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Q: Is It Still Daylight?

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setting sunAre there not twelve hours in the day? John 11:9

In John chapter 11, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. His disciples question the wisdom of returning to the Jerusalem area, after the religious leadership committed themselves to His death. Jesus responds with this proverb. He had a mission, and until it was finished He was still on the clock.

That drive and commitment came from a deep understanding of several things that we forget or never grasped in the first place:

He had a clear sense of purpose.

We often wander through life, doing okay, but without a mission. A mission, or a purpose, or whatever you call it, doesn't have to be a big, complicated, 'move to the jungles of Africa' kinda deal. I believe my mission is a teaching mission. Right now, it's primarily raising my kids, instilling God's truths in them, modeling the up and downs in this walk. I also teach some at church and I believe writing is an extension of that.

He had an intimate relationship with the Father.

This takes time and effort to cultivate. Being a Christian for thirty years doesn't necessarily qualify. It comes from seeking God's heart, and laying ours completely bare. I struggle with this one, I admit. I know a lot about God. Sometimes, I wonder how well I know HIM. I believe it's a progressive thing, an ever-deepening relationship. The key is active pursuit.

He knew that timing is in God's hands.

Until the moment He gave up the ghost, Jesus seized every ministry moment. He wasn't sidetracked by opposition, threats or setbacks. I am easily sidetracked, slowed down or stopped by little things.

He knew the results were in God's hands.

God never holds us responsible for how others respond to His message. Was Jesus a failure because the Pharisees never believed? Of course not. In a few more chapters, we'll hear Jesus pray, "I've done what You gave me to do."

What about you? Are you doing what God has given you to do? Take heart. It's still daylight.

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Q: It’s Unbelief, Isn’t It?

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Loner in archwayIn John 10: 34-36, Jesus continues His face-off with the religious leaders. They were indignant that Jesus dared call Himself the Son of God. He quotes a psalm in which God Himself calls a group of leaders 'gods' because they received God's word and were responsible for carrying out His law and divine justice. In the religious leaders eyes, that was acceptable. No blasphemy there.

In the last post, we saw how Jesus WORDS were what set them off, but He brings the discussion back to His WORKS. If what He DID failed to substantiate what He SAID, then don't believe Him. But if His works validated His claim that He WAS the Son of God (and they did…) then the Pharisees and their cohorts had no excuse for their unbelief.

Unbelief is different than doubt. Unbelief is willful. It is hearing the words, seeing the evidence and choosing to discount it. We know how this works when it comes to salvation. God loves me. (He said so – WORDS.) Jesus Christ died for me. (A WORK that proves it.) If I believe those things, God responds to that BELIEF by erasing my sin debt and granting me eternal life.

Because we grasp that so easily as Christians -we call ourselves believers, after all- we tend to think that unbelief is no longer an issue for us. That's not always the case. Consider:

  • God said He would take care of us (WORDS). He has taken care of us in the past (WORKS). God won't see us through some present difficulty (UNBELIEF).
  • He said He would never leave us (WORDS). He gave us His Holy Spirit (WORKS). We feel abandoned and alone (UNBELIEF).
  • God has a purpose for us (WORDS). He gave us spiritual gifts to accomplish that purpose (WORKS). We sit on the sidelines (UNBELIEF).

Jesus wouldn't let these guys weasel out of it. He confronted them with their unbelief. How will we respond when He confronts us with ours?

 
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Q:Do You Believe It All?

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But if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe My words? John 5:47

Jesus called the religious leaders out when they fell back to their favorite defense – Moses. They were Moses' disciples. Followed Moses' law and Moses' traditions to the letter. They missed an important detail, though. Moses wasn't God. They followed Moses at the expense of following God.

Moses never intended to make disciples for himself, and if you read Deuteronomy, you get an idea how well Moses understood these people. The summary/paraphrase is "I'm gonna tell you all this stuff but you won't listen and God's gonna judge you. Then there will be a Prophet, but you won't listen to Him either."

If the religious leaders had been the great students and followers of Moses that they claimed to be, they would have realized who Jesus was immediately. They wanted to pick and choose which of God's messages they would believe, and then forget all the rest. We can't cherry-pick Scripture either. God's word is a unified whole, a revelation of one continuous story of God's redemption of His people.

If we discount some of it, then how can we can rely on any of it? 

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Whose Standard Are You Using?

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How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? John 5:44 (NAS)

At first glance, this is a confusing question, but if you go back and read the whole exchange between Jesus and the religious types, it makes a little more sense. Jesus preached a message that turned the religious ideas of the day on their head. He said God doesn't care about what you do until He changes your heart, and that can only happen once you understand how rotten you are on the inside.

In Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave a relentless list of items 'you have heard it taught this way, but God really meant it like this'. The people flocked to Him because He gave them hope. They COULD please God, not on their own merit, but because they trusted Him to make them worthy.

The religious leaders of the day had a far different system. Your worth to God was based on your ability to keep the Law and all the other corollaries they had devised through the generations. They were the experts, so they kept it better than anyone else, as a result they were God's favorites, and no upstart, uneducated hick was going to tell them any different.

The issue is one of standards. As long as the religious leaders were better than the common people (and better than most of their colleagues) they figured they were in good shape. However, they were using the wrong standard. God doesn't compare us to each other. He compares us to Himself. Are we as holy and perfect as He is? Of course not.

As long as we are content just to be "better" than those we see around us, if that's our idea of righteousness, then we have no room to receive the imputed (real) righteousness than comes from God. Only when we recognize our spiritual bankruptcy, does God take over.

Whose standard are you measuring yourself against? 

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Q: Don’t You Know These Things?

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j0315598

j0315598Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? John 3:10

Nicodemus had serious questions, and rather than wrestle alone, he did a very brave thing. He admitted he didn’t know, and he found the One with the answers.

Don’t be surprised. A lot of us struggle because of misconceptions we carry about God and His word. Maybe we’ve been in church since we were children, and don’t yet grasp that God’s love doesn’t depend on what we do. He loves us because He chooses.

Or maybe, we don’t understand how God can forgive us when we can’t forgive ourselves.

What Jesus exposed in Nicodemus that night wasn’t his ignorance as much as his contentment with a shallow, formulaic relationship with God. Jesus invited him to a radical departure from all his preconceptions. ‘God is about transformation, not conformation, Nicodemus. God works from the inside out. He doesn’t wait around for your outward actions to somehow bring about changes in your heart.’

Whatever your struggles or questions, bring them to Jesus. Even if you come at night, alone, He stands ready to answer. (Fair warning- Be prepared for a little world-rocking when those answers come.)

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