In Line

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A friend of mine signs autographs and sells sketches at Comic Conventions because he used to be an animator for Disney.  People line up to meet him (which continues to baffle him…).  I wonder if there will be lines in Heaven to meet various Bible celebrities.  Some of those lines would be pretty long, with all the people wanting to meet John, Peter and the rest of the boys.  Don’t even think about how long the line would be at Jesus’ booth.  Good thing we’ll have eternal life if we’ll be waiting in all those lines.

I’m not sure how that will work out, but if there are lines like that, don’t be surprised if you see Peter standing in your line.  How could that be?  Let’s ask him.  He wrote this greeting:

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:  (2 Peter 1:1)

Peter got to be one of the original apostles of Jesus and yet considered every believer to be of equal standing.  How can that be possible?  Because, as a follower of Jesus, your standing is obtained “by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”   God’s righteousness is perfect.  How much of that righteousness will He impart through Jesus to you?

Paul wrote:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.   (Philippians 1:6)

 

And John:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  (1 John 3:2)

I don’t know about lines to meet Bible rock stars in heaven.  But know this: as hard as it is to imagine, if you follow Jesus by faith, you are already in line to obtain perfection. The next time you pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” remember that promise is part of the deal.

The Opportunity in Failure

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If God knew His plan couldn’t work, why did He bother?  He chose Israel as a demonstration of how wonderful it is when people live in close fellowship with God, enjoying His protection, provision and guidance.  He gave them every advantage – a land “flowing with milk and honey,” success in battle, and a written book of instructions.  All they had to do was stay faithful to Him as their God.  But even with all of God’s special protection and instruction the people of Israel couldn’t pull it off.  They ignorned repeated warnings, ruined everything and were hauled off into exile.  And God knew it in advance.  Before they were even settled in the Promised Land,

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.  (Deuteronomy 31:16)
So why do it if He knew it would fail?  God knew humans would never accept His help until they had utterly failed so often they were ready to give up on trying to help themselves.  

People have not changed.  Perhaps, no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to find satisfaction.  There’s always something that “ain’t right.”  There’s a restless emptiness inside.  If so,  it’s time to quit trying.  Facing  your failure brings a perfect opportunity to surrender and receive what really does work – God’s perfect plan.  There’s a reason they call it “salvation.”  God’s plan succeeds because He installs His Holy Spirit in our souls, to comfort us, guide us and empower us.  His Spirit is what has been missing.  

Those who stop trying, who humbly accept Jesus’ offer of help, receive His Spirit and cross over into a new and satisfying kind of full life.  Jesus described the difference as a spring of cool, fresh water.  He said,

“… whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  (John 4:14)

Change?

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You know the joke: How many Christians does it take to change a lightbulb?  Answer: Change?

For a variety of reasons, change is coming to Fresh Bread of Life.  Instead of continuing the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, I’ll be posting from time to time with no set schedule.  I’ve got some camping to do and have discovered it is tough to get WiFi in the woods.   Your readership has been a great blessing and encouragement.  Over the last 4 years, you and others from 80 countries have read this blog over 40,000 times.  I’m grateful for your interest and occasional comments.

If you would like to be notified by email when the new posts are up, simply subscribe below.  Of course, you can still explore the 600 or so posts by theme or simply by scrolling.  Also, the audio sermons on John are still available for streaming or download.  Look under the Menu tab for those.

Happy Trails, and God bless you a bunch!

How to Abide

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Maybe this teaching of Jesus has frightened you:

6 If you do not remain [some translations read, abide] in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  (John 15:6)

Jesus told His followers to abide or remain in Him or else.  Yikes!  If that is the case, we had better understand how we can abide in Him.  What do we have to do?

Let me ask a question:  When you were growing up, what did you have to do to make sure you lived in your home?  Nothing?  What gave you the right to simply walk in without knocking, go up to your room and flop down on the bed?  That right came with the fact that you were in the family.  You lived in that home because, as a child of your parents, it was your home.  They gave you the right.  If you continually questioned whether you lived there they would have taken you for a professional check up.

Same thing with Jesus.  When we receive Him by faith, He gives us the right to be born into God’s family.  The Spirit of God is born into our souls and we become children of God.  As members of His family, we live, or abide, or remain in Him.  Forever.  In His teaching on this, Jesus said,

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  (John 15:1)

In his classic work, Abide in Christ,  Andrew Murray points out that it is up to the gardener to keep a grafted branch secure in the vine.  God is the One who draws us to Jesus and secures us in Him.

So why does Jesus tell us to abide in Him?  It’s a matter of recognizing and remembering where our home is as we go through life.  In a criminology class in college, I  once visited a maximum security prison.  It was a grim and sometimes frightening experience.  From time to time I deliberately reminded myself, “I don’t live here; I get to leave in a couple hours.”  In the same way, we who have come to abide in Christ, are taught we don’t live here.  We are strangers sent as ambassadors of Jesus.  Sojourners.  As we hang on to that reality, it transforms our attitudes and actions.

There’s No App for That

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Did you know there is an app that checks if a watermelon is ripe? And one that checks if you are brushing your teeth long enough?  I have an app that tunes my guitar and one that checks if my RV is level.  You may have apps to time your eggs and keep track of your exercise or just about anything else you can think of.  But there is one thing for which there is no app: abiding or remaining in Jesus.  Jesus said,

4 Remain in me [some translations say abide], as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  (John 15:4)

Apps are temporary temporary tasks.  But to abide, or to remain, means to make your home permanently in a place – in this case in Jesus.  Abiding is not an app; it’s an operating system.  The operating system in your smartphone is always on when the power is on.  It under-girds and controls everything the phone does, including the apps.  Abiding or remaining in Jesus is like that.

Jesus told us,  “remain in Me, as I also remain in you.”  How does He abide in us?  He promised He would never leave us or forsake us.  He doesn’t come and go for a visit or for a service call.  He lives in us.  He instructs us to make our home in Him like that, as a steady and permanent condition that controls everything else we do.  When we pray, “Jesus, come help me bear fruit in this situation,” we are treating Him as an app instead of an operating system.  Better yet to adopt Paul’s attitude, he expressed like this:

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  (Galatians 2:20-21)

Now What?

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On the day after Resurrection Day, it might be good to reflect on how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus actually changes the way we live.  Do they make a difference or do we simply put the plastic eggs back in the closet and go back to the humdrum of life?  If you are still reading, no doubt you vote for them making a difference.  But what sort of a difference?  Read through what Peter wrote – slowly and thoughtfully – and you’ll have a pretty good answer:

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.  (1 Peter 1:17-21)

Why This Friday is Good

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“Move that bus!”  The impoverished family gapes to see a newly remodeled home, filled with improvements to make their lives better.  If you’ve seen “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition,” you remember the tears of amazement and joy.  But as the family tours the home, as excited as they may have been, for the breadwinner, in the back of their minds is the gathering fear, “What if I can’t keep this job and we miss a few payments?  I could easily lose this place…”  But occasionally, just before the show signed off, Ty Pennington would say, “Oh, there’s just one more thing…” and some charitable organization would present the family with a check, paying off their mortgage in full.

In a scenario like that, a family that had experienced life as a daily struggle, would then be able to move into their new home and find rest, secure in the realization their greatest obligation of debt had been paid off by someone else.  That is, if they trusted the check was real, accepted it and cashed it.

Today we remember that, on the Cross, Jesus Christ paid our full obligation of debt, with His own blood, forever.  As Isaiah foretold,

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:5-6)

If we trust Him, and accept His payment on our behalf, we will be received into God’s family (John 1:12-13), enter into His rest (Hebrews 4:3), secure in the realization that our obligation has been fully paid.  Forever.

 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.* 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.  (Ephesians 1:5–7). New Living Translation

Real Freedom

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He refused to participate in a corrupt act, was sued by his partner, and lost everything – his business, his home, his wife and millions of dollars.  He was forced into bankruptcy.  He eventually found another job, at a fraction of his former salary, but then proceeded to make payments to his creditors, despite no longer being legally required to do so.  Why?  He was free.  Free to do what was right without fear or coercion.  His freedom came from Jesus.

Jesus was free.  He was not hemmed in by social expectations.  He didn’t follow the rules imposed by the religious authorities.  He was not afraid of their punishments and not afraid to be considered eccentric.  He socialized with outcasts, ate and drank as he chose.  Jesus was free.  He was free of the world’s coercion, free to listen to God and get in step with His instructions.  He said,

…“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. (John 5:19b)

… The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:10b)

Jesus was free to dance in perfect time with His Father.  Free to break the restrictive rules of social expectations and ignore the threats of the powerful.  He was free to go to the Cross without fear.

For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.  No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”  (John 10:17-18)

Everything or Nothing

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If at first you don’t succeed, wingsuit flying is not for you.  Watching videos of those guys flips my stomach.  Especially the takeoff.  They climb to the peak of a high cliff, teeter on the edge, count to three and dive, headfirst, nearly straight down.  I suppose it’s to build up enough speed.  There’s no halfway in a wingsuit jump.  No easing into it.  It’s everything or nothing.

Same thing with Jesus.  Everything or nothing.  People ease up close to Jesus, spend time talking and singing about Jesus and read books about Jesus but none of that matters.  About many who called Him Lord, Jesus said, “I never knew you.”  There’s no halfway; you gotta jump.  Headfirst.  Jesus said it like this:

34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.  (Mark 8:34-35)

“Deny himself” does not necessarily mean giving everything to the poor (although it might mean that in some circumstances).  It means letting go of fear and the overwhelming urge to keep yourself safe.  For a wingsuit jumper, it would be ignoring the part of your brain that is screaming, “Are you out of your mind????”   For the would-be disciple, it is abandoning all half-way measures, all plans B in case it doesn’t work out.  If you try to save your life you’ll never find it in Him.  It’s everything or nothing.

“Take up his cross” does not mean to commit suicide.  It means to let go of all the things you used to think defined life.  Money, fame, popularity, success, luxury, good looks,  fun – all these things are pursued by people who think they will provide a satisfying, full life.  The would-be disciple doesn’t necessarily become penniless or unpopular.  He lets go of the idea that those are important.  He recognizes that full life, satisfying life can only be found in the company of Jesus.

“Follow Me” means to pay attention, learn and imitate the attitudes and actions of Jesus.  Not the bland, passive Jesus of paintings and Sunday School books but the robust, free-spirited, radical, passionate Jesus.  To follow Jesus is to let go of your own plans and let Him take you on a real adventure.

Perhaps these imperfect descriptions of Jesus’ cryptic challenge sound repressive and personally suffocating.  My experience has been just the opposite.  Instead of letting the fickle, competitive world set the agenda for how to live, I’ve discovered the One Who created me can set me free to be all He made me to be.

But you can’t get there tentatively or halfway.  You gotta jump.  Everything or nothing.

Spreading Light

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There is an emerging radical shift in medicine.  Instead of killing diseased and dysfunctional cells, medical scientists are experimenting with transforming damaged cells into fully functional, healthy cells.  The process is amazing: A single cell is injected in the body and begins to gradually transform the non-functioning cells.  If you’ve been to a candle lighting service, imagine a cell with a candle flame, connecting with a dark cell and lighting it’s candle.  Exponentially the light spreads.  The body becomes healthy.  (There’s a cool TED talk I’ll link below.)

John began his Gospel by declaring Jesus to be God, manifested as a human being.  But, unlike every other human, Jesus was a complete, fully functional human because,

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  (John 1:4)

Jesus had the Holy Spirit we were designed to have, the Spirit lost to humanity at the Fall.  He came to bring this Spirit as light to our darkness.  He couldn’t merely flip a switch, however.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.  (John 1:5)

Spreading the light had to happen one soul at a time, because our darkness and lack of understanding was a personal, internal problem.  It was necessary for each of us to allow the light to come in and change us.  To accept the transformation from spiritual death to life, from spiritual darkness to light.  What did we need to do?

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. ( John 1:11-13)

 

When a stranger knocks at your door, you either let him in or not depending upon whether or not you trust him.  Allowing him in is an act of faith.  When Adam stopped trusting God, he lost the Spirit.  When Jesus came, it was to restore the Spirit to anyone who would receive Him by trust, by faith.  And when anyone does receive Him by faith, Jesus causes the Spirit to be born in his or her soul.  He lights their candle, so to speak, bringing them to full, spiritual life and spreading His light.

Here’s the promised LINK