Spiritcode

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.

GOSPELS 2 TheBaptism of Jesus

THE GOSPELS 2 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 

We saw in the previous story of the Gospels, which was about John’s baptism of repentance, that the four Gospels were written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who wrote from different perspectives and at different times.  This means that there were variations in detail and emphasis in the narratives and there were certain gaps in some Gospels that end up being filled by other Gospels. Fortunately in the previous sermon the starting point in all the Gospels was John’s baptism. That is called the data point or point of convergence. After that event there is variation as to what happens next and that gets more complex as the Gospel story unfolds as the writers are not dedicated to a chronological order of events. 

Commentators are astoundingly at odds with one another in agreement with the of the order of events so I’m having my own shot at presenting an order and attempting to give logical reasons - more logic than revelation - as the stories themselves bring their own revelation of Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit. I’ll explain as I go on – and feel free email me with your own ideas or to disagree or discuss because I stopped being infallible about thirty years ago. Right now in this next story about the baptism of Jesus we will see the same individual perspectives in different Gospels. But there is one Gospel that appears to set the logical pattern of events that come after the baptism of Jesus.

John 1:26 John said “I baptize with water, but there is one here you do not know about and he will come to you after me, and I am not even worthy to untie the strap of his sandal” 
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing, and the next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I was talking about, ‘This man ranks before me, because he existed before me and I did not know him, but I was sent to baptise with water, so that he would be revealed to Israel.” And John testified: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not realise it was him, but God who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and now testify that this is the Son of God.” 
John 1:35 The next day John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as Jesus walked along, John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 
John’s disciples following Jesus locks in a series of day after day events starting with the phrase ‘the next day’…

However, the supernatural appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove descending upon the head of Jesus features in all of the Gospel stories about the baptism of Jesus. The other three Gospels appear to indicate that the very next thing that happens after his baptism is that he goes into the wilderness for forty days. However, the Gospel of John alone mentions that certain other events after the baptism of Jesus take place before Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

It is interesting to note that when we read Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus and the mention of the dove of the Spirit alighting upon him we read in the next verse that Jesus was ‘then’ led by the Spirit into the wilderness. However, the Greek word for ‘then’ is ‘tote’ which can mean ‘sometime after that’. So the event of the baptism of Jesus and the ‘sometime after that’ reference makes room for other things to have happened to Jesus between those two major events. 

But when we read Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism and the dove alighting upon his head it would appear that Jesus arises out of the water and strides directly into the wilderness, because Mark uses the Greek word ‘euthys’, which is translated as ‘immediately’ in the King James Bible. However, Strong’s concordance gives a range of time descriptors to that word euthys, ranging from ‘forthwith’ to ‘by and by’. This also makes room for other things to perhaps have happened to Jesus between those two major events. 

And again, when we read Luke’s account, Jesus is baptised and the dove appears again as usual, then Luke states that after his baptism Jesus returns from the Jordan and goes into the wilderness. 

The reality is that between those events of Jesus being baptised and the dove appearing, and then going into the wilderness, there were other significant things that did occur. This is graphically portrayed in the Gospel of John where he  describes other events that happened at the Jordan River where the baptism took place, where we then see a number of ‘next day’ statements that show us a logical sequence of events that occur one after the other taking place - before Jesus could have gone into the wilderness for forty days. So reading on in John chapter one, on the day after the baptism of Jesus we read;

John 1:35 The next day John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as Jesus walked along, John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, saw them following, and said to them, “What are you seeking after?” And they said to Him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are You staying?” And Jesus said to them, “Come and see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they remained with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour (4PM). 
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Jesus, was Andrew, who first went to find his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means the Christ). Then he brought him to Jesus. When Jesus saw him, He said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

So we see the first significant event to take place before Jesus goes into the wilderness is that of Jesus gathering disciples, including some that were former disciples of John the Baptist who was still present at the river baptising people. We then continue reading in John;

John 1:43 The next day Jesus went forth into Galilee, (The baptism occurred in Judea at Bethabara, so Jesus would have travelled north along the flat land beside the lake of Galilee), and on the way He found Philip that day and said to him, “Follow Me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, (in northern Galilee) the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip went looking for Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, as well as the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”…  
Vs. 47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him and said to him, “Here is an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip went to get you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 

Nathaniel joins the other disciples on the trek from the baptism area at the Jordan River heading northward and well into Galilee, and John then writes about another significant event that was to happen before Jesus would get to go into the wilderness – and that was to be the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee.  

John 2:1. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee (The phrase ‘on the third day’ is used eleven times in the four Gospels and is sometimes translated as ‘after three days’ and it allows time for the journey of the disciples from Bethany to Galilee).

The mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus came to the wedding bringing his new disciples with him. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “Son They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this mean for you and me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Mary does not command Jesus to do anything in particular but is prompted to mention the obvious need that was there and then leave everything in God’s hands. God the Father was right in the midst of all of this, and so was was the Holy Spirit, who may have prompted Mary to make her comment, and who would also have fully understood Jesus making his comment about the meaning of this and that his time had not yet come. He would have known that Jesus would ask the Father, as Jesus had yet to go through the temptation in the wilderness and likely thought that only then could he embark on his ministry of power and signs and wonders. But John says a few verses down (vs.11) that this was the first of the signs that Jesus did – ordained of the Father. 

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding at least eighty litres. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. and his disciples believed in him. 12. After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. 

The sign, or miracle of the changing of the water into wine is a clear sign that the supernatural ministry of Jesus had begun. But there is another sign that can be seen in the story of the earthen vessels. We can see that the six earthen water vessels can speak of the fact that the first earthen vessel of humanity was created out of the earth on the sixth day of God’s creation. We also see that these six water vessels were ordinarily used for ritual cleansing with water, but now they were to be used for the outpouring of the new wine of the Spirit. So - This sign also highlights John the Baptist’s remarks when he said ‘I indeed baptise you with water but he who comes after me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit’. It is also interesting that the first sign of the ministry of Jesus was at a wedding and the last sign of Jesus will be from Heaven and will also involve the marriage of Jesus with his Church as his bride (Ephesians 5:27).

Jesus had just shown that he was the earthen vessel that contained the new wine of the Spirit of God. And he would now go deep into the wilderness for forty days to overcome the power of darkness. He would then return in the power of the Kingdom of God to Nazareth to preach in the synagogue, doing many powerful miracles and healings along the way. 
He is telling us through that story that we also are not just earthen vessels filled with the cleansing water but that through him we can confidently be aware of ourselves as water always being changed into wine. It takes faith for us to realise that we have been filled with the Holy Spirit and it takes faith to know that we can be always ready to pour out of his life-giving spirit into a needy world around us.

 

GOSPELS 1 THE BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE

GOSPELS 1 BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE 

The combined accounts of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, give us a comprehensive narrative of the life of Jesus from his birth through to his resurrection and ascension into Heaven. The four Gospels are written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who also write from different perspectives, so there are variations in details and emphases and there are certain gaps in some Gospels that end up being filled by other Gospels. For example, only Matthew and Luke write in their early chapters about the birth of Jesus and give genealogies of his ancestry. 
The Christmas stories in the books of Matthew and Luke reveal the fact that Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins because of their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, and would have met one another as families in their younger years when everyone visited the Temple in Jerusalem for the three major Jewish feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. And they may also have enjoyed other family gatherings together before John went off to live in the wilderness.

John the Baptist had for many years lived a monastic life in the wilderness amongst a group of male Jewish disciples called the Essenes (which are not mentioned as such in the Bible but are referred to generally as Zealots), and they lived in the lowest geographical place in the earth close to the Dead Sea near Jericho. Simon the Zealot is named in the Gospels as a disciple of Jesus, and Judas Iscariot is also believed to have been a Zealot. Iscariot means to be a member of the Sicarii, the Zealots who committed assassinations against Romans and their allies and were waiting for a Messianic leader to lead them into war against the Roman oppressors. This could partly explain the disappointment of Judas and his bitter betrayal of Jesus. 

All the Gospel writers begin talking about the ministry of Jesus by introducing the ministry of John the Baptist and his message of repentance.  Matthew dramatically describes the entrance of John the Baptist into the religious and political scene in Judea. He was wearing a camel’s skin and eating locusts and wild honey and he despised the opulent and corrupt lifestyle of the rich and powerful people like Herod Antipas who cruelly lorded over the people on behalf of the Roman Empire. John saw that the integrity of Israel’s religion was under threat and decaying from within and he berated the religious teachers of the Jewish Law as well as the corrupt Jewish tax collectors who acted for the Roman government. The simple God-fearing hearts of the Galileans were becoming more and more burdened by the ungodly influences around them which offended their consciences and distressed their souls, and the same oppression was felt by the needy and the poor in spirit in Judea and Jerusalem. So the warning issued by John the Baptist began to draw many hearts back to godliness like a magnet. 
Matthew 3:1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of snakes! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth the fruit of repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.

He spoke fervently to all the different types of people who came to hear his message of repentance and the warnings of judgement - and among these were certain fishermen from the Lake of Galilee who had heard how John had been baptising people in the Jordan River.
He told them that if the tree that bore the fruit of their lives was useless then an axe would have to be laid to the root of that tree. He told different ones about how their actions and attitudes had to change, saying to the plentiful who had ample food and clothing that if they had two coats then they should give one away (Luke 3). 
‘Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, "Collect no more than what is appointed for you." Likewise, the soldiers asked him, saying, "And what shall we do?" So he said to them, "Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages." (Luke 3:12:15).

The fervent call of John the prophet to repentance pierced the consciences of many people, drawing their hearts to desire a return to the ways of God just like the prophets of God’s people in the days of old such as Jeremiah; Turn me, O Lord and I will be turned. And after my turning, I was surely sorry. (Jeremiah 31:18) 
The word for turning in the Old Testament is ‘sub’ which means turning from and turning to  - from the bad that you had been drawn to and being drawn back to the good that God wants for you. But the turning is only the beginning and then there is the sorrow and the need for forgiveness.
God’s word, the Torah guided Israel and highlighted their disobedience of what they had to turn from. There were the weighty commandments not to steal or to kill or to lie and there were the countless precise rules or regulations like the multitude of unclean food laws or the touching of dead things like reptiles - lizards, and the hundreds of other ordinances in the book of Leviticus. They would have to go to the priest who would offer specific sacrifices of atonement on their behalf such as goats, bulls, doves and pigeons, for all of these transgressions and in this way a person received forgiveness. Then once a year on the Feast of yom kippur, the Day of Atonement, all Israel were cleansed and forgiven. But as that sense of being right with God soon wore off they their minds and hearts continued day after day to bear the guilt and shame for all of these sins and indiscretions. 

The word in the New Testament for this kind of repentant turning towards God and away from self is stronger than sub in the Old Testament. The Greek word is epistreph?? which is found in this transformational Scripture from 2Corinthians.’ even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord (epistrepho), the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom and liberty. But we, all of us, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord (2Corinthians 3:15)

This word epistrepho comes from the word trope which means being drawn in a certain direction because of an attracting influence. The movement of a plant shoot being drawn towards the sun is phototropic, which means being drawn to the light (photos) because of a growth substance called auxin which is part of its design of creation. A plant shoot will not reach up and grow toward the light if it is corrupted at the roots or deprived from its auxin. 

Part of the creative design of every human heart is that it is spiritually coded to be drawn toward the light of God’s love and truth. But there is a part in every human mind and heart that can be drawn away from the light by being damaged at the roots by the destructive power of darkness and become blinded from God’s light and truth. This struggle goes on in every human heart since the time of Adam when darkness first invaded the human soul. 

The fervent words of John the Baptist were able to draw the poor in Spirit away from darkness and toward the light, but John the Baptist could only point toward the light that only Jesus could shine into their hearts. John pointed to Jesus and said to the people ‘I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance (a change of mindset, turning from and turning to), but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And this is where John’s Gospel fills in a gap in the other Gospels about who the true light is.
‘God sent John as a witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is the true Light. John himself was not the Light; he was only a witness to identify it, but then the one would come who is the true Light and to bring light to everyone who comes into the world. But even though Jesus the true light made the world, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. And even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive him. But to all who received him, he gave the power (exousia – authority, liberty, freedom and sovereignty) to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. (John 1:6)
Welcoming and receiving Jesus in any and every circumstance in our lives is the sovereign authority and freedom that wins against the struggle of the power of darkness to damage our souls. 
David in the Psalms described this internal destructive drawing power of darkness. He asked God to search his heart and know him and to show him any wicked way that was in him and he asked God to lead him in the way everlasting. The word for wicked here is ‘ôs?e?; an idol (as in fashioning an idol); also pain (bodily or mental): or sorrow, wickedness. (the destructive baggage in our souls – confused mind and crippled heart)

We can have the same honest prayer as David had to search our heart and show us any wicked way in us and to draw us into the way everlasting. That wicked way, the ‘oseb’ of inner pain along with all the other crooked ways that cripple our souls draws us like a magnet back into ourselves where we resist the drawing power of God’s love and truth to us. It is grievous to see so many people in these days being drawn inwards by the pain and sadness in their lives rather than being drawn upwards into the light of God’s hope and purpose for their lives.
Many people sadly spend most of their thinking lives in the inner pain of their souls, trying to find a way to fix things and feel better about themselves instead of finding the freedom of faith in God . It’s one thing to be made aware of the oseb of our inner pain and waywardness but we do not have to go and get a priest like in the Old Testament to make a sacrifice of atonement, because we have what Jesus has done for us and the fervent drawing of the Holy Spirit turning us towards him, to his love and truth about who we are in our togetherness with him.

 

 

 

ALL ABOUT DEDICATION

ALL ABOUT DEDICATION 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated, and Luke describes the dedication ceremony of Jesus in the temple in symbolic detail. ‘Then it was time for their purification offering as required by the law of Moses, so his parents took him to Jerusalem to dedicate him to the Lord. The law of the Lord says, “If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the LORD.’ (Luke 2:22).

The Jewish rite of dedication was a re-enactment of the firstborn sons of Israel being redeemed from the angel of death when Israel was supernaturally released from bondage under Pharoah and the firstborn sons of Egypt were slain (Exodus 13:12).
The dedication of the firstborn is called Pidyon haben, whereby the father presents the child with five silver shekels to the priest, returning his firstborn son to God. The priest then symbolically offers to accept five silver shekels instead of the child’s life, and once the payment is made the son is redeemed (Numbers 18). 
The number five in the Bible speaks of grace and silver typifies redemption. The redemptive power of grace over bondage to the Law is also symbolised by Luke in the fact that there are also five mentions of the word Law in that chapter of Luke even though Luke didn’t craft the chapter sections! The Holy Spirit does as he wills – and there is nothing that compares to those five mentions of law in any other chapters in the New Testament. Jesus was dedicated on our behalf for us to be supernaturally brought out of bondage from the world and from the Law by his grace. We saw in the book of Acts that Luke observed and understood Paul’s fervent teaching of grace overcoming the bondage of the Law, and he embeds the power of that truth into this Gospel also.

The Holy Spirit had prompted a man named Simeon to go to the Temple that day. The Holy Spirit had once revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen Jesus, God's anointed King. And so when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord the Spirit bore witness to Simeon that his prayer had been answered, and he greeted them, taking the child in his arms and praising God.
‘Lord’ he said, I have seen him as you promised me I would. I have seen the Saviour you have given to the world. He is the Light that will shine upon the nations, and he will be the glory of your people Israel! now I can die in peace. (Luke 2:29)

Then Simeon blessed them all and said to Mary about her son Jesus.
‘This one is assigned for the fall and rise of many in Israel and as a sign that will be opposed and denied by multitudes in all the earth, and that the thoughts of their hearts might be revealed. 
This prophesy declares Jesus as the one who represents the central truth of human life which challenges us to either accept or reject the truth of his virgin birth, his life, his death and resurrection, his ascension and his sending of the holy Spirit. This truth is the challenge that provokes opposition and denial in the human heart, where all our inner conflicts between light and darkness are deliberated and judged, bringing every human heart into account. Jesus now stands in the middle of every decision we make, to give us his wisdom and justice and truth. This is ours if we let him into our heart - and it is on offer for all of mankind. 

Meanwhile, a group of highly esteemed Wise Men called Magi set out from Babylon in the East, and these Babylonian scholars knew the Biblical scrolls that spoke of a coming Messiah. Babylonian philosophy and beliefs had been impacted by the Jewish prophet Daniel during the seventy year captivity of the Jews, and he had become a prophetic hero of both the Jewish and Babylonian cultures.  
These Wise Men would have seen an exceedingly bright star for some weeks in the eastern night sky (which is now known to have been a convergence of two great planets) and they had followed this great light to the region of the special birth and had been asking questions around Jerusalem about the birth of the new king of Israel. 

Their line of questioning and discussion came to the ears of the local ruler King Herod, who acted as an intermediary to Caesar, and he had become extremely threatened by the news of this supposed special child whose birth had been heralded by some shepherds and was being excitedly spoken about all over Judea. He also had some knowledge about the Scriptural prophesies about the birth of a Messiah or a new king to begin a new kingdom in the earth, but he was obsessed about creating his very own dynasty instead. So Herod secretly summonsed the Wise Men to his palace and told them the whereabouts of the region where they might find news of the child. He asked them to come back and inform him of the child’s exact location, telling them that he too wanted to worship this new king. All he needed to know was where to send his garrison of soldiers so that the child could be killed.

The Wise Men proceeded to follow the bright star and were guided to the house where Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus were still staying, and when the men were invited to see the child they went down on their knees and worshipped him and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
That same night an angel gave a message to the Wise Men in a dream warning them not to report back to Herod, so the men departed and returned to their homeland another way. After their departure the angel also appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt that night, and to stay there until he brought further word, warning him that Herod was seeking the young child to destroy him. 

Then Herod became infuriated, and he commanded a garrison of soldiers to go out and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its surrounding districts, from two years old and under. This tragic event was prophesied by Jeremiah; ‘In Rama a voice of weeping was heard and lamentation and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, unable to be comforted because of her loss. (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18)

Herod died soon after this, and the angel spoke to Joseph in another dream that it was now safe to leave Egypt, fulfilling another prophecy which was spoken through the prophet Hosea; ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son’ (Hosea 11:1). But when Joseph learned that the son of Herod, who now ruled in his father’s place, was as treacherous as his father, he was afraid to go back to the area, until the angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream and told him to go to a quiet lakeside village in Galilee where they would be safe. They came and settled in a city called Nazareth, fulfilling yet another prophesy, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’ (Matthew 2:23), and they settled there as a family for many years, where Jesus grew from a child into an adult. 

During this growing up time in the life of Jesus there is an account of one special incident when Jesus was twelve years old. His parents took him with a caravan of many other families to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, which they did every year (celebrating the saving of the lives of the firstborn and the supernatural deliverance of Israel out of Egypt). 
When they were on the journey home, and one day out from Jerusalem Mary and Joseph noticed that they had not seen Jesus for the whole day, and they supposed that he was with relatives and friends in the crowd, but when they asked around it was clear that he was not with the caravan, so they went back to Jerusalem to search for him. It was only on the third day that they finally found him in the Temple, astounding the teachers of the Law with the depth of his questions and the wisdom of his answers. Jesus said to his perplexed and distressed parents ‘didn’t you know that I had to be about my Father’s work?’ Jesus then went home with them and was subject to them, and the Bible says ‘Jesus grew and increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men. (Luke 2:52)

Jesus knew the fulness of his Heavenly Father’s love towards him, and that he was the one who would make that unlimited love available to all of us. He also knew the unlimited dedication of his Father toward him. It is one thing for us to know and realise through Jesus the love of our Father God, but it is another thing to know his unlimited dedication to us as well. Jesus was sent to express God’s dedication to us and to share it with all of us as people that he wants to live for and live with forever. 

There is an inbuilt capacity created by God in every human heart to desire to dedicate themselves to something greater than themselves that is be born out of true concern for a noble or virtuous cause, or to dedicate themselves lovingly to a relationship. But there is also an intense form of dedication to a harmful cause that is born out of resentment and vengeance against a perceived injustice. Our capacity for heartfelt dedication is but an echo of God’s great dedication to all of us as his own beloved human creation and this was totally lived out in his dedication to Jesus, who responded with his total dedication back to the Father. And Jesus gives us the grace to respond in dedication back to God. 

Within the heart of every person there also exists the fierce dedication of the Holy Spirit struggling to win our hearts for Jesus, and his struggle with the human soul results in mankind’s agony of inner conflict. That is the hidden and suppressed inner pain of a sad humanity. But real freedom from that pain comes with our acceptance of God’s relentless dedication to us. And out of that freedom comes our dedication back to God in giving ourselves to Jesus as a brother and friend and as our Lord and Saviour (John 15:15). 

 

 

 

GOD WITH US CHRISTMAS STORY

THE GOD WITH US CHRISTMAS STORY

God spoke to a man called Abraham two thousand years before Jesus was born a word of promise that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed, and the Hebrew nation that came from Abraham and that prophetic word of promise became the light that directed the path of the Hebrews.  That nation of Israel became the witness of God to the world through the covenant of the Law of Moses who established the temple worship and the temple priesthood. But for four hundred years before Jesus was born the light of the prophetic word to Israel and the supernatural witness of God through Israel to the world had ceased, resulting in a time of silence and darkness. 
But God was about to give both his light and his Word of the promise of blessing to the world in the most perfect way. Jesus who was and is the Word (logos) of God would become flesh and dwell with us and would become the light of truth and the supernatural witness of God to this world through his Son Jesus.

Father would send a divine seed of life from heaven, and He had chosen a young woman called Mary to receive that seed, which was to contain the full genetic potency of God’s love and goodness and truth, and he sent the angel Gabrielle to announce this amazing news to her. Mary was told by the angel that she had been chosen amongst all women on the earth to give birth to a child who was to be 'God with Us’ (Emmanuel), and that she was to call him Jesus. The Holy Spirit would shine his life over her and divine life from heaven would come alive in her womb, even though she was a virgin. 

The Angel also visited Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary, to whom Joseph was betrothed, had been chosen by God to give birth to a son, and that this was to be a divine work of The Holy Spirit who would cause a holy life to ignite within her being, fulfilling a prophecy in the Scriptures with which Joseph was familiar ‘A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name will mean ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14). 
The angel also told Joseph to go ahead with the marriage, and when Joseph awoke from his sleep he did as the Angel had commanded him.

In the meantime it came into the heart of Caesar Augustus to do a census and register every person in the known world. Everyone had to go to their place of birth to be registered, so Joseph had to take Mary back to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. 
Micah 5:2. "O Bethlehem, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!" God will allow the time to pass until she who is to give birth has her son. And he shall feed his flock in the strength of the Lord… and he will be greatly honoured throughout the world. He will be our Peace.
Joseph and Mary went to the right place at the right time for the birth of Jesus, fulfilling that seven hundred year old prophesy of his birthplace.

Joseph walked beside the donkey that carried his wife. He was getting weary and the journey was tiresome for Mary and he knew he had to get her to the place of his family’s household and stay in a guest-room, which was the custom. He had to get Mary out of the cold, as the time was getting close for her to give birth. They finally arrived at the family home where they were warmly welcomed and invited inside, but the house was overcrowded, and all the guestrooms were occupied. 
The word for guestroom in the Bible is kataluma, and this is the word for ‘Inn’, as in Luke 2:7 which states that ‘There was no room at the Inn’. But we are not talking about two travellers trying to book into a local tavern that had already filled its quota in a busy season (there is no ‘innkeeper’ in the Bible), and they did not have to go and look for a stable in some field up the road. What the story is saying is that Joseph and his wife would have to stay in the customary stable of the family home downstairs, that warm place where the animals slept and fed. 
Joseph settled Mary as quickly and gently as he could.  A mother travailed and a baby cried its cry of shock as it entered the world. The smile upon Father’s face in heaven was echoed by Joseph in the earth and became a laugh of joy, as he took on the privileged role of being the child’s earthly father. 
On earth it was the familiar scene of new birth. In the universe it was the most awesome supernatural birth in history. It was also ordained that this birth would become the most celebrated event for all time, celebrated annually by millions upon billions down through the ages, many of whom had no idea why or what they were really celebrating.
Nearby, where shepherds were looking after their sheep upon the hills a huge shining star having reached its zenith was lighting up the entire night sky. The shepherds looked up in wonder at this light and suddenly the lights of shining angels dazzled them and they became terrified and ran and huddled together. 
The Angel appeared above them, sent to tell them of the birth of Jesus. He told them not to be afraid, and that he had great and marvellous news for them, for all the world to hear. He told them that they would find a child, the newborn king of the universe, God the Saviour, wrapped in simple clothing in a nearby stable. Suddenly the angel was joined by a multitude of other angels as the brilliant night sky resounded with their voices singing, and they listened enraptured at the magnificent words. “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward Mankind (Anthropos)!" 
When the singing had stopped, and the angels had left, the shepherds found the place where this extraordinary event was taking place in the earth, and these simple shepherds became the messengers to the world of the birth of this child, this king of kings, and all who heard them were astounded and amazed.

Father had always planned for his son to bring forth a new Spiritual species of Mankind into the earth. Humanity has been known as ‘Homo Sapiens’ (Mankind + wisdom). But we could as it were, call this new species that had just come into being ‘homo Divinicus’ (Mankind + God) – God with us.
Now was the time for Jesus to become the pain of what human life had become, and to walk the path of its sorrow and its lost hope.  Jesus would lift Mankind as his brothers and sisters, into a place of shared friendship with The Three in One God. 
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish (apollymi – lose life, be penalised, mar, destroy, or waste life), but have everlasting life (take hold of his life within their inner being). For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn (penalise) the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16).
The condemnation (penalty) is living with the consequences of our wrong and harmful ways. Inner unbelief leads to outer wrongdoing.
John said ‘the light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were wrong and harmful’ (vs 19).
A wrong and harmful heart hides from the light of exposure to sin, just as Adam did when he first disobeyed God and hid from him. But God knew that the only way for the light of God and the love of God to be known by humanity was for them to know his forgiveness as he had given to Adam and Eve. 
And the good news is that this light of God’s truth and love and forgiveness has now entered the world through Jesus. 
The Bible says that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not charging their sins against them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation’. So our message to people of the good news about God in Jesus is that God’s true light of love and forgiveness is waiting for them to receive and believe and to live in. 

John said that Jesus ‘was the true Light that gives light to every man coming into the world. (John 1:9). This light would be contested by darkness - always, but Jesus overcame that darkness on the cross for all Mankind. And today the Holy Spirit takes on that contest of fighting against darkness in the minds of every person in the world. John wrote about Jesus telling his disciples that after he had gone to be with his father that he would send Holy Spirit to all mankind ‘And when the Helper (paracletos) has come, He will convict the world (kosmos) of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:7).’  The Holy Spirit became the partner alongside and within Jesus sharing in every moment of his human life, and he desires to bring the experience of the joining of his Divine Spirit life with our human spirit life and this experience is ours to receive and believe in through our faith and his grace.

God with us means more than just alongside us - it means he is within and through our being, and our faith lets us speak to him as a person, person to person. That means that the holy Spirit is taking what Jesus (the Logos – the Word) is bringing to each one of us as the whisper into our spirit of the wisdom and understanding of the mind and heart of God that we need in our walk with him. That becomes the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path. 
Christmas waits to be truly celebrated in this way. Without Christmas there is no way we could ever have known God and become one with him.