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You Don’t Need No Stinking Proof!

Maybe It's You That Needs To Prove Your Trust To Him

Jesus has already done plenty to prove himself to anyone who is half interested in who he is. The Father has done more than enough to authenticate that Jesus is indeed the Son of God—and as such, is worthy to be accepted as Savior and obediently followed as Lord. On Judgment Day, we won’t be able to offer the excuse that God didn’t prove himself to us. Maybe today, we ought to prove our trust to him through our unqualified worship and loving obedience.

The Journey: Matthew 16:1,4

One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, demanding that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. He replied, “…Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign…”

A sign? They want another sign? You’ve got to be kidding!

Keep in mind that Jesus had just delivered the demonized daughter of a Syro-Phoenicean woman (Matthew 16:21-28). He had just healed scores of people—“the crippled were made well, the lame were walking, and the blind could see again”—in the Galilee (Matthew 15:29-31). Then to top it off, he had just fed 4,000 men (not including women and children) with seven loaves of bread and a few fish—with seven doggy bags for his disciples afterwards. (Matthew 15:32-39)

Now the Pharisees and Sadducees had the gall to ask Jesus to show them a miracle! As we used to say when I was a kid (for which I was usually reprimanded by my very prim and proper mother), “what did they want, egg in their beer?” What else could Jesus do, raise someone from the dead before their very eyes? Oh yeah, he’d already done that, too! Come on, did they expect him to die and come back to life again to prove his divine authority? Oops, guess he did that as well.

The point is, Jesus has already done plenty to prove himself to anyone who is half interested in who he is. The Father has done more than enough to authenticate that Jesus is indeed the Son of God—and as such, is worthy to be accepted as Savior and obediently followed as Lord. On Judgment Day, no one will be able to offer the excuse that God didn’t prove himself to them.

At some point with Jesus, we need to stop asking for proof and start proving our faith—whether or not we have signs, wonders and miracles to, yet again excite, to fuel our trust that Jesus is who he said is. Augustine pointed out, “Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” St. Anselm argued that believing, that is what we call saving faith, is the precondition of knowing:

I believe in order to understand. (credo ut intelligam)

Miracles are nice—but our faith doesn’t depend on them for stability. You’ve got all the proof you need! So why don’t you prove your faith in Jesus by giving him your trust today!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, I believe in you. I need nothing more to give you all of my love, my obedience, and my trust.
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Why Jesus Is So Annoying

He Comforts The Afflicted And Afflicts The Comfortable

On a fairly regular basis, Jesus got under people’s skin. In fact, he flat out annoyed them—and it didn’t bother him in the least. He didn’t come to earth to win a popularity contest, he came to get in the way of people’s headlong plunge into hell. That meant he had to tell them the truth—even if it ruffled their feathers. By the way, he is still doing that today, and chances are, he’s fixing to ruffle your feathers, too, if he hasn’t already. That’s just his job.

The Journey: Matthew 15:12-14

Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

On a fairly regular basis, Jesus got under people’s skin. In fact, he flat out annoyed them—and it didn’t bother him in the least. He didn’t come to earth to win a popularity contest, he came to get in the way of people’s headlong plunge into hell. That meant he had to tell them the truth—even if it ruffled their feathers. By the way, he is still doing that today, and chances are, he’s fixing to ruffle your feathers, too (if he hasn’t already)!

So why is Jesus so annoying? How come he doesn’t always play nice? What is it that makes him so willing to irritate sinners and saints alike —especially saints? I’ve already given the answer, but let me restate it once again:

Jesus is more committed to your holiness than he is concerned about your happiness!

You see, it is holiness that will get you into heaven and keep you out of hell. Now that’s not just my opinion, that’s a direct quote from the Word of God. Hebrews 12:14 (NLT) very clearly says, “work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.”

That’s why Jesus is so willing to get up in your grill and tell it like it is. He wants you to be holy, just as he is holy. That’s why he says things that are uncomfortable, that will make you squirm, that are frankly, offensive…things like,

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. (John 6:53, NLT)

You will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. (Luke 13:3, NLT)

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (John 14:6, NLT)

Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. (Matthew 7:21, NLT)

All who love me will do what I say…Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. (John 14:23-24, NLT)

And on and on the list of Jesus’ annoying sayings goes. Now of course, Jesus is not annoying for annoyance sake. He says things that make us uncomfortable because he loves us, and wants us to partake in his holiness. In fact, in the greatest act of love imaginable, he died on the cross so that you and I could enter through his sacrifice into the very holiness that will put us and keep us in right standing with a holy God. That is called imputed holiness—which Jesus offers that as a free gift, received only and completely by grace through faith.

What a deal—Jesus paid the full price for my holiness, and all I have to do is turn to him in full repentance of my sins, full acceptance of his death and resurrection, full surrender to his Lordship over my life, and I am declared holy. Moreover, I am then declared legally holy because I now stand before God in the holiness of Jesus Christ.

Now there is one more thing: Hebrews 12:14 said we are to “work at living a holy life”. Since Jesus has graciously done so very much to make us holy, we ought to gladly and thankfully make every effort (this is not about earning, mind you, you can’t earn what you’ve already been freely given) to live a life of complete and utter holiness before God.

Before you groan about this “holiness” thing—truthfully, it’s not such a bad or burdensome deal. All you really need to do, in light of what has already been done for you, is to gratefully love God will all your heart, mind, and body. Then once you’ve done that, just do as you like.

But just remember, to keep you loving God as he deserves, expect Jesus to annoy you along the way!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, please annoy me about the things I am too dull to see that stand in the way of a lifestyle of holiness that you have called me to pursue. Make me sleepless over the things that I am doing that betray my love for you. Give me discernment and boldness on this very day to jettison those behaviors or thought patterns from my life. And this year, give me marked growth in the walk of holiness.
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Sacred Cows – Barbecue Sauce, Anyone?

Traditions Are Not Holy, Only God Is!

When any tradition, no matter how loved and appropriate at some time in the past, hinders worship, belief, and intimacy with the Almighty in the present, that tradition has to go! What traditions am I talking about? I don’t know—you tell me. Perhaps it has to do with style of music or appropriate worship attire or a preferred version of the Bible or how your church practices Holy Communion. It could be anything that, by itself, is not wrong, but if that practice or tradition is now, in all honesty, worshipped or treated as sacred, then it has nullified the Word of God. Traditions are not sacred, only God is! Take a hard look at your traditions, and the traditions of your fellowship. And if you find a sacred cow, it may be time to heat up the barbecue. Be wise, be prayerful, be careful, but enjoy the burnt offering!

The Journey: Matthew 15:6

And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.

Tradition gets a bad rap in Christian circles these days. Much of modern, so-called “seeker-sensitive” spirituality has pretty much done away with anything that smacks of tradition. Yet not all tradition is bad—Holy Communion, to remind us of Christ’s sacrificial death, the living body of Christ, and the return of our Lord; the early creeds of the church to remind us of the great doctrines upon which our faith stands, the recitation of the Lord’s prayer, for obvious reasons; the celebration of special days, like Christmas and Easter, to remind us of his coming and his dying.

However, it is safe to say that the reason modern Christianity is down on tradition in general is that many churches have done exactly what Jesus warned against: they have nullified the authority and power of God’s Word by blind allegiance to these traditions. In other words, the tradition has become the end rather than the means to a greater end—the worship and glorification of Almighty God.

We must be careful at all costs to avoid unthinking and unquestioned loyalty to a tradition. Woodrow Wilson offered a revealing insight about tradition that we really ought to consider here: “To do things today exactly the way you did them yesterday saves thinking.” He was right: blind, uncritical loyalty to a tradition is mental laziness.

We ought to boldly question anything that prevents seekers from experiencing the present reality of a God whose Son broke scores of ridiculous rules and then died to redeem those seekers. We ought to courageously challenge anything that keeps believers from walking more intimately with Jesus Christ. We ought to seriously evaluate anything that might stand in the way God’s presence when he, himself, went out of his way to remove every barrier to his presence. When any tradition, no matter how well loved and appropriate at some time in the past, hinders worship, belief, and intimacy with the Almighty, that tradition has to go!

What traditions am I talking about? I don’t know—you tell me. Perhaps it has to do with style of music or appropriate worship attire or a preferred version of the Bible or how your church practices Holy Communion. It could be anything that, by itself, is not wrong, but if that practice or tradition is now, in all honesty, worshipped or treated as sacred, then it has nullified the Word of God. Traditions are not sacred, only God is!

Take a hard look at your traditions, and the traditions of your fellowship. Identify a tradition that really helps you to experience the presence of God. Then write a paragraph describing why that tradition is important to your faith and honoring to God. If you cannot root it in a “theology” that encourages intimacy, spiritual power, the growth of the fellowship and the evangelization of the lost, then maybe it’s time to fire up the barbecue.

Be wise. Be prayerful. Be careful. And enjoy the burnt offering.

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, give me a wise and discerning heart as it relates to traditions that I have elevated above simple intimacy with you. Then give me courage to put that tradition in its rightful place—either back in the barn for a time out or on the barbecue for a proper sacrifice. Keep me always and ever burning with an authentic, passionate love for your presence.
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Water-Walking Faith

Some Testimonies Only Come By Risky Steps Of Daring Obedience

Is there an area of faith where you are being tempted to give up because you have come into some unexpected and impossible circumstances? That is the perfect condition, my friend, to exercise water walking faith. So don’t give into fear, get out of the boat. Take a step, and keep your focus on Jesus, because yet another heroic faith story is about to be written!

The Journey: Matthew 14:29

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus.

No matter where you go in the Bible, you’ll find that memorable stories of faith always involved risky steps of daring obedience. So it is in this story where Peter leaves the other disciples sitting in the relative safety and comfort of their boat, takes a few steps of faith on the water in the middle of a storm, and walks out to meet Jesus, becoming the first person—and only human being that I know of—to literally walk on the water. Peter, a mere mortal, just a common Galilean fisherman, joined Jesus in a very elite club of which there were only two members: The Water Walker Club.

Now this is more than just another one of those incredible Bible stories we read as kids about the superheroes of the faith. This is a story meant to inspire water walking faith in common, ordinary, garden-variety believers. And within this particular story are several important lessons that Peter’s adventure can teach other mere mortals like you and me that we will need to keep in mind when we finally get up the courage to step out of our boat of comfort to take those bold and daring steps of faith to obey God:

First, the wind won’t stop blowing just because you take a step of faith. In fact, the storm may pick up a little. The truth is, faith needs a storm to be faith, or it is not faith. But the great thing about storms is that although Jesus doesn’t promise to keep you from them, he does promise to be with you in them. And in fact, it is the very resistance of the wind in those storms that provides the lift needed for faith to soar. So take that step of faith into the storm and watch what happens.

Second, when you take your step of faith into the raging storm, you will need to remember the one command that God most often gives his people: “Fear not!” Did you know that there are 366 “fear not’s” in the Bible? That is one for every day of the year (including an extra one of leap year). I don’t think that number is by mistake—I think God knew that you and I would need to be reminded every single day not to give into fear. Every single day, including today, God is reminding you to choose faith instead, because fear and faith cannot coexist in those who would be water walkers.

Three, when the storm is raging, your assignment is simply to keep our eyes on Jesus—and just keep walking toward him. “Don’t give up” is another repeated command in the Bible. To join Peter in the water walker club, you will have to make the determination to stay focused on the One who is the Master over the storm—because it is Jesus alone who will see us through.

Is there an area of faith where you are being tempted to give up because you have come into some unexpected and impossible circumstances? That is the perfect condition, my friend, to exercise water walking faith. So don’t give into fear and keep your focus on Jesus, because yet another heroic faith story is about to be written!

In the 1950’s, the name Florence Chadwick was synonymous with women’s championship swimming. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel–both ways. In fact, she did it three times, each time going against the tide.

But one of her distance swims was not so successful. She failed to reach her goal, all because she lost sight of it. Florence had set out on July 4, 1952 to swim the 21 miles from Santa Catalina Island to the California mainland. But on this particular morning, the 34-year-old found the water to be numbingly cold, and the fog was so thick she could hardly see the boats in her envoy, which were along side her to scare away the sharks.

As the hours ticked off, she swam on. Fatigue was never a serious problem…it was the bone-chilling coldness of the icy waters that threatened her. Finally, more than fifteen hours after she started, numbed by the cold, Florence asked to be taken out of the water, unable to go on.

Her mother, in a boat beside her, urged her to go on, as did her trainer. They both knew that the mainland had to be close, very close. Yet Florence quit. She got into the boat and fell short of her goal. The boat traveled just short distance until the coastline could be seen. Florence had stopped only a half-mile short of the finish. Upon realizing how close she had come, she dejectedly cried, “If I could have seen the shore I would have made it.”

If you are going to be a faith walker…or a water walker…

…Get ready for the storm

…Choose faith over fear

…Keep your eyes on Jesus

…And above all, never give up!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, bless me with water-walking faith. Enlarge my capacity to trust you, even in the storms. And let me be used of you in ways I never thought possible—even walking on some water in the middle of a storm.
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Therapy For God – Therapy For You

Find Someone Worse Off Than You And Help Them

Sir Thomas Browne noted, “By compassion we make others’ misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.” So if you are hurting today from the loss of something dear and near to your heart—maybe even the death of a loved one—try doing what Jesus did. See the needs of other hurting people and love them. You probably won’t feel like doing it, but do it anyway. It won’t take away your own pain, but it will unleash God’s healing therapy for you. And at the end of the day, you will find that it has paved your own journey through grief.

The Journey: Matthew 14:13-14

As soon as Jesus heard the news [of John’s death], he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Karl Menninger, founder of the famed psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that bears his name, was once asked, “What would you do if you thought you were going crazy?” Without even having to think about it, he said, “I’d go out and find someone less fortunate to serve.”

There is just something therapeutic about serving somebody else—especially if they are worse off than you. When you are going through your own hardship, whatever that may be—sickness, loss, disappointment, depression—the best therapy is to find those who cannot help themselves, who cannot pay back your kindness, and minister God’s love to them.

That is not to deny or avoid your own hurt. Not at all! But to love, serve, and bless the less fortunate is to activate a spiritual law that we find in Acts 20:35, “And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Jesus said it another way in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

In other words, when you are the conduit of God’s love and grace, and when heaven’s generosity is being poured through you to those in need, on the way through you, that flood of love, grace and generosity will leave the Divine touch in your own life.

Jesus is practicing his own preaching here in Matthew 14. His cousin, John the Baptist, had just been beheaded by Herod. When Jesus heard the news, he was deeply affected, as any human being would be. He felt tremendous sorrow and grief over the loss of a loved one. And he did what most of us would do: He got away from the crowd to spend some time alone to nurse his grief and pour out his hurt.

But Jesus didn’t stay there long. He didn’t succumb to self-pity; he didn’t retreat into isolation; he didn’t get paralyzed by grief. He found other people who were hurting for different reasons than his own, and out of compassion for them, he began to minister to their needs.

Jesus was setting a pattern for us, don’t you think? Not to minimize the hurt and grief that we experience from loss, discouragement and disappointment, but to turn it into a productive force that initiates God’s healing therapy in our own lives by becoming the conduit of Divine compassion, love, hope and grace to hurting people.

Perhaps you are licking your wounds today from the loss of something dear and near to your heart—maybe even the death of a loved one. If that is the case, try doing what Jesus did. See the needs of other hurting people around you and love them.

You probably won’t feel like doing it, but do it anyway. It won’t take away your own pain, but it will unleash God’s healing therapy for you. And at the end of the day, you will find that your journey through grief will be a lot healthier and a whole lot more productive. As Sir Thomas Browne noted, “By compassion we make others’ misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.”

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, in my own grief, misery and disappointment, help not to see those around me who could be lifted out of their own grief, misery and disappointment through the loving touch of someone who truly knows what they are going through. Make me a conduit of your grace to them.
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Unbelief

Stay Open To Jesus—Expect The Miraculous

What was it that limited either the divine power or the divine will of Jesus, Son of God, Savior and Messiah and kept him from doing any significant miracles in his hometown? Matthew’s gospel points out  that it was the unbelief of his friends and family. Their limited expectations disqualified them from experiencing the very visitation of God that had been the passionate longing of their hearts for generations. I sure hope that never happens to me—or to you! So stay open to Jesus and his miraculous power. Expect the unexpected in the routine of your daily walk with him. Perhaps he will write a new Kingdom chapter through extraordinary language of the miraculous in your life today!

The Journey: Matthew 13:51

And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.

I wonder what those “few miracles” were that Jesus performed in his hometown of Nazareth. Perhaps he healed a couple of headaches or lengthened a shortened leg or two. But he did none of the sensational stuff that had been getting the attention of the Jews in that day: delivering the demonized, healing the lame, opening the ears and eyes of the deaf and blind, and even raising the dead.

What was it that limited either the divine power or the divine will of Jesus, Son of God, Savior and Messiah? Matthew says it was the unbelief of the folk in his hometown. They knew Jesus well. They had been his neighbors, had gone to school with him, had sat next to him in synagogue services. They had watched him grow up, shared meals with his mom and dad, bought furniture from the carpentry shop he and his father operated. They were so familiar with the Jesus they thought they knew that they missed his unique standing as the one and only Son of God. To paraphrase S.D. Gordon, God was spelling himself out in language that men could understand through Jesus, but the people of Nazareth didn’t bother to open their eyes to the greatest story ever told.

Sadly, limited expectations disqualified them from experiencing the very visitation of God that had been the passionate longing of their hearts for generations. The Joy of Man’s Desiring was right in front of their eyes, yet they failed to behold him.

I sure hope that never happens to me—or to you. I hope that we don’t become so dulled by the ordinary and routine of a daily walk with Jesus that our limited expectations prevent the very Jesus we long for from breaking into our world with the extraordinary.

Stay open to Jesus! Expect the unexpected in the routine of your daily walk with him. Perhaps God will write a new Kingdom chapter through extraordinary language of the miraculous through Jesus Christ in your life today!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, I believe—now help my unbelief!
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Worry Weeds

Don’t Allow The Cares Of Life And The Lure Of Wealth Choke Out God

Be honest—you’ve got worries; so do I. I fight the same addiction to the cares of life and the lure of wealth that you do. Whether we like to admit it or not, the “worry weeds” that Jesus warned about are competing with the values of God’s Kingdom for the soil of our heart. And guess what? You are the only one who can weed out those worries. For sure, God will strengthen you and give you discernment to deal with them, but you are the one who will have to do a little self-weeding—so happy gardening!

The Journey: Matthew 13:22

The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced.

When I was a kid, my father would plant a garden in our back yard—tomatoes, green beans, corn, squash, strawberries—you name it, if it had a chance to grow, he’d plant it. He even planted cotton—in Oregon, for crying out loud! Then every Saturday morning in growing season, he’d drag my sorry carcass out of bed to weed that garden.

And I hated it; I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to be doing more productive things that all the other kids my age got to do on Saturdays: Sleeping in, or playing street football, or riding my stingray bike, or watching Saturday cartoons (in those days, “George of the Jungle” and its ilk were much more educational and mind-stretching than the stuff kids watch today). But no, I had to pull those stinking weeds.

Perhaps my dad, like Jesus, who spoke continually in parables to illustrate the kingdom life, was trying to teach an object lesson. You see, just as weeds can stunt the growth of a physical garden, nothing is more damaging to your relationship with God and your spiritual fruitfulness than the “worry weeds” in your life: The cares of this life and lure of wealth. These weeds are particularly dangerous because they look like fruit-producing plants at first, but in the end, they are noxious. They pop up early and often in the soil of your heart, and they alluringly demand your attention. Jesus called them thorns, warning that if not dealt with, they will eventually choke out the fruit-producing seed of God’s Word.

What are your worry weeds? Making the mortgage payment on your home, paying for a couple of cars in your garage, affording a respectable university for your kids or making sure your retirement account is getting fatter? Do you stay awake at night worrying about the yo-yo stock market, plotting the next move to outpace the “Joneses”, or worrying about who will occupy the White House in the next election?

Be honest—you’ve got worries; so do I. I fight the same addiction to the cares of life and the lure of wealth that you do. Whether we like to admit it or not, the “thorns” that Jesus warned about are competing with the values of God’s Kingdom for the soil of our heart. And guess what? You and I are the only ones who can weed out those worries. For sure, God will strengthen you and give you discernment to deal with them, but you are the one who will have to do a little self-weeding.

Interestingly, Jesus didn’t offer any practical actions steps here about weeding. I think that’s because we really don’t need any. We just need to roll up our sleeves and get busy. So go back to Matthew 6:33 and put the things that are consuming your attention through the sieve of “seek first the kingdom.” Then anything that gets caught in the sieve … weed it out!

Listen—it is time to quit talking about this and start weeding. You know intuitively that I am spot on about this. The growth and fruitfulness of the Kingdom of God in your life, in your family, and in your church is riding on you being bold enough and wise enough and ruthless enough to start pulling and chucking the weeds right out of your life.

So let’s do some weeding! I will pray for you, and I hope you will pray for me.

Happy gardening!

A Simple Prayer To Be More Like Jesus:

God, there are some worry weeds in my life. I don’t want them to choke out my relationship with you. So give me a discerning mind to spot them—my addictions to the cares of life, the accumulation of stuff, and the lure of wealth. The fill me with Holy Spirit boldness to get some weeding done today.