Category Archives: John

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Weekend Meditation: The Emotional God

Read: John 11-12

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!” (John 11:33-36, NLT)

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 1:15) in order to bring God close us (Isaiah 7:14), reveal who God is and what God is like to us (Colossians 1:15,19-20), and through his redeeming sacrifice bring us back into a right relationship with our  Creator and Father (Colossians 1:21-22).

In coming to earth to fulfill that mission of revelation and redemption, we do not find in Jesus an uncaring, distant, emotionless Deity, we find one who knew full well what it was like to be one of us. Therefore, he was the perfect bridge between the Divine and the 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 unstoppable 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 with an insincere disciple:  “Jesus replied, ‘Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.’” (John 12:7, NLT)

He felt unsettling 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 several different Gospel accounts, we discover Jesus expressing other quite human emotions:

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 it 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

What If God Took Over?

This present moment might be a good time to take God up on the incredible offer he made to you in Hebrews 4:16!

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Now That’s Security

Read: John 10

“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.” (John 10:28-29, NLT)

Once you have committed your life to Jesus Christ, can you ever lose your salvation?  That question has been debated for hundreds of years by some very smart people—with great and convincing arguments on both sides.  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 no thing 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 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!

“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

What If God Took Over?

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 Reason For Suffering

Read: John 9

“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” Jesus answered, “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins. This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” (John 9:2-3, NLT)

Suffering—where does it originate? When someone gets sick, contracts a disease, or is born with a disability, is that the result of personal sin—either theirs or their parents?  Has the devil inflicted the suffering upon them?  Did God cause it? When we, or the people we love are forced to endure suffering, we get pretty passionate about finding answers to those questions.

What Jesus said was that not all sickness and suffering is the result of a specific sin.  However, in a general sense, because we live in a world broken by sin, bad stuff that was not a part of God’s original plan for human beings now happens.  And to be sure, the Bible does teach that I can bring some physical suffering on myself.  If I do not follow God’s principles, my body will experience the consequence.  If I do not eat right, sleep enough and exercise regularly—which is sin, since my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit—then I should not be surprised when my body reacts with an infirmity.  If I do not listen when God’s Word says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but pray about everything” and I worry a lot—which is a sin—if I get an ulcer, then I am to blame.  If resentment builds in my spirit—which is a sin, since I am not to allow bitterness to take root and defile me—then the doctors say that what is eating me will not only eat away at my mental health, but it will also take a bite out of my physical health.

So when it comes to suffering and sickness, I need to pay attention to the sin-factor in my life.  When sin is at the root, then James says that confession and prayer is the appropriate response to my suffering:

“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:13-16, NLT)

However, not all suffering is the result of sin. Jesus blew that idea out of the water here in John 9 when he talked about the man born blind and clears up the notion that the blindness was the result of neither his nor his parent’s sin. Sometimes God permits suffering in your life simply because He wants to heal you and let it be a testimony to the world.  John 11:4 tells the story of Lazarus, who was sick and near death. In that case, Jesus said, “The purpose of his illness is not death, for the glory of God.”

Now God doesn’t heal every sickness; if he did, none of us would ever die and go to heaven. But for sickness that is within the Lord’s will to heal, James 5:14 says that we are to do a couple of things:  One, we are take the initiative and summon the spiritual leaders of the church. And, two, we are to have those elders anoint us with oil and pray.

This prayer for healing is to be done “in the name of the Lord.” The “name” represents the Christ’s authority, which is the basis for all healing.  When we offer prayer for healing under these conditions and in that manner, James says, “such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well.” (James 5:15, NLT)

God is the healer, not the person praying.  Let’s never forget that!  In this age of flamboyant faith healers, sometimes you get the idea that it is their ability and spirituality that gets the job done.  It is not; God alone deserves the credit.

That brings us back to what Jesus said about suffering and sickness: Sometimes it is not the result of sin. It is simply so that God’s power and glory can be revealed in the restoration!

“‘I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord.” ~Jeremiah 30:17

What If God Took Over?

If you are suffering from an illness, study James 5:13-18 and follow what it says.

 

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Jesus—The Great “I AM”

Read: John 8

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!” At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple. (John 8:58-59, NLT)

There were many reasons, I suppose, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus: They were jealous of his popularity with the people. They hated that he didn’t defer to their spiritual authority and were put off that he wasn’t impressed by their religious pedigree. They were irked that he ministered to marginalized people, hung out with the wrong crowd, operated outside the lines of Jewish protocol and a thousand other things that he did, or didn’t do, that bugged the daylights out of them.  In general, the genuine authority and real power that Jesus displayed in his life and ministry exposed the spiritual impotence of these Jewish elites, which in turn, brought out some fierce insecurities displayed in their childish opposition and irrational hatred of the Lord.

But the main reason their hatred turned murderous?  It wasn’t that Jesus sort of acted like God. It wasn’t that he beat around the bush about his deity. It wasn’t that he made some veiled and esoteric claim about Messiahship.  No—he flat out claimed to be God.  That is why they wanted to kill him.  In fact, Jesus committed the ultimate faux pas by using the revered designation for God that no god-fearing Jew would utter so causally and irreverently: “I AM!” There was nothing subtle about “before Abraham was, I Am!” Jesus was making a bold declaration about his Divinity—something that could get you killed in that culture.

Of course, Jesus knew that. In fact, his claim would get him killed. Jesus didn’t care—he was God come in the flesh, and he wasn’t going to back away from that claim one inch.  That is why he came, and that is precisely what he claimed—no ifs, ands or buts about it.

When you consider that claim alone that Jesus made about himself, you are forced to eliminate all of the other nice-sounding, politically correct things people say they believe about him. In other words, Jesus cannot be just a good teacher, just a great moral leader, just a respected prophet, just a great figure of history.  With Jesus, you have to eliminate “just” from your vocabulary. Jesus left the Jews with no other option, and he doesn’t leave you with another option either.  As C.S. Lewis said,

“[With Jesus] you must make a choice.  Either He was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman, or something worse. You can shut Him up as a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that option open to us.  He did not intend to.”

I am sure glad the Great I Am forced that choice on me!  How about you?

“The discrepancy between the depth and sanity of his moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie behind his theological teaching unless he is indeed God has never been satisfactorily got over.” ~C. S. Lewis

What If God Took Over?

Jesus!  You’ve got to do something with him. You’ve got to love him or hate him…but you really can’t live with anything in between and live an intellectually honest life. So be honest—where do you line up with Jesus?  I hope you go with what he claimed, and proved, about himself.

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Almost Famous

Read: John 7

Soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters, and Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” (John 7:2-4, NLT)

“Thou shalt become famous” is not one of the Ten Commandments.  “Blessed are the spiritual celebrities, for they shall draw much attention” was not one of the Beatitudes Jesus laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. “Feed my sheep…so it can grow into a mega-ministry” was not the charge Jesus gave his disciples.

Yet the all-consuming desire for fame and the gravitational pull of fame’s first more pushy cousin, celebrity, is stronger today among Christian leaders than ever before.  Jesus’ brothers would have made a great PR team, but they don’t hold a candle to today’s image conscious ministries. All you have to do is turn on Christian television, tune in to Christian radio, cruise into a Christian bookstore, or surf just about anything Christian on the World-Wide Web and you will be immediately impressed with the swelling ranks of those who have attained Christian rock star status.

In this day and age, to make it to the “bigs”, all you’ve got to do is sell a book, have your own show—or get on one, be the spiritual authority all the media quotes when there is breaking news, have your own blog—replete with adoring readers (yikes!)—and do whatever you can to get your name, and your mug, out there where folks can discover just what a gift you are to humankind.

That doesn’t sound too much like Jesus, does it? He resisted any and every attempt to become famous, catapult to power, get rich and build a crowd of raving fans.  In fact, he did just about everything you shouldn’t do to build a successful ministry!  He avoided attention—if it was for the wrong motives. He said very hard things to would-be followers. He insulted the religious movers and shakers. He hung out with the wrong people. He championed causes no one on their way to the top would touch with a ten-foot pole. He grew his band of followers down to eleven guys who were mostly religious rejects.  Then, don’t forget, he got himself killed—crucified as a common criminal.  Oh—I almost forgot—he also changed the world!

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a new crop of spiritual leaders who didn’t give a fig about fame and celebrity dominate the Christian scene today?  Well, turn off your TV—and the radio.  Forget about the cover of the latest edition of “Jesus Weekly” and quit reading all those pastor-blogs (except for one).  Get in your car and take a drive out to a small town some Sunday, walk into a little country church and you are likely to find a simple shepherd who isn’t very famous—and won’t ever be—except with God.  He, or she, simply loves God, and the flock—and one day, when the dust settles and we all stand before God, that faithful pastor will receive a standing ovation from the Great Cloud of Witnesses.

They never sought fame—they only wanted to make Jesus famous!

Fame is a bee.
It has a song—
It has a sting—
Ah, too, it has a wing.
~Emily Dickinson

What If God Took Over?

Memorize this Mark 10:45,

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

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Let Jesus Show Through You

Read: John 6

So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56, NLT)

The crowds had been pretty impressed with Jesus—and why not? He had healed their sick, he had fed their multitudes—5,000 of them were treated to a full meal when he miraculously multiplied a couple of sardines and five loaves of bread—and he had even walked on their water—literally traipsing across the Sea of Galilee.  So you can see why they wanted to hang around Jesus. Who wouldn’t?

But Jesus didn’t want star-struck fans, he wanted fully devoted disciples.  So, in essence, he said, “Whatever your reason for following me up ‘til now, let me take you to a deeper, more satisfying experience, and you can only do that by taking my life fully into your own.” Oh, he didn’t say it quite that innocuously; he got pretty graphic and told them they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood if they wanted to be his disciples. And when the adoring crowds heard Jesus lay down the demands of discipleship in that way, they were shocked—and turned off.  The New English Bible translates John 6:60 this way: “This is more that we can stomach. Why listen to such words?”

Why were they so upset? Was it because they found Jesus’ words so revolting? Was it because they didn’t understand what he was saying?  No, it was because they knew all too well what he was asking of them.  He was calling them to accept him as God’s Son, the true bread of life, the only one who could truly satisfy their spiritual hunger and quench their thirst for God, both now and for all eternity. Jesus was calling them unequivocally to commit their lives totally to him, promising that if they did, then, and only then, would their deepest longings and innermost needs be fully met in him.

Jesus’ call to radical discipleship, using those provocative terms, would not have been unfamiliar to them. When a leader in that era called for unreserved commitment, he would demand that his followers “eat his flesh and drink his blood”.  So the reason the crowd was upset and abandoned Jesus at hearing this was because they knew exactly what Jesus was asking: Nothing less than total commitment and full surrender.

Interestingly, Jesus used two different words in two different Greek tenses for “eating his flesh.” In John 6:53, the word “eat” meant to eat once and for all—a specific act at a moment in time that produced continuing effects into the future.  He was speaking of the act of salvation—a specific moment in time when you give your life over to Christ and are born again. Salvation occurs at a moment in time, but it produces effects that continue throughout life and clear into eternity. The second word for “eat” in John 6:54 referred to a continuous act of daily and voraciously taking life-giving, soul-satisfying nourishment into one’s life.  Jesus was referring not to salvation, but to the daily walk of discipleship.

In both cases, to “eat and drink of him” means to so thoroughly absorb Jesus that every fiber of who you are and every aspect of how you live is fundamentally and profoundly affected.  And when he is invited and allowed to so fully and completely take over your life that way, something wonderful will happen: Jesus begins to show through.

That reminds me of the story of a little girl who turned to her mother on their way home from church and said, “Mommy, the pastor’s sermon confused me.” The mother said, “Why was that?” The girl replied, “Well, he said that God is bigger than we are.  Is that true?” The mother replied, “Yes, honey!” Then the little girl said, “And he also said that God lives in us.  Is that true, mommy?” The mother again said, “Yes, that’s true, too.” Upon hearing that, the girl said, “Well, mommy, if God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?”

That is what happens when you take Jesus so thoroughly and fundamentally in to your life—both at salvation and in your daily walk as his disciple.  He begins to show through, and that is a good thing!  If he is not showing through, it is likely that you are lacking in good spiritual nutrition, and, in the words of your Lord, you need to go back and “eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man.”

“Salvation is free … but discipleship will cost you your life.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What If God Took Over?

Offer this prayer of committed discipleship:  “Jesus, I want to absorb your life so fully into mine that you show through.  I offer myself to you; Lord, fully take me over.”

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Weekend Meditation: You Complete Me

Read: John 4-5

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.” (John 4:16-18, NLT)

An entire book could be written about this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. For instance, a whole chapter could be written from this story just about the inclusiveness of the Kingdom of God.  Another chapter could lay out a master blueprint for starting spiritual conversations with anyone from an authentic seeker to a theological weirdo. And of course, several chapters could present a compelling theology of worship from what Jesus says just in these few verses.

But at the end of the day, what you will find is that any encounter with Jesus doesn’t simply warm your heart to the Kingdom of God or perfect your evangelistic technique or inform your theology or just cram more spiritual information into your head, it touches the true condition of your heart. That is what happened to the woman at the well.

This sinful Samaritan sister is like a lot of people in our society today, even in our churches, who are attempting makeovers, not only of the physical kind, but of the whole-life kind.  Like her, so many people are profoundly unhappy, dissatisfied, empty on the inside and are trying to make over their lives by filling that missing void.  But any makeover effort that isn’t God-initiated, God-empowered, and God-focused, is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

In this woman’s case, she’d gone from man to man, hoping the next would be better—but each relationship left her increasingly dissatisfied, damaged and desperate. What Jesus was telling her was that she didn’t need a man to complete her. She didn’t need just a “relationship makeover”, she needed a new “water source” (John 4:13-15, NLT)—she needed a brand a new life.

This woman is really a mirror of our age. We go from experience to experience, job to job, purchase to purchase and relationship to relationship, hoping that that next great thing will be what finally brings us fulfillment. But here’s the deal:  If you are looking to a thing, or job, or another person to fulfill you, you are putting an expectation on something or someone that they cannot meet. When you live in that kind of pattern, your life will end up as one long, futile attempt to find completion.

Remember the gushy line from the movie that all the romantics swooned over: “You complete me”?  That sounds so romantic that it has to be true.  It’s not!  It is one of the Enemy’s great deceptions.  What Jesus was saying to this Samaritan woman—and by extension, to you and me—is that only God can complete you.  When you come to God for completion, then those unrealistic expectations that you have placed on position, possessions and people will be removed, and only then can you drink the living water and never thirst again.

The bottom line to this story—and to your life and mine—is simply this:  We find real completion only in God.

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now…. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” ~C.S. Lewis

What If God Took Over?

Honestly evaluate your expectations of possession, position and people. Are you looking to them as your primary source of happiness and fulfillment? If you are, bring those misplaced expectations to God, and ask him to fulfill the desires of your heart.  He has promised to do just that! (Psalm 37:4-5)