Jesus had friends like everybody else and one of them died

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?” Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. (John 11:33-40)

Jesus had friends like everybody else. And Lazarus was probably his best friend, along with Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. And it hurt him for his friends to be hurt just like it would anyone.

But he also had a problem. His problem was that he was not hire. People didn’t just tell him what to do, even if they were good friends. He was his own man and was doing what he felt God wanted him to do, no matter what other people may have thought.

When they came and told Jesus that Lazarus had died, Jesus was busy with something else. So he didn’t just drop everything and go. Besides, unless he flew, he couldn’t get there in time. So he went on with what he was doing, which was preaching and teaching and healing. Then he left.

But then when he got there, everybody blamed him for Lazarus’ death. If he had been here, they said. He can heal blind people and all. He could have healed Lazarus.

And he could have. But he didn’t. Instead he came to the funeral and brought Lazarus back from the dead. He used Lazarus as a teaching tool just like he used the man born blind in John 9. Everybody there saw the tremendous power of God and there were a lot of people there that day who believed in him as the Son of God, the Messiah.

I have often thought what it must have been like for Lazarus. He was dead and in heaven (if he was Jesus’ friend, he had to have been a devout person) and Jesus yanks him back to earth and inside a smelly tomb. Did the grave clothes still smell like a four day old corpse in the heat? Did the tomb still smell? Was he happy? Was he mad?

Whatever he was, he was back in the world and the center of attention. His sisters were all over him, happy to see him alive. All the crowd was looking at him. And there was his friend, Jesus. So things worked out okay.

But I do wonder how he felt.

One thing for sure, a lot of people were scared of Jesus now and they started looking for a plan to get him out of their way. He was ruining their plans.

There have always been people who feel like they know what God wants better than God does.

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Daily Java:

A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. (John 6:2)

Nothing makes for a popular guy like having stuff people want. You have enough money and everybody is your friend. If you are known as the guy who buys drinks for everybody whenever you go in the bar, it is not surprising that everybody likes you.

But when they start expecting it is when it gets kind of dangerous. If people begin to depend on you for what they want and you quit giving it to them, chances are they will get mad at you.

People were this same way around Jesus. He healed, he did really interesting things, and to some he was a never-ending source of entertainment.

In John 6, they are sitting around him after he had done a bunch of great things, miraculous signs, just waiting for something else to happen. In fact, they were so sure that he was going to do something good that they didn’t even bother to bring lunch.

Jesus saw that they were this way but he stayed with them anyway. He had come to tell them about the love and grace of God and meant to do so even though he knew they were going to get mad at him sooner or later.

But they were hungry so he fed them, making a lot of food appear from just a little. And the crowd loved him for it. Kind of like going to hear a politician and he gives everybody bar-be-cue. They eat it and think, this is great. All we have to do is follow this guy around and we have free food and free entertainment.

When he gets through, he has twelve baskets left over, just enough for his apostles. He is trying to show them that he can feed everybody and still have enough left over for them for a few days. He is saying that if they will give their lives to him, he will take care of them.

But he left his apostles and went out to pray. The apostles took a boat to the other side of the lake where they were supposed to go and a storm came up. They thought they were going to drown but Jesus came walking up on the water.

He asked them why they were afraid. Hadn't he just made a lot of food and fed 5000 men and their families? They were embarrassed and were scared of him.

Jesus can do great things both for others and in your life. He has promised that he will never leave you and that he loves you.

As long as we give ourselves to Jesus, he will be with us. he never promised a life of comfort or ease. Most of the apostles including himself died violent deaths.

But their lives meant something because they had given them to him. Without him, our lives are meaningless, just lived for nothing.

With him, we have the presence of the God and his Son who conquered the world and lives in our hearts.

jesus got angry

Sometimes you just get angry. And there is nothing wrong with that. God made us to be angry on occasion. Anyone who tells you otherwise is being foolish.

The key is to make sure you are angry for the right things and the right reasons. There is nothing worse than someone who is just angry or who flies off the handle for the wrong reasons.

That kind of person can do far more harm than good.

But the person who is angry for the right reasons, that person can do a lot of good. By his anger, he shows that there are things that are worth getting involved with, that are worth expending emotion over, doing something about.

For instance, your daughter is raped. It would be a fool to not be angry. Your house is broken into. A strange person would go, Oh well.

My van was stolen the other day. I got it back almost immediately (some kids took it on a short joy-ride – weird thing to do with a 1995 Ford mini-van) but it made me mad. They got it stuck in a neighbor’s garden and he had some of his prize vegetables ruined. It made me mad, although there was nothing I could do about it.

On the other hand, what about going down the street and seeing someone beating on a woman. That would make me mad and I would do something about it. What about seeing someone robbing a store and you were able to do something about it? You would be angry over the injustice of it – someone was taking things that were not his and threatening harm to someone weaker than he.

Jesus was angry in John 2. People had turned the temple, the house of God, into a flea market and were selling all kinds of things. They were also taking advantage of those who were coming to worship by not allowing them to use anything but “official sacrifices” to worship God. And, what do you know. They had “official sacrifices” that you could buy, and even had special “official money” to pay for it that you could get at a “special exchange rate.”

After a while Jesus says (life the Klingon Worf in Star Trek) “Enough!” and he makes a whip and throws them out, throwing their stuff all over the floor.

There is a place for getting angry and a place for not. It is not good to get angry at just a discussion or because someone took the piece of candy you wanted. Or called you a name. Or accidentally farted when he went by you.

When you get angry at everything, your anger is worthless. When you only get angry at things worth getting angry at, your anger means something.

Jesus’ anger meant something. And he scared people because they could tell he was a strong man. They also knew they were doing wrong.

Jesus got mad when it counted. He didn’t over little things. He got angry over this, he got angry over hypocrisy, he got angry over lying. But this is the only place in the Bible where he did something about it.

That is because this mattered. This was special.

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Daily Java:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (Matthew 9:9-10)

What drew the apostles to Jesus? What made them leave perfectly good jobs and their families and associations and follow this man?

It wasn’t that he was so beautiful. Isaiah said that he wasn’t particularly beautiful or whatever that people would desire to be around him. He had trouble almost from the beginning, yet they not only left where they were and followed him, they stayed with him to the very end.

What made him such that they gave their loyalty to him?

There were several things that attracted people to Jesus. You could see it as they followed him around, even to the point of going without food. How many times did a great crowd of people sit and listen to him even though they were hungry?

The crowds clamored for him, the apostles and disciples stood close to him in all his troubles, and they loved him

For one thing he was an extremely charismatic individual. He was vibrant and fearless and they saw that. They wanted to be near this man who seemed to have no fear when addressing anybody, whether great religious leaders or raving demon possessed people. It didn’t seem to matter to Jesus who he was talking to. He showed absolutely no fear.

He was a strong person physically. He had been a carpenter, an occupation which involved a lot of stone work, so he was fit. He walked everywhere and evidently fasted a lot. He didn’t mind pitching in to help the fishermen. He stood his ground no matter what and showed strength of character. They respected him.

But he also was one of them. He was an ordinary guy with super-ordinary qualities. He was able to talk to highly educated men who were full of themselves and their credentials and yet make them look foolish. He spoke as a common person, yet had authority. He talked like he knew what he was talking about. They identified with him.

He was different than anybody they had seen. And above all, he was good. There was absolutely no scandal attached to him even though he traveled with an extremely diverse group of people, including prostitutes. Some of these women would probably have done anything Jesus asked them to, yet he never did.

And he loved them. They could see it in everything he said and did. He protected them from the super-religious people, he stood up for them when they were criticized, he pushed them to be better than they were, he never accepted second best from them. He loved them.

It was said of Jim Jones in the Guyana People’s Temple group that those who followed him even into death did so because he told them he loved them. He didn’t mean it and was using them, but they thought he did and loved him back.

In Jesus’ case, he loved them event to the point of dying for them. how could they not follow him?

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Daily Java:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11)

In most of the translations, this verse is preceded by the annotation: [The most ancient Greek manuscripts do not include John 7:53–8:11]. It is my opinion that many tried to take it out of the Bible and the Lord put it back in.

As the church got older, it got meaner. Almost all churches do. They begin to get rules that are designed to show how holy they are and how strict they can be.

The Foursquare Church is an example of that. The founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was a woman who was divorced three times. Yet, after she died, the Foursquare Church got to be death on divorce just like all of the other Pentecostal Churches. It was almost as if they were saying, Sure we started this way, but we are as strict and holy as you.

Fortunately, it has come back to a good center on that issue. But it is hard for some people to read what Jesus did and said here and just leave it alone. When they began to put the Bible together, as  it were, the early church leaders looked at this portrayal of Jesus – a sensitive, forgiving, and loving portrayal – and decided that it didn’t fit their views of Jesus.

Their  views of Jesus was that of a strong moral guy, one who brooked no sin, one who would not put up with people like this woman, one who disapproved of things like she did and people like her.

This is in spite of the fact that over and over, it was said of him that he ate with sinners and associated with those no one else would associate with. The desire to make him like they wanted him to be was so strong that they were even willing to twist the scriptures to make it so.

So they tried to take it out. And God put it back in.

If God is big enough and powerful enough to create light out of darkness, he is big enough and powerful enough to make his word like he wants it, no matter what people may do.

And this fits Jesus to a tee, whatever that means. He cared for more for people than he cared for condemnation. He even said he came to save, not condemn.

This passage shows that desire strongly.

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Daily Java:

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)

When I was younger and got angry, I would tend to do foolish things. Usually I would break something or hit something. The hitting stopped when I hit a door one day and it dislocated my wrist. I decided that I might could deal with the anger in a better way.

Today I don’t get as angry. I am not sure why, except for the fact that as I get older, I get more in control of some things. I still eat too much, but some things have finally gotten to where I can handle them.

The anger you feel at some problem is real and is not to be dismissed. There are those who would say that a Christian doesn’t get angry.

That is garbage. Jesus got angry. And he not only got angry, he also cried. The anger was from something he couldn’t do anything about. God never intended for people to get sick and die. But here Jesus was with someone he loved who were in grief over another friend of his who had died.

Now Jesus came to raise him back to life. But the whole grief thing got to him. It was just too much. He got angry at all of the trash that was happening in the world. The rage at how unfair things were got to him and he wept because of it.

He even knew one day he would stop it through the power of his resurrection. But it hurt now. He was angry now. He wept now.

But what he didn’t do was put his fist through the door, or yell at people, or break coffee pots (all my older pursuits). He just did what he could and looked to the future.

He also tried to comfort other people. He knew they needed the comfort. And he also knew there was no one to comfort him, but he did it anyway.

He got angry, but angry didn’t get him.

The key is to use the anger to something constructive, to not let it control you. Only a weird person never gets angry. And usually he is lying if he says he didn’t.

Be angry if you need to, but do it like Jesus did. Use it to fuel your desire to do something to change what you are angry at.

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Daily Java:

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. (John 1:14)

Did it really make a difference if Jesus was human or just looked it? God could have done what he did no matter what the from of his messenger. For that matter, couldn’t he just send an angel with a Bible and an outline of what we needed to do. What was the point of Jesus?

For a missionary to really be effective, he has to become part of the culture he is trying to reach. Otherwise, he is just an outsider that doesn’t understand his audience. He is never able to reach their hearts completely.

When a missionary becomes part of his target culture, he begins to understand what makes them tick, how they feel, what they like and dislike. And he learns to like and dislike it himself. If he doesn’t he can never understand his target group.

God wanted to understand us. He wanted to feel the things we feel. As powerful as he is, he had never been tired. Or sweaty. Or hungry. He had felt grief but never as we do. He had never experienced the loss of a friend, or the touch of a mother or the discipline of a father. He had never been human.

Jesus came to bridge that gap. He felt all these things yet also felt God. Through him, God was able vicariously to experience all of the problems of a human, all the frailties of humanity. And in so doing, could understand us, his target group.

Jesus as what God would be like if God were human. He reacted like God would react. He acted as God would act. He responded to people like God would. and he did this because he was God in human from.

He was real. He was human, yet from a divine father. He learned how to obey (Hebrews 5:8 said: Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.). and all this without sin. Sin would have separated him from God like it did us, so he had to be both human and sinless.

But he did. And in so doing, opened the conduit between us and God so that once more we could touch God.

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Daily Java:

The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head. Then they saluted him and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they struck him on the head with a reed stick, spit on him, and dropped to their knees in mock worship. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Mark 15:16-20)

One of the perks of being a Roman soldier was the entertainment of beating on prisoners. Unfortunately, soldiers have always been that way. I am not sure why. But soldiers tend to see their enemies as less than human, less than real. It was that case in the all of the wars America has fought.

Lately, there has been a lot of focus on this, but the thing is, as long as people are having to fight other people, it will be that way. It is easier to fight someone you have dehumanized than to fight someone you see as a real person.

It was the same in Jesus’ day. The governor gave Jesus to his soldiers to beat than he took him to be crucified. To the soldiers, he was nobody special, just another prisoner. He may have been a little more high profile than some, but now he was there, at least for a while, for their amusement.

They laughed at him, crowned him with a crown of thorns, dressed him in a purple robe, hit him, in general tortured him. Then they were through.

To these men, Jesus was no more than a momentary diversion. Chances are, they didn’t even think of him much that night when they went home. He was just part of their jobs (or at least part of the fun of their jobs).

To us he was the King of the Universe in human from dying for our sins, being beaten for our transgressions, bleeding for our failings.

To them, he was just part of the job of soldiering. That was all.

I suppose that is why the comment the centurion made at the foot of the cross in Mark 15:39: When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” That soldier could see past all of the stuff and see that there was something special about Jesus, something, some spark of divinity that was lacking in the others.

To them, Jesus was part of the day’s trash, to be thrown away.

To us, he is the Son of God and our Savior.

What a difference in perspective.

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Daily Java:

The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it. … The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!” Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”  (Mark 11:13-14, 20-25)

There are things that Jesus did that are strange, and some of them make no sense. Sometimes he will even explain them to the apostles but they still make no sense.

Jesus and the apostles are walking along and he is hungry and goes to get some figs off a tree. The tree doesn’t have anything on it to eat, so Jesus curses it. The next day when they come back from where they were Peter sees the tree and comments, rather amazedly , that it is dead.

Jesus goes into this long explanation of faith in God and in prayer, something that has nothing to do with the tree or his actions.

What does it mean? I will confess that I do not know.

Is it a comment that if you believe you can do something enough, even to the point of destruction, you can accomplish anything.

Is it that Jesus was human, too, and got irritated when something didn’t go his way? The Bible doesn’t show this anywhere else, so I don’t think it fits here. Jesus was not that kind of person to fly off the anger handle like that.

But he does temper it a bit. He says that no matter how strong your faith may be, if you are holding a grudge against someone else, you need to take care of it so you can get forgiveness, too.

How this fits into the tree thing I don’t know and have never read anything that satisfies my curiosity.

It comes out in the end that Jesus is not some person you can put into a box and say, “This is what he will do every time.” You just plain old do not know what Jesus would have done and neither do I.

And you can accept him and believe the Bible even though you can’t nail down everything in it. The mighty written word of God is not something you can read off the back of a cereal box. It is deep and strong and comes from the mind of the Everlasting God.

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Daily Java:

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?” “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they said, “for this is what the prophet wrote:
‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah,
      are not least among the ruling cities of Judah,
 for a ruler will come from you
      who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’”
Then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men, and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared. Then he told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him, too!” (Matthew 2:1-8)

Jesus was a blessing to all who were around him. At the same time, he was a threat to all that was around him.

He was a blessing because he was the Savior, the Prince of Peace come to this earth to save men’s souls, to bring us back to God. In that respect, he was the gift of God promised throughout the ages, that which the world looked toward since Adam brought sin into the world.

But he was also a threat. He represented change and change is never welcome. Everyone around would be affected. But some would like the change, would appreciate and love being affected. Some, on the other hand, would not.

King Herod did not. He didn’t appreciate the change at all. In fact, he did everything he could to stop the change, including the wholesale murder of all children under the age of two in the city of Bethlehem in hopes of killing that agent of hope. He didn’t want to worship, he wanted to stop Jesus.

But that agent of hope was not going to be stopped by someone as pathetic as King Herod. Yes, the king was powerful, but God had something better in mind.

God had Jesus in mind. And Jesus was going to come to this earth, no matter what a king of anyone else thought.

That is the problem with Jesus. He is Change. And the world hates to be changed from what it is to what it could be. That is why the world, governments, Hollywood, everything else fights him so hard. He is good, they are not. And they resist him.

But he will win, no matter what else may happen. His is superior strength and has endured for over 2000 years. And it will endure until God is through.

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Daily Java:

As I was standing on the bank of the great Tigris River, I looked up and saw a man dressed in linen clothing, with a belt of pure gold around his waist. His body looked like a precious gem. His face flashed like lightning, and his eyes flamed like torches. His arms and feet shone like polished bronze, and his voice roared like a vast multitude of people. Only I, Daniel, saw this vision. The men with me saw nothing, but they were suddenly terrified and ran away to hide. (Daniel 10:4-7)

For the most part, I hate Christian art. And the part I hate most are  the pictures of Jesus. He looks like such a wimp.

Pictures like the one Daniel saw are my idea of what Jesus should look like. I mean, here is the King, the Saber, the Pre-Incarnate Word of God, the One. And here he stands in all his glory. A body like a precious gem, face like lightning, eyes like torches. Arms and feet of polished bronze and a voice like a multitude of people.

That is a picture of Jesus. This is not the little wienie wimpy Jesus so often displayed in “religious” art. This is the Jesus the devil is terrified of. This is the Jesus that rules the universe. This is the Jesus who descended into hell to take back those the devil had taken.

This is a mighty Jesus. It is a lot like the picture of Jesus in Revelation 1 when John saw his picture of the glorified Christ.

And standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was like the sun in all its brilliance. (Revelation 1:13-16)

There was a Jesus to contend with.

This is not the Jesus who would wander around looking sweet and mild, the one driving a Prius and eating only vegetables so he wouldn’t offend vegetarians, the ones complaining that the government hadn’t paid student loans, the one used as a corporate shill for so many causes.

This is a Jesus who is absolutely above earthly stuff, yet loves his people.

This is the Jesus I worship.

i have come to set the world on fire, and i wish it were already burning!

I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! (Luke 12:49 NLT)

This is a side of Jesus we do not see often. We always think of Jesus as a peacemaker, ready to make people feel better.

In fact, the world’s view of Jesus is totally opposite this. The world’s picture of Jesus is a milktoast that allows people to do pretty much whatever they want.

The idea of a Jesus who is actually causing division is one we have trouble seeing.

The Bible talks enough about not causing division that we get to thinking that all division is wrong. It isn’t. Division in the body is wrong. Division in the body is never right.

But Jesus divides in a different way. You don’t have to look very hard to see this.

Hollywood is full of the division Jesus causes. He calls us to God, Hollywood calls us to glorification of self. He calls us to morality, Hollywood calls us to hedonism. He calls us to holiness, Hollywood calls us to debauchery.

You see that division in the world at large, too. Jesus calls us to God through himself. Islam calls people to a false god through a false prophet. The world becomes angry at the call of Jesus and tries its best to stamp it out. Countries all over the world outlaw Christianity only to find it growing even stronger.

In 1 Peter 2:8, the apostle Peter writes: He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. This means that just by being himself and carrying out his mandate from God, Jesus becomes divisive.

He is like a stone that sits in the road that people try to ignore and end up falling over. And then those who are too ignorant to see the stone and acknowledge it for what it is, get mad.

The mad takes several different forms. Some try to outlaw Jesus and all of his teachings. Some try to lessen what he had to say and put him in a category with a bunch of others they claim are like him. Some take him and try to make him into a poster boy for their cause. Some try to bend him to their wishes. Some ignore him altogether.

But they all trip over him because he is there no matter what anybody may say or do. His influence is all through the world and will continue to be until he comes again.

Jesus is real, and one day as Philippians 2:9-11 says, all will know it. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He will be acknowledged by all the world one day, but for too many it will be too late.

The world is already burning for Jesus. Those who know it and accept it are purified by the fire. It makes them that much holier. Those who do not are burned up in the fire.

As Hebrews 12:29 says, our God is a devouring fire. And the fire that devours is Jesus, the Great Divider.

all of a sudden jesus was there

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!  (John 20:19-20)

The apostles were scared. It had not been a good week.

They really didn’t know what to do. They were just caught in the moment and had a lot of trouble adjusting to the whole thing. A couple of weeks ago, they had been apostles and Jesus was hanging around with them. Now they were fugitives and Jesus was dead.

They had heard that Jesus had risen from the dead, and for some reason he had appeared to one of the women, not to them. But they just couldn’t be sure.

They were having another of those long, interminable discussions that they had at times. Everybody was pontificating and trying to be in charge. Nobody was really happy. They were all in all really just scared.

Then one of them looked up and –wham! There was Jesus standing there looking at them like he did: kind of an amused, tolerant, loving look, a look that was all his.

Hey, somebody hollered. Look! They all looked around and then they all saw him. He was standing in that relaxed way he had, a look of being in charge without being arrogant about it.

It startled the fire out of them. Even though they had been hoping he would come, really, the last person they expected to see was him.

But there he was. At first, they were just startled and some of them started hollering for lack of anything else to do.

Then they realized it really was him. It was Jesus. And he was alive and he looked so good. The last time they had seen him, he was bloody and beaten and dead. Now here he was, alive and clean and almost shining. He looked good.

He said, Peace be with you, the same thing he said each time he saw them. He held out his hands and showed them the holes, along with his feet.

When they realized it was him, they were overjoyed. What was he going to do? Was he going to stay, would he keep on preaching, would he make them all special beings like himself? What would he do?

They didn’t know, but they were surely excited. One of them commented that they sure wished Thomas was here

the Bible was never meant as a complete record of everything Jesus said

Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

I was reading a book the other day in which one of the characters mentioned that Indians weren’t in the Bible. This was to justify his killing them. One of the other characters said that the English weren’t either.

A lot of things are not mentioned in the Bible. Church buildings, communion ware, song books, a lot of things we take for granted as Christians are not even mentioned.

So what is the point? The point is that the Bible was intended to be a general guideline and not an exhaustive list of everything a Christian can do or participate in.

Someone once wrote a list of all the things Jesus said. In his mind, it was an exhaustive list, because it listed all of the things that are recorded. Yet, John says that he said a lot of other stuff that isn’t mentioned.

It would be good to know a lot of the things Jesus said that are not recorded, if nothing else for reference. There is only one reference to something Jesus said that is not in the gospels. That is in Acts 20:35:  

And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Jesus went around all over Israel talking to people. In his three years of ministry he gave countless sermons and discussions. He talked in the temple countless times. He said a lot of stuff.

You go around behind someone for three years and record every word he says, you are going to have a lot of words written down.

The thing is the Bible was never meant as a complete record of everything Jesus said. It was just meant to be a representative record.

The things that are recorded are those things that God meant for us to have. They are all that are needed. We do not need to know any more.

That kills us sometimes. We want to know more.

But it is too bad. What is there is good enough for us.

why did jesus come?

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. (Hebrews 5:4-5 NLT)

Why did Jesus come?

Jesus was selected by God for the position of Messiah. His selection didn’t come about in the normal way, as one would select applicants for a job, or winners for a prize, or even as you were selected to be an inmate. 

He was selected from before the foundation of the world and placed in the womb of a woman to be the Messiah. 

Philippians says that even though he was God, he allowed himself to be demoted and made human so that he could share in the experience with us.

You remember that show “Hart to Hart” with the incredibly rich couple who did stuff.  In the first episode, there was a scene at the dock with stevedores loading a ship. I don’t remember all of the plot, but one of the workers was Jonathan Hart, the owner of the world practically. 

However, he had something bad going on and he had to become a stevedore in order to find out what it was. When he found out, he went back to his penthouse.

That was Jesus. Mankind had a flaw and Jesus had to share in the flaw, yet not succumb to it.  He had to become human in order to do this.

Christmas celebrates his birth, the day that he came out into the world ready to live as a human being. He was a baby with all the problems of a baby, along with the problem of learning to obey his parents and ultimately God.

As Hebrews 4:14 said, we have a high priest who knows what it is like to be one of us. He was not brought in from outside to rule the company but proved himself on the field.

He showed that he can be a leader that people will respect as knowing what is happening and being able to overcome it. 

Not only can he overcome it, but he can also give you the ability to overcome it yourself; not of your own ability, but through his ability.

Yet at the same time, he was brought in from outside. He was the son of the president who worked his way up through the company. He was like us, yet he had the mind of God.

Since he is so able, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.  God will bless us through him

daily java

Daily Java:

Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him. Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:33-36 NLT)

When Jesus came, his people expected him to live up to their expectations. He was going to be their king, so therefore he needed to act like they wanted him to act.

The problem was: Jesus didn’t come to do what they wanted, he came to do what God the Father wanted. What they wanted was entirely beside the point.

So they got mad at him and tried to get rid of him. They wanted what they wanted and they were going to get it even if it meant killing yet another prophet.

However, this was not another prophet. This was the King. And he didn’t come by their permission and they were not going to stop him.

The same thing holds true today. People try to co-opt Jesus for all kinds of things. Climate change, animal rights, dietary choices, political parties – every group feels that if Jesus were here today, he would be one of them and argue in their defense.

The problem is, again: Jesus didn’t come to do what they wanted. In fact, he didn’t care about these things. He came, Luke 19 says, to seek and save that which was lost.

In Matthew 22:15-22, a group of people tried to trick Jesus into revealing what he thought about taxation. They asked if it was good to pay taxes to Caesar.

There was an ongoing argument among a lot of the Jews that said that since Caesar was an occupying army and not Jewish like they, they had no obligation to pay taxes. The other side wanted to keep the occupying army happy and encouraged the others to go along.

They asked Jesus this and tried to bring him into the political arena. If he said that it was fine to pay taxes, the conservative side would call him a traitor to his people. If he said no, it wasn’t good, the liberal side would call him an insurrectionist against the Roman empire.

Instead, Jesus asked for a coin and asked whose picture was on it. They replied Caesar. All right then, Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.

In other words, he was not going to take sides. He did not come to argue politics, or dietary choices, or energy choices. He came to bring us to God.

There are things I believe he would have stood against. He would have been against abortion. If the unborn John recognized the unborn Jesus (Luke 1:39-45) then obviously God dwells in the unborn. And to kill one is murder.

He would have stood for helping the homeless and the hungry. In Matthew 25, it was the fact that they did or did not help the hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, that determined their willingness to love Jesus.

But, you know, he never said anything much about war, or government, or slavery for that matter. There were a million things he didn’t say anything against.

When you accept him, you are accepting a heavenly based king who also determines how you will live on this earth. But Jesus himself knew that one day this earth will be gone.

And the apostle Peter said: The heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live (2 Peter 3:10-11)

One of these day, all of the energy and the animals and politics will be gone. All that will be left is us and Jesus.

hebrews 3: jesus greater than moses and warning against unbelief

 Here is the lesson plan for tonight in Bible class. If you can use it, feel free.

Hebrews: A New Day Coming
Hebrews 3: Jesus Greater Than Moses and Warning Against Unbelief

In the Batman movies, Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne is a wealthy man with a huge house. He has a butler named Alfred who is in charge of the house. Alfred is virtually indispensable to Bruce Wayne. However, when it comes down to it, Alfred is employed by Bruce Wayne and Bruce owns the house. Alfred is the servant, Bruce is the heir.

Moses was one of the greatest men who ever lived, according to Deuteronomy 34:10: Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face. Yet Moses was a servant of God. Jesus was the greatest man that ever lived, bar none, but he was the Son. In many ways, Moses served Jesus (Hebrews 11:26). Moses could never be greater than Jesus because Jesus was the Son. No man, no matter how great he was, could ever be greater than Jesus.

Now, however, he gives us the opportunity to be like Jesus: sons of God, something that Moses, as great as he was, could never be. Jesus said that no greater man than John the Baptizer had ever lived, yet those in the Kingdom of God were greater than he (Matthew 11:1012). John was Old Testament, we are New. John was servants, we are children. The situation and the dynamic has changed.

So, Hebrews says, since the whole situation is different than before, we ought to work even harder than those before us. We have a sharing in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. We are his house (v6), but we are also sons.

It makes for a different relationship than before. It would be like Alfred being adopted by Bruce. Then he would be a son. All of the Old Testament people, no matter how great, were servants. All of the New Testament people, no matter how small, are children

QUESTIONS:
1. V1 What is the heavenly calling? How do we share in it?
2. Do you see yourself as greater than Moses? He was an awfully great guy.
3. V6 we are his house. How can we be a house and the sons at the same time? Matthew 16:18 says that Jesus built the house. Did he build us?
4. V11 How hard would it be to make God mad enough to desert you?
5. How can you know if you have a sinful, unbelieving heart? Can you know it? Can you have one without knowing it? How do you harden your heart, anyway?
6. V11 Why would God turn from people he promised would be with him forever?
7. How do we encourage one another daily? Is it something we do, or say, or what?
8. What is that confidence we had at first (v14)?
9. What would it take people to not believe when the power of God was right in front of them 24/7? How do you not believe when his power is so great? Is it that they are stupid? Or what?
10. What is his rest?

Hallelujah, jesus is alive

I love this song. Tomorrow morning, Ella and I are going to sing it.

Praise be to God for his Son Jesus!

JESUS IS ALIVE!
For all the earth had trembled, the sun had did its face.
All the men that walked with him has turned and run away,
they crucified our savior and laid him in a tomb.

The life that once brought love and hope, slipped away that afternoon.
Satan gleamed with pleasure that day at Calvary,
for he thought he had won a mighty victory,

And like him all of the demons of hell began to cheer,
oh but little did they know that their end was drawing near.
'Cause early Sunday morning just like Jesus said,
he broke the curse of sin and death and he rose up from the dead. 

Now we have a new beginning, in a kingdom that has no ending,
Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Jesus is Alive, death has lost its victory and the grave
has been denied; Jesus lives forever, he’s alive, he’s alive! 

He’s the Alpha and Omega, the first and last is he, the curse of sin
is broken and we have perfect liberty;
the Lamb of God is risen, he’s alive,  he’s alive! (repeat)

He's the Author and the finisher of our faith,
the stone they threw away is the Cornerstone today.
Death has no more victory and the grace has no more stain,
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God is he, the Everlasting Father,
he's the precious Prince of Peace. 
He's the Word that lives forever, he's alive, he's alive!
Hallelujah,     Jesus is alive!

YES LORD
Yes, Lord, yes Lord, I believe.Yes Lord I believe you're alive in me. 
I'm gonna shout aloud to the Rock, the Rock of my salvation.
Yes Lord, yes Lord I believe
I believe the tomb is empty, cause I know my heart is full
with the glory and the wonder of your name. 
I believe the power that raised you is alive in me right now,
and the joy within my heart can't be contained.

they hated jesus

Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated me without cause.’ (John 15:23-25 NLT)

Jesus did not die just because it was time. God didn’t tell him one day, well, Son, it’s time. So Jesus goes out toward the cross, everybody is upset, the soldiers all think he is a regular guy and nobody wants to kill him, but after all, God said to.

Kind of like in Green Mile when they were upset to have to kill the man they knew to be innocent. Not so with Jesus.

The men in charge killed Jesus because they hated him. And they hated him because at every turn he made fools of them. He did everything he could to go against what they had to say.

It didn’t matter what it was they thought was proper, Jesus went in the opposite direction. He ate and drank wine and stuff when they didn’t want him to, he associated with people that were not people the leaders thought he ought to be with, he flaunted his disregard of their traditions.

One thing for sure, Jesus was not a gentleman. He didn’t care at all what people thought.

And they hated him for it.

On the other hand, the people to whom he came loved him. They followed him around listening to everything he had to say. They also loved the fact that he put these pompous fools in their places.

But the pompous fools did not like it at all. And the one thing they wanted to do was kill him. in fact, they disliked him so much that they made a bi-partisan committee on how to put him to death without the people hating them. Both the Pharisees (the conservative party in the Jewish government) and the Sadducees (the liberal party) disliked him enough, they got together to rid themselves of him.

Okay, they hated him. What does that mean? It means that if you serve him, people are going to hate you. Luke 21:17 says: Everyone will hate you because of me.

If they hated him, they will also hate you.

Wait, you say, I didn’t do anything. All I want to do is help people. The same could be said of Jesus. All he did was come to bring people back to God.

His problem, and ours too, is that he didn’t do it the way people who viewed themselves as experts wanted him to do it.

Have you ever wondered why the news channels refuse to acknowledge the help Christians give in world disaster. Christians are the ones who do the most, yet they are absolutely unrecognized. In fact, there are those who would rather people starve than have to admit that Christians are helping them.

As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:15-17 (NLT), Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.

Those who do not like Jesus or his message of grace feel that it is death. And it is. It is death to the ways of the world and life in him.

If you are a Christ-follower, you follow a guy who was hated for what he did. Hard to understand but it is the truth.

jesus could sure make people mad

No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:46)

Jesus just had a way with words. He had just gotten through talking about marriage in heaven and other stuff.  I think he had just gotten tired of these guys, the religious leaders, following him around trying to trip him up.

So he showed them a Gordian knot – an old expression for a knot that could not be untied.

He asked them if the Son of Man, the accepted designation among the teachers for the Messiah, was the son of David. Of course, they said. Everybody knows that.

Well, then, Jesus asked, why is it that David could call his son Lord? He quotes Psalm 110:1.

The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”

Then he asked, If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son? Conundrum city. How can the son be the Lord?

This was obviously something that they liked to argue about. He cut straight to the chase and gave them what to them was an unanswerable question. How is it that David’s son could be David’s Lord? How can a son rule the father?

Their response: nothing. And from that day no one dared to ask him any more questions. They were through with him. He had made them look foolish one time too many. It wasn’t long, in fact, until they killed him.

It was also right after this verse that he gives his scathing denunciation of them and their character in Matthew 23. That was the last straw.

One thing Jesus could do, though, was make people mad. And he could also shut them up.