Category Archives: John

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Getting On God’s Page

Being With Jesus:
John 11:47-48 (NLT)

Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”

This chapter is amazing on a couple of levels. First of all, the raising of Lazarus from the dead has to be one of the most dramatic miracles in the entire Bible, outside of Christ’s own resurrection.

This is a perfect set up for the authentication of Jesus’ messianic ministry—and he knows it. He knows Lazarus’ sickness will lead to death, yet he waits until the man dies to come and pray for him. He knows that God the Father has given him authority and power over death, yet he prays anyway in front of the crowd that God will release resurrection power through him to bring forth this man from death. He knows that the Jews are criticizing his inability to prevent this death. In their minds, he is just another so-called messiah—all hat and no cattle. He knows that everyone in this scene is thinking that after four days in the tomb, death has done its nasty business on the body of Lazarus—as the King James says, “He stinketh!”—and it is well beyond resurrection.

This is the perfect set up for one of the outstanding acts of God ever. God seems to operate at his best in these situations. Yes, Jesus could have gone to Bethany much earlier and healed Lazarus before it got to this point, but that miracle would not have even come close to the glory this miracle would bring. God had an agenda—he always does: To glorify himself.

The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus had an agenda too. They loved the status quo—their positions of power, the religious monopoly they held over the people, the spiritual racket that kept them in their places of wealth and honor. They had come to despise Jesus because he was threatening their way of life. His radical message and rising popularity were making their cozy way of life vulnerable to a Roman crackdown, and the potential loss of that prevented them from seeing and accepting even an outstanding act of God like Lazarus’ resurrection.

That is the second amazing thing about this story. It is almost as amazing as Lazarus’ resurrection. The Jews had witnessed this incredible, undeniable miracle with their own eyes, yet rejected it because, at least in their minds, it threatened their way of life.

That is the problem with personal agendas. They keep us from seeing how far superior God’s agenda is to our own. We do everything in our power to resist and avoid the short-term discomfort God may be allowing in our lives in order to preserve the comfort that we have come to prefer—even at the expense of a resurrection.

How do we do this? Just think about it—you will probably come up with plenty of examples. Have you ever stayed home from church because you had a headache? You didn’t feel well enough to go to the very place that prays for the sick to be healed. Have you withheld a financial gift from God because that money was dedicated to something you wanted to do? Have you ever sat in your pew when the pastor called people forward for prayer because you were uncomfortable and worried about what people might think? Have you ever held back on an adventure of faith because you felt unqualified and ill-equipped for the challenge?

It is most likely that you have an agenda that is different than God’s—perhaps more than a few. I know that I do.

What do you say we make a spiritual determination today that our agenda will no longer control our lives? If you will reject the status quo for the risky adventure of following God’s agenda, you will be on the cusp of the adventure of your life—maybe even a resurrection!

Get on the same page with God—it will be the ride of a lifetime!

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” (St. Augustine)

Getting To Know Jesus: Ask the Lord to show you where your love affair with the status quo is keeping you from a personal resurrection to radical faith. Then tap into the gift of courage he has given you to jettison your comfort zone for the risky adventure of faith.

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Feeling Good About A Feeling God

Being With Jesus:
John 11:33-36(NLT)

When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”

Jesus felt things very deeply—and I am so glad he did. Jesus was fully human, yet fully God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. His whole incarnational purpose was to live among us (John 1:14) in order to bring God close (Isaiah 7:14), reveal who God is and what God is like to us, his creatures (Colossians 1:15,19-20), and through his redeeming sacrifice bring us back into a right relationship with our Father and Creator (Colossians 1:21-22).

In coming to Planet Earth to reveal God and redeem man, we do not find in Jesus an uncaring, distant, emotionless Deity, we find one who knew full well what is was like to be one of us. Therefore, he was the perfect bridge between the altogether Holy and the utterly fallen. In his earthly journey, God the Son experienced—and expressed—a wide range of emotions that were uniquely human. Just in John 11 and 12 alone, we see several occasions where humanity “leaked” from Deity:

He got angry and upset: “When Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.” (John 11:33, NLT)

He expressed unmitigated grief and the free flow of tears: “Then Jesus wept.” (John 11:35, NLT)

He refused to be pacified when an issue was unresolved: “Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. ‘Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.’” (John 11:38, NLT)

He got fed up: “Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.’” (John 12:7, NLT)

He felt concern over the future:“Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!” (John 12:27, NLT)

In other Gospel accounts, we discover Jesus expressing other quite human emotion:

He was frustrated with his disciples’ thick-headedness: “Jesus asked them, ‘Are you still so dull?’” (Matthew 15:16, NLT)

He was overcome by the weight of responsibility: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34, NLT)

He felt irrepressible joy: “At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.’” Luke 10:21, NLT)

Jesus, the perfect God-man, was able to feel things uniquely human: Sorrow, anger, frustration, spiritual exhaustion, and a tremendous capacity for joy. But are those emotions uniquely human? No, in truth, they are completely Divine. These feelings are not of just human origin; rather, they are feelings that originate within the very being of a feeling God, who has simply placed them within the genetic code of that part of his creation he holds most dear—human beings, which includes you and me.

The fact that you and I feel simply reminds us that our Creator feels. What that means, among other things, is that we belong to a caring, compassionate God. God the Father feels—he even dances over you with delight (Zephaniah 3:17); God the Son definitely feels, as we have just seen; God the Holy Spirit feels—he can be grieved and pleased (Ephesians 4:30, Galatians 6:8). That is good news, because is gives him an unfettered capacity to relate to our feelings and us great confidence to come before a caring, understanding God to express our deepest feelings. Hebrews 4:15-16 says,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Yes, God feels. Jesus clearly demonstrated that. So come confidently to a caring God to pour out your deepest, most inmost feelings. His great promise is that you can exchange your feelings for his mercy, your emotions for his grace, your tears for his comfort, your fears for his strength and anything else you are carrying, good or bad, you can turn over to a Father who can definitely relate.

Now that is something you can feel really good about!

“Spiritual experience by definition is an internal awareness that involves strong emotion in response to the truth of God’s Word, amplified by the Holy Spirit and applied by Him to us personally.” (John MacArthur)

Getting To Know Jesus: This present moment might be a good time to take God up on the incredible offer he made to you in Hebrews 4:16! Simply but boldly and expectantly go to God in prayer and present whatever is on your heart. And remember, Jesus is actually the one helping your prayers make sense and your requests compelling before the Father.

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That’s One Angry Messiah

Being With Jesus:
John 11:39 (NLT)

Jesus was still angry as he arrived at Lazarus’ tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.

Why was Jesus angry? His friend Lazarus had died. Perhaps it was a simple as that. He was upset at the loss of one with whom he had been close. Or maybe it was because Mary and Martha, Larazus’ siblings were upset—not only at the death of their brother, but with Jesus, who didn’t bother to show up to heal their loved one before he passed away from his illness. Or it could be that he was not happy with the people who had gathered to share this family’s grief who likewise had questioned Jesus—and in doing so, had questions if his “love” for this man had been real or if his supposed “powers” to heal the sick were actually real.

Whatever the reason for Jesus’ emotions, he expressed them openly and unreservedly. First he wept (John 11:35) and then he got angry (John 11:39). In fact, the reading of this text indicates that his tears actually flowed out of an inner reservoir of anger over the loss of this special friend.

Author David Seamands writes, “Anger is a divinely implanted emotion. Closely allied to our instinct for right, it is designed to be used for constructive spiritual purposes. The person who cannot feel anger at evil is a person who lacks enthusiasm for good. If you cannot hate wrong, it’s very questionable whether you really love righteousness.”

Jesus loved righteousness—the uninterrupted flow and uncontainable overflow of the Kingdom of God in a person’s life. And when that flow got diverted or dammed up, either by religious systems or satanic harassment, Jesus got angry—good and angry.

Now that may blow your image of Jesus as the “Gentle Shepherd” right out of the water. I hope so! Not to be angry at a time like this would have been so un-God like of Jesus.

To be sure, Jesus loved people, and that love especially came through in his compassion for the poor, widows and orphans, the sick and infirmed, and those who were held captive to sin by Satan. He was a man of love and peace who called people into a lifestyle of love and peace.

But Jesus was no pushover. He had a large capacity for anger—just read about his encounter with the moneychangers at the temple in John 2:13-22 and see if Jesus didn’t explode with righteous indignation every once in a while.

Now Jesus didn’t go around trying to pick fights, but when he saw injustice, it really ticked him off. And we should be glad for that—both for what it tells us of our Messiah and what it tells us about how we should operate as agents of his Kingdom. J. I. Packer, in his book, Your Father Loves You, writes of the many times Jesus’ anger flared at this sort of thing:

Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and saw a man with a crippled hand. He knew that the Pharisees were watching to see what he would do, and he felt angry that they were only out to put him in the wrong. They did not care a scrap for the handicapped man, nor did they want to see the power and love of God brought to bear on him. There were other instances where Jesus showed anger or sternness. He “sternly charged” the leper whom he had healed not to tell anyone about it (Mark 1:43) because he foresaw the problems of being pursued by a huge crowd of thoughtless people who were interested only in seeing miracles and not in his teaching. But the leper disobeyed and so made things very hard for Jesus. Jesus showed anger again when the disciples tried to send away the mothers and their children (Mark 10:13-16). He was indignant and distressed at the way the disciples were thwarting his loving purposes and giving the impression that he did not have time for ordinary people. He showed anger once more when he drove “out those who sold and those who bought in the temple” (Mark 11:15-17). God’s house of prayer was being made into a den of thieves and God was not being glorified—hence Jesus’ angry words and deeds. Commenting on this, Warfield wrote: “A man who cannot be angry, cannot be merciful.” The person who cannot be angry at things which thwart God’s purposes and God’s love toward people is living too far away from his fellow men ever to feel anything positive towards them. Finally, at Lazarus’ grave Jesus showed not just sympathy and deep distress for the mourners (John 11:33-35), but also a sense of angry outrage at the monstrosity of death in God’s world. This is the meaning of “deeply moved” in John 11:38.

Any form of spiritual manipulation, control, abuse, neglect or enslavement that prevents the goodness of God from reaching people, no matter what form it takes, or who is perpetrating it, doesn’t make Jesus very happy. Not then…and not now.

Jesus, the Gentle Shepherd, the Prince of Peace, got good and angry over a few things. Maybe it is high time Christ followers got a little fed up with sin and its effects as well. Now just a caveat before you blow your lid: If you can’t weep over the things that made Jesus weep, you probably shouldn’t get angry over the things that made Jesus angry. Righteous weeping and righteous anger are two sides of the coin of righteous indignation.

So if it is called for, go ahead and get angry. Just make sure you are good—literally—and angry.

“He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin. (Thomas Secker)

Getting To Know Jesus: Offer this heartfelt prayer in response to your reading of the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead: Lord Jesus, I want to have a heart like yours. Cause me to laugh over the things that make you laugh, weep over what breaks your heart, even to get angry over the kind of things that upset you. I want to live as you would if you were living in my stead.

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Selective Allegiance To Scripture

Being With Jesus:
John 10:34-35 (NLT)

Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, You are gods’? So men are called gods [by the Law], men to whom God’s message came—and the Scripture cannot be set aside or cancelled or broken or annulled…” (Amplified Version)

The more Jesus’ life and ministry—including his undeniable, verifiable miracles—conflicted with the traditions of the Jewish elites, the more the Pharisees hated Jesus and wanted to kill him. In this case, his healing of a blind man on the Sabbath had fueled their murderous rage.

And the more Jesus exposed their spiritual blindness, the crazier they got. Aware of that, Jesus didn’t back down, but only sucked them more deeply into the quicksand of their own absurdity.

The Pharisees began to look for ways, any way, to justifying killing Jesus, finally settling on blasphemy—a catchall crime in that day, as it is in many religiously intolerant and hate-filled cultures in our day. They accused Jesus of claiming to be God—anathema in the Judaic tradition. Now to be sure, not only did Jesus clearly indicate in his preaching that he was God, he demonstrated that claim beyond any doubt by his miracles.

Set that aside for now and notice how Jesus used their selective outrage and their selective use of the Scripture against them. They accused him of claiming to be God, but he pointed out in the law that God has said of those men to whom he delivered his word, “you are gods.” Now there is a simple explanation for what otherwise might seem as though the Almighty was conferring of divinity upon certain men. Jesus’ scriptural reference came from Psalm 82:6, and it is a warning to the judges in Israel who had received the words of God that in turn were to be delivered through their judgments to the people. Warning is, that in this sense, the judge is commissioned by God to be god (godlike, a representative of God) to men in his adjudication.

Again, set that aside and notice something else. Jesus doesn’t refer to this psalm as “the writings” (a reference to the division of Scripture that included the books of Wisdom), but as “law” (what we would refer to as the books of Moses): “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” What does Jesus intend when he includes the Psalms with the Law? Simply, that to Jesus, the eternal Word of God, there were no artificial and arbitrary divisions in the written Word of God. We divide Old Testament Scripture (the Bible Jesus read, by the way) into Law, History, Wisdom and Prophets. But to Jesus, it was all Scripture, and as such, it was to be treated equally and obeyed fully.

The Pharisees were great at obeying some parts of Scripture, but ignoring others. They were guilty of selective allegiance to the Word of God and selective obedience in applying in their lives. And in that, though they feigned love for the Word, they were as far from it as you can get.

What about you? Either the Bible—all of it—is your all-sufficient rule for faith and practice, or it is not. Either you love all of it—even the parts that make you uncomfortable, even the rebukes that sting, even the commands that demand radical, personal change—or you don’t love it at all. Either you are willing to submit to all of it—even the call to risky faith and generous giving and costly sacrifice—or it is a spiritual menu from which you pick and choose what you will nibble on. Either you are willing to allow all of it to absorb into your being, or you are closer to being a Pharisee than you care to admit. As Leonard Ravenhill points out, “the Bible is either absolute, or its obsolete.”

One of the ways to avoid the selective allegiance of the Pharisees is to commit to allowing God’s Word, all of it, to treat you in whatever way is needed—even if that means roughly.

“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” (Mark Twain)

Getting To Know Jesus: To ensure that you are reading the Bible for all it is worth, and applying it thoroughly in your daily life, try using the S.O.A.P. method: Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. Scripture—select the Scripture and reading it carefully. Observation—write down what you observed from your reading. Application—how can you apply the observation so that it affects your life today. Prayer—write out a prayer to God based on what you just learned and ask him to help you apply this truth in your life.

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Enjoy Your Eternal Security

Being With Jesus:
John 10:28-29 (NLT)

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.”

Once you have committed your life to Jesus Christ, can you ever lose your salvation? For hundreds of year, very smart people have debated that question—with great and convincing arguments on both sides of the equation. So I am not going to resolve the question in this blog—I am not even going to try.

With absolute certainly, however, I can say this: If—and “if” is what is in question, so it is a very big “if”—if a Christian can lose their salvation, then to somehow manage to lose it would have to be the most difficult achievement in entire universe. Why? Because, according to John 10:28, Jesus is the one who gave you your salvation, and according to his own words, once he has given it, you will never perish. Furthermore, he said that no one can snatch you away from him. That is because, according to John 10:29, the Father is the one who gave you to Jesus. Now since no one and nothing is more powerful than God—not by miles; not even close—tell me, who is going to pry you and your salvation from the grip of God’s unrelenting grace?

Now that is security!

I love how other New Testament writers got in on the discussion about your salvation. The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 1:6,

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Now that is some security you’ve got there!

And what about Jude? Here is what he said about the matters as he closed out his letter,

“Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.”

You see, if your salvation was all up to you, you would have good reason to be insecure about it. But your salvation is riding on some pretty big shoulders. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are at work right now to perfect what they have begun in you, and will exert the full power of their Divine Being to bring your eternal life to completion. Yes, as much as that seems impossible right now, one day, you will stand without a single fault because a joyful Trinity—they will make sure of it.

Now that is security!

I love the story of the flea who was riding on an elephant’s ear when they came to an old wooden bridge. And as they crossed the bridge wobbled badly and almost collapsed. When they got the other side the flea said to the elephant, “Boy, we shook that bridge, didn’t we!”

No, “we” didn’t! The truth is, you and I have crossed over the bridge of faith ridding on Someone else’s efforts. And as long as we put the emphasis on our role in both prompting and preserving our salvation, we will be eternally insecure. But when we lean into—or more appropriately, lean on the unassailable efforts of Jesus to save us—and keep us saved—we will live with unshakeable confidence in the God who saves.

Now that is some security!

“God’s decree is the very pillar and basis on which the saint’s perseverance depends. That decree ties the knot of adoption so fast, that neither sin, death, nor hell, can break it asunder.” (Thomas Watson)

Getting To Know Jesus: In light of all that God has done to save you, and all that he is doing to keep you saved, doesn’t that make you want to offer yourself to him in even greater consecration? Perhaps you ought to tell him that.

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A Fight You Can Win

Being With Jesus:
John 10:10 (NLT)

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

You have an enemy. His name is Satan. Jesus called him a thief and a liar. His main weapons are subtly and deception—and he’s pretty good at it, since he has been at it since the beginning of human history.

The Enemy hates God, and everything of God, which includes you. He has a nefarious plan for your life. He wants to rob you of the abundance of God, destroy your identity and destiny as a child of God, and kill you, body, soul and most of all, spirit, keeping you from eternity with God. In fact, even right now he is strategically and specifically working to do you in.

The real problem that is you may be completely oblivious to the work of the Enemy. Out of ignorance, disbelief, or plain old lassitude and indifference, most of Satan’s victims fiddle while he goes about his evil work undetected. George Barna, a Christian researcher and pollster, asked people to respond to this statement in a national survey: “Satan, is not a living being, but is a symbol of evil.” Among those who claimed to be born again, 32% agreed strongly, 11% agreed somewhat and 5% didn’t know. That means of the total number responding, 48% of born again believers either agreed that Satan is only symbolic or weren’t sure!

Barna’s findings would suggest that half of you reading this blog today, in spite of what the Bible clearly teaches, think of the devil only as a boogie-man from a spiritual fairy tale, not a real being bent on destroying you. Jesus would beg to differ with you. He wants you to know that Satan and his demonic legions are alive and well on Planet Earth. Satan is the enemy of God, and because he can’t do anything to God, he chooses to attack what is most precious to God—that is, you.

Now it is critical to your well-being—spiritual, physical, relational, financial—for you to understand that bit of bad news in order for you to fully employ the Good News in Hebrews 2:14, which reminds us that Jesus came “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.” You are not alone in this fight against the evil one, nor are you doomed to defeat. I John 3:8 tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

Yes, Satan is real, but Jesus has defeated him. Furthermore, as a Christ-follower, you, too, have power and authority to defeat the devil. In Luke 10:17-19, we are told, “the seventy-two returned with joy and said, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’ Jesus replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven. I have given you authority to…overcome all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you.’”

I like that, don’t you? Not only do you have power and authority over the Enemy, Jesus has guaranteed your victory. I prefer those kinds of fights…ones that I know I’ll win!

So here’s the deal: If you will stay alert to the conflict, wise up to the ways of your enemy, and take him on in the authority and power of Jesus name, you will win. Guaranteed!

Keep that in mind today—and go give ‘em heaven!

“The enemy will not see you vanish into God’s company without an effort to reclaim you.” (C.S. Lewis)

Getting To Know Jesus: Trying praying this prayer every day this week: “Lord, keep me wise to the ways of the Enemy today. Lead me away from temptation and keep me from the evil one. Help me to walk in the victory over Satan that you secured at Calvary.”

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The Seeing Blind

Being With Jesus:
John 9:39 (NLT)

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”

Helen Keller, who with the help of Anne Sullivan, overcame deafness and blindness to become one of the most inspirational figures in modern history, made this profound observation:

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

Of course, Helen was speaking out of her own courageous and overcoming experience, but I wonder if she was thinking about the Pharisees who rejected Jesus’ healing of the blind man in John 9. Truly, these who were experts in the Old Testament Scripture and obedient to it even beyond what it required were in reality, more blind than the blind man before his healing. They could physically see, but in the realm that counts for all eternity, they would have made a bat seem like a seeing-eye dog.

Though it doesn’t have to, that often happens as people react to Jesus. He came into this world for judgment—according to his own words—but that judgment didn’t take the form you might expect of a judge. Jesus didn’t have to sit behind the bench, hear the evidence, deliver the verdict and pronounce the punishment; the Pharisees did it for him. In their reaction to what was clearly an outstanding and undeniable miracle (John 9:24-34), they stubbornly clung to the company policy: You can’t heal on the Sabbath! Jesus simply brought the evidence against them to the surface; they judged themselves.

They were seeing, yet blinded by the truth that was right before their very eyes! How sad.

The truth is, when people are exposed to Jesus—his life, ministry, miracles, teaching, life, death and resurrection—a reaction is forced. They are forced to make a judgment—but that judgment is really self-judgment. How we respond to Jesus does not reveal anything new about Jesus, it reveals news about us—either the Good News that we have by faith believed (or are willing to believe) in who he claimed to be, or the bad news that unless we have a change of mind and heart, we will be self-condemned to an eternity separated from Christ.

When exposed to Jesus, if a person finds nothing to desire or admire, then that one has already condemned him or herself. But when they see something in Jesus that causes them to bow in surrender to his awesome and obvious Divinity, then they are on the path to eternal life.

Perhaps the greatest attribute that you and I can present before God is a conscious awareness of our own spiritual blindness. To humbly acknowledge before God that because of our own fallen nature we cannot see, we are on our way to sight. If we long to see the things of God, Jesus will open our spiritually blind eyes just as much as he physically opened the blind man’s eyes to 20/20 sight.

What a gift: To know that we are blind apart from our openness to Jesus. It is only those who once were blind—and know it—that now can see. And see they do! Opened to them through Jesus is the sum total of all the grace, truth and glory of God—and what a sight to behold!

“Was blind, but now I see.” (John Newton)

Getting To Know Jesus: Ask God to help you see where you may be persisting in spiritual blindness. Then bring your blind eyes to Jesus for healing. He was pretty good at that, you know—still is!