Category Archives: The Gospel

Jesus

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Chick-fil-A was almost denied the right to sell their sandwiches at Denver’s Airport because their President said he believed in the Biblical definition of marriage.  Members of the city council objected to that.  It looks as though they will back down, but the situation is not new.  It is nearly 2000 years old.  The city council in Jerusalem during the earliest days of the church tried to shut them down, too – not what they were doing, but what they were saying.  During the first few weeks of the church, they caused quite a public commotion.  Much of it had to do with miraculous healings the Lord accomplished through them.  A lot of it had to do with some of their amazing acts of generosity to the poor.  Great mobs of people came to see and hear what would happen next.  And the city council (known as the Sanhedrin, led by the High Priest) was not happy about it.  After one public healing, they arrested the church leaders (the Apostles).

 

“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it.  But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”  –  Acts 4:16–17 (NIV84)

Next time they arrested the Apostles, they said:

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” Acts 5:28a (NIV84)

They didn’t tell them to stop doing the healings or taking care of the poor; they told them to stop saying, “Jesus!”  The same struggle goes on today.  Christians are not told to shut down their hospitals, soup kitchens, or disaster relief ministries.  They are told to shut up about Jesus.

Years ago, the churches in my town came together to cooperate in an outreach to the poor and homeless.  The community at large quickly relied upon the organization they formed to address the problems of that growing population.  Soon the city council voted to support the work financially.  Things changed.  Today, that agency, still named for its “united outreach” has a policy that forbids its volunteers and workers from mentioning Jesus.

You can pretty much do whatever you want in the Name of Jesus, as long as you don’t tell people about Jesus.  Maybe you’ve seen this at work.  Navy Chaplain, Wes Modder, experienced it when he was forbidden to minister or even talk to his unit according to his Christian beliefs.

God arranged a jailbreak for the Apostles, not so they could make a clean getaway, but so they go back and tell people about Jesus.

 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.”  –  Acts 5:20 (NIV84)

The “full message of this new life” is this: new, eternal life is given freely to anyone who comes to believe that Jesus is God and Savior.

Jesus said,  “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.  –  John 5:24 (NIV84)

Pass it on.  Don’t forget to say, “Jesus!”

If Nobody is Home

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Exorcism can be dangerous, Jesus said, because it can leave you worse off.

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.  Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.  Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” –  (Matthew 12:43–45)

The problem in this scenario is that the soul of the exorcised person is not filled with another and better spirit.  It is merely “swept clean.”  It may be “put in order,” temporarily following a set of rules for moral living.  But it is vulnerable to spiritual attack.  This is the condition of so many who attempt to become morally good by following rules and strict discipline.  In Jesus’ day, it was the Pharisees who followed that path.  In our day it is frequently those raised in a legalistic church who find themselves in this kind of peril.  His or her “house” is “swept clean” but it is “unoccupied.”  Take that person out of their childhood environment and plunk them down, unsupervised on, say, a college campus and some very strange and sad things tend to happen.

However, when a person trusts Jesus, He sends His Spirit to live in their soul to guide them and empower them in truth.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  –  (John 14:16–17)

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. –  (John 16:13a)

This is an essential difference.  Their “house,” their soul, is no longer “unoccupied.”  It is the reason why the message of Jesus is not merely another religion, doomed to failure, but is genuine, Good News!  He gives the Holy Spirit Who lives in our souls and overpowers the forces of evil.

Quotes: The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Mt 12:43–45). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Turned Loose

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A guy I knew in high school was confined to a wheelchair.  Then just about this time one year, he showed up at school walking!  He used canes, but he was really walking.  And the look on his face is still etched on my mind.

Imagine the look on the face of the paralytic guy to whom Jesus said, “”Pick up your mat and go home.”  I’ll bet it broadcast alternate waves of amazement and pure joy.  But rereading the account in Matthew, I noticed that the physical healing was secondary.  Jesus’ first words to this man were:

“Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2b)

The religious experts who heard Him were shocked at His supposed blasphemy.  So, Jesus used the healing as proof of His authority to forgive sins.

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?    Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?   But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” –  (Matthew 9:4-6)

It is easy to be astonished with the act of physical healing and lose sight of the fact it was given as proof of Jesus’ authority to forgive sins. My guess?  He would have healed the man out of kindness anyway.  But His first gift to the man was forgiveness. 

Jesus said it was easier for Him to say “Your sins are forgiven,” but in fact, it was not easy for Him to make that possible.  Only Jesus had that authority, and He alone, because He was sinless, was able to purchase forgiveness for others on the Cross. 

I think Jesus chose such moments with care, using those that were living pictures of His deeper truth.  Chances are pretty good that you, like me, have felt, paralyzed by sin from time to time, helplessly locked up and unworthy of release.  Jesus has the full authority to say, “Take heart, your sins are forgiven; take up your mat and go home.” 

Trust Him on that…

Refocus

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While you are reading this, do not look to your right.  Have you messed up yet? “Thou shalt not…” commands have an unintended effect on us: they make us want to do the very things they have forbidden. This, in a nutshell is what makes legalistic religion fail. Rules don’t restrain us, they tempt us.

How much better, God’s plan to restore us by implanting His Spirit to guide us, not by restrictive rules, but by creating in us the desire to do right. And yet, from the earliest days of the Christian church, men have tried to distort this message and turn the church into another religious bastion of rules.
Which led Paul to lament:

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. – (Colossians 2:20-23)

It is not that Paul believed Christians are not tempted to do sinful things, or that nothing in the world is harmful to taste or touch. But, rather, that attempting to live by “Thou shalt not” rules never accomplishes in us a life in harmony with the ways God intended. But neither does Paul leave us passively waiting for the Spirit to overpower our temptations. Instead, he teaches us to refocus our hearts and minds:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
– (Colossians 3:1-2)

Necessary Power

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Do you know why they yell, “Clear!” when they apply paddles to get someone’s heart going?  It is because the tremendous power needed would be dangerous if you were touching the body.  If that’s the kind of power necessary to restart a heart, how much power would be needed to bring a dead body back to life, one that had been dead for days?  We humans have never harnessed that kind of power.  We know how much power it takes to kill a person, but not to resurrect.  That power belongs to God alone.

And yet, that power is offered to everyone who will trust Jesus.  God applies His power that we might be:

“… raised with him [Jesus] through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:12b- with my added explanation)

I pulled out that half-sentence from a lengthy and somewhat confusing description of what happens to those who trust Jesus for salvation, to highlight the power of God, necessary to bring dead people back to life.  Without that power applied, we all are dead.  We feel alive because our hearts are beating, but it takes much more to be fully alive.  We say someone whose heart beats but who has no brain activity is “brain dead.”  God considers us dead if our hearts and brains function but we do not have His Spirit living in our souls.  Without His living Spirit, we are missing the essential ingredient for the full life God intended when He designed and created us.  We humans lost that Spirit, that Eternal Life, when we rejected God and embraced sin.

By His power, God offers to restore us to full life.  This can only happen to those whose sin has been completely paid for and forgiven.  Because sin caused our spiritual death, the just penalty for sin is physical death and separation from God, a price we cannot pay.  But Jesus willingly paid the full price on our behalf, with His life.  God, by His great power raised Him back to life.  If you accept this payment for your sins and trust the One Who paid it, then you, too, are raised to life by God’s power.

“When you were dead in your sins … God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,” (Colossians 2:13 excerpt)

 

 

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Wince Some

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You’ve probably never seen a sign that says, “Adult Circumcisions, Overflow Room.”  Wanna get circumcised?  Probably not.  If you have been circumcised, it was probably done to you before you had a vote.  And yet, Paul writes, one of the best things about following Christ by faith is being circumcised (if I write that word enough, I’ll stop wincing…)

“In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,” (Colossians 2:11)

Obviously, he’s using a metaphor, describing a spiritual procedure with a physical one.  It’s an apt comparison, since both kinds of circumcision cut away an insensitive outside layer to fully expose a more sensitive and responsive inner core (more wincing…).  In Christ, the outside callousness of our “sinful nature” is cut away.  Callouses are built up through repeated acts – hiking, playing guitar, etc. – and protect our nerves, making the acts hurt less.  When we repeatedly do self-destructive things, sinful ones, we build up callouses over our hearts.  The first time you steal or lie, it troubles you more than it does on the umpteenth time.  That is due to the hard, calloused layer of your sinful nature.  In Christ, that layer is cut away, to expose your true sensitivity within, now revitalized by the Holy Spirit.

It’s not that your old habits vanish.  But, “in Christ,” they are now, no longer an integral part of your identity.  Where once they were members of the “family” of you, now, they have been disowned, cut off.  They may still stick around for a time, like unwelcome house guests that will not leave voluntarily.  Having been cut off, they are (slowly) dying as the renewed you emerges from within.  You are bothered by these old sinful habits, more than you were before, because your new nature, sensitive to the perfect ways of God, has been exposed.  You have been circumcised by Christ.

It’s important to understand this, as you struggle with old patterns of sin.  Remember: the reason the struggle is frustrating is because of the new sensitivity of who you have become in Christ.  You wince because you have been circumcised by Christ.

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Fullness

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This may be the most amazing sentence in the Bible:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10)

To fully appreciate what that says, answer these questions:

First, according to this verse, how much of Almighty God lives in Jesus?  Answer: All the fullness of the Deity!  All, every part of God’s “fullness!”

Second question: How much of the “fullness” of Jesus is available to those who have surrendered to Him?  Same answer. Oh, wow…

The chances are pretty good, if you have fully trusted Jesus, you have not been fully aware of His fullness in you.  But knowing you have His fullness is the first step to accessing it.  I just got a new Android phone, which came loaded with all sorts of special, tricky things it will do for me – provided I know how to access them and turn them on.  Which, of course, I can not do unless I know they are there!  One of the tricky things my phone will do is let me ask it questions about what other things it is able to do.  Such as, “Can you tell me how to get to Home Depot?”  Jesus comes into you with that feature already installed.  Not how to get to the hardware store, but the ability to show you how to understand and use your new operating system, His life in you. If you need to know how to use Him, just ask.  He will show you.  Because you have all His fullness, you have access to all the fullness of God through Him. In real time!

Astonishing…

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Mirror image

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It’s just dumb to build yourself an idol, prop it up on the mantel – carefully, so it won’t fall over – and then worship it.  Isaiah marvels that some people cut a tree to use for firewood, and then:

“From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, “Save me! You are my god!”” (Isaiah 44:17)

If you build it, it  cannot be your god.  And yet, people still make their own ‘gods’ and worship them – these days they tend to use computer chips instead of wood or stone.  It is inherently foolish to surrender to something you have made – or made up!

I say made up because something similar is going on when we attempt to redefine Jesus to fit our own ideas.  People say, “My Jesus would not have done that” as though they are in a better position, today, to know what Jesus was like than the eye witnesses who wrote the Gospels.  “The Jesus Seminar” was made up of self-described “scholars” who decided for themselves which things Jesus actually said, and which were falsely ascribed to Him, based on their own preconceived notions!  But anything you have made or have made up, cannot be your God.  He cannot guide you or save you.

Psalm 115 says:

“Those who make them [idols] will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:8)

One reason we become like our idols is because we have made them in our own image.  We resemble them because they have been made to resemble us, to agree with our own ideas.  Someone once said, if you pick and choose which parts of the Bible you agree with, discarding the rest, what you wind up is a mirror image of yourself.  A “god” who looks like you cannot guide you or save you.

Plus Nothing

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The man was beat up badly for telling people about Jesus.  And then thrown in prison.  You might think he’d have taken a break and used the time to rest up.  But not Paul.  He said:

“I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.” (Colossians 2:1)

Struggling?  The word he used gives us our word for agonizing.  In jail?  Doing what?  Praying.  Not just “Now I lay me down…”  but agonizing over these folks in prayer – people he had never met!  Why?  What was so important that, even though he couldn’t be there personally, he worked hard in prayer for them?

Turns out, the problem was human ideas were creeping into their understanding.  People who loved to be in positions of authority and control over others were teaching them a bunch of nonsense.  Religious nonsense.  It sounded good.  But it was leading them farther and farther away from what they really needed to know.

“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:2-3)

Think about the simple but reverent lifestyle and teaching of Jesus.  Compare that simplicity to what the various forms of Christianity have become!  What has changed?  Human ideas have been added, ones that seem good because they sound religious, but which dilute and pollute the essence of what it means to follow Jesus.  Think of the lavish architecture, the costumes, the ritual and the extravagance.  Think of all the rules and regulations that have been layered on the simple message of Jesus.  This distortion in the name of Jesus has been going on from the very earliest days of the church.  Paul couldn’t be there to rail against it, so he agonized in prayer for them.  And he wrote to them:

“I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.” (Colossians 2:4)

God loves you.  Your sins have separated you from Him.  He wants to forgive you and reconcile you to Himself.  He has paid the penalty for your sin, on your behalf, by the crucifixion of His Son, Jesus.  Stop trying to fix yourself and trust Jesus instead.  Surrender to Him and He will come and live in your soul by His Spirit.  In Him you have “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  If you have His life in you, that’s all you need.  Plus nothing.

 

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Don’t Miss This!

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Sadly, many churches have missed the most important point in the message of Jesus.  Which is to say they missed the whole thing.  They talk about Jesus and the Bible but have never understood what Paul called “the Word of God in it’s fullness.”  It’s the key.  It changes the News into Good News. You don’t want to miss it!

God foretold the coming of Jesus, His crucifixion and resurrection, but He held one part back, hidden, until Jesus had come.  Paul called it a “mystery.”

“…the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” (Colossians 1:26)

Without grasping this “mystery,” nothing about the message of Jesus “works.”  Jesus’ atoning sacrifice and God’s forgiveness would be useless.  The idea of being “holy and without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22 – See: No Halfway Measure) would be a farce.  Except for this amazing truth:

“… God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27b)

The “fullness” of the Gospel, the “mystery” held back until Jesus had appeared, is this:  When a person trusts and surrenders to Jesus Christ, Jesus begins to live eternally in his or her soul, by means of His Holy Spirit.  Jesus said,

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)

“Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [literally, dwell within him]“ (John 14:23)

Receiving the Spirit and life of Jesus is how the believer crosses over from death to eternal life.

““I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)

This eternal life in us is the reason for our “hope of glory,” literally, for our confidence in the successful eternal outcome of following Jesus.  Trying to follow Him without His Spirit would be like trying to use GPS without a satellite connection.  Or a blender without electricity.  It would be impossible, without His life in us, to commune with God and grow in His ways.  We would be reduced to trying to follow a list of religious rules and failing.  But the Good News is this: if we truly trust Him, Jesus lives in us, empowering us and transforming us.

Don’t miss this!

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.