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GOSPELS 10 YOUR KINGDOM COME

GOSPELS 10 YOUR KINGDOM COME

In Gospels 10 we are staying in Matthew Chapter six where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer, and the parallel verses are also in Luke Chapter eleven. But even before he taught the disciples about prayer Jesus had referred to his Father four times as ‘Your Father’ in that section of Scripture, teaching what many called his ‘hard sayings’, the revolutionary teachings that puzzled those who heard them because they seemed impossible to carry out. He spoke about being perfect as ‘your Father’ is perfect and loving your enemies as ‘Your Father’ does, sending his rain on the just and the unjust.

But these puzzling revolutionary statements of Jesus were not said simply for the sake of being a revolutionary. A definite theme of the nature of ‘Our Father’ was emerging that Jesus was declaring. After Jesus taught them The Lord’s prayer, the ‘Our Father’, it starts becoming very clear that the mission of Jesus was to bring about The Way for us all to live together with himself and Our Father and the Holy Spirit in the same way that he was living with his Father and the Holy Spirit at that time. He was talking about the Kingdom of God within him.

The crowds would not stop following Jesus so he would go into a solitary place where he could be still and reflect on what his Father was saying to him, but the crowds would find him and beg him not to leave them, so he said to them, I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other places too, for that is why I was sent. (Luke 4:42). 
Jesus kept talking about a Kingdom, and people wanted to know what this Kingdom was, especially the religious leaders and the Pharisees – Where was it? – When would it come? – What did it look like? His own disciples also had a secret ambition of them being given a position of honour and glory in that Kingdom someday very soon. No one understood.

Jesus’ answer to them all was that His Kingdom was not in a geographical place, and you couldn’t plan its arrival with a calendar or describe its outward appearance as a visible organization. He said it was not an external system but an internal reality. We read in Luke; ‘When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within (entos – amongst, in the midst of) you. (Luke 17:20 NKJ, ESV.). Jesus was the only human embodiment of that kingdom amongst them or in the midst of them - The Kingdom was within him but not yet within them.

But Jesus is prophesying that this Kingdom would be within them and within us after he had sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

The Kingdom of God is the Father and Son agreement that determined the design and purpose for all of creation in the beginning through the Logos Word of Jesus, with the Holy Spirit being the creative power of that creation. 
        
The promise of the Father was that we would embody that ‘Our Father and Jesus’ life deep inside each one of us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus shared more fully on that in John and in Acts. 
Before Jesus ascended into Heaven his disciples asked him one last time if now was when Jesus would establish a material Kingdom to rule over the earth. Jesus realised they still did not understand so he told them that the Father would do all that in his own good time, and he went on to say ‘wait until you receive the promise of the Father, for you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be the living proof (witness) of who I am, in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). He also said to them Because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14: 17. I).  He is telling them and us that we would embody the Kingdom of God the way that he had done. While Jesus lived amongst us his Father and Son relationship was the Kingdom of God in the earth expressing what the Father declared in heaven.

We now continue in Matthew chapter six, where a few verses earlier Jesus had just taught his disciples to pray to Our Father, honouring him, and asking him to provide for us our basic human needs and forgiving us for letting him down and guarding us from evil. 
He now presents us with the extravagant response of a loving devoted Father who desires to bless us and keep us abundantly more than what we would ever have thought to ask from him.
He says to his disciples,
“So my counsel is: Don’t worry about things—food, drink, and clothes. For you already have life and a body—and they are far more important than what to eat and wear. Look at the birds! They don’t worry about what to eat—they don’t need to sow or reap or store up food—for your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Will all your worries add a single moment to your life?
“And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies of the field! They don’t worry about theirs. Yet King Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you, O men of little faith?
“So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the world which doesn’t know God? For they take pride in all these things and are fearful and anxious about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will give them to you, so seek first the kingdom of God and live in surrendered togetherness with him, and all these things shall be added to you - give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to. And don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. (Matthew 6:25-34)
Our Father is entreating us here to trust him beyond what we ever thought we could. The lilies of the field that do not toil are showing us that it is only the creative work of God upon them that brings forth their glory and beauty. They are not an example to us of living a toil free life, but an illustration of everything being how God created it to be. We are to be who we were created to be and do the good things he has planned for us to do, even in the midst of toil and challenge and loss. And God acts supernaturally upon our faithful being and doing and blesses that. He also gives us the spectacular playground of his creation for us to leisurely enjoy, as Adam did in the garden with God. But all of this being and doing takes place within a disordered world of chaos and malevolence – a world where people who do not know God live in fear and anxiety and uncertainty about anything and everything.  

Jesus died and rose again to freely give this Kingdom of God to you which is the Father and Son relationship that resides uniquely within each one of us forming and shaping God’s individual design and purpose for each of our lives. We become a locus and a showpiece of where the Kingdom expression of God comes on earth as it is in heaven. The Father’s idea, the Jesus logos word and the activity of the Holy Spirit meets your Yes and we do his good thing as well as we can (Ephesians 2:10). This good thing can be small and ordinary or a significant life changing thing – but it still expresses the Kingdom of God

Jesus set the example for us, to draw aside from time to time from the busyness of life just to enjoy the ‘be still and know that I am God’ times of rest and refreshing for our souls. These setting aside times help us deepen our trust as we wait for God to show us that he is acting in our lives supernaturally for our good, and our trusting expectation of his goodness draws his peace and tranquillity into our hearts. We rest in the assurance of the work of his Kingdom within us that works unceasingly, waiting to be captured by our faith at any given moment in time, where we swap anxiety and frustration for hope and expectation.
Your Kingdom come your will be done. Amen.

 

 

GOSPELS 9 FAMILY

GOSPELS 9 FAMILY 

Today I’m doing number nine in the Gospel series and I’m calling today’s word Family. I’m looking in Matthew and Luke, the two longest gospels, where Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer and then teaches them the Lord’s prayer - The ‘Our Father’ – the Father of his family in the earth. The accounts of this are in Matthew chapter six and in Luke chapter 12.  Matthew has a bit more detail, so I’ll go there. 

Reading in Matthew 6:5 ‘And when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, so that people can see them. I’m telling you, they already have their reward. But for you, when you pray, go into your room, and close your door, and pray to your Father privately; and your Father who knows every hidden thing will openly show you afterwards how he has answered you’. This kind of prayer works.
Jesus had criticised the show off Pharisees for good reason because they looked good on the outside but all they had on the inside were big egos. He called them hypocrites which means actors. Their prayers weren’t for people’s needs but instead were their opinions of how holy they were. So the first lesson from Jesus was don’t pray for show because you’re just putting your ego on display and not God. And then he gave them that radical prayer alternative. The earliest things that he did and said were radically radical, if you can make such a statement. He uncovered their religious hypocrisy and exposed their religious power plays and started a spiritual revolution and he never let up and in the end, they killed him for it. And Jesus is still speaking and leading that revolution from Heaven today if we want to listen.
I want to unpack that radical prayer ‘Go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father privately about all the inner private things that are going on inside of you, the emotions the anxieties the hopes and dreams the threats and fears and the questions - all those questions all those uncertainties. And then he says - and your Father who knows every private hidden thing about you will listen to you - and what you need to hear or to see or to understand will be made clear and stare you in the face if you keep your antenna up.’ 
The antenna of your togetherness with God that is always there for us.  

This was radical for those disciples to hear for several reasons, as it is for us.
It was radical firstly because no one in all of Israel approached God as being their personal father - It was unheard of. But Jesus said that God was his personal Father all the time – he said he was the Son of God and he said I and the Father are one – and he also said that he only did what he heard the Father say, and that is what drove the Pharisees mad. Jesus said it because it was true, and Jesus wasn’t mad, and he wasn’t a liar. 
The disciples would have heard him saying that a lot and they would have believed it because of all the wisdom that he spoke and all of the amazing miracles he performed. But why did Jesus say to them ‘pray to Your Father? ‘Why didn’t Jesus just tell them to pray to his Father because they would certainly have understood that. But he said to the disciples ‘Your Father.’  What was Jesus saying?
And here’s the second radical thing. Jesus was inviting them to become part of the God family with the Father and himself and the Holy Spirit. He wanted them all to become brothers and sisters with him as their big brother. This is why he said ‘Pray to your Father’
This was the Father’s idea from the beginning, and this is why he sent Jesus to us and to give his Holy spirit to each one of us so that we would know we can become part of his family. This had never been said before - never even been thought of before. That’s why I’m calling today’s word Family – It’s like God 1.01 his big idea. Church should be more like this instead of being like an institution.

He then goes on to teach them the ‘Our Father’ prayer, not just a ‘his Father,’ prayer, but the Our Father prayer. The ‘Our Father’ is not a religious prayer ritual to be said in a pious voice in sombre tones as if the more pious you sound the more spiritual you are. That is missing the point of God’s idea of who you are and who he is and what you mean to him as his child in his family. 
God is all about family. He started the idea. Why does it get forgotten?  It’s probably because many church people have tended to talk about church rules and religion rather than loving and caring relationships. 
I was taught in my early years in the catechism the answer to the question ‘Why did God make us? The answer was ‘To know, love, and serve God in this life and to be with him forever in the next. Amen.’ And most Christians agree with that statement, but some think the emphasis is all about being a servant more than anything else. Its not about God wanting more servants.

let’s look at that for a moment – ‘To know and to love and to serve’. That is a beautiful thing to understand. So how many people do you know, how many people do you love and how many people do you serve in your life? I would say there are many. First. You can’t know someone if you don’t relate to them. And you can’t love them if you don’t know them.
I am not saying that knowing someone is loving them, but it starts there and when the relationship has qualities like acceptance and friendship, you’re on the spectrum of liking and loving. And that could be on a range from say one to a hundred. 
And I’m not saying that liking and loving someone means you have to serve them. But what does serving them mean?
It means that somewhere on a serving spectrum on a range of one to a hundred again you might want to just ‘be there’ for them in one way or another. And being there for someone means you are actually serving them. Just think of some of the ways you could do that and are doing that.

And it is good for everybody if that’s always a two-way thing. from God’s point of view he is committed to knowing and loving and serving us and he understands how difficult it is for us as his children (In our humanity) to be that way for him. loving parents have that same heart for their children They try to be there for their children giving them the best that they’ve got so their children can be the best that they can be. But God doesn’t say if you are not going to be there for me I’m going to punish you and make you suffer. No - he says if you do want to know me and love me and be there for me you will live a fulfilled and meaningful life and you will make the world a better and happier place. If you choose to not live that way you will find you just end up causing yourself unnecessary suffering anyway. 

So the way I see us as being in the God Family with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit is that we can see God the Father as a devoted parent who has given us Jesus as our older brother who is dedicated to us. He has laid down his life for us so we can have his life within us and have the same faith and trust in his Father that he has. And we can see the Holy Spirit as the one who touches our hearts so we can know God and love and serve one another. That is the best kind of life there is on this earth. So Jesus tells his disciples about how Our Father wants to ‘be there’ for all of us in the Lord’s Prayer. I will pray it from Matthew’s Gospel and then I will pray it how I hear the Holy Spirit speaks to me in the Our Father prayer.

Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

 

 

Our Father living in heaven you have the most exceptional and unique name, God. 

We want your way of commanding everything in the universe to play out here on earth as it does in Heaven. 

Please keep looking after our basic human needs every day. 

And forgive us for letting you down the way we do, just as we can forgive others who let us down, often without meaning to

And keep us from the trap of always wanting to have what we want when we want it.

Guard us from the powers of darkness 

For You are in majestic command of everything in the Universe with limitless power, and you give to us a stunning display of design and beauty in your creation now and through out all the ages. Amen 

When we pray to God we can pray with hope and expectation that he can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He is devoted and dedicated to that.

GOSPELS 8 LIVING WATER

GOSPELS 8 LIVING WATER 

We have been going through the four Gospels attempting to put together a consistent account of the early ministry of Jesus. But some of the early chapters of John tell us things that the other Gospels do not mention, such as the wedding feast at Cana in Chapter two and today in Chapter four we will look at the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well.  

John 4: 1 Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They remarked openly that Jesus was ahead, which in the eyes of the people turned Jesus and John into rivals. So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee and he needed to go through Samaria. 

Jesus purposefully travelled through Samaria on his way back to northern Galilee from the Judean countryside which was unusual for a Jew because they did not want to mix with the Samaritans who were ancient religious adversaries – So Jews always took the longer route to the west by the Jordan river instead of going over the steep slope of Mount Gerizim in Samaria. But Jesus was being led by the Holy Spirit and was on a mission from the Father to reveal who he was to the Samaritan people, (and that was prophetic of his mission to all the world). 
The Samaritans believed that they were the true religion of ancient Israel, because when Israel first came into the promised Land from the wilderness Joshua set up the tabernacle of Moses on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. and some of the tribes of Israel chose to settle there and chose the first five books of the Bible, the Torah as their only Scriptures. They did not follow Joshua and the rest of Israel into the other regions of the Promised Land and they did not experience the era of the Kings and prophets and Psalms and the other Scriptures. They believed that Israel had tampered with their Scriptures and this had caused the lasting enmity between the Samaritans and Israel who had decided to not talk together or to eat and drink together.

So now we find Jesus sitting by Jacob’s well in the Samaritan village of Sychar, about noontime, tired from his long walk, and his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food for lunch. A Samaritan woman then arrived at the well about noon as well which was unusual because Samaritan women did not go and get water in the heat of the day but waited till the late afternoon. But this woman always avoided any awkward encounters with the other women of the village because of the shame and disgrace that she felt about her personal life, so she had bypassed the other wells closer to the village just to be sure. But Jesus is sitting there at the well. She sums up the situation and thinks ‘this man will not give me any trouble – He is a Jew and I am a Samaritan, so he won’t have anything to do with me’. And Jesus asked her if she would please give him a drink (Vs.8). But she said to Jesus, Vs.9“You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” This request of Jesus posed a problem - A Jewish man and a Samaritan woman of ill repute alone, and he asks her for water. Jews and Samaritans don’t associate with each other – especially regarding drinking vessels.

But Jesus was there as the bringer and giver of divine life, and it didn’t matter what ethnic or religious or social barrier was in the way. He gets straight to the point.  Vs.10“If you only knew the gift that God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” The word for living water he uses (zao hydor) comes from the word Zoe, Spiritual life not bios, Earthly life.

The woman didn’t get the point – she was looking at the natural resources like ropes and buckets, that she thought were needed here and Jesus didn’t seem to have them, and she thought his words were empty, so she said. “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket, and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? (Vs.11) She was yet to learn that Jesus doesn’t need the natural resources that we think are necessary to have the needs of our soul met. He does things supernaturally. She made the two typical errors when it comes to receiving from Jesus. She thought he was not able to help her with the needs of her soul, and she thought he wouldn’t have been eager to do so. 

She continues to doubt and discount anything of value that Jesus might have had for her. She thinks that Jacob’s well (her traditional religion) that Jesus was sitting on was far more effective for her inner life than whatever Jesus had to offer. She says do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” VS.12. But Jesus replied ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.’ (Vs.13-14)

Jesus knew that what this woman had been doing all her life in trying to find satisfaction for her soul in wrong relationships which had always ended up leaving her empty and even more dissatisfied. 
Jesus knew that this woman’s soul had told her that those relationships were the thing she needed to make her happy, but Jesus knew her needs were greater and deeper than that. He wanted to give her spiritual contentment and fulfillment instead of forsakenness - He wanted to heal her soul. She had been feeling lost within herself, inadequate, and most likely mistreated by men and unfairly dealt with, lacking love, lonely, and confused and insecure. Jesus wanted to change all of that and help her to trust in him for God’s compassion and the healing power of love and mercy and forgiveness to work in her life. She takes one step closer towards trusting him. 
 
5“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”  She is still not quite sure how this is all going to work out. David in the Psalms had also cried out to God because of the emotional thirst of his soul, remembering his own shameful past behavior, and longing for living water from God as this woman had, ‘As the deer thirsts for the water so my soul thirsts after you O God. (Psalm 42:1).
                                                                                                              
Jesus knows that this woman needs to see God at work in her life and The Holy Spirit tells him what to say next. 16“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. 17“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.18. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—18for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” 
Jesus tells her about the true state of her life, not to judge her but to show her that she is significant to God as a person, and that he cares about the details of her life. She realizes that God must be in this somehow.

19“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.” But finding that she had gotten out of her safety comfort zone she switches the conversation to religion, and she tries to instruct Jesus about what true worship is. She says Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerazim), but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” (So there!)

Jesus then gives her a beautiful revelation of what true worship really is. 
Woman, believe me - it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about worshiping him, while we Jews know about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”.
She was not yet aware that he was the Jew through whom salvation and true worship of the Spirit would come - through his death and resurrection, but she had been listening and she then says. “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 
Jesus then says. “I am Christ, The Messiah”. Once he tells her that she believes and she feels safe. Everything changed for her when she gave to Jesus the command of her life. She even forgot to get any water from the well, leaving her water jar behind and running back into the town to tell everyone what had happened. She had tasted forgiveness and true peace – her shame was covered by mercy, and she felt loved and not forsaken.

Many people are on their own journey of whatever self-help strategies help them to maybe avoid some deeper issues that God wants to help them with. But Jesus will intervene in what looks like some ordinary event. He wants to get our attention and show us that we really need him and to share our life with his. His life is of another dimension to what our natural humanity tries to draw from. He knows we have doubts, and he is patient with us. 
Jesus knew that at first that woman really doubted whether Jesus would be of any to help to her at all - He didn’t even have a rope or a bucket for goodness sake! 
We may not be sure either but God can reveal to us what is really going on in our lives also and convince us that he can bring change. We might argue with him or get religious like she did, but he listens with interest, giving us a place in his heart and mind, and giving us revelation about our own soul and a revelation about himself and about a caring protective Father God and about loving powerful Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit tells us to leave our empty bucket behind as she did. He says to us as he said to her ‘If you only knew the gift that God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.’
God is at work and we are at rest – our sin and shame don’t count anymore - Jesus has ransomed our soul. Amen.

 

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

GOSPELS 7 IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD 

We started the Gospel series where all four Gospels gave of the account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, being baptised by John the Baptist. Some of John the Baptist’s disciples began to follow Jesus, and after his forty days of temptation in the wilderness he regathered some of these disciples by the sea of Galilee and they followed him into greater Galilee where he chose the twelve Apostles and performed many miracles and healings before returning to his hometown in Nazareth. 

But we now need to go back to the first section of Chapter one of John’s Gospel and fill a gap which contains something that is unique to John’s Gospel. It is the magnificent account of the creation of all things in the Universe through Jesus the Word – Logos – of God. Jesus as the Logos is the eternal creative articulation of the will of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal supernatural activity that acts upon that creative Word of Jesus in every situation. That is what happens for us as we receive the word of faith that comes into our lives when Jesus speaks to us concerning the will of the Father - and we see the powerful work of the holy Spirit bringing into being the fulfillment of that Word for our life and our situation. That is our prayer life.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (Logos – the creative life and design and purpose  giving utterance of Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. He (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. 3. Everything was made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Artificial Intelligence, without any sketch or drawing plan but simply by writing a descriptive string of imaginative mere human words into a computer program can generate a video animation of weird hybrid creatures that move, like a rabbit with the scaly tailed end of an echidna, and fish that walk and talk – and it looks real. It is an illusion that is hailed as a creative wonder. But God through the one creative Logos Word of Jesus has created orchids that look like laughing monkeys, flowers that look and move like dancing fairies, and insects whose magnified faces contain an exact image of a rabbit’s head, and the African Grey Parrot can have a vocabulary of 2000 words. There are many millions of these works of art in God’s creation gallery from microscopic ballerina marine creatures at the bottom of the ocean to trillions of galaxies in the Universe. So people can say words and make things appear real and alive but they cannot create life. Illusion is not life, and it is not truth – more about that later.

Vs4. In Him (Jesus) was life and that life was the light (phos) of Mankind. 
The word used for life in that verse is zoe, which means the fulness of essential and spiritual life - as opposed to bios – which speaks of lower life forms.

Jesus possesses the zoe life in its fullest and most divine sense and Jesus became the source and embodiment of eternal life for humanity. Jesus is also the illumination of the truth and the revelation of that life. He is the way, the truth and the life. He show us the way to understand and live in God's will, and through his light and truth humanity can experience lifegiving salvation of the soul. 

Vs5. And that light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (katalambano – hold it down, supress it, enclose it)
That verse tells us that the illumination of that truth about knowing God and knowing his will is able to bring that revelation into the darkness and obscurity and delusion of the world, and the darkness of the world cannot overcome or overwhelm it. If darkness tries to enclose or surround light it is overpowered by light.
And in the same way, if we are full of the light and truth of Jesus in our minds and hearts of faith, the delusional and manipulative words of darkness that try to penetrate the light of our truth will dissipate and come to nothing. They are unable to move us from our conviction of the truth that the Holy Spirit reveals to us about Jesus and the Father.
The Apostle Paul said ‘For God, who Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Jesus Christ. (2Corinthians 4:6)                                                                                                                                                                                       

John goes on to write in the next verse (vs 6) that John the Baptist said he himself was not the light but he was sent to bear witness to that light which was Jesus, so that everyone (pas) - all of humanity - might believe through Jesus. John says (vs 9) ‘that Light was the true Light which gives light (the revelation of God’s zoe life) to every man that comes into the world’ (every human being that arrives on the planet). 
John then writes (vs 10) that Jesus who made the world came into the world, to his own, but the world did not know him or receive him. John writes that Jesus would give power and freedom and liberty to those who did receive him and they would grow into mature sons and daughters of God the Father. He said that those people who received him and believed in him would be born from above from God, not just from human reproduction. 
Being born of God is one thing but growing up is another thing, growing in the power of The Spirit into grown up sons and daughters on a journey of volunteering to do what pleases the Father.

John writes (vs 14) that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, (flesh =sarx – humanity that can choose to go it alone) and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten (monogenes – the One begotten Son) of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Jesus was the only human being who became ‘flesh’ (‘humanity that can choose to go it alone)’ that was born directly from the Spirit seed of the Father (monogenes – the One begotten Son) – born from above and into the earth through his earthly mother Mary. We are not born from above directly as Jesus the only begotten Son was from the Father. We were born from above through the spiritual seed of Jesus himself, the Logos, ‘truly God and truly Man’. Jesus was always truly God and became truly human – we were always truly human and became partakers of the Divine nature (2Peter 1:4). The bible says that we have been born again (anagenna??- born anew from above), not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God (Logos – Jesus) which lives and abides forever (1Peter 1:23). 

Jesus prophesied and explained this new birth to a man called Nicodemus, whom Jesus referred to as the Teacher of the Jews and who confessed that Jesus could not have done the things that he did unless he was the Christ, and Jesus answered him and said "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again (gennao anothen – born from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3)

This final verse (vs 14) that we have been discussing, about Jesus the Logos becoming flesh and dwelling among us caused a split between Christianity and both the religious Jews and the educated Greeks when the Apostle John wrote it. Religious Jews believed that the Word of God always was and still is the Torah of the words of the Law through Moses, and it was blasphemy to say the word had become a Person, so they rejected John’s Word Logos for that reason. It’s all about words.
The Greeks believed that Logos was a word that described the philosophical concept of the designing and sustaining and ordering principle of the Universe – it could not possibly be a Person! so they rejected John’s Word Logos for that reason. 

But Christians believe that Logos is a Person, Jesus, the Logos, who is the articulation of the Father’s will in all situations. The Bible says that Jesus the Logos upholds all thing in the Universe by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3) – that is what is real and what is real will last.

The world imposes a superficial reality on many aspects of social and moral and scientific truth by taking words and giving them new meanings that suit its own ideologies. That turns non truth into truth and non-virtue into virtue and even non science into science, and that is an exercise of darkness trying to overcome light.
But when darkness tries to enclose light, the darkness has to finally break up and disappear. And when Logos light and truth penetrate darkness the darkness also finally breaks up and disappears.

God has created humanity in his own image and does not want humanity to live in bondage to darkness. God looked upon a world in bondage to darkness in the days of Noah, and he looked upon Abraham and Lot in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he looked upon the earth in the days of Pharaoh and Moses where his people had been enslaved in bondage to darkness and he brought deliverance through people of faith who heard his word of salvation. 

As we allow the incorruptible seed of the Logos of Jesus to grow within us we can confidently pray and believe John’s word which says ‘that Light was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world’ and ‘that light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it’

That was promised in the beginning, and I believe that promise is ready to start finding its fulfillment once more. Let us nurture that Logos seed of life and light and truth, and let us water it by our faith and love and let us bear witness to it by our lives, and let us offer it to those in our world. We can know and believe that what is real and lasting will overcome what is ready to pass away.

 

 

THE SPIRIT THAT RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD

 
THE SPIRIT THAT RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD 

On the day of the Resurrection of Jesus some of the Apostles heard the startling report of the women who had visited the tomb where the dead body of Jesus had laid and found it empty, so John and Peter ran there to see for themselves. John arrived first and let Peter go in before him. ‘Then John who had reached the tomb first also went in (after Peter jumped the queue), and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Then they went home. (John 20:8). (Why?)

That account reveals the confusion and perplexity that the disciples of Jesus still carried in their minds and hearts even after following Jesus for three and a half years and witnessing his miracles and hearing his words of wisdom and receiving his direct instruction. They had also scattered and abandoned Jesus when he was arrested after the Last Supper, and they were devastated by his death on the cross. All their dreams of sharing his Kingdom authority when he would finally establish his Kingdom and rule over Israel and even the Roman Empire were shattered. The Bible says ‘they had kept on asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” (Acts 1:6). Their inadequate human spirits were not capable of fully understanding what Jesus had been saying throughout all that time of discipleship.

So only a day after seeing the empty tomb Peter and John and most of the Apostles were hiding in a room still afraid and not knowing what to expect next. Then they saw Jesus walk through a closed door into the room where he showed them his risen body, still bearing the scars of his crucifixion. The Bible says During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

On that first occasion when Jesus appeared to them, he breathed his Spirit upon them and they were awakened to the inner peace of the Holy Spirit of the resurrected Jesus and they received his peace. (John 20:19). But they would not live in the overcoming power of his resurrection until he had ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit of power upon them on the day of Pentecost. The Bible says ‘Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with power.” (Acts 1:4)

If the disciples who knew Jesus and saw him live and then die and then saw his resurrected body walk into a room still had a problem believing that he had risen, then what chance does anyone who hasn’t seen Jesus in this life here, now, have of believing in the Resurrection?  That is what we are discussing today – (not just historical evidence) John and Peter both write about that later, about believing and not seeing. (John 20, 1Peter 1:8)
And it was only when the disciples embraced the life of the indwelling Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and lived in its overcoming power that they became true witnesses to his resurrection. That is because the indwelling Holy Spirit witnessed to them that their human spirit had been joined to the ‘together with God’ Spirit of the risen Jesus. 

The same goes for us when we believe that the Holy Spirit has been sent to dwell within us. That becomes the reality of a new eternal existence here on earth of being ‘together with God’ in our life. That is true faith, and that faith sets us free from the dismal fate of having to depend upon our own insufficient human spirit to truly know what we are meant to know, to be who we are meant to be and to do what God really wants us to do. That is God’s desire and design for us.

Our own human spirit, just like the human spirit of the disciples of Jesus, and every other human being ever created is subject to a confusing sense of self-conscious separation from the awesomeness of an Almighty God. That started back with Adam and Eve who also had an inadequate human spirit like ours, breathed into Adam when he was created, but they did not have the availability of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were beguiled by the serpent to disobey God and eat of the tree they were forbidden to eat from. He told them they would be like God if they did and they could go it alone like he had. He knew that this would trigger a wrong desire in their hearts because he lived out of that covetous desire himself. Going it alone led to disaster, and at that moment they let a mindset of ‘separation from God’ enter the spiritual DNA of humanity - and God saw that coming.

And that lie of darkness is still at work in the human spirit of all of us doing its work of separating the human mind and heart from the life of God and enticing people to live an independent self-sufficient life to have everything they want for their life. (Ephesians 2:1-2). That lie brings all kinds of disappointment and failure to our determined self-centred efforts and we can only overcome that lie of darkness by receiving the Holy Spirit that has been sent to dwell within us. We are designed by God to live in that reality of life together with God, and we need to choose that, because we are also enticed by darkness to live our own go it alone reality.

Jesus lived his life on earth in a limited human spirit just like ours and he lived in a close and perfect togetherness with his Father because he was born from above into the earth through the Holy Spirit. 
Jesus chose to live in the perfect loving harmony of that relationship with his Father and the Holy Spirit and not to live out of his human go it alone self - and so he was able to overcome all the trials and temptations. He lived a perfect together with God life and surrendered it on the cross for us and then sent humanity his risen Spirit life so that we could also be born from above. He overcame the energy of humanity’s go it alone spirit and disempowered it from putting a distance between us and him and being driven to only please self and not God.

The Apostle Paul, when he was called Saul before his conversion had tried to be the best of the best in his obedience to the Law and the Commandments, and he tells us that he had once prided himself on being a Pharisee of the Pharisees.  But it never really worked because of the dismal mindset of separation from God that he inherited from Adam just like us. As Saul the Pharisee he was made in the image of God, with a cultivated Jewish conscience but he never felt together with God. He plaintively says ‘For while I was living in the flesh (That is, the human spirit going it alone its own way), my sinful desires, confronted by rules and regulations, won the battle against my good intentions, and that distanced me further from God. (Romans 7:5).

The human spirit of Saul made in the image of God had one part that aspired to lofty righteous ideals and would have been willing to die for them. But there was another hidden part of him that resentfully delighted in killing Stephen the martyr, who lived through the power of the Holy Spirit, doing miracles and preaching powerfully in the name of Jesus. The human spirit is capable of very noble and caring deeds but it has the limitation of having to go it alone, so it is also capable of harmful wickedness and malice.

In Romans chapter Seven Paul tells us that he did not understand his own inner motivations. He said he didn’t always do what he aspired to do but did what he hated to do. He said that there were other impulsive wrong desires that dwelt within him, always there and always motivating him to resistantly follow his separated going it alone self. He throws up his hands and says ‘Hopeless man that I am! Who will deliver me from being embodied in this deathly separation? (Romans 7:24)

Paul then gives thanks for the power of the resurrected life of Jesus that he received when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was converted and was baptised in the Holy Spirit. He explains that now his ‘together with God’ mind, his true-self mind, knows how to hear and obey God and knows what God wants for him. He also bluntly tells us that in his humanity he is still tempted to operate in wrong desires and feel separate from God. That’s us too.

Probably one of the hardest things to understand for a person who desires to know and love God and is living by faith in the life of the Spirit is that knowing that they are ‘not good enough’ in their mere humanity makes them feel that God must have to distance himself from them. God says NO to that kind of condemnation. Our human failures might make us feel distanced from God – but they don’t make God feel distanced from us (Isaiah 59:1). Jesus has given his life for us so that we can be closer to God than any two people on earth can ever be. That was the whole point of the cross and forgiveness and mercy and Resurrection and receiving the Holy Spirit. God wants the togetherness more than we do. 

Paul says in Philippians Chapter two that He wanted to know Jesus and the power of Resurrection. That is what allows us to live above the weakness of our own human nature. He encourages us and says Look, as long as you’re welcoming his abiding presence within you you’ve chosen to belong to him and live in that power of his Spirit. When you know he’s close you can draw close and let him lift you into a better place of faith.

 

 

GOSPELS 6 KINGDOM WORDS OF BLESSING

GOSPELS 6 KINGDOM WORDS OF BLESSING

When we spoke about the wisdom of the words of Jesus in Gospels 5 we saw Jesus being confronted with criticism and antagonism by religious people who were threatened by his undeniable aura of authority. Even his own disciples weren’t quite sure why Jesus was doing the things that he did until they heard Jesus answering his religious critics, so Jesus was teaching them as well as the others – and as well as us, in those moments of enlightenment because of his words of wisdom - revolutionary words of a New Covenant reality that would supersede the Old Covenant religious tradition. This new kind of faith and freedom would be lived by people one day because of his risen life within them.

But now we are going to read the next in line topic of revolutionary wisdom words from Jesus. These are words of the inner spiritual blessings of the Kingdom of God, and these words were spoken to the poor and needy, people who, because they had physical afflictions and infectious diseases or deformities could not enter the temple – the outcasts. And they greeted the words of Jesus with humble incredulous wonder and not harsh antagonism or criticism. These words seemed too good to be true or too impossible to ever experience. They are called The Beatitudes and are found in Matthew 5:1 and also in a shorter form in Luke 6:20. They are often whimsically titled the ‘Be - Attitudes.’ Because they teach us how to ‘be’ so that we might know what to ‘do’. These words have eternal wisdom relevant for any age and any culture to aspire to, but again only able to be fully realized in the New Covenant reality. Human nature cannot do this, we need to be partakers of the Divine nature (2Peter 1:4) which became our treasure when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. 

Matthew 5:1 Jesus saw the multitudes, so he went up into a mountain: and when he was settled, he gathered his disciples around him: And he taught them all, everybody, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Poor in spirit is an attitude. Being poor means to have no resources left – so that means having nothing at all or not having something particular at the time. ‘In spirit ‘means in our very being – it means our whole life – what we have and who we are. Money and material things and outward appearances may appear to make us well off in our being but if we are addicted to that we end up having nothing of value on the inside. The greater blessing is the spiritual blessing of having God as our fulfillment and provision (Ephesians 1:3). The unfulfilled rich young Ruler wanted to attain the Kingdom of God couldn’t receive that blessing. He wanted the inner blessing of the Kingdom but he valued the material blessing more.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

There is a blessing hidden in the grief of the loss of something dear to you for that is when you can receive the comfort of the One who is most dear to you - because of how dear you are to him. He never wants to lose you and he never will, so stay close and be blessed and comforted by that.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

You are blessed when you don’t use power over others to get want you want. People who use power over others think they get what they want but they end up with a thankless life full of nothing. The greatest inner blessing is having the power and love of God within you. And you end up with a grateful life that has everything you could want or needed – content.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
The world wants you lining up to satisfy your appetites on what it has to offer, and those things leave you feeling empty. God wants you to be in alignment with what he has to offer - and having a hunger for that that fills you with an overflowing fulfillment and satisfaction with your life.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
If you make room for other people’s mistakes when they fall short of their good intentions, God will have an ocean of mercy for you that creates the most beautiful space for belonging within the boundless forgiveness and mercy and acceptance of God.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

When your heart’s desire is to see God being pleased with what you think and do for his sake, then he will let you see with your own eyes the wonderful things he is doing in in your world for your sake, and for the sake of those you love.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Children who work together and play together as peacemakers have a heart to see agreement and mutual thoughtfulness and kindness and being there for others in the family. These peacemakers will feel cherished and included in the same way by the Father Son and Holy Spirit who cherish one another and who are dedicated to being there for one another.

All these blessings make us ready to hear the next of the most impossible of all blessings – the one of persecution.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Be joyful and glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for that is how they persecuted the prophets which were before you.

The previous blessings provide you with a bullet-proof suit of armor that protects you emotionally and spiritually and even in the physical stress of being attacked by the aggressive or hidden malevolence of people who hate your devotion to God. They are like the Cains that killed the Abel. But you are an Abel that is Able – able to stand in faith and resilience and let the bullets bounce off. We can even laugh it off because that verse tells us to be joyful and glad. That is one of the most beautiful of the impossible possibilities of all of these boundless Beatitude Blessings. You can actually just be yourself – who you really are and not what the persecutors want you to be like with their fake identity virtues. They are simply resentful and covetous and jealous of your true virtue and behaviour. That is why Cain murdered Abel. 
1John 3:12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

And that blessing gets you ready to live in the next exhortation of Jesus to hang in there and persevere confidently and be the true self of who you are and do the true things of what you do that he has creatively designed you for you in your spirit – and in your whole inner and outward being for all to see.

You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savour, it is useless and needs to be thrown out, and trodden underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a candle, and puts it under a bush, but on a candlestick; and it lights up the house for everyone. Let your light shine for people and let them see your goodness of who you are and what you do but only let your Father in heaven get the glory.
We need to know who we are in God and with God. We don’t need to know everything that the world knows or thinks it does, or to have to know the future that some internet prophet that you don’t know puts out there in the prophecy market. We need to know God and his ways, so that we know how to be and what to do in God and with God no matter what anybody else thinks you are and what you should be and do. Because you will be making everybody’s life in your world all the better off anyway by knowing God in a real way. And that is what God wants for you.

 

 

GOSPELS 5 THE WISDOM AND THE WORKS OF JESUS

GOSPELS 5 THE WISDOM AND THE WORKS OF JESUS

We are now going to look at some of those powerful works of Jesus in Capernaum and greater Galilee that led up to the homecoming visit of Jesus to Nazareth, and his subsequent proclamation of the Jubilee Year.
Those events reveal a fascinating balance of the powerful works of Jesus and the unprecedented and challenging words of wisdom that stunned all those who heard them. The wisdom and the works of Jesus are recorded throughout all the Gospels but in the early chapters of the three synoptic Gospels of Mathew, Mark, and Luke there is a strategic cluster of some of these meaningful events that deserve a mention.

Firstly, in Mark Chapter three, and Luke Chapter six and Matthew Chapter ten there is the significant account of the appointing of the twelve Apostles. And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: (Mark 3:13)
Some of these men were called at the time of John’s baptism of Jesus, such as Philip and the group of fishermen, such as the brothers Andrew and Simon Peter and the brothers James and John, who were regathered by the Sea of Galilee as we mentioned earlier. 
Matthew had also been called in Capernaum, but there is no special mention of how or precisely when the others were called. These men were Bartholomew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot. After they were gathered together Mark goes on to say that they went in and occupied a house’. Jesus then prepared these men for the revolutionary things they were about to experience. They would see before their very eyes the greatest miracles ever performed on earth and they would hear the most revolutionary and life changing words that have ever been uttered.

There are three other stand-out events during that time, that are clustered in a sequence of one passage of Scripture after another in all three of the early Gospel Chapters. They are, Jesus being questioned about fasting, Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, and Jesus healing on the Sabbath. 
Jesus was being confronted in these Scriptures with criticism and antagonism by religious people who were threatened by his undeniable aura of authority. Even his own disciples weren’t quite sure why Jesus was doing the things that he did until they heard Jesus answering his religious critics, so Jesus was teaching them as well as the others in those moments of enlightenment because of his words of wisdom.

Mark 2:18 Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?”
Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the bridegroom? Of course not. They can’t fast while the bridegroom is with them. But someday the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. He was also prophesying that he as the bridegroom Jesus, would be leaving his friends in due course, but he would be coming back soon enough and he would be looking forward to having his friends around him again and rejoicing, not in religious observance, but in relational blessing and celebration. The message for us is that he is our bridegroom now and we are more than friends – we can be his bride if we want to draw that close to him – revolutionary!

He didn’t stop there but continued talking and giving them everyday illustrations of the fact that something very new and lifechanging was about to come into history and become eternal truth, not just religious tradition. 

He went on to say ‘Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before.
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine must have new wineskins.’ (vs 21-22)

He was prophesying that something unique and unparalleled was soon to happen in the world of the Spirit where the power and love and truth that Holy Spirit would reveal to us would change the way we would relate to a living God, not with tradition and ritual, but by becoming partakers of his Divine nature. 
And this new way of living would also be something that religious tradition would never possibly be able to accommodate as it would tear apart the old garment of religious ritual. And just as an old wineskin is hardened and brittle the new wine of the Spirit would burst asunder the man-made traditional structures of the gathering and growing together of God’s people. The newly fermented wine is so alive and active that as it expands it needs the freedom and flexibility of whatever embodies that vitality. He was heralding a new era of the liberty of the life-giving Spirit of God in our midst. That would have been extremely difficult for anyone there to hear and to understand – and it still is! Orderly New Testament Church life needs structure but it is structure that accommodates the power and love and presence of God.

The next confrontation came on a Sabbath day as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields and the disciples were breaking off heads of wheat and eating the grain. Some of the Jewish religious leaders saw this and said to Jesus.
Mark 2: 23, “They shouldn’t be doing that! It’s against our laws to work by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.” But Jesus replied, “Didn’t you ever hear about the time King David and his companions were hungry, and he went into the house of God—Abiathar was high priest then—and they ate the special bread only priests were allowed to eat? That was against the law too. But the Sabbath was made to benefit man, and not man to benefit the Sabbath. And the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

This was the startling revelation that the Sabbath was instituted to teach us how to live our lives in the rest of faith, not in the religious works of man. Here was another prophetic revolutionary revelation of grace and truth which was difficult if not impossible for the hearers to hear and understand. It is the truth that is to guide our lives of faith – and only Jesus has authority to decide how we are to live a Sabbath life of faith. He tells us to rest in faith while he works on our behalf in the world of the unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Jesus explained this truth to his disciples further at another time when John writes in his Gospel about the disciples need to understand the reality of works and faith when they asked him “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” (John 6:28) Another religious revolution!

The next incident in this cluster of revolutionary wisdom sayings comes in the following verse in Mark about Jesus healing on the Sabbath.

Mark 3:1 While in Capernaum Jesus went over to the synagogue again and noticed a man there with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man’s hand? If he did, they planned to arrest him!
Jesus asked the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. Then turning to his enemies he asked, Does the law of the Sabbath day require us to do good or to do harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them? But they wouldn’t answer him. Looking around at them angrily, for he was deeply disturbed by their indifference to human need, he said to the man, “Reach out your hand.” He did, and instantly his hand was healed!

And while the Pharisees schemed to put together a charge of blasphemy against Jesus, he walked on toward the cross to secure for us a new and revolutionary life in the freedom of the Spirit – alive and free but captive to his love and to obedience to his living Word.

 

 

GOSPELS 4 NAZARETH AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

GOSPELS 4 NAZARETH AND THE YEAR OF JUBILEE 
After the six weeks of temptation in the wilderness Jesus made his way to Galilee on his way back to his hometown of Nazareth. That journey took quite a long time because he performed miracles and healings and regathered his disciples by the sea of Galilee. 
The arrest of John the Baptist by Herod would neatly fit anywhere into those six weeks of Jesus in the wilderness. 

Mark’s Gospel records in detail the story of Jesus on his journey from the southernmost end of the Jordan after his forty days in the desert as he heads home northward along the seashore of Galilee. He needed to regather his disciples as they had gone back to their fishing for those six weeks while he was in the desert, probably not knowing for how long Jesus would be absent.  Remember that Jesus had already chosen some of them at the time of his baptism by John when they left off being John’s disciples and decided to follow Jesus. Matthew tells the same story of Jesus regathering his disciples as they were fishing. 

Mark 1:14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther on from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And He called them (kaleo – called out to them- and they realised Jesus was back), and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after Him. And they went into Capernaum. (Capernaum was a large busy bustling city)
and on the sabbath day he went to the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching: for he taught them as one that had authority, not like the scribes.

Mark then tells powerful stories of the supernatural works of Jesus starting with him casting out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue in Capernaum. Jesus and the disciples left the synagogue and Jesus then healed the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, and Mark goes on to say that by sunset the open courtyard was filled with the sick and demon-possessed and a huge crowd of people from all over the city of Capernaum gathered outside the door to watch - and Jesus healed great numbers of sick folk that evening.

Jesus then healed a leper and a few days later healed the paralytic man who was lowered down through the roof by his friends and then goes walking by the sea and sees Matthew in his tax collector office and calls him to follow him also. Mark writes that such throngs soon surrounded Jesus that he couldn’t publicly enter a city anywhere but had to stay out in the barren wastelands where people came from everywhere to find him. Many more healings and miracles occur in the following chapters of Mark throughout what might have taken many, many, months, as Jesus went in and out of Capernaum to other regions of greater Galilee. And we will look at some of these at another time. But the Gospels agree that that initial time of his powerful ministry of healings and miracles was a prelude to Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth (Matthew 4:23, Luke 4:14, Mark chapters 1 to 6)

Jesus would have returned home to the modest and humble township of Nazareth where there would have been the usual measure of poverty and sickness – it hadn’t featured in any of the previous healing and miracle work . Nazareth was in an insulated part of the Galilean countryside surrounded by hills and olive trees, and Jesus would have turned up as the familiar ordinary young carpenter that shared their uneventful lifestyle. And in the synagogue, he would have shared the duty of giving a reading from the Scripture like all the other young men who routinely shared in this way, along with the older men in the community. 
By the time that he eventually got to Nazareth everyone would have heard about his preaching and healing and miracles that had happened along his way home which had taken such a long time, but they were not going to believe a word of it until they saw it with their own eyes. Nazareth had a reputation of being a disagreeable and unpleasant place and all the Gospels except for John’s Gospel talk about the rejection of Jesus in Nazareth. John’s Gospel’s only comment about Nazareth is found in John1:45 where Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good thing come out of Nazareth? (a mindset)

We now read Luke’s account of the homecoming of Jesus. 
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, 15 and news of Him had gone out through all the surrounding region.16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as the custom was (for all the young men in the place), He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD." (Isaiah 61:1)

Then He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He said to them Today you have heard this Scripture fulfilled." (He is saying I am the fulfilment of Isaiah 61)! They bore witness to him – (They knew that he had spoken truth and had proved it by his recent ministry – and they knew who he was), and they were amazed by the gracious words which he spoke, and they said, "Is this really Joseph's son?" 
They were stunned and amazed and impressed but by saying ‘is this really Joseph’s son?’ They displayed the archetypical unbelief syndrome that was the flaw and failure of Israel and of all of us.

Then he said, “Probably you want to quote me that proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself’, (meaning, ‘Why don’t you do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum?’) But I’m telling you that no prophet is accepted in his own hometown! For example, remember how Elijah did no miracles of provision for the many Jewish widows needing help in those three and a half years of famine (who thought they deserved it because Elijah lived there on the Sidon coast), but he was not sent to them by God. Instead, Elijah used a miracle to provide for the widow of Zarephath, which was miles and miles away (sixty miles north of Nazareth). Or what about the prophet Elisha, who healed Naaman, a Syrian, rather than all the Jewish lepers needing healing (and who thought they deserved it - but God is not given to political correctness).
These remarks stung them to fury; and jumping up, they mobbed him and took him to the edge of the hill on which the city was built, to push him over the cliff. But he walked away through the crowd and left them. 

Jesus had just proclaimed the ‘Acceptable Year of the Lord’, which refers to the Year of Jubilee, which was meant to be celebrated every fifty years and though still on the calendar it was left unfulfilled, with minimal observance. The Jubilee Year was to be a ‘Super Sabbath’ year of observance and celebration. However, the celebration of the Super Sabbath depended on the observance of the seventh year Sabbath being obeyed seven times in a row, for 49 years and then would come the fifty year Jubilee year (Super Sabbath). 

The observance of the seventh year Sabbath meant that Israel were to have a year off their agricultural work every seven years and trust God for him to grow the crops and manage the weather and the locusts, so that they could enjoy being his family in the earth - and he would supernaturally grow the crops and bless their time of enjoyment of being families together - proving to the nations round about that they were the only nation that was favoured by the only God of Heaven. But they had no faith to ever do this.

The Jubilee year spoke of the greatest fulfillment of what might have been. This was the year of being given God’s rest and blessing and provision for their lives both individually and as a people of God. It was the year when all work of any kind had to cease, debts were forgiven, Leviticus 25 says and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family and landholdings were returned to the original owners, and the slaves were given their freedom, and the families were to celebrate the blessings of being God’s children. It was to be a statement of God’s favour upon them forever for all the world to see.

You will notice that after Jesus proclaimed the ‘Acceptable Year of The Lord’, The Year of Favour, The Jubilee Year - he closed the Book, and there was a special reason for that. The next sentence in Isaiah 61 that he would have read said ‘and to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God’. But that was not what Jesus came to do. 
‘For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)
But now - Jesus was telling them that he was the manifestation of what the Jubilee Year really meant. He was the one who would bless and provide and set free and take them to himself and to his Father and unify them to be as one with all the other peoples and nations of the earth - as part of the Family of God. 
Israel didn’t want to hear it then - but Jesus still wants peoples and nations of the earth, including Israel, to believe him and receive him and his Promise before he returns. Jesus was and still is our Jubilee and still on God’s calendar - it is an interesting observation that two thousand years since Jesus made his Jubilee proclamation, his calendar would now be marking the fortieth Jubilee around this time
James 5:7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the latter rain.

The Bible says that as we press on to know the Lord he will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth (Hosea 6:3).
The early rain is the gentle rain of God’s loving grace that softens the hearts of men and women as they faithfully receive the understanding of God’s love and grace. The latter rain is the deluge of God’s sovereign outpouring of grace upon the earth which will come at his appointed time and where people of all ages will be touched by God and suddenly transformed by his grace. Let us remain constant in prayer and faithfully believe.

 

 

GOSPELS 3 IDENTITY AS A CHILD OF GOD

 GOSPELS 3 OUR IDENTITY AS A CHILD OF GOD.

Luke 4:1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.
It was into the farthest extents of the dry and almost uninhabitable region of the wilderness area where Jesus went, to come head-to-head with the powers of darkness and overcome the temptations of the devil in his time of forty days of prayer and fasting. He would have travelled beyond the low hills of scrubland down into a lifeless wasteland near Jericho where the Jordan river runs into the dead Sea, which is one of the lowest places on the earth. 
That is where John the Baptist lived his life of prayer and fasting amongst a community of zealous Jewish disciples and from where John went out to prepare the way of the Lord.

Moses and Joshua and Elijah also prayed and fasted for forty days and nights in wilderness areas. Moses and Joshua in their prayer and fasting went to Mt. Horeb, where the Law and Commandments would speak God’s word to humanity through Israel. It was the highest place in the Sinai wilderness – and that can speak to us of the highest pathway for mankind to hear God and to obey him in the Old Covenant of the Law. Elijah in his prayer and fasting would hear the still small voice and speak the prophetic word of the Lord to Israel and to humanity on that same high mountain where the law was given – another picture of the highest means of God’s voice speaking to mankind – through the Old Testament prophets. 
But Jesus in his prayer and fasting took humanity to the lowest depth of the earth in Jordan of the Dead Sea to speak God’s living Word against the power of sin and disobedience to all of Mankind, taking the sin of humanity into death and overcoming darkness for us. Jesus took his humanity, on behalf of our humanity from the lowest place on earth to fulfill the highest achievement of humanity in fully obeying the Law and Commandments without ever sinning. Jesus killed off sin as being the ruler over the soul of mankind to bring us into new life. He came from the highest place in Heaven to the lowest place on earth to bring us into the highest place of life with himself.

A very interesting feature of Luke’s Gospel is that before he writes about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, he gives the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam, back to the beginning of humanity, testifying that Jesus is one with us in his humanity in the first Adam. And the Bible also refers to Jesus as the last Adam and the life-giving Spirit. When Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to give us his life giving Spirit. 
So we are one with Jesus in the first Adam and we are one with Jesus in the last Adam as we become a life-giving Spirit with him (1Corinthians 15:45). Matthew is the only other Gospel writer that shares the same story of the temptation in the wilderness – and he is also the only other writer that gives us a genealogy of Jesus, except that his genealogy only goes back to Abraham – the root of the olive tree of Israel, not of all of humanity. We have been grafted into that tree by faith (Romans 11:17), but more than that, we have been implanted into Jesus the Vine (1Peter 1:25 – born again of the seed (logos)of God) and we are his branches (John 15:1) and bear the fruit of his life, not just Abraham’s faith – which we have also inherited. We’ve got Jesus the last Adam to go back to.

Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry afterward. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
He shall give His angels charge over you,' and 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"(he quotes the beautiful Psalm 91 to Jesus) Jesus said to him, "It is written again, You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

The first two temptations are prefaced by ‘If you are the Son of God’ – tempting Jesus to prove his identity of his being the Son of God. They were both temptations about Jesus doing something in his own strength. The first temptation was about human appetites – having what you want when you want it – rocks into bread – make it happen. Jesus served his Father, not his appetites.

The second temptation was about human performance, skill and achievement, even showmanship – leaping off the spire of the temple and declaring that God would send angels to save him (Psalm 91:11). This temptation of using a self-selected Scripture for your own advantage for fame or glory or a spiritual image is taking the name of The Lord in vain and Jesus was having none of it, and he left a judicious warning for all of us.
The third and final temptation was about Jesus being tempted to have something – in fact ‘have everything’ – all the kingdoms of the world and their glory - by letting darkness rule in the heart. This final kind of temptation can start off in a person desiring to have enough money to have enough power to have enough freedom to have as much control over their own lives as they want, and even power and control over other people – that is the power of the world – the political agenda.

So having things and doing things is not what gives us an identity, and having power over other people does not mean that we have great stature, and wanting those things for ourselves does not give us power over temptation but puts us in the way of temptation.
Jesus has empowered us with a different kind of power, and as far as temptation goes Jesus has told us that in him we can overthrow powers of darkness (Ephesians 6). But as far as our identity is concerned God has given us the greatest power on earth, becoming the sons and daughters of God under and within his power.

John 1:12 ‘But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God (brothers and sisters with Jesus – technon - children), to those that believe on his name: When we receive Jesus we pick up that authority and liberty to start ‘becoming’. We start off as children being told how to do the right thing and then we grow into grown up sons and daughters on a journey volunteering to do what pleases the Father. The Bible says that the journey of becoming grown up sons and daughters is through being led of the spirit. 

Rom 8:14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (huios – developing into grown up sons and daughters). For you no longer need to see yourselves as slaves to fear, but you can choose to see yourselves as having a loving Father that has made you part of his family. 
What we are pursuing in our lives is ‘becoming grown-up sons and daughters’.
In these days there is such vast emphasis on individuality and autonomy for a child to determine their own course, that parents have little say in determining the course of a child’s life (and in fact they can get into trouble for telling a child what they should and should not do). This was not always the case, but today things are horrifically different. However, I believe that God is doing something in these days to put things back on track in the hearts of individuals and in families, and that includes in the family of God. Jesus wants us all to have a spiritual and relational family base to live within, with him, and this is only fully done through him. It is through the son – the real big brother, that we become developed sons and daughters. Jesus’ ministry was not just for us to have  forgiveness of sins and go to Heaven, but to develop family purpose. He modeled sonship to us and he develops sonship and daughtership in us. The ministry of the holy spirit is to bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That leads to us coming to know where we truly belong and what is our true identity.

If we are living a life of togetherness with God and recognize that he is with us on the journey of our life and bringing his future to us. Then we will no longer become anxious to find out what is going to happen next in our lives. As we grow as sons and daughters it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, “I wonder why God allowed this or that?” And we begin to see that the compelling purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into agreement with his good will for our future. We can now trust in the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in our own abilities. But a wilful and self-determined purpose of our own can destroy the simplicity and the calm, relaxed peace which should be the life experience of the growing up child of God.

A beautiful outcome in all of this is that when we focus on ‘becoming sons and daughters’ we also start really becoming brothers and sisters. When we start caring for one another as brothers and sisters the Father starts doing things that create something on this planet that Jesus prayed for when he prayed to the Father for us - when he was on earth. “I am not praying for these alone but also for the future believers who will come to me because of the testimony of these. My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me. (John 17:20

 

PRAYER OF PEACE

PRAYER OF PEACE 

There is a beautiful Scripture of our spiritual communion with God in Philippians 4:6-7 which says ‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’
 
The wonderful promise of the Prayer of Peace that God gives us in this Scripture is that he will guard and protect our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. That is what overcomes the anxiety of a busy mind and a fretful heart that burdens our souls, and that is what allows us to pray the prayer of faith with thanksgiving in any situation.
The Greek word for anxious is merimna?? which means to be overly troubled by too many concerns and needs at the one time (or all the time), whether these concerns are our own or for others we care for.

This Scripture is a gracious appeal from God’s Spirit to our spirit – and our spirit is made up of our mind and our heart. But to get through to our spirit God has to get past our soul, and it is our souls that get overcrowded with too many soulish thoughts of the mind and feelings of the heart that fight for priority to get attention. 

Our communion of spirit to Spirit with God opens the way for God to speak truth into our minds and renew our minds in our spirit. The truth that comes from the spiritual renewal of our mind informs our heart with a faith that believes and trusts in God and in his good will and purpose for us in our prayer for our needs. 
The truth that our mind perceives informs what the heart believes – that is a fridge hanging statement to keep us focussed on what God wants us to know and what he wants us to believe. 

I believe that Scripture about prayer is a key logos word of God regarding the prayer of peace and thanksgiving. In Hebrews 4:12 The Bible speaks about that logos word as the word of God’s creative design and purpose that is like a sword that is able to divide between the soul and the spirit - and we need that logos word so that we can understand what is happening in our soul and in our spirit, because the anxiety is in the soul but the prayer of faith is in the spirit. 
The Scripture gives us an example of that word sword piercing between joints and marrow. The outside of a joint bone is like the soul and the marrow on the inside is like spirit - the real life-giving substance of the bone. Prayer is not just about trying to fix the outside problems that we see about us but about how God reorders us on the inside for us to see his will and for us to receive what he is faithfully putting in place for us. Good marrow means strong bones – but even if a bone gets broken it will heal well if the marrow is good. 
Our souls can become overwhelmed by the outer chaos and disorder that we see around us in this world, but our spirit joined to God’s Spirit is strengthened by the truth and order and promise of the good things of God that he has in store for us. That Scripture ends by saying that that sword word is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, so it helps us to know what is going on in our disturbed soul so that we can exercise faith in our spirit that can assure us that Jesus is dealing with these needs for us in a way that only he can, and in that way our souls can be at rest and rise above the anxiety. 
The promise of the Prayer of Peace is that God will guard our hearts and minds through Jesus. That is why he tells us to bring these things to him with thanksgiving – thanksgiving for what? Thanksgiving that Jesus will intercede with the Father on our behalf according to God’s will for our lives. So that means he is reordering our prayer. God is at work to reorder our lives for the best outcome for our lives – his outcome – not what our stressed or demanding souls would force into action if we could have things our way and not his. That is the peace that surpasses all understanding.