interspersed with pauses for reflection and readings from the Scriptures in remembrance of the miraculous way God had freed them from their oppressors. After one of the meals, at which they ate roasted lamb and bitter herbs, Jesus stood up and went over to one of the sizeable bathing bowls and taking off his outer robe he wrapped a large towel around himself and beckoned the disciples to come over to him.
“What are you doing?” asked Peter.
“I am going to wash your feet,” replied Jesus.
it was customary as a Jewish ritual of cleansing for guests to have their feet washed by a servant of the house from the dirt and grime of walking in the dusty streets when they gathered together for a meal.
But Peter resisted this servant act from his master Jesus.

“Not mine,” exclaimed Peter. The other disciples were also curious and uneasy.
“Yes yours,” replied Jesus, “and all of the others too.” When he saw Peter balking and raising objections he stopped and stood up to face them all. “Do you remember when you all became so angry with one another when James’ and John's mother wanted me to give the highest places to her two sons next to me in my kingdom?”
“Yes,” they said, remembering it well.
“Well at that time I told you that if you want to show you have true authority you will serve one another. If you think I have authority with you then you will let me serve you by washing your feet. Otherwise, you are saying you don’t recognize my authority.”
He began to wash the disciples’ feet, and when he came to Peter, Peter protested.
“No Master you will not wash my feet.”
“So, you don’t want to be part of what I am doing?” 
Peter knelt in front of Jesus and said.
“Of course, I do. I’m sorry. Please Lord, wash my hands and my head as well.”
“Just your feet Peter, here, in the bowl.” Jesus then continued to wash the feet of all the men, as they came forward one by one, some with tear-streaked faces.

Heaven watched on silently as thousands of thousands of angels strained to see all that was being done and said in this most holy moment. They watched as their God cleansed a grimy unclean world from off those he loved, as he would for all who would let him do so, down through the ages. When he had finished washing them, he stood up again and said.
“Now you are clean, but not all of you.” One of them wanted to know what he meant, so he asked them to come back to the table with him, where they would continue their meal.

After they had sat down, he asked for the bread and wine to be served, and then he said plainly,
“One of you will betray me.”
They were all shocked, and began to discuss this amongst themselves, but then their distress overwhelmed them, so they began to ask him one by one, “Is it me Master?” they pleaded anxiously, without getting a reply. John knew the depth of love that he himself had for Jesus and did not even question his own heart as to whether he might be the one, so he simply asked,
“Who is it Lord?” Jesus saw their trouble and concern, so he said, “The one who dips his bread with me into the soup.” At that very moment Judas had his bread in the soup along with the bread in the hand of Jesus. The moment passed in the confusion, and nothing appeared to register in the minds of the other disciples, so Jesus let the moment pass, then Judas, feeling safe, said,
“Is it me Lord?”
“You said it.” Jesus handed him the piece of dipped bread from his own hand and said to him. “Go and do what you have to do.”
Judas got up and grabbed the money bag and strode out, excited by a dark and distorted sense of power in his newfound political mission. Judas always was a political activist looking for regime change, and he had seen Jesus as the man who would satisfy his rebellious and resentful attitude to Roman authority. And now he was bitterly disappointed in the kind of servant leadership that Jesus was demonstrating. It was too weak for his liking, and he felt betrayed. Satan had captured his will and his resentful revenge was targeted at Jesus, and the best way to get even was to betray his friend Jesus in return. That cost Judas everything. The other disciples supposed that he had received instructions from their master concerning some arrangements that had been organized between them, perhaps to distribute the money to the poor.

Jesus turned to the other disciples and took a large piece of bread from the bowl. They watched him as he broke it into twelve pieces, keeping one, and handing the rest around to the remaining eleven.
“This is my body. This has been broken into pieces but when we eat it, it becomes one piece again, because we are one. Whenever you and those who come after you do this in the future, you will join yourselves to one another and to me, and I will be there with you. Unless you have my life in you, you will not know what life really is.”
He took a cup of the ceremonial wine and drank from it, then passed it around for them all to drink. After they had finished it he said to them,” This is my blood. Just as my body will be torn to pieces for you, so too will my blood be spilled for you. This is a sign of my life and of the new promise from God to give you and all of humanity our life to share, not just a life of rules and regulations, but our very divine life. Whenever people do this in the future, I want them to remember that I died for them and that I will come back again at the end of time, in the full power and glory of my kingdom.”

Once again, they recalled what he had said to them about his coming back at the end of time. He had warned them of the things that would happen in the earth just before that mighty and awesome day when he would be seen by all the world coming in the clouds of heaven. They recalled his predictions of the earthquakes and natural disasters that would strike the earth, the rising tide of self-interest and wars and terror, the epidemic of fear and hopelessness. They shuddered within themselves, and they were comforted by his presence.

The feast had come to an end, and he stood and asked them to come with him into a garden near the olive grove, where he wanted them to pray with him.
“In a few hours the temple leaders will arrest me, and I will be put on trial. After my arrest you will all become terrified and desert me, but it will fulfill the Scripture which says that when the shepherd is struck the sheep will run in all directions.”
Peter protested, “Even if everyone else deserts you I will never run,” and James and the others joined in the protest. Peter drew out his dagger, quickly followed by James.
“These are two daggers,” said Peter, seeing James's drawn dagger, “and I will die with you before I let anyone take you away.”
Jesus looked at Peter.
“Lucifer is out to get you Peter, and before the night is over you will separate yourself from me in fear, but I will be praying for you that your faith will remain strong. You will hear a rooster crowing in the morning, and when you hear it, it will be a stark reminder of what I just told you, and for now, you can both put your daggers away.”
But Peter protested all the more, and Jesus let him talk on.

Jesus took the men to the garden area and asked Peter and John and James   to accompany him further, motioning for the others to stay back. A little farther on he asked the three to wait and pray while he went on his own to pray to his Father. Finding a place, he fell on his face and began to quake inside with a peculiar dread. He would face torture and death in an unbearable and agonizing way. He would be totally alone, suffering the shame and reproach of a criminal. These thoughts tormented his mind and dried up his soul. 
Darkness tried to ride in on this torment. He began to sweat profusely, and he groaned, till he started to taste blood in his mouth. The blood ran down his chin, and then he saw droplets of blood on the backs of his hands. This was the cup of pain and sorrow that he was being asked to take. It was too much, and he begged for Father to take it away. He asked if there was some other way that he might accomplish what he had been sent to do, but he told Father that nonetheless he would do whatever he wanted him to. He staggered to his feet and groped his way to where he had left the three disciples. They were asleep.

Jesus groaned inwardly again and waking them up he pleaded with them.
“Couldn't you have stayed awake and prayed? You know I am about to die, and I feel my life draining from me already, and I am almost overwhelmed by it. You need to pray too so that you will not be completely overwhelmed.”
They spluttered out their apologies. He forlornly made his way back to his place and cried out to Father again, to never forsake him, but still the agony fastened itself to his soul. He asked Father again if there was any other way, and again he yielded his will to his Father.

After more suffering that became more than he could bear, he returned to the three, but they had fallen asleep again. He pleaded with them again not to go to sleep. They didn’t know what to say. Sleep had become their escape from the heaviness of their grief and sorrow. Father watched from heaven and shared his son's agony, knowing that this was the darkest hour that his son had ever known. This was breaking his heart and all of heaven was watching with him and sharing his grief, so he summoned an angel to go and strengthen and comfort his Son. Jesus drew in heavenly strength and stood to face his betrayal, denial, trial and flogging, his sentencing and his carrying a cross to die upon at Calvary - for us.

 

 

The Jonah Syndrome

THE JONAH SYNDROME

God wanted to save the great city of Nineveh in Assyria (about 755 years BC), so he sent Jonah, a prophet of Israel with a warning about the harm and destruction they were causing one another that would end up destroying them as a people unless they went through a spiritual conversion of their minds and hearts.
Jonah 1:1 GOD's Word came to Jonah, son of Amittai: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and going from bad to worse and I can't ignore it any longer." 

However, Jonah had made his own judgement about what God really needed to do with this bunch of people. Jonah was a fierce nationalist, and he could not agree with God’s appraisal of the fate of this despicable Assyrian city, and he tried to escape his responsibility by running away from it. The name Jonah in Hebrew means dove, which speaks of the Holy Spirit’s anointed message through this prophet of God. And that message was being contested by the messenger himself! Jonah's attempt to run away probably has some logic to it because he would/could have assumed that God only spoke to Israel – not so!

God showed Jonah in this experience the magnitude of his goodness and mercy to all people, not only Israel, and that as the Lord over the whole earth he could hold people accountable to his basic covenant standards of blessings and cursing whenever he wanted to. For those ignorant of his covenant, he had respect to a person’s heart of a good conscience towards God (IE, Job and his friends). And he did send prophets to other nations, to Egypt (Moses to Pharoah), and Babylon (Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar), and Jesus reaching out to gentiles (the centurion, the woman touching the hem of his garment etc). Jonah didn’t think that way.

When Jonah ran away, he boarded a boat to sail off as far away as he could in the opposite direction to Nineveh, but a huge storm hit the ship and the crew members cried out to their gods to find out who had offended some god for this catastrophe to happen. Then they turned on Jonah because they suspected he was running away from something, hiding down in the hold of the boat. Jonah knew he was the culprit, and he knew he was trapped.
Jonah 1:8 “What have you done,” they asked, “to bring this awful storm upon us? Who are you? What is your work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”
And he said, “I am a Jew, from Israel,I worship Jehovah, the God of heaven, who made the earth and sea.” Then he told them he was running away from his mission from the Lord.
The men were terribly frightened when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they shouted. “What should we do to you to stop the storm?” For it was getting worse and worse.
“Throw me out into the sea,” he said, “and it will become calm again. For I know this terrible storm has come because of me.”

That solved the problem for the crew, but it did much more than that. The crew of the ship all turned to God, and the anointing of the ‘dove’ worked through the resistant Jonah, nonetheless.
Jonah 1:15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him overboard into the raging sea—and the storm stopped! The men stood there in awe before Jehovah, and they sacrificed to him and vowed to serve him.

Jonah then learned the hard way that God was more persistent and determined than he was about the fate of Nineveh. God then arranged for a second chance and another ocean voyage for Jonah, but this time underwater. He ended up in the belly of a whale after he was thrown overboard from the ship, and he cries out to the Lord in prayer.
Jonah 2:7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving I will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!”
And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

God plants Jonah back at the coast from the same place where he boarded the boat to escape from his God appointed mission. He then goes to Nineveh and preaches for forty days, and everyone repents and turns to the Lord.
Jonah 3:1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out within it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them… And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through.

This was the last thing that Jonah had wanted to happen. Jonah wanted God to judge them and destroy them. God wanted to save them. It was God’s appointed time of spiritual challenge and godly change for Nineveh and after forty days it was accomplished.
The number forty narrative in the Bible speaks to us of appointed times of challenge and change where God manifests the divine power of his plan at work for us and with us. These number forty appointed times narratives occurred in the forty years with Moses as he led Israel through the wilderness, and with Jesus for forty days in his time of trial and temptation in his wilderness experience of overcoming the devil. 
This was an appointed time for Nineveh, and things were not going well at all for the Ninevites at the time Jonah served as a prophet. There are records of famines and domestic uprisings occurring during that time and there were wars with other nations and a run of diplomatic disasters. It has been recorded that in 755 BC there was both an earthquake and an eclipse, which were both threatening omens to the Assyrians, so a strong warning was what God wanted to give them and that was obviously what they heeded. 
Jonah gets angry with God for this.
Jonah 4: This change of plans made Jonah very angry. He complained to the Lord about it: “This is exactly what I thought you’d do, Lord, when I was there in my own country, and you first told me to come here. That’s why I ran away to Tarshish. For I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to get angry, and full of kindness; I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.

The Jonah syndrome
What had Jonah learned in all of this and what did he not learn?
Jonah learned that God’s love was not only just for Israel but for the whole world. What he failed to learn was how to accept that and to see people the way God sees them. Jonah's reluctant mission had succeeded against all his own hopes. God loved the Assyrians, to Jonah's horror, and he became resentful and went into depression. There is no mention of Jonah ever having a change of heart in this matter. Perhaps he just ended up a cranky old man.

Jonah 4:3 So, GOD, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"
GOD said, "What do you have to be angry about?"
But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
GOD arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.
But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"
Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?"
Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"
GOD said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from joy to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to joy, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong?"

There is a number one hundred and twenty narrative in the Bible, and it applies to the work of God upon the hearts of the people of Nineveh. It speaks of life being reordered from a natural order to a new spiritual order, from ‘flesh to spirit’. God spoke about this ‘one hundred and twenty’ narrative to Noah. 
Genesis 6:2 My Spirit shall not plead the cause of man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be one hundred and twenty years
 
The number one hundred and twenty also speaks of the new order of spiritual life for mankind at Pentecost. ‘Peter stood up among the disciples and the company of persons was in all about one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:15) 

What are we to learn about the ‘Jonah syndrome’ in the troubled days in which we live? We learn that we are left with a choice to either copy Jonah's mean and awkward hatred of his worldly enemies, or to see a world greatly in need of God’s warning and God’s mercy. Jonah was a very privileged man in covenant relationship with God. He was called of God, chosen by God and given a message from God to change a nation and to change history. He finally obeyed God with a lot of arm-twisting and delivered the message and the mission was successful – BUT – he had a lousy elitist attitude. He turned gracious privilege into nasty entitlement. He was going to decide who was going to receive God’s mercy – they would be people who had a worldview most like his, and who shared his iron-clad definition of a censorious God. There are also some people today who would rather shrink God’s atoning grace than magnify it.

Our troubled world is receiving strong warnings from God in the midst of the harm and destruction it is bringing upon itself at this time. The God option is for this world to go through a spiritual conversion of minds and hearts right across the globe. The world today is experiencing both the ‘forty’ narrative of a time of spiritual challenge and godly change and the ‘one hundred and twenty’ narrative of being reordered from a natural order to a new spiritual order in Jesus. 
When by the grace of God, I awoke to the fact that I was not an outsider to the Kingdom of God but an insider in the Kingdom of God through Jesus it had nothing to do with my goodness or badness or anybody else’s opinion of me – it was between God and me through the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t change us from bad to good but from natural to spiritual through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and when we realize that we understand what Paul said about himself and all the rest of us in our basic humanity. ‘For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my human nature. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:18).
That is why Paul also wrote ‘For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.’                                                                                                                                                       

This is a time to see the world as a world that God loves, as he did Nineveh, and to see it reinstated into his Covenant blessings through Jesus Christ. This is not just a prayer FOR people, but it is also a merciful attitude TO people, which does not mean that we are not to discern between good and evil and to stand against evil. We stand with all our might against the tyrants and dictators of today who murder thousands of innocent people, but we are not to be spiritual elitists with a Jonah syndrome of being ‘King’s Kids’ trying to impress the people of this world with some kind of superior brand of spirituality – God help us! We are simply a blessed people that have been given the grace and mercy of God. Paul puts this balancing act into context when he describes how God’s love works through us in this kind of situation - ‘Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ (1Corinthians 13:6).
So our prayer is that we let the anointing of the dove to cause us to not only have a message of love and hope but to be that message to the people in our world.

Luke 23:34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”