Posts
timewithgod.blog-city.com — April 2008
John 8:32-59 They Remind Me Of Myself
Jesus "sliced and diced" the Pharisees' supposedly clever attempts to prove that He wasn't the Messiah. He pointed out that they weren't doing what their "father" Abraham had done, even! It was becoming cle
Jesus "sliced and diced" the Pharisees' supposedly clever attempts to prove that He wasn't the Messiah. He pointed out that they weren't doing what their "father" Abraham had done, even! It was becoming clear that something was changing within themselves.
My commentary said, "Those who give themselves over to lying seem to lose the capacity for discerning the truth." As they continued to staunchly fight the notion that Jesus is the Messiah, God was judicially blinding them. It also quoted R.C.H. Lenski: "When it meets the truth, the corrupted mind seeks only objections; when it meets what differs from this truth, it sees and seeks reasons for accepting this difference."
Oh, how very well I know that! I remember so well after college, when I was being sucked in by the New Age movement, trying to constantly raise objections to the truth I was reading! I had little trouble believing the wildest claims of those who would offer up any alternative truth, but I didn't want to believe the Bible. I too began to lose the capacity to discern the truth.
Thank You, Father, for not allowing me to walk over that intellectual cliff. How I fought You and tried my very best to tear apart what I read in Your word. I deserved not an ounce of grace or forgiveness from You, yet You did not desert me. You patiently waited and worked to turn me back to You. Thank You for removing the judicial blindness and making me able to see You again. I can't imagine where I'd be now without You!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 9 -- Thank You That I Am Dust
I can just imagine the disciples staring at the blind man as they passed by him, holding their gaze a disrespectfully long time, knowing that he could not see them. They probably thought he was of little worth, unable to work, dependent on othe
I can just imagine the disciples staring at the blind man as they passed by him, holding their gaze a disrespectfully long time, knowing that he could not see them. They probably thought he was of little worth, unable to work, dependent on others for everything. They began to almost sound like the Pharisees as they debated if his sin or his parents' sin had caused his blindness. Their idea was that he must have been cursed by God with this blindness for good reason.
But then I thought about Jesus seeing the man .... not for the first time. For He'd seen him before he was born, and He'd agreed with His Father that this man would have a special purpose in his life. God determined to glorify Himself and His Son through this man. And I imagine when They met him again in heaven, the man would certainly not have felt that he'd been "imposed upon" by his years of blindness, since he'd been given such an opportunity to be used by God!
I can just imagine how ready Jesus was to finally give this man his sight, knowing what his life had been like, and Jesus knew that the next several minutes would glorify His Father.
So He used spit.... and dust.... to make mud???
My Bible's sidebar said:
"Once again, God's power was seen, not through the ability of the instrument, but through its availability. 'Blessed are the meek,' Jesus explained. Blessed are the available. Blessed are the conduits, the tunnels, the tools. Deliriously joyful are the ones who believe that if God has used sticks, rocks, and spit to do His will, then He can use us."
Father, thank You for helping me to see the importance of my availability to You. Thank You that I can be dust that You can use.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 10 -- A Little Wiggle Room ISN'T A Good Thing
Verses 27 & 28 tugged at me this morning:"My sheep listen to My voice; I now them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never die, and no one can steal them out of My hand."I've heard it said that the wo
Verses 27 & 28 tugged at me this morning:
"My sheep listen to My voice; I now them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never die, and no one can steal them out of My hand."
I've heard it said that the word "Bible" can mean "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth". Once we are saved, I think these verse boil it all down in a nutshell. Once we are His sheep, by accepting His death for us on the cross and confessing and repenting of our sins, we are to listen to His voice. We are not to simply believe that, now that we aren't going to hell, we can simply do as we please. He gives us instructions and we are to listen, not ignore.
He knows us. He knows all about us, including our weak points where we are most susceptible to temptation. He knows that, primarily because of our fleshly bodies, we will continue to stumble and fall spiritually. By making us keenly aware of our weak spots, He urges us on to follow His instructions for us. If our hearts are truly in Him, then we no longer desire to do these sinful things as a general rule in our lives. Yet that won't preclude occasional temptations that each show us how well or how poorly we are striving to keep His instructions.
On the other side, Jesus insures that we do not perish -- that we end up with God, for we are in His hand and in the Father's hand. As my commentary said, that's a two-fold guarantee of safety! And nothing can get the hands that created the universe to let go of us. He loved us enough to die for us. How much more willing He must therefore be to keep us beside Him forever.
For us right here and now, still on this side of Heaven, the struggle is to remain in the life He calls us to, for there is much wanting to drag us away from it. That continual struggle against our sinful flesh is focused on what I read in the sidebar of my Bible this morning: ".... the fulfillment had to be the act of obedience itself. The joy must be found in submitting our small will to the will of One more grand...."
Father, I now You've got me in Your hand forever. I just hate it when, because I still inhabit a sinful body, I find myself trying to wiggle free. Help me to get my fulfillment in the act of obedience itself. Mold my will to Yours.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 11 -- A New Take On "Nothing Can Separate Us"
Jesus had healed from a distance several times before, yet Mary and Martha seemed to believe that His presence was needed. They sent word to Him to come help Lazarus, but Jesus didn't even show up until after the burial.My commentary says,
Jesus had healed from a distance several times before, yet Mary and Martha seemed to believe that His presence was needed. They sent word to Him to come help Lazarus, but Jesus didn't even show up until after the burial.
My commentary says, "God's delays are NOT God's denials. If our prayers are not immediately answered, perhaps He is teaching us to wait, and if we wait patiently, we will find that He will answer our prayers in a much more marvelous way than we ever anticipated."
Another thing my commentary noted: "Not even His love for Mary, Martha, and Lazarus could force Christ to act ahead of the proper time. Everything He did was in obedience to His Father's will, and in keeping with the divine timetable."
An interesting fact of the New Testament is that no one is ever recorded as having died in Jesus' presence! In fact, it's important for us to know that Jesus accompanies us past death. My commentary quoted someone named Burkitt as saying: "The grave cannot separate Christ and His friends. Other friends accompany us to the brink of the grave, and then they leave us. Neither life NOR DEATH can separate us from the love of Christ."
What a refreshing understanding of the verse his quote gives us!
Father, I'm so thankful that I have a friend like Jesus -- a friend closer than a brother, who will accompany me even when this life is over. Nothing can truly separate me from Him!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 12 -- Is Judicial Blindness Setting In?
The religious leaders of that day had a mindset that they were right and that it didn't matter what they had to do to keep themselves looking right -- it had to be done! That should have been their first clue that they were wrong. The
The religious leaders of that day had a mindset that they were right and that it didn't matter what they had to do to keep themselves looking right -- it had to be done! That should have been their first clue that they were wrong. They constantly used the excuse that the Roman authorities would ratchet up its suppression of their religion if they didn't "contain" anything that smacked of an uprising, but the Roman authorities never BOTHERED Jesus until the very end.
Here, we even see them plotting to kill Lazarus, the one who'd been raised from the dead by GOD!
Because many people had witnessed Lazarus' being raised from the dead, there appeared to be many Jews leaving to follow Jesus. This caused the Pharisees to say, "Nothing is going right for us! The whole world is following Him!" How we would cheer if suddenly the whole world began to choose for Christ! Yet they thought only about themselves and their hold on power!
As verse 39-40 show, the stubborn unbelief by these Pharisees led to God conferring judicial blindness on them. This wasn't something God did for no reason. Continual, habitual, and willful unbelief will eventually cause God to harden hearts. My commentary says, "When men close their eyes to the Light, God makes it more difficult for them to see the Light." Such blindness is God's judgment on them for refusing His Son.
Father, I pray for those who continue to look away and deny what Jesus did. I know You can choose to let judicial blindness et in, but in Your mercy, I pray that You will continue to hold open the door of salvation to them.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 13 -- The Importance of "Foot-Washing"
I've thought that I've always understood the meaning of Jesus washing the disciples' feet in this story, but my commentary really brought out a whole new side of it for me. It said:"The use of open sandals made it necessary to
I've thought that I've always understood the meaning of Jesus washing the disciples' feet in this story, but my commentary really brought out a whole new side of it for me. It said:
"The use of open sandals made it necessary to wash one's feet frequently," even after a trip to the public baths -- the body would be clean, but the feet would pick up dirt during the trip home. "As Christians walk through this world, they contract a certain amount of defilement. Listening to vile talk, looking at unholy things, working with ungodly men inevitably soil the believer. He needs to be constantly cleansed. This cleansing takes place by the water of the Word. As we read and study the Bible, as we hear it preached, and as we discuss it with one another, we find that it cleanses us from the evil influences about us. On the other hand, the more we neglect the Bible, the more these wicked influences can remain in our minds and lives without causing us any great concern.... Fellowship with the Lord can be maintained only through the continual cleansing action of the Scriptures ... [This] cleansing from the pollution of sin ... must take place continually through the Word of God."
I'd never realized that I've been "having my feet washed" every morning as I get up and do my quiet time!
Another special note to me from God this morning: "We are not greater than our Master. He humbled Himself to wash those who were unworthy and unthankful, and He knew that one of them would betray Him."
Knowing this is one thing. Doing it is quite another.
Father, thank You for giving me this awesome picture of my constant need to have the pollution of sin removed from my life. Help me to see it washed away as I read and study each day. And thank You for the just-at-the-right-time picture I really needed to see this morning. Help me to knead it into my heart.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 14 -- Don't Miss This One!
After reading this, I wonder just how seriously people (myself included) take Jesus' words here that tell us that Jesus actually dwells within us -- our soul next to His and intertwined inseparably with His -- every day for the rest of our l
After reading this, I wonder just how seriously people (myself included) take Jesus' words here that tell us that Jesus actually dwells within us -- our soul next to His and intertwined inseparably with His -- every day for the rest of our lives once we accept Him as our Savior.
I think we've been fed the line about "the Man upstairs watching everything we do" once too often. Then when we think of Jesus being in heaven, it removes the "moral pressure" of thinking that One so perfect would dare to dwell within our bodies of sin with us.
But to believe that would be to call this chapter a lie, and there is no error in God's Word. So we are forced to come to an understanding of what Jesus clearly states here:
As Christians, we have opened our hearts to become the home of Jesus. He dwells in us through the Holy Spirit. "The more we love Him, the better we will know Him. And the closer we are to Him, the more our DESIRES will be the same as His are," my commentary explains.
Yet there will be times, because we are human and dwell in a fleshly body, that we will be tempted by the inputs to our fleshly bodies, or by the pride of life. Jesus, as our "roommate", will desire to travel with us through those temptations, but because of our shame at being so tempted (and longing for the brief pleasure of it) we will not want Him with us.
It is at these times that we wrestle with the hypocrisy of what we are doing. "It is useless to talk about loving Him if we do not want to obey Him," my commentary added.
I remember so very well a skit Jason Atchley performed on one of the first Wednesday nights he was here. He was having a conversation with Jesus and told Him he had to go someplace. Jesus wanted to come along, but Jason insisted that He wouldn't enjoy it and would feel out of place there. Jesus kept trying to persuade him to let Him attend, and finally, out of frustration, Jason's character turned around and nailed Him in place to keep Him away from his sin.
How often we do that ourselves, I fear.
Father, I take far too lightly Your words here that tell me that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is living in me daily, desiring to help me not go where I shouldn't go in my actions or my thoughts. And many times, I too treat Him as an unwelcomed guest rather than as the One who gave me eternal life. Please remind me of that picture when I do. I don't want to drive the nails in Him again.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 15 -- It's All About Consistency
Knowing He's about to reach the end of His public ministry, Jesus prepared His disciples for what life would be like without Him there each day. Though He wouldn't be physically present, they were to remain connected to Him closely by t
Knowing He's about to reach the end of His public ministry, Jesus prepared His disciples for what life would be like without Him there each day. Though He wouldn't be physically present, they were to remain connected to Him closely by the Holy Spirit.
Most of the world wasn't going to like His message. "Man's idea of joy is to be as happy as he can by LEAVING God OUT of his life. The Lord taught that real joy comes by taking God INTO one's life as MUCH as possible," my commentary explained. "Men of the world love those who live as they do -- those who use vile language and indulge in the lusts of the flesh, or people who are cultured but live only for themselves."
Now that we know the world, we can see why they hate Christians so -- "Christians condemn them by their holy lives," my commentary added.
So when the world spots inconsistencies in a Christian's life, they pounce on them, trying to drag the Christian down into the mud with them so that they will feel better.
In my Bible's sidebar, Charles Stanley equates "abiding in the vine" with living with consistency: "No one can live the Christian life apart from Christ -- at least not with the consistency necessary to accomplish what Jesus has called us to accomplish ... What Jesus calls us to do is impossible. It's not merely difficult. It's not simply a struggle. It's IMPOSSIBLE! 'For apart from Me you can do NOTHING.' Not a little. Not a few things. NOTHING!"
Father, I don't want my witness to be spoiled by inconsistencies in my life. I don't want to detract from You or cause others to fall. Please help my life to be more consistent, and help me in the areas where I struggle the most.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 16 -- ASK!
Jesus' words reach across the centuries to a sin-weary world and the Holy Spirit enables us to receive the and understand them at just the right time.In the middle of this wonderful explanation of how the Holy Spirit would work, I found a message
Jesus' words reach across the centuries to a sin-weary world and the Holy Spirit enables us to receive the and understand them at just the right time.
In the middle of this wonderful explanation of how the Holy Spirit would work, I found a message just for the sin-weary, in verses 1 and 24. Jesus says, "I have told you these things to keep you from giving up.... Until now, you have not asked for anything in My name. ASK...."
What it must have been like to have been one of the 12 men Jesus hand picked to be His disciples! And how their understanding of who He was must have evolved over time. At first, they probably could not explain what attracted them to Him, as we can't even today, asking, "Why would this Person care about me??" His love for us draws us in as it did them. When they didn't understand, He patiently explained. Yet they probably never fully realized until He rose again that He was indeed "God among them". They had no clue that the One standing beside them had created them -- had known them before the world was created. He knew their thoughts before they thought them and where they struggled, as He does ours.
And as with them, He doesn't want to leave us where we are. He wants us to have the fullest joy --something we can't have when anything separates us from Him. I believe He places within us "a divine dissatisfaction." As Augustine said, "Our hearts cannot find rest until they rest in Thee." Jesus knew that, and that's why He said what He did in verse 24 ... "Ask..." He wants to get started with the renovation, but we want to hold on to the familiar. We are comfortable with our mud pies when He has a feast prepared.
"I have told you these things to keep you from giving up.... ASK...."
Father, remove from me that which is not of You -- that which prevents me from knowing You fully and from having the greatest joy You offer. I know that You are "God dwelling in me". Expand Your home in me by ripping out the old walls made up of pet sins, and give me "the fullest possible joy".
I ASK!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
John 17 -- WOW! WOW! WOW!
What an incredible privilege the disciples had back then -- and us today -- to hear Jesus speaking a prayer to His Father God in heaven. We know that our hearing it was primarily for our benefit since Jesus remained intimately connected with Go
What an incredible privilege the disciples had back then -- and us today -- to hear Jesus speaking a prayer to His Father God in heaven. We know that our hearing it was primarily for our benefit since Jesus remained intimately connected with God and could have just as easily communicated with Him silently.
How does One who had existed for all time and shared glory with God manage to exist for so long in an earthly body?? I imagine that His soul was screaming out to be reunited in heaven with His Father! Yet His heart desired noting but absolute obedience to His Father's plan. He could not leave without enduring the cross.
We cannot fully understand the concept of divine glory, but I imagine having it veiled was for Him much worse than if a human were unable to gaze upon his own reflection in a mirror or in water. It served to identify Him more fully, and it wasn't "out there" for people to see.
Jesus longs for the side-by-side companionship He's had with the Father for eternity, I sense. He also calls His own name out in prayer -- "Jesus Christ" -- and due to language differences, we often overlook the fact that He has just proclaimed the fact that He IS Messiah in doing so.
In verse 11, He says with anticipation, "I am coming to You; I will not stay in the world any longer." He was, I think , homesick and looking forward to His arrival back home in heaven. Death was not going to be a terrible thing for Him to endure if it would bring Him HOME.
Jesus plainly states that by His power He had protected the disciples from the evil one. And now He pleads to God to continue to protect us. With our protection thus guaranteed, He could go on to ask that, through God's word -- His truth -- we will be made ready for service to Him.
Verse 20 is so special to me. I am amazed to think that, with His divine power and foreknowledge, Jesus thought of me, of Josh, of Joseph, and every other future believer as He uttered those words!
In verse 23, He guarantees that He will be in me and in all believers!
My commentary said something about verse 24 that puts it right close to the top of my "favorites" list. In that verse, Jesus prays, "Father, I want these people that You gave Me to be WITH Me where I AM. I want them to see My glory .... " My commentary said, "The Son desires to have His people with Himself in glory. Every time a believer dies, it is, in a sense, an ANSWER to this prayer."
I couldn't help but catch the fact that He said, "...where I AM", not "...where I will be". He coexists with the Father, and in a sense He had one foot in heaven and one foot on earth.
I can almost imagine the very air molecules struggling to get out of the way so as not to impede this holy communication !
Finally, Marcus Rainsford said about Jesus' prayer: "Not a word against His people; no reference to their failings, or their shortcomings.... All the Lord's particular petitions for His people relate to spiritual things .... The Lord does not ask riches for them, or honors, or worldly influences, or great preferments, but He does most earnestly pray that they may be kept from evil, separated from the world, qualified for duty, and brought home safely to heaven. Soul prosperity is the best prosperity..."
Lord Jesus, thank You for praying for me AND for my sons. Thank You for Your divine protection over us and for loving us enough to want us beside You in heaven. Grow our souls to desire You even more. Thank You for the eternal life of knowing God -- something we could never do apart from You. We love You!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
No comments:
Post a Comment