Category Archives: Matthew

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What God Has Birthed In You

Today’s Reflection:

After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” (Matthew 2:13, NLT)

The renowned 19th century Bible expositor J. C. Ryle said, “The rulers of this world are seldom friendly to the cause of God.”

How true!  And nowhere is that truth more evident than in Matthew 2 when King Herod tried to kill God’s greatest cause, the infant Jesus. This is the original story of the real Grinch who didn’t just try to steal Christmas, he tried to kill Christmas.

It’s a bizarre story when you think about it; it doesn’t seem to belong in the Christmas account. I’ll bet you won’t get a card next Christmas depicting Herod killing the babies of Bethlehem. While you might see the “Nutcracker Suite”, you’re not likely to attend the “Slaughter of the Innocents”. Your music director will likely lead the congregation to sing “Away In A Manger”, but not “Away With the Baby Jesus!”

It is a part of the story we would just as soon forget, but there it is, tucked into the Christmas story by God’s design for our benefit and encouragement. I think it’s there, in part, because Herod was just the first of a long line of Grinches right up to this day that are always trying to kill our Christmas and steal our joy and destroy the incarnational plan of God in our lives.  Jesus, who was obviously and personally familiar with “the Grinch”, said in John 10:10,

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

Here is one of the things I believe the Holy Spirit, who inspired Matthew’s account, wanted you to know from this story: Back then, Herod couldn’t destroy Jesus, and right now, no ruler, no person, no force, no circumstance, no disappointment can stop the cause that God has birthed in you! God is committed to giving you “a rich and satisfying life”, both now and for all eternity!

What cause has God birthed in you?  Has some real life Grinch in the form of a person or a circumstance tried to steal it from you?  Take your concern to God and trust.  Memorize and pray back Psalm 138:8 to God all week long:

“The Lord will perfect that which concerns me!”

Something To Think About

“Walk boldly and wisely…There is a hand above that will help you on.” ~Philip James Bailey

 

 

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Delayed, Not Denied

Read: Matthew 1

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren. (Matthew 1:1-2, KJV)

Back in the day when I was growing up, you had two choices in Bible versions: The King James or the King James.  And the King James used the word “begat” when listing the genealogies of the Bible, as is the case in this chapter.  To read through these seemingly unending lists of mostly boring and meaningless names in the genealogical records took real commitment.  Matthew 1 is a case in point: “Judah begat Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram…” and so forth.

Perhaps you were tempted to skip over this chapter today, or maybe just to just read through these names a little faster than normal. That’s what we tend to do with genealogies—the “begats”. If we read them at all, we just breeze through them.  They’re to be endured, not enjoyed; tolerated, not celebrated.  That’s understandable. The names are hard to pronounce. We don’t have any historical context for most of these people. Reading these names is akin of reading from the phone book.

Yet we believe the inspired Word of God, inerrant in all it affirms, the only authoritative and infallible rule of faith and conduct.  That means every chapter, every verse and every line is God’s perfect Word for us—even  the genealogies. They are not here by mistake; they are not here just as filler. They are here by God’s design for our benefit. So, in a sense, these genealogies are truly “Designer genes”.

If you have ever researched your genealogy by looking up your family tree, you know that what you are looking at is the historical thumbprint that provides context to the ongoing story of your life. That’s why God spent valuable ink in His Word passing these genealogies to us. And this genealogy in Matthew is important because these names not only remind us how Jesus got here. They tell us the story of who God is.  And since God is our Father, the stories behind these names reveal the “Designer genes” that make us, spiritually speaking, who we are.

This particular genealogy tells a wonderful story—a very important story that you and I really need to know: It tells the story that God is the God of promise.

The very first line in Matthew 1:1 says, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The birth of Jesus was the result of a Divine promise made thousands of years before his birth.  The God of the Bible is a God who makes promises—and is faithful to keep them—every one! The Bible contains about 7,000 promises, and two of them stand head and shoulders above the rest: The Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants.  Abraham and David are two significant Old Testament characters.  God made promises to them in response to their faithfulness.

To David, God made the promise of an everlasting throne I Chronicles 17:11-14, “When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom…I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son…I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.”

But God not only promised David an enduring throne, he promised Abraham a universal seed. God told Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 that through his genealogy the whole world would be blessed. That didn’t happen for Abraham through Isaac, or Jacob, or Judah. It didn’t even happen for David through Solomon. The enduring throne and the universal blessing were revealed and fulfilled hundreds of years later through Jesus Christ.

The point is that in this genealogy, we see that God always keeps his promises.  They may be so slow in coming, but they are never late. God’s promises may seem delayed, but they are never denied. And every time you read this genealogy, or any Bible genealogy for that matter, you are seeing how the God of history, in his sovereign timing, fulfills what he has promised.

And the God who made 7,000 promises in his Word, many of them direct promises to you, will fulfill them all in his sovereign time!  It doesn’t matter when he fulfills them or how…it only matters that he will.

And he will, because he’s the God who fulfills!

“God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises…leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.”  ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What If God Took Over?

If there are over 7,000 promises that God has made to his people in the Bible, shouldn’t you be claiming one or two of them for yourself?  Look up a couple of promises in God’s Word, memorize them and pray them back to God every day this week.

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Job Description for Jesus’ Disciples

Read: Matthew 28

Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

What do real disciples do? Two things actually: They reflect and they replicate.

First of all, authentic disciples become like the Master. They fully devote themselves to his life and they fully obey his teachings. They become like the Jesus in thought, word and deed to the point where his very being is reflected in the essential quality of their being. The Master becomes the sum and substance of their lives.  Only by the kind of transformation where the Master is fundamentally reflected from center to circumference in their lives can Christ’s disciples in turn “go and make [other] disciples.” Only then can they teach others to “observe all that [the Master] has commanded.”

That is what it means to be truly Christian. Being truly Christian means being an authentic disciple. One cannot happen without the other—Christianity means discipleship; discipleship means Christianity. Being either is not just in name, it is in the reflection of the Master in the life of the disciple. Calling oneself a disciple is simply wishful thinking without doing the things of discipleship and being in essence the reflection of the Master. Call it what you will, anything less is nothing more than inauthentic discipleship, non-Christianity, a false religion.

Second, authentic disciples replicate the life of the Master through their lives in the lives of others. In other words, they reproduce. Barren discipleship is non-discipleship. True disciples go with the message, bearing the life of the One they reflect and persuading others to follow Jesus.

Disciples don’t just win converts to Christianity, they make other disciples in the way of the Master. To convert a soul to Jesus simply begins the process of discipleship. Conversion is the first step; discipleship is the journey. True conversion begins the journey of authentic discipleship; the convert requires the same full devotion to the Master’s life and the same full obedience to his teaching that took place in the proto-disciple. The Master’s life is replicated in the disciple, who in turn replicates the Master’s life in the convert, who then, in turn, replicates the Master’s life in still others.

That is when discipleship comes full circle and is proven authentic.

Here is the real question in all of this: Are you a true disciple? The answer is easy: If you are reflecting and replicating the life of the Master, you’re in pretty good shape.

If you aren’t, you need to go back and have a serious conversation — should I say, “conversion” — with the Master.

“Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What If God Took Over?

Let me suggests that you offer this prayer if you are serious about being a true disciple of Christ: “Jesus, you said we cannot truly call you Lord unless we do the things you said we should do. With all of my heart, I want to be authentic when I call you Lord. Help me to give you my full devotion and complete obedience. Make me a true disciple.”

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Ripped With A Vengeance

Read: Matthew 27

“Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. ” (Matthew 27:50-51)

There is a high likelihood that you will pass by this curtain-tearing incident too quickly in light of all of the other heart-wrenching details of the crucifixion.  If you do, you will miss one of the most significant events in the history of God’s dealing with mankind.

A little background information on the curtain may help.  Kimberly Southwall writes,

“The temple had two important rooms in it. One was called the Holy Place, and the other was called the Most Holy Place. A curtain separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. (Exodus 26:31-33.) The Most Holy Place represented the presence of God Himself. Because of that, the Most Holy Place was so special that God only allowed a priest to enter into it one time each year. No one else was ever allowed inside that room. The priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year to take the blood from a sacrificed animal to sprinkle inside to atone or try to make up for the peoples’ sins during that past year. For many years, this was the only way God’s people could hope to atone for their sins. But even this way wasn’t really good enough. That’s why God sent His only Son, Jesus, to die and atone for everyone’s sins, once and for all.

Keep in mind that this curtain was not like the ones in your home.  To begin with, only the High Priest could get near it; and then only once a year.  Not only that, it would have been impossibly tall to rip from the top to the bottom without a ladder.  Moreover, it was so thick that, ladder or not, no human hand could ever have torn it in two.

So what is going on here?  At the moment Jesus died to atone for our sins, it is as if God reached down from the unseen realm where he dwells, grabbed the curtain with both hands, ripping it with a vengeance, and thus opening up a new way for you and me into his very presence.

How awesome is that!  No longer do we need to come to God through an ineffective system of religious laws, procedural sacrifices, or by a high priest.  We can now boldly, confidently, and regularly come right into the very presence of God himself to obtain what we need. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way,

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-23)

The writer puts it similarly in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Now, aren’t you glad God ripped the curtain?  I sure am.  Next time you read Matthew 27, pause at verse 51 for a little while.

And while you’re at it, be a little bold before God in your prayers!

“This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners, for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ’s, and Christ’s righteousness is not Christ’s, but ours.” ~Martin Luther

 

What If God Took Over?

There is a “new and living way” for you to access God’s presence.  By Christ’s sacrifice, you have been given the right and the privilege to come right before your Heavenly Father’s throne to obtain mercy and find grace.  So today, be bold and ask God to pour out all of heaven’s blessings upon you.  Then come back tomorrow (or five minutes from now, if you need to) and do the same thing!

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The Divine Eye Of The Satanic Storm

Read: Matthew 26

Jesus went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39)

Where is the greatest, safest, most satisfying place in the world to be? In the very center of God’s will, that’s where!

When we can learn to not only pray, but earnestly desire God’s will for our lives—unpleasant and undesired circumstances notwithstanding—then we will have discovered what Jesus knew all along when he prayed that prayer on the very night he was betrayed: The Divine “eye” of the Satanic storm.

Jesus desired his Father’s will more than anything else—even life itself. He knew his purpose in life was to fulfill God’s plan: To redeem a lost world by his sacrificial death. He entrusted his own personal preferences to the One who not only works out all things for His own glory, but for the good of His children as well. (Romans 8:28) That’s why Jesus, whom Hebrews 12 calls, “the author and finisher of our faith”, looked at the cross with great joy. That’s why he endured this ghastly assignment heroically. That’s why he even despised the shame of hanging upon that cross like a death-row inmate. For Jesus knew that the path to the crown was by way of the cross.  Now he has arrived and is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

So what about you? Have you come to that place where you can subjugate your own preferences to the will of God? When you can so entrust your life to the Father’s perfect plan, no matter what that means, you will have discovered, as Jesus did, the Divine eye in the midst of every Satanic storm. And that is the greatest, safest, most satisfying place in the world!

Take a moment to absorb how Hebrews 12:1-3 says it:

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [Jesus and others who heroically fulfilled God’s will], let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”

Are you struggling with God’s will? Does it seem a little too much to handle? Keep your eye on Jesus!  Consider what he went through! For if you endure your cross now, then afterwards comes the crown!

Before he was martyred by the Naizis, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison, “Much that worries us beforehand can afterwards, quite unexpectedly, have a happy and simple solution… Things really are in a better hand than ours.”

That’s why Jesus’ prayer, “Father, not my will, but Yours be done”, is a really good prayer for you to pray.  Your life—unpleasant and undesired circumstances notwithstanding—is in better hands than yours.

And after your cross, if you endure by doing the will of the Father, comes the crown.

“God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.” ~C.S. Lewis

What If God Took Over?

Why not pray this prayer over your life before you go out for the day? “Father, not my will, but yours be done!”

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Risking Faith

Read: Matthew 25

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone. He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip. … But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.” (Matthew 25:14-15,18)

You probably know this Parable of the Talents well. The servants were given talents (a sum of money) each according to their ability, with the expectation that they would use these resources to produce something of benefit for the master.

The first two did—and were rewarded handsomely; the third didn’t—and was rebuked harshly. In fact, the talent was taken from the latter and given to the first servant, since he had proven to the master that he could increase exponentially whatever was placed within his care.

Now I have no way to prove this theologically, but I have a strong suspicion about this third servant. I don’t think the master would have excoriated him if effort had at least preceded his failure. I think it was because he didn’t try that the master’s anger was unleashed upon him. He played it safe. He feared failing, so he didn’t risk anything. This one-talent servant simply took what he had been given, protected it, and turned it back over to the master in the same condition in which he had received it. And the master blew a gasket!

This gracious but just master had entrusted something special to the servant and the servant did nothing to expand it. Now here is a crucial part of this story: The master had given his servant the talent according to his ability (verse 15). In other words, the master knew, even though it was small, there was production potential in this servant. But the servant wasted it! He let a golden opportunity slip by, and paid a heavy price for effortlessness. He didn’t damage the talent; he didn’t lose it; he preserved it—thinking he was doing the master a favor. However, the master found that kind of fear-based, lazy-hearted stewardship odious and offensive.

You, too, have been given a talent—probably more: talents in the literal sense of the word, and talents in the sense of kingdom potential and kingdom opportunities. You have been given them according to your ability—not anyone else’s. You won’t be judged against either another’s potential or their actual production. Your only benchmark is your own faithfulness. As Charles Robinson pointed out,

“The reward of being ‘faithful over a few things’ is just the same as being ‘faithful over many things’; for the emphasis falls upon the same word; it is the ‘faithful’ who will enter ‘into the joy of their Lord.’”

It matters not if you have five, three or one talent potential.  What matters is what you do with what you have been given.  You have been given your talents with the expectation that you will leverage your abilities to increase those talents and enlarge the kingdom for the real Master’s sake.

The whole point of this story is this: Don’t waste your opportunities. Don’t let the possibility of failure paralyze you into inaction. If you do, the regret at the end of your faith journey won’t be that you tried and failed. It will be that you didn’t try.

Risk a little. Even if you fall flat on your face, the fact that your heart was pure and your motive was to increase your Master’s kingdom will bring you to the joyful place of hearing him say to you on that glorious day,

“Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful
over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.
Enter into the joy of your lord.”
~Matthew 25:23

“Do you seek any further reward beyond that of having pleased God? In truth, you know not how great a good it is to please Him.” ~John Chrysostom

What If God Took Over?

Given your talents, resources and opportunities, where is it that you can risk a step of faith?  Don’t wait any longer—start investing in God’s work!

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Jesus Is Coming Back! Are You Ready?

Read: Matthew 24

“So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” (Matthew 24:42-43)

Thirty years ago, singer-songwriter Barry McGuire sang a song called, “Eve of Destruction.” Today, a lot of people think McGuire was dead on—that we are on the eve of destruction! Given conditions around the world, can Planet Earth as we know it continue much longer? Can the human race survive? Are we living in the end times?

Wars, rumors of war, global warming, the real possibility of pandemic, drug-resistant disease, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, the inexorable march toward a one-world government, the increase of evil, the rising tide of Islam, instability and unpredictability in the Middle East, escalating hostility toward Israel, increasing intolerance of Christianity, and the alarming surge of rage and violence that is being directed at believers!

Sounds like a page right out of the Bible, doesn’t it? The fact is, 2,000 years ago Jesus predicted these very things here in Matthew 24 when he said, “So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors!” (v. 33)

For very good reason, interest in the end times is at an all-time high! Just look at the unbelievable success of the wildly popular “Left Behind” series—100+ million copies sold. People want to know the future! And that’s not bad since we’re going to spend a long time there!

History is hurtling toward a conclusion—one that God has already ordained and foretold in the Bible. It could be soon—it could be today, or tonight, or this week, or it could be another thousand years from now. But no matter when, as the Bible says, God is not slow in fulfilling his Word—Jesus is coming back!

So what are you to do in response to that? Jesus twice said, “Watch and be ready for my coming.” (Verses 42,44) Jesus didn’t talk about the future just to get a crowd or to fill his disciples’ brains with prophetic minutiae. His purpose wasn’t to get them so hyped and overly focused on the second coming that they dropped everything to wait for his return. It wasn’t to make them so heavenly minded they were no earthly good.

Here’s the deal: Jesus’ prophetic sermon wasn’t meant just to clue us in, but to clean us up! He said these things to provoke us to purity! The Apostle John, who knew a fair amount about the end times—he wrote Revelations after all—spoke of our hope in Christ’s return this way:

“This hope makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ is holy.”
(I John 3:3, CEV)

So the question of when and the details of how that so many people are focused on, though interesting, are not nearly important as this one overriding issue:  Are you watching, and are you ready?

“It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never acting toward it.” ~John Frederick Boyes

What If God Took Over?

If you knew that Jesus would return exactly at midnight seven days from now, what about your life would change between now and then?  What would you stop doing?  What would you start doing?  Write your thoughts down.  Why not use that piece of paper as a to do list, and start now?