daily java

Daily Java:

As Jesus and the disciples left the town of Jericho, a large crowd followed behind. Two blind men were sitting beside the road. When they heard that Jesus was coming that way, they began shouting, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “Be quiet!” the crowd yelled at them. But they only shouted louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” When Jesus heard them, he stopped and called, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord,” they said, “we want to see!” Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes. Instantly they could see! Then they followed him.  (Matthew 10:29-33)

Nothing interrupts a good gospel sermon more than people wanting to apply God to their lives.

Here you are preaching away, giving great exegeses, good examples, all that, and someone interrupts asking for application to real life. The problem is that most preachers have trouble applying what they say to real life. To them, as it is to much of their audience, the sermon they are preaching is academic, a presentation of the word of God.

And many have adopted this approach to listening to a sermon. It is full of information, but lacks any real power in life.

A crowd is following Jesus, listening to him, but a couple of men get very vocal desiring a personal touch from God. The rest of the group is busy listening or visiting with each other, having fellowship.

The two blind men begin shouting for Jesus to see them. They are making a scene and people are getting annoyed at them. The crowd begins to yell back at them. “Be quiet.”

This just had the effect of amplifying the men’s desire to get to Jesus. The more people tried to get them to be quiet, the louder they got. They didn’t want sermons. They wanted Jesus.

Finally Jesus hears them and asks them what they want. They want to see. All they wanted was something basic and down to earth. They didn’t want wealth or position of power or glory. They just wanted to see.

Jesus healed them and then they became his followers.

Good sermons have their place, as does teaching. But Jesus himself said that he did not come to teach, but to seek and save the lost (Luke 19). His message was not an academic one, to be looked at and studied and dissected.

It was a message that was meant to be hands on, to be applied to people’s lives. When the men were touched by Jesus, they followed him.

They had heard of him, obviously believed in his power, but they needed a personal encounter with him. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Everyone comes to Jesus differently. Some people accept and believe easily. Others need the personal encounter. Some resist all their lives and finally come to him. Others come early.

But without the hands on part of the gospel, the gospel becomes nothing but schoolwork, nothing but words.

When God touches you through Jesus, then it becomes real.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. “What is your request?” he asked. She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. My Father has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.” When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  (Matthew 20:20-28)

People were always asking Jesus for things. And many times, what they wanted was an inside tip, or a favor that benefited themselves. The apostles were no different.

The apostles were also jealous of each other in this new relationship and were afraid that they might miss out on some kind of power in the new kingdom.

Jesus had just gotten through telling the apostles that he was going to Jerusalem soon to be put to a rather brutal death. They heard it as it went in one ear and out the other. That wasn’t because they were stupid, but rather, it was more on the order of denial.

They had already decided how the kingdom would probably be laid out. Jesus would be the warrior king and they would all be his generals. They would have command over large armies themselves and would have a lot of power. People would respect and love them.

Now the problem was, which of them was going to be in charge of the others. After all, Jesus needed at least one five star general. James and john decided to strike while the iron was hot. Since Jesus is talking about all this maybe ending and (at least in their minds) the kingdom being established, they needed to get the authority thing settled right now.

This passage has James and John’s mother asking Jesus for the positions of leader for her sons. Mark 10:35 has James and John themselves. More than likely, they took their mother along because they knew Jesus liked her or something. It is also hard for a guy to turn down a sweet old woman.

So she asked: would you a do me a real big favor? Jesus said, what is it? She said, let my sons be in charge of all the other apostles in your kingdom.

What a coup for her sons. They had sneaked around all the other apostles and now would be the undisputed leaders of the group. Surely Jesus couldn’t turn down their mother.

Instead Jesus asked: are you sure you know what you are asking? Are you ready to drink from the cup of suffering I am about to drink from?

James and John assured him that they were able. They would be the noble apostle leaders that everybody knew were strong and courageous, standing beside their leader in whatever happened next. Of course, they had no idea what would happen next, and quite frankly, neither did their mother. If she had known, she would have grabbed then and run.

Jesus answer was: well, stick around and you will drink from it alright. But he also said he didn’t have the power to appoint leaders like that. That belonged to God. The Father had prepared these things.

Then it kind of turned on the two apostles. The rest got mad when they found out that James and John had tried an end run around them to get control. There was always within the apostles a tension. Jesus had already kind of singled Peter out, but there was no clear cut leader of the twelve, except for Jesus.

Jesus then tells them that their attitude is that of the world. People in the world fight over control and people in the world that are in control abuse it.

But this new kingdom will have a different paradigm. The leaders will be servants, and the servants will lead. When it comes down to it, Jesus came to serve and to sacrifice even his own life. He had already sacrificed his deity and his place in heaven until the end, as 1 Corinthians 15 says.

And if he did it this way, and he is the undisputed Leader, then how could his followers do any different?

The sad thing is, they did this one more time, on the day before his death. And not only that, but people have tried for two thousand years to be “in charge” to the point of even tearing up the church to get control.
How it probably hurt then and how it probably does today.

daily java

Daily Java:

Who may climb the mountain of the LORD?
      Who may stand in his holy place?
 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure,
      who do not worship idols
      and never tell lies.
 They will receive the LORD’s blessing
      and have a right relationship with God their savior.
 Such people may seek you
      and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:3-6)

It is not what we do that saves us, it is who we are.

Who are the ones who will stand before God? Those, he says, that have clean hands and pure hearts, who have remained loyal to him in spite of what the world demands, who keeps his ethics true.

Coming to the world is not something that we earn, or something we accomplish. Yes, the Christian life is hard and it is, as the apostle Paul said, a fight.

But there is a mindset that the Christian has that is what saves him. It is not his actions, because all sin. Everybody has already made too many mistakes to be saved on merit. The few things we can do in this short life can never be enough to merit, or earn, eternity with God.

So what is the point? The point is that it is our attitudes, our mindsets, our character that saves us. It is the condition of our hearts that brings us close to God.

Those are the ones who have the proper relationship with the Lord. Those are the ones who seek him. Otherwise, we just seek what it is that we can do, what we can accomplish in him.

It is he who saves. When we recognize that, it takes all the pressure off of what we have to do. And we recognize that he loves us, even when we fail.

But as long as we are trying, as long as we are making the effort, we have his heart.

And he has ours.

recovering the pastre

Once I was young, and now I am old. (Psalm 37:25)

1969 is 43 years ago. And I forget that because it was my life and I remember it.

But it came to mind when I was looking at something related to the Monkees. I got to thinking about them so I went to Wikipedia to see if they had anything interesting on them. And they did.

I read that Peter Tork was the first to get tired of the Monkees format and bought the four remaining years of his contract out. Mike Nesmith went next.

Their problem? Lack of any say in their music and the fact that all they could see for the next four years was more of the same: silly Monkees dancing around.

But as I read, it dawned on me that I was reading about music history. This was music history as surely as Mozart was music history.

Now the Monkees and Mozart were not necessarily equivalent, but they were both in the past and will not come up again like they did. There will be and have been imitations of both the Monkees and Mozart, but the Monkees and Mozart are gone now. The three guys that perform as the Monkees look like old versions of themselves and, quite frankly, a little pathetic.

Not long ago I read two things that really struck me. One was a young man bitterly complaining about the “cultural death grip” the boomer generation had on music. He wanted new stuff, although I cannot see what could possibly replace it from the music around today.

I am a music lover who will listen to any kind of music, at least for a few times. But there is nothing out there that they will play in grocery stores in fifty years like they play oldies now. There will be no stations dedicated to millennium music like there are to classic rock and roll.

So when the “cultural death grip” stops, so will a lot of musical quality.

I realize I say that like an older adult, like they did during our youth. But the thing was, there was a great volume of good music behind us also. 1920’s ragtime, 1930’s big band, 1940’s swing, 1950’s seminal rock and roll – it all stood behind us as good music and I still listen to it, as do many, today.

But somewhere in the early 1990’s music took a turn for the worst. The musicians and the music both became ugly.

Now I know that none of the rockers I listen to were angels, but even so, there is an ugliness to music today that seems to be purposeful. It is as if the musicians and the audience to which they play were nihilistic to the extreme.

It is no wonder so many kids are angry that music has turned from the 60’s. It is amazing at the amount of kids I see and read that want it to be the way it was then, sometimes thirty years before they were born. With all of its attendant problems, there was a sweetness and an innocence then that is gone today.

The second thing I read was in a novel. A character died, and the main character said: “And he was as dead as Napoleon.” The man had just that second died, but as far as his life went, he was in the same boat as Napoleon, Caesar, Moses, Adam. Once you die, you die.

And the same goes with history. Once it is gone, it is history. All the things I did as a young man are all in history books. The music I listened to, the clothing I wore, the food I ate.

There are whole webpages devoted to chronicling the 1960’s and 1970’s, harking back to it as a golden era. I agree, but that is because it is my golden era.

But we cannot go back to it. All we can do is press forward. As the apostle Paul said, in Philippians 3:13-14: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

We cannot go back, no matter how badly we want to. We cannot recover our youth, we cannot recover the culture we had, we cannot recover the music. And when we try, we look like a bunch of goofy old men trying to pretend that we are a 1960’s young, vibrant, beloved rock group.

daily java

Daily Java:

The LORD is my shepherd;
      I have all that I need.
He lets me rest in green meadows;
      he leads me beside peaceful streams.
   He renews my strength.
   He guides me along right paths,
      bringing honor to his name.
Even when I walk
      through the darkest valley,
   I will not be afraid,
      for you are close beside me.
   Your rod and your staff
      protect and comfort me.
You prepare a feast for me
      in the presence of my enemies.
   You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
      My cup overflows with blessings.
Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
      all the days of my life,
   and I will live in the house of the LORD
      forever. (Psalm 23)

Rare is the person who has not heard this psalm, at least in the old King James Version.

I suppose that the reason is that it answers a need, touches a chord that we all have: a need for the presence of God in our lives.

Few people really like being alone. The vast majority of people want to know that there is someone there, someone who cares for them, who loves them, who watches over them.

I read about the mountain men, and sometimes the lifestyle appeals to me. The idea of being by yourself, seeing beautiful country, independence.

But that independence comes at a price. The price is loneliness. Those men were truly alone. There was no one within miles of them who even cared that they lived, or loved them, or even noticed them.

I know in my life that my wife loves me. She cares for me on a level that even my mother doesn’t. But there will come a time when she is gone. There will come a time when it is probable that I will be by myself.

But I can know that even then, I will not be alone. The Lord will be with me. He will care, he will notice, he will love me.

All earthly relationships, no matter how good, will one day cease. But I can know that I will one day live in his house forever.

daily java

Daily Java:

So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
“At last!” the man exclaimed.
           “This one is bone from my bone,
 and flesh from my flesh!
 She will be called ‘woman,’
because she was taken from ‘man.’”
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:21-24)

To the day I die, I will never forget taking my new wife into the hotel room as a new married couple.

We got married in January of 1971. We planned our honeymoon in Galveston. But, of course, being Texas, it was not going to be real cold. Besides, we didn’t plan to spend a lot of time on the beach.

The reception seemed to last forever. We opened a couple of thousand presents and ate cake and punch and stuff, but I was through. I was ready to go.

We finally got away. She put on her trousseau – a plaid outfit with a little cape – and she was ready to go, too. The two married people got into our Ford Galaxie 500 and took off for Galveston.

I hadn’t gotten my suitcase, which for some reason irritated Ella. I guess she was wanting to see me prepared fully and I was never that kind of guy. Ha! Showed her.

After going to my parents’ house in Texas City for the suitcase (it was on the way to Galveston, what’s the big deal?), we drove to Galveston. Since it was lunch time, we stopped at a restaurant across the street, kind of, from the hotel and had lunch.

The waitress asked Ella if she knew she had rice in her hair. Ella, for some reason, was suddenly tremendously embarrassed.

When we finished, we went to the hotel. The hotel was a fancy one (or at least to my pedestrian experiences). It was the Flagship Hotel and was built on a pier out into the Gulf. All of the rooms had water exposure.

The hotel, for three days and two nights, set me back $50. That was a little less than $20 a night with some room service and all thrown in. To a GI in 1971, that was an enormous amount of money. I think I probably only made $150 a month, if that much. But when we got married, she would get a special allowance too, so we would have enough to live.

Checking in was strange. Would they require proof of marriage to give us a room together, would we have trouble, all the usual questions came to mind. They didn’t and we didn’t, but even so, we went almost furtively to our room.

Of course, this was Galveston. The social mores and attitudes in Galveston were different than many parts of Texas. This was, after all, a town in which most of the inhabitants went around more than half naked in the summer.

We came in the room. It was pretty good sized as I recall, with a sliding glass door overlooking the Gulf. The bed was enormous.

Needless to say, we woke up the next morning to a sunny day. She discovered something amazing about me that night. That was that I liked to sleep with the sliding glass door open, even though it was the middle of the winter.

It was a bit of a sticking point, but we made it. We went to church that morning and it was the first time I introduced her as my wife. I messed it up, of course. My name is Johnny Cliver and  this is my wife, Ella Mochman – I mean Cliver.

We had pizza for lunch, she burned her lip. Room service hamburgers that night watching the Bill Cosby Show. She went into a crying jag that baffled me, but got over it. Just the stress of the weekend.

The next day we came back to life and began our journey together.

I have never regretted marrying her. We have had problems and difficulties, usually made by me, but we have been married for a long time. And I like it.

daily java

Daily Java:

At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.” Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. (Matthew 17:14-20)

The apostles had some new found power given them by God. And they got to where they were kind of proud of it and of their positions as right hand men to the Messiah. When a man came to them with a boy possessed by a demon, the disciples tried to cast it out themselves. “No need to worry the Rabbi. We’ll take care of it for you. After all, we are his assistants.”

And they were. But in this case, as in a couple of others throughout the gospels, they came up rather short. All of the praying and calling on God, all of the jumping around did nothing. The boy remained stubbornly in the grip of the demon.

Jesus came by and cast the demon out, releasing the boy from his torment. Jesus’ response to the man when he told him that his disciples couldn’t anything about it was rather odd. It was a rebuke for their faithlessness and wondering out loud how long he was going to have to put up with this foolishness.

From what we have read about the apostles, they were probably chagrined. Here was their chance to shine, to show people that God was on their side. People would see their own power and that God really loved them.

But it was ashes. They came up short in front of everyone. And then they also came up short in front of Jesus. Jesus threw the demon out easily.

Why could we not do it, they asked. Jesus’ answer: your faith was in the wrong place. Your faith was in yourselves and not in God, in your own power, not in God’s power. You couldn’t do it because you relied on your own relationship with God rather than God himself.

We forget that it is God that is great, not us. We are only great inasmuch as God allows us to be great. And power we have is from him. As 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 says: We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.

Anything we can do is from God, not from ourselves. And as long as we remember that, we do well. It is our faith in God that keeps us going, our faith in his ability, not our own, that matters.

It really doesn’t matter how much you believe in yourself. What matters is how much you believe in God and in his power.

penny adams

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!

(Revelation 14:13)Penny Adams, a lady I baptized a couple of years ago in Lincoln, NE, died today. She was in her late 70’s and a painfully thin woman. She had a rough life before she came to know the church and soon afterwards, the Lord.

She was a large woman, from all I heard, who started losing weight. By the time I knew her, she was down to 85 or so pounds. She had left Lincoln to move to Stroud, OK, to be with her family.

But she had such a sweet and giving spirit. She was always cheerful and loved being with her church family.

She was one of the four ladies who went from Lincoln to the Ladies Convention in 2009 and she had such a good time. She had received some money for something and was able to pay her own way and the way of a couple of other ladies and was so pleased.

She was in ill health the whole time I knew her. And sometimes it was painful to even look at her, she was so thin. But she was so large in spirit.

I really liked Penny. She is with her Lord now. May he receive her and bless her with his presence.

daily java

Daily Java:

From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him[i] for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”  (Matthew 16:21-23)

Peter was only trying to help. Jesus began to talk about the fact that he was going to have to die. And before he died, he would suffer.

Peter, who had grown to love Jesus, tried to get him to quit. He told him that he really didn’t need to do all this. He told him here and other places that he himself would stop people who were coming to hurt Jesus.

The problem was, Jesus was human. And the human side didn’t want to go through all this. You can see that in the Garden of Gethsemane. At that point, he asks God rather plaintively if there is any other way he could do all this. But as he said there, your will, not mine.

He knew that no matter how bad it would be, it was part of the eternal plan. It was, after all, why he came in the first place. He didn’t come to heal, or to preach, or to do miracles. He came to bring the lost back to God. And to do that he had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He had to die.

But Peter suggesting he could help Jesus get out of something he didn’t want to do was too much for Jesus. It was the same as the devil in the desert who tried to get him to make bread out of stones because he was hungry.

Those kind of suggestions he didn’t need because the human side began to consider them.

So he told Peter something that hurt Peter pretty badly: Get away from me, Satan!

You can imagine Peter recoiling in surprise. Satan? Me? All I was trying to do was help. And he was just trying to help. But his help would have subverted the whole plan and Jesus just didn’t need it nor want it.

Peter only saw things from a human point of view. And that was natural. Jesus needed someone to realize what he was here for.

Peter tried two more times to help Jesus. He told him that even though everybody would turn, he would never turn. And he pulled out a sword to help fight when Jesus was arrested. At that time Jesus took the wind right out of his sails by stopping him. That was the last straw for Peter and he ran away.

How often he must have thought about these things when he was older and had more perspective on it all.

being single

But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another. (1 Corinthians 7:7)

Whenever I check my mail on yahoo.com, I always get a chance to check out all the 50+ singles in the Boonville area. According to the window, there is a plentitude and they are all dying to meet me.

And I seem to be getting a lot of this. Not long ago, I got a message in my mailbox to meet other young, Christian, black singles. My thought was: I am only one out of four. I am neither young nor black nor single. Other than that, I guess they hit it.

As I read about our culture, and I do a lot, it strikes me that the singles world is totally different than when I was single – somewhere in the late 1800’s, I think. When I was single, the guy asked a girl for a date and they went out for usually a dinner and movie. There were few if any complications. Of course, that was assuming (if you were a guy) you had a car and gas and money for a dinner and movie (and a girlfriend) or (if you were a girl) a guy called you.

The onus in such a situation was totally on the guy. The girl may pace the floor waiting for the stupid idiot to call (and when he did, he was beautiful and she was glad), but the pressure was on the guy.

Now dating (or whatever it may be called today) seems to be a minefield. All of the social constructions are gone and nobody knows quite what to do.

I cannot imagine getting to know someone on a dating service, nor can I imagine speed dating (a bunch of women and a bunch of men who spend three minutes talking, then number the ones that they are interested in afterwards).

Nor can I imagine meeting a person like that over the internet. My brother found a girl from Russia and met her, courted her and finally went over and got her – all off the internet. We, of course, were excited (that was sarcasm). She turned out okay, but we were worried.

I have not been single for forty-one years and cannot imagine being so. Having to meet a girl (or woman, that is. I am 62), getting to know her, going through the aforementioned minefield that is dating even in a normal situation, and then taking the plunge. Quite frankly, I was hyper-fortunate the first time. The flaming lightning of love (cool phrase, huh?) will probably not strike twice.

And I would hate dating. And older singles have it even worse. Many times they have kids, so the one thing they do not want is the wicked stepmother or the pedophile or something like that feared by all daters.

And who really wants to be single? Alone? People get used to it, but almost all single people admit that if the right person comes along they will jump at them.

The apostle Paul was single, for whatever reason, and he knew it was fine for a preacher who got beat up everywhere he went. He had no room for a wife in his life.

But I am grateful that I met my wife and she loved me. But man, it would be a stone bummer, a real drag to try to score a chick like that again. I would freak out, man (that was the way we all talked when last I was single. Heavy, huh?). Groovy.

daily java

Daily Java: Later, after they crossed to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any bread. “Watch out!” Jesus warned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “You have so little faith! Why are you arguing with each other about having no bread? Don’t you understand even yet? Don’t you remember the 5,000 I fed with five loaves, and the baskets of leftovers you picked up? Or the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves, and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up? Why can’t you understand that I’m not talking about bread? So again I say, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’” Then at last they understood that he wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matthew 15:5-12)

The apostles suffered from miracle overload. There were so many things happening to them that they had trouble assimilating them all. And it is easy for us to sit here after looking at the New Testament through the filter of 2000 years of theological interpretation and condemn them for it.

But what if it were you? And what if you were seeing all this and hearing all this for the first time in your life, the first time ever? No one had ever heard or seen the things you were seeing or hearing before. It is the first time.

You would have overload too.

Immediately preceding this, the apostles had seen the mighty power of God through Jesus. Jesus had fed 5000 men and their families with a little fish and bread. And then he did the same for 4000. He also walked on water out to where the apostles were busy drowning in a storm. Three really big miracles that they not only got to see, but to participate in interactively.

So what do they do? They worry because they forgot to pack a lunch. Jesus kind of compounds the problem by telling them to watch out for what the Pharisees and Sadducees do. He called it their yeast. Their actions moved into Jewish society like yeast moves into dough. But unlike yeast, what they did was detrimental to the Jews. Jesus said, watch out for them. They are tricky.

They think he is griping because they forgot lunch. Even though this was somewhat uncharacteristic of  Jesus, still that is what they thought. And they started blaming each other for the mistake.

It seems that the tension among the apostles to be “in charge” and the favorite was strong. It is in any group. I know it was in the seminary I attended. Everybody wanted to be the leader and the “most spiritual.” Nobody came out and actually said that but it was true. And no one would acknowledge that I was. Bummer.

But Jesus gets tired of them. He says, “Look. I fed 5000 plus people with just a handful of food, just a couple of days ago. Then I fed 4000 more. And you saw me. You ate the leftovers. I walked on water out to where you were and saved your lives from the storm. I have done all this stuff and still you worry about lunch?

“The Pharisees and the Sadducees worry about lunch in the middle of blessing. You are infected by their thinking. They cannot see the good things for the things they want. You are thinking like they are, not like people of God.”

You know they were embarrassed. And they probably shut up for a while, feeling somewhat chagrined. They had missed the whole point of what Jesus was doing and only saw the surface, just like the religious leaders Jesus talked about. Those guys were so intent on their own agenda that they missed the beauty of God’s unfolding purpose. They stood in the midst of spiritual plenty and worried about lunch.

The apostles would do it again, much to their dismay. They would all run when Jesus was arrested. But one day it would dawn on them and they would realize. And then they would be the people God wanted and needed, strong and mighty in the kingdom.

daily java

Daily Java:

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” (Matthew 15:12-14)

The old catchphrase was WWJD. What would Jesus do? What would he do if someone was offended?

It is very easy to offend someone when you are a preacher. You say something that happens to hit home to someone and they are mad. “You were preaching to me!” they whine.

And you were, of course. You didn’t know it, but the Spirit did. And the Spirit connected with their spirit and they made a connection. But instead of hearing it and recognizing the need to change, they tried to shoot the messenger.

Many a preacher has had his ministry cut short because he said something that offended someone. They got mad, went to the elders, or council, or board or each other and talked about it, built it up. Then, in revenge and retribution at the preacher’s utter gall in preaching about things they needed to hear, they have him fired.

The Pharisees (the conservative Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day) got mad because Jesus didn’t do something that they had decided centuries ago was a necessary tradition. It was ceremonial handwashing, a small thing, but as far as they were concerned, on a par with the Ten Commandments. After all,, they had decided to do it and now it was enshrined in the annals of tradition. “We have always done it that way.”

They confronted Jesus with his “sin,” or his lack of obeisance to their traditions. Jesus said, in essence, “So what?”

Then he went so far as to tell them that their traditions didn’t matter and that they were giving God false worship: that of lipservice with no heart behind it.

They got deeply offended. The apostles felt themselves trapped between the man on one side that they knew was from God and their own traditions and authority figures on the other. It scared them and they told Jesus.

His response? Ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.

In other words, they do not know what they are talking about and anybody who listens to them will not know what God wants either. As leaders they are worthless, Jesus said.

Strong words. And if Jesus had been the pastor of a church, he would have been fired.

Someone has a complaint that is foolish. You know it is foolish and everyone else does too. But this person is an influential member of the church. They are important. They give a lot, they are charter members, they have a big position in the community that is such that their displeasure will reflect badly on the church.

In other words, they are mad and will hurt the church rather than admit they were wrong.

This is not talking about someone who is confused and earnestly seeking the word and will of God. This is talking about someone who is used to having his or her way and suddenly some preacher tells them they are wrong.

WWJD? He would ignore them. Hard words and a hard thing to do for a preacher, but true nonetheless. He never gave in to people who were just trying to get their way. He came to do the will of the Father who sent him (John 5:30).

I have had an otherwise good work destroyed because an old woman got mad at me for something I said that she disagreed with. I did what Jesus did, but I had to recognize that I also suffered as Jesus did.

When he did this, they killed me. When I did it, they killed my ministry there at that church.

So if we do what Jesus did, we have to be ready to suffer the consequences just as he did.

daily java

Daily Java:

As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. That evening the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “That isn’t necessary—you feed them.” “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” they answered. “Bring them here,” he said. Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children! (Matthew 14:13-21)

It was time to eat and there were no places to go to get food, so Jesus fed them. It was pretty simple in some ways. He was the Son of God. He could do so if he wanted.

But there was a point to this. The point was that the power of God through Jesus and through us is great enough to take care of the situation and to take care of us too.

How were they going to feed all those people? They only had a little food – one of the other gospels said it was a little boy who had it. Probably he was selling food through the crowd. That was a common thing, vendors following the crowds that followed Jesus.

Jesus said, well buy some food. they didn’t have enough money, or enough food on hand for 5000 men and their wives and children.

What will they do? Everybody will starve and die and the name of Jesus will be besmirched.

Jesus takes what food is there and makes it enough for everyone. Then has twelve baskets left over.

His point? I can make enough for everybody, no matter what the situation.

And not only that, I can have enough left over to take care of my disciples. There were all these people and he fed them. And there was enough left over for the twelve apostles.

Jesus said to his disciples, I can take care of all these people and still have enough left over for you. Why should you worry about being in my service?

Jesus said, in essence, do not worry about food or clothing. You will have enough. You may not have other things, but the basic needs of life will be there.

God will take care of you when you need it.

the tygers outside the box

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

At the men’s group yesterday, someone was talking about being put into a box in certain churches. There were things you could do, areas in which you could grow, but beyond that you had to stop.

It was almost like those old maps of centuries ago that had the known world outlined. Then there was the unknown world. In those sections, since no one knew what was there, someone would write “Here be tygers.”

They were afraid to go where they did not know what they would find.

The same is true with many churches. There are certain areas you can pursue, but do not go outside those areas. There are certain doctrines you can study, but don’t study too far. There may be tygers. And they are afraid of your letting tygers in.

Being put in a box always irritated me. I always felt there was somewhere I could go that I had not been before. I was always one with itchy feet, who wanted to see what was beyond the next hill, over the next mountain, down this road.

But I was raised in an extremely restrictive denomination. There were boundaries carefully laid out that you were not allowed to go beyond. It was not that someone had made a hard and fast rule, but it was an assumed thing, an unwritten code.

However, even though I was so restricted, even getting two degrees in this group, I still felt the need to grow further than they wanted. I wanted to see the tygers.

But I had to accept the consequences of doing so. That is the problem, of course. If you want to do the stuff that you deem to be interesting, you also have to take the flak for doing so.

And I grew. In fact I grew to a point that I grew out of that denomination and a lot of others. But I found freedom. I found the Spirit and I found freedom.

Finding the Spirit doesn’t necessarily just mean speaking in tongues and all that. I have known many who did that and more but were more restricted than I was in my first denominational home.

And it doesn’t mean that I unlocked all the mysteries of the age and stood head and shoulders above all others theologically. There is, after all, no way one can learn the mind of God fully. To think so is arrogance.

But the point is, even though I was in a box, I still grew. I took off that box and put on another, but had to realize after a while that I didn’t need a box. What I needed was God.

When I found him, he opened my box and gave me freedom in his Spirit.

I like this church. It is an open church that allows me to think my weird thoughts and even teach some of them on Sunday nights.

But ultimately, it is God who gives me freedom, not the church. And I praise his name.

daily java

Daily Java:   

Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do, develop good judgment.  (Proverbs 4:7)

Wikipedia blacked out the other day in protest of proposed internet legislation. The blackout was only for a day, but it is amazing how we have come to depend on it and the internet in general for knowledge.

With the internet and the availability of knowledge at our fingertips, we know a lot. We can find out almost anything from the internet. The chords to a favorite song, the population of Madagascar in 1897, the different breeds of horses, how to put a pulley belt on a GE dryer, just about everything.

We are awash in knowledge. We know more raw knowledge than at any other time in human history.

But as a culture, we are dumb as a rock. There is no discernment, no common sense, no wisdom.

The writer of Proverbs said that wisdom was the best thing you should get, so get wisdom. It sounds so simple.

But how do you get wisdom? How do you plug into the circuit that somehow transmits wisdom to your life.

Someone once said that if you teach children knowledge without teaching them about God, you are making time bombs. Without the knowledge of God to balance out the knowledge of everything else, there is no perspective. Everything becomes equal.

That is the thing that is bad about the internet: everything is equal. Trivia is as important to a computer as deep wisdom is. And when we do not have access to wisdom, we lose perspective. We lost he ability to tell what is important and what isn’t. our heads become full of knowledge, all of which competes for our attention.

Some of what age brings should be that perspective, the knowledge of how things fit in to life. That knowledge of perspective is wisdom. It is the realization that some things are more important than others, and that some things are to be avoided at all costs.

We lost that in an information age. We become so swamped with information that we lost the perspective. And when we do, we lose wisdom.

In Louis L’Amour books, it always portrays cowboys and men who roamed as deep thinkers. They didn’t know a lot, but hours spent on the back of a horse made them think a lot about what little they knew. So if the read a book, they thought a lot about that book. They didn’t have access to many, so the few they had access to became important to them.

We have access to so much that books become commonplace. And with the advent of Kindle and electronic books, we have access to even more. One person can carry around in his pocket more books that whole states had in their possession one hundred years ago.

And most of them are drivel. Wisdom tells us what is drivel and what isn’t. but that knowledge can only come when we have the perspective of the One who is eternal.

He is all that is truly important.

daily java

Daily Java:

Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

What is Christianity? Is it how you dress, or what you eat or drink? Is it what you do or don’t do?

People tend to view the Christian life as a life of what you can or cannot do. A Christian can’t drink alcohol or eat meat with blood in it. A Christian can’t wear shorts or go see R rated movies. A Christian can’t associate with certain types of people or go to certain places. A Christian must have a certain political mindset or read a certain translation of the Bible.

By the time we are through defining a Christian, we have taken all of the freedom out of it and put ourselves into a stronger legalistic prison than the Old Testament people were in.

Add to all that the fact that Jesus said we are not to even think about doing wrong (Matthew 5:27-29), we have even entered into the realm of thoughtcrime.

In the Old Testament, people figured that you could think about it, but as long as you didn’t actually do it, you were fine. Jesus came along and said that it is not the action, but the intent that matters.

Does that mean we are condemned daily by our very thoughts? How in the world could anyone ever go to heaven if this is the case. Quite frankly, it is hard to even go by the underwear stores in the mall without breaking several commandments.

But, as I asked, what is Christianity? Is it what you do or don’t do? Or is it something more? Is it who you are? Is it how you react, how you think, how you love?

The essence of Christianity is not things you do. It is how you are, your attitude, your mindset. It is what you think about, how you react to others, it is more than actions.

In Micah 6:8, the Lord says this about the life of the believer:

No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good,
      and this is what he requires of you:
   to do what is right, to love mercy,
      and to walk humbly with your God

Love, mercy and justice are what truly matters. You can do everything to the perfect degree, but unless you love God and love others, it is worthless.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus tells his listeners that it has never been about what you did, even back in the day when there were thousands of commandments. There was a point, hopefully at least, that people would begin to realize that there was something more than doing things. There was the God behind the things.

In Mark 12, Jesus was asked by someone what the great commandment was. His response: The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

One of the men listening made the connection. He answered: This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. Jesus told him he was close to the whole point. It is mindset and not actions that save.

Your treatment of others will show how you love your God. He treated you well, so how in the world can you treat others badly? If the Lord really lives in you, you will reflect his love to others.

That is the whole Bible in a nutshell. Isn’t it strange that we make it into things that do not matter, and ignore the ones that do?

daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t envy violent people
      or copy their ways.
Such wicked people are detestable to the LORD,
      but he offers his friendship to the godly.  (Proverbs 3:31-32)

It is Oscar night for picking the winning movies of the year. The red carpet is out and all of the magazines are salivating at the edge to take pictures of the movie stars and their husbands or wives or current live-ins or whatever.

The flash bulbs pop, pictures are taken, the stars are in their expensive clothes with their expensive hairdos, fresh from their plastic surgery and personal trainers. And they are an assemblage of beautiful people.

When we watch them on the screen, we see people that are almost super-human in their beauty and fitness. There is little or no way we can compare to them ourselves when it comes to physical beauty. In fact, there is little or no way anybody can. They look absolutely perfect.

It is just plain hard not to envy them. They are physically beautiful. When they take their clothing off – and they do at every opportunity – they are almost physically perfect. They are wealthy and adored by millions. Their every action is followed by those same millions and chronicled in magazines and newspapers all over the world.

But while they are not necessarily violent themselves, their way of life is violent to the Kingdom of God. Everything they do and everything they stand for is against what and who God is.

It is rare to find a celebrity who is a Christian. In general, their lives are lives of debauchery and godlessness. Their actions are those of people who are without any vestige of holiness. There is no beauty in their lives or in their souls. Their lives are lives of violence against all that is holy.

Their movies show this. They glorify all of the things that God descries. They glorify gratuitous sex, immorality, aberrant lifestyles. They are advertisements for everything God is against.

They are beautiful physically. And all they have is physical beauty and they will do anything they can to keep it. They know that when it is gone, all they have is gone. Their beauty is skin deep. When their skin gets old, all of their beauty is gone.

On the other hand, there are people who are not as beautiful on the outside, but are absolutely gorgeous on the inside. They do not look like movie stars but radiate the grace and glory of God.

I was irritated at one time trying to take pictures of some of the teenaged girls for the bulletin or something. I couldn’t figure out why the pictures came out badly. This one had a weird mouth, that one didn’t photograph well. The pictures just didn’t seem to capture them as I saw them as their youth pastor.

Then it dawned on me. the camera will not capture the inner person. It only captures the outer. Movie stars, celebrities – all have nothing but outer. They photograph great but when they talk, there is nothing but ugliness.

Their lives are beautiful on camera, but in person their lives are cesspools. Listen to the talk about things important to them and you can see this. Nothing that is important to me – God, love, family, honor, morality, goodness – is important to them.

I firmly believe that is why people like Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. They could not bear the thought of getting older and losing their looks. They had nothing else, nothing inside.

Looks are good. Nothing wrong with being beautiful. But I will take the lesser beauty with the inner radiance over the greater beauty with the inner emptiness any day of the week.

Yes, these women are beautiful, and it is hard not to fantasize about having such a beautiful body close to you. But sooner or later, you have to get out of bed and go on with life.

And when the inner person is empty, there is no life.

Real beauty is not skin deep. It goes to the soul when it is real.

daily java

Daily Java:

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? Or were you expecting to see a man dressed in expensive clothes? No, people with expensive clothes live in palaces. Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,
     ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
      and he will prepare your way before you.’
“I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is! And from the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it. For before John came, all the prophets and the law of Moses looked forward to this present time. And if you are willing to accept what I say, he is Elijah, the one the prophets said would com. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!” (Matthew 11:7-15)

John the Baptizer is about to die. And Jesus tells about how good and strong he has been in the pursuit of God’s will.

Jesus said that John was a strong individual, one who was uncompromising in his service to God. In fact, Jesus said that he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. In fact, it was he who began the preaching about the Kingdom of God. He was the one Malachi talked about at the end of his book, the last one in the Old Testament.

A greater person never lived. But, Jesus said, the smallest person in the Kingdom of Heaven, the most insignificant person in that kingdom, has something John never had: membership in the church of our Lord Jesus.

John came to point out. After Jesus died, what John was pointing out came to pass. John was preparatory, we are part of the fulfillment.

All those who came before the death of Jesus were old law, old covenant. All those afterwards are new covenant.

All of the prophets and teachers who had ever lived before Jesus looked forward to the day when the great plan of God would be revealed. But they did not get to participate in it. They were Old Testament.

As members of the church, we have a position that they envied. Isaiah writes about the stripes of Jesus healing (Isiah 53), we are healed by those stripes. Malachi writes about the spirit of Elijah being present in someone who prepared the way for the Messiah. We know that person now to be John the Baptizer. All of the Old Testament prophecies are seen now in the context of their fulfillment.

We know things they only dreamed of knowing. On one level, there is no way I could ever be as great as John. But on another, I have access to God in the Kingdom of Heaven in a way that John never dreamed.

I am a child of God in a way John never conceived of.

daily java

Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
 ‘I have come to set a man against his father,
      a daughter against her mother,
   and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
    Your enemies will be right in your own household!’
(Matthew 10:35-37)

Jesus promises peace in your heart to all who accept him, the peace that the apostle Paul said passed understanding. When he lives in our hearts, he quiets the conflict between our spirit and the devil’s spirit. He replaces the devil’s spirit with his own Holy Spirit. And he give us peace.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ did not bring peace to the world like some think it should.

Any time Jesus is preached, there is conflict. That’s because people do not want to hear the gospel message. They do not want Jesus. Preach Jesus in Muslim countries, or Hindu countries or atheist countries and see what happens. Those who preach are imprisoned, tortured, beaten.

The world doesn’t want the gospel because the devil rules the world. The Spirit of God is not welcome in the world. And when it comes, there is strife.

Again, that is why Hollywood cannot make a decent Christian movie. They do not understand nor accept the Spirit of God. They see it as a danger to all they want to do and try their level best to stop it.

It is always a surprise to a new Christian when he gets push-back from his first attempts at evangelism. He many times cannot figure out why.

But you have to remember that Jesus not only got push-back, he got killed for doing what he was doing. The world thought they were getting rid of him and, when they try to stop those who teach him, they think they are stopping the gospel.

The problem is, of course (for them), is that the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ cannot be stopped. It is immutable, it is unchangeable, it is unstoppable.

The sad thing is that you may lose your own family over it. But even though you may lose everything, you still have that internal peace. That peace he promises.

But don’t be surprised when the world hates what you say. They hated what Jesus said, too.

daily java

Daily Java:

When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went out to teach and preach in towns throughout the region. John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. And tell him, ‘God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.’” (Matthew 11:1-6)

John the Baptizer was in prison and faced execution. His crime? Telling the king’s wife that she had done something wrong. He is about to be beheaded. And uncertainty waits to come into his mind.

What if? he is thinking. What if Jesus is not the Messiah. What if there is another? What if he has not done what God wanted? What if he is in prison too soon and the Messiah is still to be announced? If that is the case, then he has failed in his mission. Really, when it came down to it, he was only here for one reason: to point out the Messiah, to prepare the way as Malachi said.

But what if he was imprisoned too soon and his job is still to do and he can’t because here he is in prison and he has failed God and all of history. Everything is ruined because he said something maybe he could have waited to say.

He calls his disciples who hang around part of the day outside his prison cell. He tells them to go to see Jesus and check with him. Just get the reassurance that, yes, he is the Messiah, that they do not have to wait for another. Just go find out again. Have him say it again. John needs the reassurance that he did the right thing.

In his heart, he knew what he had done was right. He had seen the dove descending upon Jesus when he was baptized. He had heard the voice saying, This is my beloved son in who I am well-pleased.

He just needed to make sure. He was going to die and needed to make sure. Just one more time.

When the disciples asked Jesus about this, the one thing Jesus didn’t do was reprimand them. “What do you mean, am I the One? Didn’t he see the signs? Didn’t he get the message from God? What little faith John has. How can he call himself a prophet?”

No. Jesus understood the uncertainty. He would face it himself in the Garden the night before he was killed when he asks God if the cup could pass from him, if he has to do it.

His answer? What would the Messiah do when he came that I have not done? I have healed, I have even raised the dead. But above all else, I preach to those who cannot afford to pay me anything. If ever there was a measure of the Messiah, it would be that.

He didn’t come to the ones who had the money or the importance to verify his work. He came to everyone, rich or poor, regardless of whether or not they could pay him anything.

Then he tells John: God blesses those who do not turn away because of me. You are doing well, John. And God will bless you. Don’t worry.

He knew John needed the extra word and he gave it with no recriminations. John was finished with his ministry and Jesus knew it. John needed to know that his ministry had been right, had been profitable for the God he loved.

And Jesus reassured him.

we are family

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:26)

Renew, the new singles group, met today at 3:00 for their monthly Bible study. They are a new group here at Firm Foundation.

They have a unique (to me at least) perspective on life in general. They are single. I have been married for 41 years (just last week, in fact) and can barely remember what it was like being single. My perspective on the Christian life is not that of a single person.

Listening to them talk gave me some interesting insights. What they considered vital as single people, I do not. The single people and I live, in some ways, in totally different worlds.

But – and here is the caveat – we – both married and single – are both Christ-followers. Even though we look at life in different ways, we are all Christians, children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

I had an ex-inmate ministry in a church I pastored a few years ago. Their perspective too was so different than mine. I never have been in jail or in serious trouble. Yet we were both children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

The same with all of the other people in the church. Even though we are all different, we are all alike in one way: we are part of the Kingdom of God.

In the church are married and single people, ex-inmates, recovering drug addicts, former prostitutes, government workers, manual laborers, college people, educated and uneducated, poor and rich, old and young. And all stand before God equally.

That is the beauty of the church, that motley collection of all kinds of people from all kinds of life.

And no one is better than another. All are equal in God’s sight. He loves none more than the others. Yes, we have different functions, different jobs, different talents – but we are all equal where it counts: we are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

What makes the church work is when all of these people come together, when we all stand united in commonality of belief. When we do that, we are triumphant.

And we are all family

daily java

Daily Java:

Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me. When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking—it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed. And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one town, flee to the next. I tell you the truth, the Son of Man will return before you have reached all the towns of Israel. (Matthew 10:16-23)

Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, is all the talk right now, mainly because he has the utter gall and audacity to pray in front of people. When he scores a touchdown, he bends his knee and prays.

It drives the unbelievers wild with fury. And the worst part of it all (to them) is that he is winning all his games.

The scream from these people is that we do not have the right to interject religion into regular life. As one man put it, religion is supposed to be in places that are dark and mysterious. It is not designed, he said, for the open air and regular life.

He is a fool, of course. When Jesus sent out his disciples in the passage above, he told them that they would have all kinds of trouble when they told people about him. And they did.

He told them that all nations will hate you because you are my followers. And they still do.

It is always surprising to new Christians when they get their first pushback when they tell someone else about their new faith. It is so good to them that they cannot imagine others not wanting it too.

But the devil does not want the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached. When it is, it sets people free from him and he hates it. The world acts on his behalf when they scream and holler about Tim Tebow praying, or a school hiring only Christians, or someone actually bringing their faith into the workplace.

They have no problems with religion. It is compartmentalized and doesn’t require much. Faith, on the other hand, requires your entire life. That is the one thing those who do not believe do not want.

Jesus says here in a sideways fashion that anyone who leaves his faith at home when he goes out into the world is not truly a believer. With God, it is all or nothing.

In Luke 11:23, Jesus said: Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me. In other words, you are with him or not. There is no middle ground. There are no neutral people in the kingdom of God. There can be no such thing as a moderate Christian.

In fact, about moderate Christians, those who try to be part of both the world and the kingdom of God, Jesus says: I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! (Revelation 3:15-16)

Be somebody in the kingdom. Show your faith.

daily java

Daily Java:

After Jesus left the girl’s home, two blind men followed along behind him, shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” They went right into the house where he was staying, and Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?” “Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.” Then he touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, it will happen.” Then their eyes were opened, and they could see! Jesus sternly warned them, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” But instead, they went out and spread his fame all over the region.  (Matthew 9:27-31)

In the old single action revolvers in use before the 1860’s, there were two settings: half-cock and full-cock. The half cock was used to load the gun, but wouldn’t give enough pressure to discharge the shell the right way. To go off half-cocked means to go off before you mean to or are prepared to do so.

When Jesus healed people, there were several that he told not to tell anyone else what he had done. Some think that he did this using reverse psychology. The minute they got outside they would run because he told them not to.

But Jesus had a reason for doing these things and it wasn’t to encourage people to do the opposite of what he said.

His reason? He didn’t want them to go off half-cocked. They didn’t know who he was or what his mission was. All they had seen was that he had healed them. When they brought his message to others, it was a flawed message, that of healing.

The message of Jesus is not that of physical healing. It is of reconciliation. Any time anyone tries to reduce the message of Jesus to healing or any of his other miracles for that matter, that person has missed the point.

Jesus wanted them to know that the miracles he performed were an adjunct to his ministry, not the totality of it. He did not come to heal our bodies. He came to heal our souls. That was his message in the first part of this chapter.

“Why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Matthew 9:4-5)

He showed his power over the supernatural by his power over the natural. And he wanted them to know that he came to have power over the supernatural, not the natural. He came to bring us back to God, not to heal us.

A lot of preachers have the wrong picture of what Jesus is or what he came to do. He did not come to help us claim our miracle. He did not come to heal. The apostle Paul is proof of this. In 2 Corinthians 11, he wrote about his thorn in the flesh that plagued him. It was some kind of ailment that caused him a lot of distress. He said he asked God several times to heal him, but God’s final answer was my grace is sufficient for you.

His ministry was going to be seen in God’s power through a flawed vessel. In other words, people were not going to be coming to God through the power of Paul, but through the power of God that Paul showed them.

If Jesus had meant to heal everyone, he would have done so. But he never came into town and just did a blanket healing. He would heal and then ell why.

And the reason for his healing was to show the power of God, to authenticate his message.

This is also one of the few times in his ministry when he asks someone if they had faith enough? Usually he just heals, even if they had never heard of him before.

It is not your faith that heals you. It is the power of God that heals you. If it were your faith, it would be by something you do. But it is by something that God does in you.

daily java

Daily Java:

Jesus climbed into a boat and went back across the lake to his own town. Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Be encouraged, my child! Your sins are forgiven.” But some of the teachers of religious law said to themselves, “That’s blasphemy! Does he think he’s God?” Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up and went home! Fear swept through the crowd as they saw this happen. And they praised God for sending a man with such great authority. (Matthew 9:1-7)

It didn’t take a miraculous gift for Jesus to know what they were saying. What it took was that innate knowledge pastors have when they see how what they say has been received.

Jesus said something that he knew full well would antagonize much of his audience. He knew it would when he did it. Those who were in leadership of the Jewish people were standing around waiting for him to make some kind of mistake and they would pounce on it.

Jesus made a fatal error, they thought. He gave himself the ability to forgive sins. That was God’s alone. They were ready to work themselves up into a spiritual frenzy when Jesus complicated the whole thing.

Okay, he said, only God can forgive sins. And anybody can say so. Whether or not it is true depends. But what is easier? Saying people are forgiven or saying people are well from their illnesses?

Obviously, any fool can say someone is forgiven. All you have to do is say it and it I shard to prove otherwise. But healing someone. That takes concrete evidence. You do not say someone is healed and then expect everybody to accept it unless something happens.

And something happened. Jesus spoke and the man jumped up and went home. It is a little hard to argue with that. That they could see.

Everybody around was afraid. The power of God had been seen in their midst and it scared them. But the crowd had sense enough to realize that here was the power of God at work. It didn’t matter that the important people didn’t like it, it happened anyway.

Their praise? For sending a man with such great authority. They had seen enough of the other stuff: self important men puffed up by their own sense of entitlement and authority. Here was real authority, straight from God.

Of course, it made those who followed Jesus around to try to trap him mad. I even see them engaging in some praise for those miracle even though they were mad. And I would bet their praise was louder than anyone else. But I would also bet their praise never mentioned Jesus or thanked God for Jesus. It was probably just general praise full of Psalms and stuff.

After all, no one could outdo these guys when it came to praise. The only thing was, their praise never made it to their hearts. Real stuff like miracles were a little beyond them.

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Daily Java:

Then one of the teachers of religious law said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” (Matthew 5:19-20)

It is easy to say I will follow Jesus. It rolls trippingly off the tongue and makes you feel good when you say it. You see a life of devotion and prayer, maybe. People look at you and talk about how good you are. He follows Jesus.

The man who came to Jesus in this passage thought the same thing. He told Jesus he wanted to follow him. He was impressed with Jesus and what Jesus said and wanted to be a part of that group that followed him around, that bunch who got to hear all the things Jesus said.

As a teacher of religious law, he was intelligent and schooled and wanted an atmosphere in which he could discuss and learn. He was ready to commit himself.

But Jesus stopped him and said, consider what you are doing. The man may have been rich – in fact as a teacher he probably had a good position somewhere as maybe a minister for a synagogue, the gathering and worship place of Jews of the day.

One thing for sure, when he left where he was and followed Jesus, he was backing an unpopular person. The rest of his compatriots hated Jesus with a passion.

Jesus said wait. Consider this. “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.”

Now that didn’t mean Jesus was poor as a synagogue mouse. It didn’t mean he wore frayed clothing and ate food from a garbage can. He had plenty of money. Several rich people followed him around.

Also at one point, when he told his disciples to feed a multitude, one of them pointed out that all they had was three hundred denarii. A denarius was a day’s wage for a working man. So whatever you want to consider a day’s working wage, they had almost a year’s worth of money.

The apostles were not starving, nor did Jesus expect them to.

But what it did mean was that when the man gave up what he had and embraced the life of a Jesus-follower, he gave up everything. He cut his ties to this world.

It didn’t necessarily mean that he gave away all his money and stuff. He probably had a family to support and needed to do so.

Jesus told him that when he cam as a follower, it was more than a lark, more than an educational experience, more than a great idea. It was a life long, full scale commitment. You follow Jesus and you give up everything else, including, as Jesus said later, your family if need be.

What did the man do? We have no idea. He may have turned out to be one of the apostles for all we know. Or he might have gone off sadly like the rich young ruler that came later, the one who could not give up his riches.

One thing for sure, though, following Jesus is not the route to wealth and prosperity, no matter what silly preachers on TV say. Even though they were greatly blessed, God’s people suffered for him. Maybe not monetarily, maybe by rejection, or slander, or just their family leaving them.

But following Jesus is something not to be done lightly. It is a life-time commitment, made from the heart.

daily java

Daily Java:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
      do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
      and he will show you which path to take (Proverbs 3:5-6).

There is a movement underfoot today to denigrate marriage. I have read several articles within the past few months talking about how unnatural and unfair monogamy is, how no one can expect a man to live with just one woman.

The odd thing is that many of the articles are written by women. It is almost as if they are trying to figure out ways to drive men away from marriage by making them think they cannot do it.

There is an all out assault on marriage, that is apparent even to the most casual observer. The reason is simple: marriage is the bed rock of society. if marriage can be destroyed or changed in some way, made less appealing, society will be gone as we know it.

That is why those on the left want gay marriage and open marriage, polygamy – anything but mom and dad and the kids.

It is a shame that something so good can be so under assault.

Yesterday was our forty-first anniversary. I have enjoyed being married and like being with Ella. We go well together and get along well. Any inadequacies on my part – and there are legion – are made up for by her love.

I cannot imagine marriage being any other way, even though I see it other ways daily.

And it is not that our marriage was necessarily easy. There were rough places, mainly because I was a jerk. But we hung in there.

I read an article not long ago that quoted a lot of surveys and studies. It said that women will take another woman’s man, while men will usually not take another man’s woman.

The reason given was that women are looking for good men. And they see other men in good relationships. To some women, these men are pre-screened in a way. They have made good husbands in their marriage, so they figure they would do the same with them.

It is not the same with men. Men may sit and gaze longingly at another guy’s girl, but will wait until the relationship breaks up before moving in. you hear of women being labeled home-wreckers far more than men. In fact, I have never heard that term applied to a man.

And that may be why women view men as “all the good ones are taken.” The reasons the good ones may be taken is because a woman has taken him and changed him into a good, viable, worthwhile human being. It may be something he was not before they got married, but is now. And without her, he will probably revert.

It is why the Lord put men and women together. It was and is his will. Marriage is his path.

I am glad I pursued it with Ella.

A rambling blog post today, but no less heart-felt.

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Daily Java:

Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. (Proverbs 5:18)

Forty one years ago today, we were married at the Sun Valley Church of Christ in Houston, TX, by my father.

I was in Germany in the army and came home on the fifth of January, a Tuesday. We had to hurry to get our blood tests and all so we could get the marriage license. That took at least two days, but we made it and got our license on Friday.

I had grown a mustache while I was in Germany even though I knew she had expressed displeasure at mustaches before. So when I got off the plane, there it was. She had gotten glasses and wore them. We met each other with our new accessories and didn’t really care.

The rehearsal dinner, and the wedding for that matter, were simple. We had a lot of people come to the rehearsal dinner as I recall. Probably just both families, but it seemed a lot. My mother made spaghetti for everyone.

Afterwards I took off with my best man, Rick Fuller, to go do something. I do not remember what, but it wasn’t a night of debauchery or anything since we were both good guys.

I have found out in the past few weeks that my wife (my fiance) was miffed when I took off with Ricky. She wanted to be with me, but I was gone. Funny what you find out after so long.

The morning of the wedding, it seemed that she and I were the only calm ones. The firs thing my mother did was gripe at me for not shaving as closely as she thought I should have. I found out just recently that it irritated Ella, too. I commented that it was good enough for the army and they are notoriously picky.

Again, it is funny what you find out later.

The wedding went off without a hitch. Ella’s maid of honor was her sister, Joyce. Although, it was a simple wedding, it was extremely well-attended, as both our parents had a lot of friends in their churches.

I don’t remember what music was used at all. I do know it was all sung acappella since we were Church of Christ. But I have no real recollection of it.

I do remember my bride walking down the aisle with her dad, who was reluctant to give her to me. She was so beautiful.

The reception afterwards I vaguely remember. We had cake and this punch that was popular at the time – lime sherbet and ginger ale.

We toasted each other with punch (we were Church of Christ after all) and finally got to leave. She wore her trousseau, a plaid outfit with a cape.

The car was predictably marked up, although Ella had threatened the kids with their lives if they marked up her relatively new white Ford Galaxie 500. Someone had tied cans to the back, but they came off when I backed up and took off.

And we were off to Galveston for our honeymoon.

Forty-one years later. It is hard to realize that it has been so long. We are in what is in our culture a long-term marriage. And we intend to stay in it.

I loved this woman when I saw her. and I will love her until I die.

Hebrews 6:13-7:28: The Certainty of God’s Promise

Here is tonight's lesson on Hebrews. Use it if it will do you good. Just remember where you got it. 

Hebrews 6:13-7:28: The Certainty of God’s Promise

God made a promise that his people would have someone to guide them to him. In the Old Testament, it was the priests. The High Priest, or the main guy, led all the priests to God. But who would lead the High Priest? He was after all, a sinful man just like every other man. He just had a different job.

When God changed the priesthood  this time, it was for the last time. The first was the Patriarchal Period, where the fathers of a family came to God as priests. This was during the time of Abraham and Isaac and for the rest of the world besides the Jews after the law was given. The second was during the Mosaical Period, or after Moses gave Israel the new law and the Ten Commandments. That meant the Jews had a new way with new priests all outlined in the Old Testament. The third is now. We come to God by Jesus, our High Priest.

In all of these times, there had to be someone to bring us to God. In the first, the fathers brought their families; in the second, the priests brought the people; and in the third Jesus brings us.

But when he changed it all, God used only his own nature and will to promise us it would be done. Where we have to swear by someone greater than ourselves, God could only use himself, as there was no one else greater than he.

And again, he brought up a new kind of priest over a new kind of kingdom. He brought up a priest-king like Melchizedek in the Old Testament. He was a king and a priest. He name meant “king of righteousness” – melek zedek, or king righteousness) and he was the king of Salem (Salem – also shalom – means peace in Hebrew). He was the kind of king and priest that Jesus would be. And God authenticated him as such by Abraham giving him a tithe of all his stuff.

Jesus was a perfect person. He didn’t need someone else to go for him into God’s presence. What’s more, he is also an eternal priest. He will never die and go out of office. Like Melchizedek, Jesus became an independent priest. In him, we are independent priests. We do not answer to someone else for our authority. God gives it to us.

God did this so that we could have hope in Jesus. We don’t have to worry about whether or not we are good enough to go to God. Through Jesus, the perfect High Priest, we are. And that is our hope that anchors us to God.

QUESTIONS:
1.  Why would God have to swear in the first place?

2.  Hebrews says that Melchizedek was Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever. How do you think that worked? Was Melchizedek immortal?

3.  The Levites (the priests) collected a tithe from the rest of Israel. How is that different from Melchizedek collecting a tithe from Abraham?

4.  Does the change of law mean the old law was no good? Why would it change? Did God change his mind?

5.  The law made nothing perfect. What does that mean? Jesus was perfect. What about him? He was under the law.

6.  How is God’s promise an anchor? In what way do you think it anchors us?

7.  If we do not answer to anybody’s authority, does that mean no one can tell us what to do?

daily java

Daily Java:   

Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you. (Matthew 7:6)

Someone once said, don’t open a brothel with a prayer.

There are some things you cannot sanctify, no matter how much you want to. There are some things that God will not bless. Things may turn out all right with them, but it will not be the blessings of God that cause it to do so, it will just be chance.

There are some people that you cannot talk to. They will not listen. And not only will they not listen, they will ridicule to the point that it becomes counter-productive to even try to talk to them.

Jesus knew this. There were a couple of instances when he knew that there was no point in even speaking. One was with Herod at his “trial.” Herod wanted nothing more than a miracle. He wanted to see something that Jesus had done for everybody else. It is not that he would believe, but that he would be entertained.

It infuriated him finally that Jesus would not even speak to him. For one thing, Jesus had nothing to say to Herod. He knew things were going to go the way they were going to go no matter what kind of miracle he did anyway. So what was the point? To give in to Herod was to debase the power God had given Jesus and turn it in into entertainment.

That is one reason Hollywood cannot understand the power of God. They see it as purely superficial with none of the reality behind it. That is also why movies about Jesus and about Christianity are always foolish. The things God said are the pearls, Hollywood is the swine. They cannot understand it.

And, of course, since they cannot understand it, they make fun of it, ridicule it. In such an atmosphere, a Christian has difficulty doing anything, just as Jesus did. It is pointless. You are throwing something great and valuable to dogs for them to play with, something wonderful to pigs for them to eat.

That isn’t to say that we do not preach the gospel unless people are begging us to. But there are times when it is worthless to try.

In those instances all we can do is to live our lives in such a way that people can see who and what we are. Our lives have to be our words.

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Daily Java:

And no one can become a high priest simply because he wants such an honor. He must be called by God for this work, just as Aaron was. That is why Christ did not honor himself by assuming he could become High Priest. No, he was chosen by God, who said to him,
   “You are my Son.
      Today I have become your Father.”
And in another passage God said to him,
   “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 5:4-6)

I grew up in the church. And I remember hearing preachers thunder on about being a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The only problem was nobody ever explained what difference it made.

It became one of those big “So What” passages.

It wasn’t until I had been in the ministry for a while that I realized what difference it made. And it is great.

In Genesis 14, Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured by another kingdom. In those days, there was constant war, people trying to overcome everybody else. When Abraham found out about it, he took his army of 318 trained men and whipped the fire of the little city-state coalition of kings and soldiers and took Lot, along with the spoils, or everything else the other kings had, back.

On the way home, Abraham and his army came by the city of Salem, which would one day be called Jerusalem. Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything he had taken in the battle.

He didn’t have to, but for some reason he did. There was the matter of tribute, of course. He was passing through Melchizedek’s kingdom, but I think Abraham had a superior force and didn’t really have to worry about it. Still, he acknowledged Melchizedek and sat a precedent.

The psalmist mentions it again in Psalm 110 when he says that the Messiah would come in the order of Melchizedek. Then it comes up again in Hebrews 5 and 7.

Only a couple of times in the Bible, yet it means a lot.

Melchizedek was independent. He was not even a Jew. In fact there were no Jews at that time. And he was a godly man who was also a king and a priest of his city-state, Salem.

When Jesus came, he came as the same. An independent priest and king. He was not qualified by Jewish law to be a priest, but God didn’t care. Jesus was independent.

When we come to God, we are independent. That means that no one can tell us what we can or cannot do in service to God except God himself. We are not members of a society, we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

We do not have to have credentials to preach, we do not have to have a stamp of approval to teach, we do not have to have permission to do anything in the name of God. We can just do it.

For the model for Jesus and his rule, God went back before the law, before the Ten Commandments, before all of the structure of the Old Testament and picked Melchizedek as the model.

If Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and we are priests also. In Revelation 1:5-6, John writes this: He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings of the world.  All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. If we are a Kingdom of priests, and we follow Jesus, who was independent, then we are independent.

We are not here to satisfy any earthly authority. We are independent. And that means that if God is happy with us, and he says he is, then we are fine, no matter what others may say.

That takes a lot of pressure – or should anyway – off us in our service.

Quit worrying about what others think and just serve. That is our heritage in Jesus and what we can do in service to God.