Matthew 10 -- Reminders of 10 Years Ago

My commentary indicates that Jesus’ warnings to His disciples before their “tour” commenced may actually be for a future time, since no record indicates that they ever encountered the difficulties He mentioned during their trips.

 

Verse 19 and 20, though, always remind me of the past – my first trip to Ukraine to get my appointment back so I could go get my oldest son.  As I waited to speak with the head of the National Adoption Center, these verse came to mind.  I knew I was obeying God in being there, and it seemed that they were doing everything they could to prevent me from adopting.  I made it clear that I was there because God had told me to be there to get my son.  There was no doubt in my mind whatsoever.  It was amazing seeing the transformation on the director’s face and to see her willingness to grant me an appointment.  God had opened that door.  When my son and I returned In July 2005 to get him a brother, it was even more evident.  God had been busy opening doors and hearts ahead of our arrival, and although the expected wait time was four weeks minimum, our trip was 18 days door-to-door!

 

When we do not deny Him, He is quick to help us.

 

Father, I will never forget those days.  Watching You work on my behalf to give my boys a home and a father was incredible!  You taught me so much about trusting and obeying You, regardless of what the work might think.  Thank You for those memories!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 9 -- Comfortable In Their Ruts

In the midst of amazing miracles, I was amazed at the reactions of the religious leaders, who did not want their authority challenged and who felt that they had to protect their religion from the Son of God!

 

When Jesus healed the paralyzed man, He first said, “Your sins are forgiven.”  The Pharisees called that blasphemy.  Then Jesus told him to get up and walk and he did!

 

Jesus went to Matthew’s house to eat with him and his fellow tax collectors, who were despised by the Jewish leaders as Jews sold out to Rome.  Other assorted sinners were there as well.  The Pharisees were appalled that He would defile Himself in this way.  Jesus reminded them that you don’t usually see well people in a doctor’s waiting room!

 

Even John the Baptist’s followers got hung up on religious ritual, complaining that Jesus’ disciples never fasted.  Jesus compared Himself to a bridegroom at a wedding and noted how inappropriate it would be to fast at such a time.  God was doing something new, and just as they knew the folly of putting new cloth patches on old material and new wine in old wineskins, Jesus was showing them that not only lives were changing, but so was the Jewish religion.  It wasn’t being destroyed, but rather fulfilled.  They were failing to keep up with what God was doing.

 

How hard it must have been then for a Jewish leader like Jairus to ask for healing for his daughter, who was near death.  The delay caused by Jesus stopping to talk to the woman who had believed she could receive healing by touching his garment really stretched him, because he then discovered his daughter had died.  But Jesus reassured him, traveled to his home, kicked out the hired mourners who were making fun of His upcoming miracle, and told him not to doubt.  I wonder what Jairus’ sermons were like the following Sabbath, with his totally healed daughter in attendance?

 

Also, the Pharisees saw Jesus heal two blind men and a demon-possessed mute man.  In an effort to discredit Him and keep their authority, they claimed that the healing came from Satan!  It seems that they couldn’t stand having their authority challenged.

 

Seeing the sea of people around Him, hurting and helpless, Jesus was moved and likely wondered how He’d ever get it all done before His time was up.  It was then that He suggested that they all pray that God would provide more workers.  Before long, His disciples would be picking up the slack.

 

Father, we all can get very comfortable in our ruts, not wanting change.  But You brought newness to worship through Your Son.  You showed us that it’s about relationship and not ritual.  Help us to stretch spiritually and give You the opportunity to show us what You’ve got in mind.  Help us not to be like the Pharisees.  Lift us gently out of our ruts.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 8 -- A Lot About Faith

A man with leprosy broke all the rules when he came running up and didn’t declare, “Unclean!  Unclean!”  Jesus knew he was unclean due to the disease.  The man bowed down and said, “Lord, heal me if You will.”  He wasn’t questioning Jesus’ ability to heal – only His willingness to heal him.  And Jesus certainly was.  My commentary said, “When Jesus touched the leper, He contracted the leper’s defilement, but He also conveyed HIS health.”  The man was instantly healed as the disease left him.  In much the same way, on the cross Jesus took on our spiritual defilement and imparted through His death and resurrection His own righteousness before God to us!

 

Also in this chapter, Jesus healed two possessed men.  My commentary pointed out three prayers in this particular story:  The demons asked Him to send them into the pigs, the citizens asked Him to leave, and one of the healed men asked to follow Jesus.  “Jesus answered the prayers of the demons and the [ungrateful] citizens, but not the prayer of the healed man!”

 

I was one who once thought it very unfair that Jesus in a way caused the loss of the herd of pigs because He allowed the demons to enter them and they drowned.   Yet my commentary reminds us, “God owns everything and can do with it as He pleases.”  Thankfully Jesus values men more than pigs!

 

Faith was a major factor in this chapter.  Jesus was even amazed by the faith of the centurion, who believed that Jesus had authority even to heal from a distance!  Our question today would seem to be, “Do we believe that He can heal, even from the great distance of heaven?  Of course He can!

 

Father, the only limits upon You seem to be those we place ourselves by our lack of faith.  Help us in our unbelief!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 7 -- Judging

Jesus may have taken direct aim at the Pharisees with this sermon.  After all, they were judging everyone but themselves.  Jesus tells us here that’s where we have to start, though.  If we have major problems obeying God’s commands, then how can we possibly see around them to judge others?

 

A big thing I read in my commentary this morning was this:  “We must not pass judgment on others’ MOTIVES.  We should examine their actions and attitudes, but we cannot judge their motives – for only God can see their hearts.”

 

I know lately I’ve found myself seeing actions and attitudes and then trying to backtrack those to determine motives.  Yesterday, I even prayed that God would help me not to ascribe motives that may not exist.  That’s Your perfect timing to reinforce what You’ve already been showing me, God!  Thanks!

 

In judging ourselves as we’re commanded to do, my commentary said we have to avoid two extremes:  Shallow examination and perpetual autopsy.  Tending toward the first doesn’t deal with the problem.  Tending toward the second gets us so wrapped up in our failures that we can become unbalance.

 

Our judgment of others, once we have judged and worked on ourselves, in not so that we can condemn them, but that we might minister to them, my commentary said.  It pointed out that Jesus knew the hearts of those He ministered to, dealing with each of them in targeted, personal ways.  Assessing the condition of a person’s heart allows us to more wisely share the Gospel with them in a way that will connect with them.  Not to condemn, but to minister.

 

Jesus was calling us all not just to belief, but to obedience as well.  As He wrapped up this teaching, He plainly said, “Everyone who hears My words and does not obey them is like a foolish man …”

 

Father, show me where I fall short of Your Word, and help me to obey.  I want to help others to know You the way You’ve shown Yourself to me.  Yet I must be careful that my life does not cause them to misinterpret You and Your Word.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 6 -- Getting The Public And Private On The Same Page?

In starting this chapter, my commentary particularly emphasized that hypocrisy is the sin of deliberately using religion to cover up our sins and promoting our own gains.  We have to watch carefully and insure that doesn’t happen as we give, as we pray, and as we fast, Jesus told us.

 

We don’t want it to be about us and how much or how often we do these things.  Instead, we should direct all of our energies to God and what He wants.  If we keep self out of the mix, God will be honored, which should be our proper response.

 

I noticed two restrictions on our prayers in my commentary:

 

First, “we have no right to ask God for anything that will dishonor His name, delay His kingdom, or disturb His will on earth.”

Second, “we have no right to ask for ourselves anything that would harm another member of the Family.  If we are praying in the will of God the answer will be a blessing to all of God’s people in one way or another.”

 

Jesus wanted us to have forgiven people before we pray.  We aren’t earning the right to pray.  It’s a matter of fellowship.  “If God answered the prayers of a believer who had an unforgiving spirit, He would dishonor His own name … The important thing about prayer is not simply getting an answer, but being the kind of person whom God can trust with an answer.”

 

One other thought seemed to wrap this portion up:

 

“The first step toward overcoming hypocrisy is to be honest with God in our secret life.  We must never pray anything that we do not mean from the heart … Our motive must be to please God alone, no matter what man may say or do.  We must cultivate the heart in the secret place.  The most important part of a Christian’s life is the part that only God sees.  When reputation becomes more important that character, we have become hypocrites.”

 

On the part about worrying, I read, “The average person is crucifying himself between two thieves:  the regrets of yesterday, and the worries about tomorrow…. Hypocrisy and anxiety are sins.”

 

Father, I’ve found a lot of good stuff this morning.  Thank You for pointing it all out.  Steer me away from hypocrisy and anxiety.  By doing so, You’ll automatically be moving me closer to You, where there is peace.  And that is what You know that I truly need right now.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 5 -- Tougher To Obey

In the Sermon On The Mount, Jesus refocused believers away from simple external righteousness such as the Pharisees practiced and toward internal righteousness – our attitudes toward ourselves, toward our sins, toward the Lord, and toward the world.

 

The “external” law had always motivated people by fear.  Now Jesus was showing how we can obey an internal law and live because of love.  “He dealt with the attitudes and intents of the heart and not simply with the external actions.”  It became the thought that counted.  Lust was a prime example.  Everyone understood that the act of adultery was forbidden, but lust starts in the heart, born of desires.  Jesus nailed it when He said that looking  at a woman – “a constant stare with the purpose of lusting, done for the purpose of feeding his inner sensual appetites as a substitute for the act – was not accidental.  It was planned and it was sin.  Therefore, just the thought itself met the measure of adultery.

 

He said that we get victory over such thoughts by purifying our desires and disciplining the actions of the body.  And He called for us not to taper off, but to cut off those actions and desires.

 

My commentary mentioned that it is much more difficult to follow and obey the Sermon On The Mount than the Ten Commandments.  Absolutely!  For we must deal with that part of our lives that no one else sees but God – our thoughts!

 

Father, I thank You for having Jesus call us out on this one.  Remind me daily that my thoughts and desires are where sin is birthed.  Help me to cut off those thoughts that aren’t of You.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Matthew 4 -- The Roots Of The Temptations

My commentary had a lot to say about Jesus’ temptations:

 

The first temptation involved the love of God and the will of God … It is a subtle suggestion that our Father does not love us, and also, suggests that we meet our own needs.  “When we put our physical needs ahead of our spiritual needs, we sin.  When we allow circumstances to dictate our actions, instead of following God’s will, we sin.”

 

With the second temptation, the devil was implying, “Let me quote You a verse of Scripture and see if You will obey it.”  But when Satan quoted Psalm 91:11-12, he left out “in all thy ways”.  God watches over those who are in His ways.”  Isolating texts will take us out of His ways.  In Jesus’ reply, He showed us that “we tempt God when we put ourselves into circumstances that force him to work miracles on our behalf … We tempt God when we try to force Him to contradict His own Word.”

 

In the third temptation, the devil offered Jesus a shortcut.  My commentary said, “There are no shortcuts to the will of God.  If we want to share in the glory, we must also share in the suffering … Satan had said nothing about service, but Jesus knew that whatever we worship, we will serve.  Worship and service must go together.”

 

Stan wasn’t done tempting Jesus.  “One victory never guarantees freedom from further temptation.  If anything, each victory we experience only makes Satan try harder.”

 

Father, please let me never doubt that You love me.  Remind me never to force You to work miracles on my behalf, and don’t let me forget that there are no shortcuts to Your will.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford