Tag Archive for 'mercy'

Jesus’ Confident Arrest

Published on 7/17/2010 in Bible Study. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .
[4] Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” [5] They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. [6] When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. [7] So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” [8] Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.”
(John 18:4-8 ESV)
Jesus is ready to go. He didn’t send Peter, James, and John to stall or slow down the army. He didn’t ask these questions to buy more time. He was ready to separate Himself from the 11 so that they could go free.
When Jesus says “I am He.” and all of the guys fall backward, I do too. That just blows me away. Some people use that verse to explain/justify being ‘slain in the Spirit’ I don’t even want to go there. It wasn’t the disciples, it was the army coming to kill Jesus. I don’t want to be grouped with them. This army wasn’t bowing down and worshiping, they were getting punked by the Lord of the Burning Bush and the power plant behind their heartbeat.
<added 7/17>
I was talking to Eric Youngblood last night and he said he thinks that Jesus just said “I Am” right there.
Think on that: <my narrative>
“Who are you seeking?” Jesus asked them over the sizzle of torches and the clanging of swords, shields and armor.
“Jesus of Nazareth” The commander of the legion shouted.
Jesus stepped forward, “The name [pause] is I Am.”
Nobody was sure if it was a strong wind, an earthquake, or a thunderclap that knocked the army backwards and onto their backs, but it was a full minute of confused, fowl-mouthed, scrambling before they had all gotten back up and approached Jesus again.
I wonder if any of the priest’s men thought about 2 Kings 1:10, when Elijah said, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down…” as they were getting knocked backward.
Jesus WANTS to reveal the fullness of the Father in ALL of His glory to all men. He gives these guys a chance to recognize who they are messing with.
Who do you want?
Jesus of Nazareth (just a man)
“I Am?” Jesus pronounces His title with the power veil up just a little bit, like pulling the curtain back just a tad to wake someone up that has slept in on a Saturday morning. In 2 Kings 1 the power veil was pulled up a little too far and the 50 soldiers were cooked.
Here is their chance to reconcile who this guy is. Who exactly are they messing with?
Whom do you want? What did you call me?
Jesus of Nazareth (still considering Him just a man)
“I am he.” Jesus fully veils the power of God and goes with them. They didn’t want to see it and so He didn’t force it on them. He could call down legions of angels for their destruction, or walk right through the crowd without getting touched, but that was not the Father’s plan that night, and Jesus knew it.

Jesus is the Ultimate Untopper/Topper

Published on 12/27/2009 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

All of the disciples are sitting around arguing about who is the best and who Jesus loves the most, all the time getting ready to eat the passover with dirty feet.

Jesus alone gets up to wash the feet, and surely nobody noticed what he was doing until He started, because no one questioned or protested until His activity was already in progress.

How could they have not even noticed what He was doing if He undressed and wrapped Himself in a towel!? you may ask. All I know is we miss a lot of what Jesus is doing when we are focused on ourselves.

Then Jesus begins to wash their feet, every one of them, and tells Peter, Afterward, you will understand. Jesus had told them that the greatest among them would be the servant of all, but they still hadn’t gotten it. They were still thinking like their contemporary rabbisserving themselves. Life, today too, is so much about prestige and position and authority levels, that they still hadn’t gotten out of thinking about others as greater than themselves. They had to be shown how to do it.

Once you’ve washed a person’s feet, I’m speaking literally here, you have pretty much degraded yourself to them as far as you can go. Even in today’s culture. It’s a pretty humiliating thing.

While the disciples were racing to the top, Jesus, their teacher and rabbi, was racing to the bottom. And not an overly pious, condescending ‘least of these’ position, but the real, tangible, scandalous low position.

The flipping irony of this whole thing, though, is that I’m sure the disciples, just like me, would then say, ok, that means if I want to be the greatest, I need to outserve everyone else! and then there would be a fight over the basin and towel to wash feet. Jesus was racing for the bottom, but His eyes were on the goal of loving the Father above. He wasn’t racing against others, he was just rushing to get to the Father.

The Father draws us, and attracts us to Him, but always desires to remain the goal, the destination, the end. He does not take pleasure in activity for the activity’s sake. Peter’s clean feet didn’t change anything, and Jesus’ washing activity or exact method of washing didn’t make anything magical or mysterious happen. It was Jesus, following the Father’s lead to show the disciples that they should serve each other and love each other, that taught and transformed the start of that final Passover meal.

John 13:15-17 (ESV) I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Lazarus of No Rank: Loved by Jesus

Published on 7/21/2009 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

John 11.3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

Something has to be said about Lazarus being loved by Jesus, a friend of Jesus, and NOT one of the disciples. Considering that the 12 are mentioned in several places and arguing about who would be the greatest and who would get to sit next to Jesus, here is a guy that is close to Jesus, but isnt literally following Him and isnt one of the 12.

I remember a guy asking me one time if I wanted to be one of the 12 or one of the 5000 that followed Jesus around. Now that I look back on the context of that, I see there was some pride in there. It was Jesus that called the 12 to be a part of the 12, but to Jesus, the rest werent second class. Those were the 12 for one reason, and the rest were the rest for different reasons.

Here is Lazarus, loved friend of Jesus, who lives with his sisters in Bethany and doesnt travel around to Gallilee etc. I think that says something to the pride of boasting Ill follow Jesus anywhere. because Lazarus was friends with Jesus just where he was.

Let us put off the boasting of who we follow or who saved us. Let us boast only in God. When a boy pees in his pants at school, he doesnt boast in what a good mom he picked when she brings him a clean pair. Neither should we boast in what a great God we picked when we were saved, but rejoice in Him that loves us, regardless of our rank or position in His kingdom.

The Earth and Its Events are Full of God’s Glory

Published on 7/14/2009 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

John 11.4 This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

As always, Jesus sees more to the situation than anyone else. He sees that Lazarus died for the glory of God, just like the storm came up in the middle of the night while the disciples were alone in the boat, and the little girl died, and all the people got hungry, and the bride and groom ran out of wine.

For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Rom 14:7-9 NIV)

This is where I get into that confusing zone of Gods sovereignty. How many things does God allow to happen and how many things does He MAKE happen. I have no idea, but the fact remains that everything we do is not just for ourselves and does not just concern ourselves. We live to the Lord and we die to the Lord. I know many times that I have been distracted during my Bible study time, only to meet some event in the day that I should have been spiritually prepared for and wasnt. I know many other times that whatever great Bible study I had / or prayer time, or whatever time with God was a direct prep and teach time for the thing that happened during the day.

(Or the next several days. I was memorizing James 1 days before we flew across the Atlantic on an 8 hour flight and David was about 14 months old and threw up for the last 6 of those hours. It was quite a trial, and all I could think about was Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.)

So Lazarus didnt MEAN to get sick and die, but it happened for Gods glory. I dont want to say that God made it happen, because that takes me into areas that I just dont have evidence to make a conclusion about. But either way, like so many other things, Jesus turned a circumstance into an arrow to Gods glory.

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.
(Is 6:3 NIV)

If the whole EARTH is full of His glory, how much more so would be every event, circumstance, situation. May God give us eyes to see that in the midst of our daily activities!

It’s Hard to Learn that Mercy Wins Over Judgment

Published on 7/2/2009 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

John 10.37-38 ESV “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

Jesus can see that it is too much of a stumbling block for these guys to see who He is, so He almost appeals to their supposed faith in God. They are saying He has a demon and Jesus is saying, If you arent going to believe me, at least believe that the things that are happening (blind see, lame walk, lepers healed, good news preached to the poor) are from God. If you wont believe that Im from God, at least believe that My works are!
In some amazing way, Jesus all at once is lowering the criteria and making it easier to come to the Father, just by believing in these works. At the same time though, He raises the bar and makes it more difficult to come to Him, because He states that He is equal to the Father. That forces us to change inside. You cant just do motions and activities on the outside and reconcile those two things.
The people want to shout that Jesus is the King and make Him their ruler, but the acts of mercy and compassion to Gentiles and ROMANS dont fit with them. The Pharisees really do want to see the Messiah come (as they understand the Messiah) but they dont want people healed on the Sabbath because that breaks their laws and keeps the Messiah away.
Jesus forces their hand and ours to see double. He IS equal to God, and His works are FROM God, even if they are done on the Sabbath, even if they are done to Romans, even if they are done to unclean women that steal the healing.

God Makes the Filthy Beautiful

Published on 3/20/2009 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

In Ezekiel 16, God talks about finding Israel out in the field as he was passing by. She was lying in her blood-a newborn whose cord hadnt even been cut. This was the ancient method of abortion, to have the baby and then dump it in a field. They didnt even bother cutting the cord because if they were just going to let the thing die, why bother taking any care of it at all. The child and the placenta were treated with the same care. How awful.

I have seen the scarring, dismembering effects of poor medical care. Numerous people in poverty all over the world are crippled, blind, deaf, or dead simply because a completely preventable illness was not treated properly. I know a guy in Africa that had a little girl in his neighborhood that was being left to die of malaria. She was still a part of the family, etc, but they were just going to let her die in her fever. He paid the 72 for the medicine and she was treated and has now lived on for years.

So here is Israel, dumped out from the beginning in a field and left to die, and God cares for her. Not only that, but she blossoms into beauty. This girl should have been disfigured and scarred at the least from her poor care, but God cared for her to such an extent as to help her grow up beautiful too.

Twice God cleans Israel from her uncleanliness. First it is the uncleanliness of birth, second the uncleanliness of maturity (menstruation). Israel needed purifying at the beginning as they got rid of their Egyptian ways and idol dependance, but they needed cleaning again once they became a mature nation (actually they needed it again and again and again) so that they could be the Mother of Blessing to the whole world. (dont freak out-just keeping in the metaphor. Im not into that God is our Mother garbage.)

Israel needed to mature and be united with God, but as she matured she grew into new forms of uncleanliness. God purified her from those and cleaned her up, now not just making her a beautiful child but a beautiful bride.

Im going to stop there for today, because what Israel did after all of that is heartbreaking, and much more so when you realize what great things God has done.

Of course, its all a DIRECT parable into our lives. Who of us, when lost and without God, was anything more than a bloody child abandoned in a field? And who of us, after being picked up by God our Savior, has not been cleaned up and made beautiful? (even if, in the case of some of us, only in His sight :P )

The Ultimate, Fearless, Sovereign, Power Over Enemies, Grace of God shown in Jesus

Published on 10/4/2008 in Bible Study and Urbia. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

I talked with a guy yesterday morning for a while about Judas being hand-picked by Jesus. I am overwhelmed at the true meaning of sovereignty shown by Jesus. One of THE TWELVE is a devil and He doesnt flee or try to take him out! He actually shows him a LOT of mercy.

He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
(Matt 10:1-4 NIV)

Jesus gave JUDAS authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness!

What if we followed Jesus as His disciples, ones that imitate Him, and followed Him down this path?! He chooses men to follow Him, knowing full well that one of them will betray Him with a betrayal that results in His death. I can just imagine if Peter knew about it in advance.
No Lord, he must not come with us. Youll die! says Peter
Simon, Simon, Jesus replies, dont you know that it is written

Psa. 55:12 If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him.
Psa. 55:13 But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend,
Psa. 55:14 with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng at the house of God.

And

Psa. 41:5 My enemies say of me in malice, When will he die and his name perish?
Psa. 41:6 Whenever one comes to see me, he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander; then he goes out and spreads it abroad.
Psa. 41:7 All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me, saying,
Psa. 41:8 A vile disease has beset him; he will never get up from the place where he lies.
Psa. 41:9 Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

So often it seems like we make decisions on the basis of our safety. Especially down here in our neighborhood. Too many times I think I make a decision on who to serve based on whether I can trust them or not, or whether they will be faithful and repay me for what I did for them, either in respect or kindness to my family or openness to Jesus.

But Jesus shows mercy completely free. He gave spiritual gifts to Judas so that the news of The Kingdom would go out, even though His messenger would betray Him to death! I think of giving a beggar some money out of fear of him coming back or guilt that he sees me in my house with all of my riches. Jesus would give to that beggar much more than my little $5 giftcard to McDonalds, and know full well that the next day that beggar would be shouting for His execution.

The grace of God blows me away once again. I want that fearless, not-withholding grace power in my life!

Love without Labels

Published on 2/14/2008 in Bible Study. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers,(Heb 13:1-2 NIV)

This passage says continue the philadelphia, but dont neglect the philoxenia.

Philadelphia is the love of the brothers, those from the same family.

Philoxenia is the love of the strangers, those that are outsiders.

I think its interesting that the NIV and the KJV both leave out a big section of the original greek here that says basically:

love strangers and outsiders, unless they take away your jobs, disgust you, or dont fit in with your way of life.

You know why the NIV and KJV leave that out? Its a conspiracy. Because its not in there. We are to love our enemies and strangers just like they are family.

I remember one time I had a friend that had to travel by land across several former Soviet countries to get his Visa renewed. His wife and daughter lived in the country we were in, and he had to go across about 12 countries to go to his native land and renew his visa.

Upon leaving country #1 (Ill say the first country) he was detained for no apparent reason and spent about 24 hours in a shack on the border. He had no food, and he wondered what was going to happen to him. The next day, when they realized he could pay them no bribe, they sent him onward. We didnt hear from him for days and days and we wondered what ever happened to him.

Then one day I went to the market, and went around the corner, and there he was! Do you know what joy I had in seeing him?! I was OVER joyed. I gave him a big hug and even though neither of us shared a common language he motioned and talked and said he had just gotten back the day before.

I had brotherly love for him. I feared for his life and for his wife and daughter in this strange land. I told my wife, later, what if whenever we saw someone, we greeted them like we greeted Sly today? For one, people would probably think we were pretty weird.

But then, what if we greeted all visitors, even STRANGErs, with a joyful reception?

Love your brothers, but dont neglect loving the strange.