Tag Archives: Jesus

Ancient Glimpses

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Long time no post…  We’ve been wandering for a month or so, from Colorado up over Lake Superior in Canada and back, by the little squiggly roads.  We’ve encountered beautiful sights and some really crappy WiFi.  Worth it though…

So then, back to the “Fresh Bread;” here’s a mind-bender for you…

Isaiah saw glimpses of Jesus, 700 years before His birth; we’ve mentioned that before (See “Ancient Sroll; Secrets Revealed”). Go back 300 years earlier, and King David saw glimpses of Jesus, too:

The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”  Psalm 110:1

The puzzle in that first line of David’s psalm is that David says that God (“The Lord”) speaks to his God (“my Lord”).  Who does he say God is talking to?  Jewish theologians from antiquity agreed: David was referring to the Messiah.  But the Messiah was understood to be a king from among David’s descendants.  How could David call a descendant of his “my Lord?”   Jesus posed this question for the theologians of His day:

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’  Matthew 22:41-44

David had been given a glimpse of Jesus, 1000 years or so before His birth.  In that same psalm, David talks of Jesus’ powerful rule.  In poetic imagery, he alludes to Jesus’ eternal life, saying that each new day…

Arrayed in holy majesty,
from the womb of the dawn
you will receive the dew of your youth.  (Psalm 110:3b)

But then David calls back an event from the life of his ancestor, Abraham, that took place 700 years earlier, 1700 years before Jesus.  Abraham was returning from a battle he knew God had caused him to win, seeking a way to give thanks and honor to God, when a mysterious stranger showed up.  His name was Melchizedek, which means “King of Righteousness.”  He served Abraham as a priest, receiving an offering of thanks for God, serving as one through whom Abraham could connect to God.  He then vanishes from the pages of Scripture.  In addition to not having any record of his lineage, Melchizedek has no death recorded in Scripture.  But the really unique thing about him is that he served as both a king and a priest, something no other king or priest has ever done.

David, in his psalm, says that God says to the Messiah:

“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”  (Psalm 110:4b)

This may sound confusing, but David was saying that one day, a descendant in his line would be a righteous, powerful, supreme leader, a man who would live eternally, and who would serve as both a king and a priest.  Jewish scholars and theologians who puzzled over that psalm generally agreed.  1700 years later, Jesus acknowledged that He was that Descendant, Righteous King and Perfect Priest.  He would serve to connect us to God in a perfect way.  The author of the Book of Hebrews later gave a rather detailed explanation about how all those pieces fit together (Read Hebrews 6:13 – 8:2).

When I consider how unlikely it is that such ancient glimpses of a Messiah would ever fit together, much less be realized in the Person of One Man, my head swims.  And all of  that just skims the surface…

Will the Real Leader Please Stand Up?

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Do you despair when you hear all The bickering that goes on in Washington? How do you suppose the upheaval in Egypt will turn out? Do you think the new leader in Iran will be better than Ahmedinijab (How do you spell his name? My spell checker converted it into something about getting a job at Denny’s)? When you consider all the unrest in the world are you ready for a perfect leader? Here’s a prediction about just that from Isaiah 11. He is prophesying about Jesus. When you read how Jesus’ leadership will be characterized one day, it sounds pretty good…

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. . (Isaiah 11:1-4)

Question is, with a leader like that, would you follow Him, would you cooperate?

Check Engine

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Are you getting tired of all this talk about what makes God angry?   You might be thinking, “Alright already! I get it; let’s get on to something more pleasant!”   If that is how you feel, imagine how God feels!  Fact is, God wants us to get on with the good stuff.  That’s why He gave us the Bible!

When your check-engine light comes on,

Check Engine light on a 1996 Dodge Caravan.

Check Engine light on a 1996 Dodge Caravan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

you can either get upset about it, or you can think, “Wow! My car just informed me of something I can do to get it running better.”   Sure you can  also be bummed out about the cretin who just serviced the thing and who probably left a wire unplugged…   But the point is, Isaiah 5 is a “Check Engine” light.  Ignore it to your own peril.  Here’s what lies ahead for those who do:

So man will be brought low and mankind humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled.  (Isaiah 5:15)

The problem, at its root, is arrogance, the attitude that presumes it knows better than God how to live in His garden.  The opposite attitude, humility, is held by those who really do know they need to pay attention to God, the Creator and Designer of all this and to submit to the ways He has said work best.  If you are only recently reading these posts, go back and read about the key verse in Isaiah, the one that reveals the message of the whole Bible.  The short version is this: God will dwell in the souls of the humble, will forgive them, restore them and bring them to full life (Isaiah 57:15-19).

Here is what lies ahead for the humble:

But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness. Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich. (Isaiah 5:16-17)

The “sheep” in those verses are the humble who pay attention and submit to God.  And to His Son, Jesus.  Here’s what Jesus said lay in store for His “sheep”:

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
(John 10:7-9)

Real Freedom

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Tucked into the hills of North Carolina is a campground that has been under the watchful, squinty eye and command of an 88 year-old lady.  Abigail (not her real name) is laid back and nice, but she has her rules, runs her place by what she reads in the Bible and doesn’t put up with anybody who doesn’t like that.  We spent a night there, along with maybe 200 other campers.  It was a little slice of heaven, nothing like inner, what-used-to-be-a-city, Detroit.  You don’t want to set up your tent there.  I know I’m painting with too wide a brush, and there are exceptions for sure, but the big difference between Abigail’s place and inner-city Detroit is that Abby respects the ways of God and the gangs on the streets of Detroit do not.

It might seem that the old-fashioned, Southern, campground lady, bound up with her Bible principles isn’t as free as the folks who go ahead and do whatever they feel like doing in Detroit.  But in reality, the opposite is true.  Abigail’s respect for God’s operating instructions for His garden allows her to breathe free.  I know, I know: there are a whole bunch of “yeah-buts” with which you could poke holes in that comparison, but the point I’m trying to make is true.  God isn’t trying to restrict us with His rules and principles, but set us free to make the most out of life.  Those who don’t pay attention, or who deliberately thumb their noses at God will ultimately be hurt by what they do.  That is the point of Isaiah 5 (This topic begins here.).

The next four “Woe’s,” next four things that make God mad, from Isaiah 5, sound like they are critiques of our current culture.    I won’t quote them here; read them for yourself and see how close they fit.  God is angered by:

Verse 18-19 – People who put real effort into doing things God forbids and by their actions ridicule God

Verse 20 – People who say that evil is good, and vice versa.

Verse 21 – People who think they are smarter than God and that they know better

Verse 22 – Corrupt officials who peddle influence and deny justice to those who are not connected

Sound familiar?   Our culture is shot through with all of them!  The people who do these things think they are being smart, squeezing the most out of life.  Fact is, they are missing out, lurking about in Detroit when they could be having lemonade at Abigail’s place.  Here’s what God says lies in store:

Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets.   (Isaiah 5:24-25)

The Hidden Jesus

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Jesus has been hidden in plain sight, by those who distort His message and co-opt it for their own purposes. Christ has become obscured by Christianity. But that is the way it has always been for God’s Truth. That is why God told Isaiah he would be preaching to people who would:

“Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” (Isaiah 6:9) His teachings, teachings coming directly from God, would “Make the heart of this people calloused; … their ears dull and close their eyes.” (Isaiah 6:10a – excerpts). People would hear what Isaiah said, but not understand it, see it but not perceive it, because they would have their minds made up! People want to make up their own ideas instead of submitting to God’s ways. People are much more comfortable with religion than they are with Truth. By “religion,” I mean a set of rules – do’s and don’ts – so they can measure how well they are doing as they try to measure up.

The ironic thing is this:

    God’s Truth sets us free, while religion ties us up with rules.
    Religion tells us to try harder; God tells us to find the place where we rest, in tune with His Truth.

Consider what Isaiah was told to convey to the priests of his time. The priests had distorted God’s truth, making it sound as though it was for little children:

“For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there…” (Isaiah 28:10) But God had said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest” and “This is the place of repose” – but they would not listen. (Isaiah 28:12b excerpts) “So then, the word of The Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule: a little here, a little there – so they fall backward, be injured and snared and captured.” (Isaiah 28:13)

People would rather live by rules than by God’s Truth. Religions made up of rules give some people authority over others. People have made up religions based on Jesus, and have hidden Jesus behind them. Jesus came to earth with “grace and truth.” (John 1:14) If people had “eyes to see and ears to hear” Jesus told them, “If you hold to my teaching (literally: if you make your home in my understanding of reality, my ‘logos’) you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31)

Here’s the urgent deal: If all you know about Jesus has come to you from a religion, get to know Him from His Word! Seek to understand His “Logos,” His understanding of what is real and true. Pray to have eyes that see and ears that hear. A great place to start would be in the Gospel of John.

Now You See it; Now You Don’t

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My wife has a can of aerosol wonder spray that causes spots on the carpet to vanish.  No, I don’t know what it is – deliberately, so I don’t have to use it.  We each have our own gifts: my gift is putting the spots on the carpet…  Anyhow, it’s amazing stuff. You should get some.  Now you see it; now you don’t.  

In Isaiah, God said this:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall  be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Most of us have sins we hope nobody ever finds out about, the ones that, whenever they come to mind, cause our toes  to curl up in our shoes.  We’d like to forget them but they won’t go away.  They are like bloodstains on the carpet.   But God says He will cause those to vanish.  Not just forgive them but take them away entirely.   Literally.  Isaiah knew this from first hand experience.  When he cowered before God and confessed that he, like everybody else, was a man of “unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5) God arranged a weird, supernatural ceremony of atonement to happen:

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

I cannot explain all the bizarre details described there.  But God (literally His angelic beings) did something to cause Isaiah’s sin to disappear.  The Hebrew word behind the phrase “taken away” means to drag off, or cause something to vanish.  Now you see it; now you don’t.   The reason that is possible is explained in the Hebrew word behind the phrase “atoned for.”  If you wanted to purchase freedom for a slave, you would pay the going rate to his master, making atonement for him.   Jesus made that kind of payment to free us from our guilt.   If you are willing, God removes it.

In the verse we began with above, God says, in effect, “Be reasonable and I will cause your sin to disappear – not just the common ones, but the whoppers, too – the ones that seem like bloodstains on your memory.”   What does He mean by “Let us reason together?”  We see it in the next two verses:

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.  (Isaiah 1:19-20)

Eating Jesus…

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When Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life (See, “Free Food, Free Drink”), He took it a step further.  He said you have to eat Him!

 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”  (John 6:53-54)

Yuck!  Sounds disgusting,   Did Jesus really suggest He would be the main course at the cannibal feast?   We can figure out what He really meant by comparing what Jesus said just a bit before those shocking words.  This quote is almost the same as the second sentence above, except for the words, “looks to and believe.”

“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

See that?  “Eat my flesh…” replaces “looks to and believes…”   Therefore, we know that Jesus used “eat my flesh” as a vivid metaphor for believing. 

When you think about it, so do we.  We say “I swallowed what he told me,” to mean that we believed what he said.   When you swallow something you come to a personal moment of decision and surrender.  It is an act of faith.  You believe it will be better if you move something from outside you to inside, where it will become absorbed into your life.  That’s what Jesus meant:

 “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood (i.e. whoever believes and takes Me in) remains (makes his home) in me, and I (make My home) in him.” (John 6:56 – with my added explanations.  

The word “remains” is a Greek word for living permanently, making ones home in, or abiding.)  When Jesus makes His home in you, His life comes to life within you.  Because His life is eternal, you have (present tense) eternal life.  His, eternal life, living in you by means of the Holy Spirit, is the consequence of your personal, voluntary, decision of faith to “swallow” Jesus!

Chew on that!  

Free Food! Free Drink!

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Years ago I worked for a couple of days at a fundraising concert for the US Ski Team.  Among the perks for the workers at that event was free skiing and free gourmet food and drink, served at a large, covered pavilion, halfway down one of the ski slopes.  We would ski up to this big tent, show our passes, go in and chow down on some of the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten.  Here’s a question for you:  If you could get invited to that, would you go?  Me too!    Here’s another invitation.  This one is not hypothetical; it’s real and your name is one the card:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy  and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on  what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”  Isaiah 55:1-3a

Isaiah gave advance notice of that party; Jesus delivered the invitation:

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.   John 6:35

Can this be for real?  God said it again:

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.   Revelation 21:6-7

Okay, then – how do I sign up?   Isaiah included the instructions for your RSVP:

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

Accepting the Gift

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Unemployed, you have missed the last several mortgage payments on a house worth less than you paid.  You are about to be foreclosed.  A registered letter comes to the door.  You sign for it and tear it open:  “This is to inform you that someone, who would like to remain anonymous, has offered to pay off your mortgage obligations.  If you choose to accept this gift, the bank has agreed to suspend all foreclosure proceedings.”  Nice letter, eh?  Nice gift.

God’s gift to us wipes out the obligations we owe for sin – completely – if we accept it.  His Son, Jesus, Who never sinned and therefore had no personal punishment due, willingly died a brutal and tortuous death to cover what I owed.  And you.  If you accept His gift, God suspends His foreclosure on your life.  God told Isaiah He would do this and told him to write it down:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  (Isaiah 53:4-5)

If someone offers to pay off your mortgage, your first response might be something like, “What? Does he think I’m in poverty?  Does he think I can’t do this on my own?  Give me a bit more time and I will get this fixed…”  But if you hang on to that attitude, you won’t accept the offer.   In a sense, accepting his offer involves a willingness to acknowledge that you really do need his help.   In the same way, accepting the gift of Someone Who went to His death on your behalf requires a change in attitude, acknowledging that such a gift is absolutely necessary.  Most of us would rather hold to the notion that, “I got this; I’m doing pretty well on my own; I’m a good person.”   But if you do continue to believe those things, you cannot accept the gift. Do you remember how Isaiah responded when he caught a glimpse of God’s glory?

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah knew a humbling truth:  compared to God’s perfection, he was just as sinful as his neighbors.  We humans are all in the same boat of sinful imperfection.  We all deserve the same punishment.  We tend to compare ourselves with others and think, “At least I am not as messed up as that guy…”   Somebody illustrated the fallacy of such comparisons like this: “If the requirement to get to Heaven was jumping up and touching the moon, there would be no significant difference between the contestants for ‘Biggest Loser’ and a member of the Celtics.”   The requirement for going to Heaven isn’t touching the moon, it’s having spiritual life.  And everyone who has ever sinned – that’s you and me – is spiritually dead.

God is willing to correct that condition, to give us His life, His Holy Spirit to live in our souls.  But first, because He is perfectly just, He must require that your punishment for sin be paid.  Because you cannot pay, because, even if you could pay you would sin again the next day, He paid.  He allowed His Son, Jesus, to pay your sin mortgage in full – forever – if you accept.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the (punishment for the) iniquity (sin) of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6 – my explanations in parentheses)

Accepting this gift begins with understanding the words, we all.  It requires acknowledging your own personal sinfulness and complete helplessness to fix your own spiritual deadness.  That’s what being “lowly and contrite” means in Isaiah 57:15 (See “In a Nutshell”). God said He will revive (bring back to life) the soul of the lowly and contrite. He will forgive and restore a person who is lowly and contrite.   That is, He will do so once the bill is paid.  And He offers to pay the bill.  Accepting this gift is like what you would do with the mortgage letter example we began with: – you say, “Yes.”   If you understand that there is no way you can fix yourself to become perfect, no way you can pay what you owe for being imperfect; if you understand that you really need God’s forgiveness, then say “yes” to Jesus.  Probably want to say, “Thank You,” also…

The Gift

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A friend told me of an elderly woman who spoke a brief but powerful message at his church.  She stood at the pulpit and said, “I would like to read a verse in the Bible you have probably never heard –  It’s John 3:16.”  Everyone laughed, since that verse is one of the most well known verses in Scripture.  Sunday school children can rattle it off by memory with lighting speed.   The people thought, “She’s joking; John 3:16 is the verse held up behind the goalposts, for heaven’s sake; of course we’ve heard it.”  Undeterred, the woman began to read: “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”  But at that point in her reading, her throat became constricted, there was a catch in her voice, and she had to stop to pull herself together.  She inhaled that jerky breath of intense sorrow.  Her eyes rimmed red.  She started again: “For God so loved the world that He….  (sob)…   that He gave…   (silent pause, clearing of throat)…  He gave His one and only Son…”   At that point she could not go on.  Her chest was heaving as she tried to take control of her emotions.  A tear snaked its way down her cheek.  She leaned over and fiercely glared at the text in the Bible, unsuccessfully willing herself to stop weeping.  And then, one by one, people in the congregation began to weep with her.  They began to “hear” this verse and to understand the profound generosity and the horrible cost represented by those simple words: “He gave His one and only Son.”  Soon the whole congregation was gripped by the shocking enormity  conveyed in that verse.  Tears flowed, noses were blown.   The old woman just waited.  And then, she closed her Bible and sat back down.  They had “heard” it.

How can God be loving and forgiving and at the same time be perfectly just?  How can He forgive our sins without also demanding the just punishment for them?  He gradually revealed to Isaiah what He would do to reconcile the apparent conflict between perfect love and perfect justice.  He told Isaiah:

“…For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…” (Isaiah 9:6a)

The word, given, means given over.  Like a mother who stands by the bus and gives her son over to basic training.   In the marriage ceremony, the pastor asks, “Who gives this woman…”   The parents let go of their child and give her over.   Young women make the heroic choice to bear a child, and then, knowing their own inability to provide for that child, give him over for adoption.   Gifts, in the truest sense, have no strings.  They are given over, forever.  In giving His Son, God takes His hands off, removes His shield of protection.  He gives Jesus – to us.  

God gave Jesus over to whatever would happen to Him in this world.  You know what happened.  In that Gift, God accomplished love and justice.

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