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Living Proof

Read: Luke 24

As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. (Luke 24:15, NLT)

A lot of people say, “I believe in Jesus. I think he was a great teacher…in fact I’d say he was God’s Son.  But I’m not too sure about this resurrection thing…I mean really, it’s kind of unbelievable. It’s probably just a myth, anyway.”

According to a recent poll, 85% of Americans claim Christianity as their personal faith, yet of those, an astonishing 35% believe that though crucified, Jesus never had a physical resurrection. No resurrection! The Risen Lord is the heart and soul of Christianity. The Apostle Paul said Jesus rising from the tomb on the third day isn’t just a creative little addendum to the Easter story, it is central and essential to authentic faith.  He pointed out if Christians are not going to stake their lives and their eternal future on the reality of the resurrection, then they are wasting their time being Christian.

Large numbers of people are fascinated with Jesus; they respect him; they even love him in a way. Yet they are uncomfortable with the resurrection and uncertain that it really happened. However, buried deep within their hearts is a longing for the resurrection to be true. They need Jesus’ resurrection to be real—even if human logic has buried the possibility of someone rising from death—because they, too, hope for resurrection when they reach the end of their lives.

They are no different, really, than the people in first century Palestine who had placed their hopes in Jesus.  They, too, had bought into his proclamation of eternal life, only to have their hopes dashed when Jesus was crucified on the cross and buried forever in a cold, hopeless garden tomb.

Or so they thought!  Stories began to immediately circulate that Jesus had risen from the dead.  At first his followers didn’t believe it—who in his right mind would?—until Jesus himself began to appear to them, offering not just hearsay evidence, but irrefutable evidence that he was alive—living proof. That’s right, Jesus himself showed up and blew the doors of disbelief right off their jailhouse of doubt, forever freeing them to the settled truth that he was alive and that resurrection was now the new end of life order for all who placed their faith in him.

Jesus himself showed up! (Luke 24:15, 36) In the accounts of five different New Testament writers, the Risen Christ made thirteen separate appearances to a total of 557 witnesses—people who saw Jesus alive with their own eyes.  At the time Paul wrote his piece about the resurrection, some thirty or so years later, he pointed out that most of those 500 plus eye-witnesses were still alive, so all any skeptic had to do was just go ask one of them for their personal account. (I Corinthians 15:6)

Acts 1:3 says, “During the forty days after his crucifixion, Jesus appeared to these people many times with convincing proofs that he was actually alive.” Jesus himself showed up.  He wanted people to know that he was alive—that resurrection was the new order of the day.

When you consider the historical, physical, visual and the transformational proof of the resurrection—verifiable evidence—you are forced to decide about Jesus:  He is either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all. He is either the risen Christ or he was an incredible liar.  Either Christianity is based on truth that you should order your life by or it needs to be discarded as unreliable and swept forever into the dustbin of history.

The evidence says the resurrection is reliable fact; we can be confident in that. Jesus especially wants you to be convinced!

“For a mere legend about Christ…to have gained circulation and to have had the impact it had [in the 1st century], without one shred of basis in fact, is incredible.” ~William F. Albright

What If God Took Over?

Do you find yourself wanting to believe in the resurrection, but still having your doubts? Bring your doubts to Jesus and pray this simple prayer found in Mark 9:24,  “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

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Submission

Read: Luke 23

Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46, NLT)

Submission is not a very appealing word in our culture, but it is critical to the Kingdom life, growing and producing God-pleasing fruit in us. Submission is not weakness, it is acceptance of the will of God for our lives, and our joyful surrender to it.  Submission is an active faith in God’s plan and a ruthless trust in his character, especially when things are unpleasant for us.  Submission says, as Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will but your will be done.”

Submission shapes everything about the Christian life: How we respond to our circumstances, how we regard others, how we regulate our emotions, and how we relate to the eternal world.  More than anything, godly submission produces confidence that God knows what he is doing with our lives, which in turn, produces even greater surrender.

Submission also releases God’s favor in our lives. Just look at Jesus, the most powerful, yet most submissive man who ever lived. Of all the qualities that endeared him both to the Father and to those of us who have entrusted our eternal salvation to him, it was his joyful surrender to the mission of God that stand above all others.  In particular, notice how his submission to God’s plan in the face of death released the Father’s high favor to him:

“Jesus humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names.” (Philippians 2: 8-9)

“Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:2)

Is there anything that moves both the heart and the hand of the Father more than our submission to the divine mission, especially when it requires surrender to the unpleasant providence of God? Is there anything that better demonstrates tough-minded but tender-hearted trust that God knows what he is doing than submission to his plan? Is there any greater joy, tranquility or stability than knowing and trusting that because of the Fathers’ competent care, this world is a perfectly safe and satisfying place—even when it doesn’t look like it?  Is there any prayer more God-honoring than to pray, as Jesus did,  “Not my will but your will be done…into your hands I commend my spirit?” (Luke 22:42, 23:46)

No—there is none!

“Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to an implicit and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives.” ~Andrew Murray

What If God Took Over?

Surrender and submission to the will of God is not always, perhaps not usually, an easily thing.  Where do you need to submit to the Father’s will today?  As you think about that, remember the words so movingly expressed by the old hymn,

My times are in thy hand:
Why should I fear?
My Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.

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Weekend Meditation: That’s Quite A Prayer Team You’ve Got

Read: Luke 21-22

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”  (Luke 22:31-32, NLT)

There is a lot of prayer going up for you!  I hope that comforts you, because whether you realize it or not, you’ve got quite a prayer team.  Think about this: When you pray, it’s not just you praying.  Romans 8:26-27: 26 says,

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

That is tremendous news! Paul says the Holy Spirit is actively engaged, at this moment, interceding within you and through you, lifting your life, taking your case, speaking your name before the throne of the Heavenly Father and praying the Father’s perfect will for your life.  As the great theologian C.H. Dodd so appropriately noted, “Prayer is the divine in us appealing to the Divine above us.”

Even when you don’t know what to pray for, or how to pray, or stumble through prayer, or even shortsightedly pray things that would be to your harm, the Holy Spirit comes alongside you to translate your prayer into the world’s greatest prayer, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Through the Spirit, “our prayers,” as C.S. Lewis said, “are really His prayers; He speaks to himself through us.” As frustrated and inept as you might be, when you pray, you unleash a divine dialogue between Father and Spirit. When you pray, Father and Spirit are strategizing how to turn the circumstances of your life, both good and bad, into that which will produce the greatest good in you.  That’s why there’s no such thing for a child of God as ineffective prayer.

Now as amazing as that is, there’s more. Not only are Father and Spirit in a constant conversation about you, the Son is in on the discussion as well.  Romans 8:34 says, “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Compare that to Hebrews 7:24-25, “Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”

Jesus’ job description as resurrected Lord is to be your personal intercessor. We saw that with Peter here in Luke 22, but it didn’t stop with Peter.  Now Jesus stands night and day before Father representing your case, too. And he intends not just to help you get through whatever you’ re going through, his mission is to save you completely!

What all of this means is that Father, Son and Spirit are actively engaged on your behalf at this very moment, and they won’t stop until they see that the Father’s perfect plan is fully worked out in you both in time and for all eternity.

And when you join them, that’s quite a prayer team you’ve got, isn’t it?

“When Jesus intercedes for us, the Father always hears him; the Father always responds immediately to bring to pass what the Son has requested. He is our advocate with the Father.” ~Henry Blackaby

What If God Took Over?

No matter how confident you are with your prayers, offer them up to God. After all, you’ve got quite a prayer team praying with you!

 

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Beating Death To Death

Read: Luke 20

“And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36, NLT)

So far, the death rate is hovering around 100%, but there is a day coming when death will be beaten to death.  Jesus said it, and proved he had the authority to promise it by rising from death’s grip.  Death is the last of God’s enemies—and ours—to be done away with, but that day will come when the children of the resurrection are no longer required to feel its sting:

And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15, NLT)

Did you catch that?  “Death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire” from which there is no escape.  At long last, that which sin conceived in the Garden of Eden is forever buried at the Great White Throne judgment, and the children of God are finally and fully free to enjoy life unending—a return to the original plan of God before the fall of man.  There will never again be a mournful tear shed or a restless night of worry over sickness unto death or a bedside vigil or a funeral service:

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (Revelation 21:3-4, NLT)

Wishful thinking?  Pie-in-the-sky preaching?  The opiate of hope?  Not a chance.  This is bedrock theology, promised by the Resurrection and the Life himself:

“Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.” (Revelation 20:5-7)

That day is coming, friend, perhaps sooner rather than later, when death will be beaten to death.  And since you’re a child of God—and of the resurrection—you have a lot to be happy about today!

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.” ~William Penn

What If God Took Over?

Memorize and meditate on John 11:25-26,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

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How’s Business?

Read: Luke 19

“Invest this for me while I am gone.” (Luke 19:13, NLT)

This is the simplest explanation of what Christians are supposed to be doing between their salvation and their entry into the eternal kingdom, either by death or by virtue of Christ’s return:  Investing!

The old King James Version says it like this: “Occupy till I come.” The New King James Version translates it: “Do business till I come.” Invest, occupy, do business—I like all of those.  That is what Christians are supposed to be doing with their time, energy and treasures—investing and producing an eternal profit in the business of the kingdom.  There is nothing more important—and more pleasurable—than that.

The problem is, we Christians tend to forget that we are not here on Planet Earth for our own benefit.  Along the way, we lose sight of the fact that the perfectly good oxygen we are taking in is not simply for our own pleasure.  The time and space we are occupying is not merely for our own temporal purposes—that would be a cosmic waste!

No, you and I are here on assignment for the King.  He has given us kingdom resources—influence, money, creativity, and vision. He has privileged us with opportunities to leverage every fiber of what we are and every last ounce of all that we have in a way that will produce now the stuff of eternity: Fame for the King, souls for his kingdom, and a foretaste of the abundant life (even if it is imperfectly and temporally expressed).  That is our business—nothing more than that; nothing less will do.

So—how’s business?

“The idea that the service to God should have only to do with a church altar, singing, reading, sacrifice, and the like is without doubt but the worst trick of the devil. How could the devil have led us more effectively astray than by the narrow conception that service to God takes place only in a church and by the works done therein…The whole world could abound with the services to the Lord; services – not only in churches but also in the home, kitchen, workshop, field.” ~Martin Luther

What If Good Took Over?

If you were to stand before God at the end of this day, what produce would you be able to show from your saved life?  Of course, you have been saved by grace, and not by works—so you can never earn your salvation.  But you can give effort to it.  Perhaps today is the day to give better, more focused effort in the business of the King!

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What Do You Want?

Read: Luke 18

Jesus asked the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord,” he said, “I want to see!” (Luke 18:41, NLT)

Jesus begins this chapter by telling his disciples a parable that they should always pray and never give up. (Luke 18:1) The big idea that Jesus wanted us to get is that God is not a reluctant deity, but a heavenly Father who is more than willing to respond to the needs of his children.

But they must ask!

Asking is the rule of the kingdom, because it both demonstrates and produces several critical factors in the Father-child relationship that faith enables: dependence upon God (Luke 18:7-8, NLT), humility before God (Luke 18:14, NLT), childlike trust in God (Luke 18:17, NLT), full surrender to God (Luke 18:29-30, NLT), and the relentless pursuit of God (Luke 18:39, NLT). All of those faith factors are precious in the sight of God. For that reason, the God who knows what we need before we even ask, and who desires more than we can imagine to give us what we desire, waits for us to exercise our faith—and ask.

That is why Jesus asked the question in Luke 18:8, “When the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” Jesus wasn’t talking about saving faith; he was speaking of the exercise of faith by those who have it. Perhaps he was looking prophetically through the passage of time to the present age when we depend on just about everybody and everything else other than our Father to take care of our needs.  If we have a headache, is our first response to ask God to heal it, or to go to our medicine cabinet for a pill?  If we have a beef with a neighbor, is our first response to go to God in prayer, or call a lawyer?  If we are facing a financial challenge, is our first response to be obediently generous toward God, or do we pull in our resources for that rainy day? Do we ask, and keep on asking?  Do we pray and not give up?  Do we keep exercising our faith—demonstrating our dependence, showing our humility, practicing our trust, offering our surrender, refusing to turn aside—by returning to God again and again for his supply?  Or do we far too easily and much too quickly find an alternative answer to our need?

The God who knows our needs has established that we must ask.  That is why in Luke 18:41 Jesus asked the question of the blind man, “what do you want?”, when the answer was in plain sight. Obviously, the man was blind; couldn’t Jesus see that?  Of course he could; the man’s utter blindness was plainly visible to Jesus. But Jesus knew that asking was the rule of the kingdom. Jesus knew that doling out healing as a cheap entitlement would never catalyze a growing faith. Jesus knew that engaging the man’s faith by asking this question would prompt him to exercise something in the moment that would energize the growth of faith for the rest of his life.  Jesus knew that putting action to faith now would allow him to see something far greater, longer lasting, and more eternally beneficial than mere sight:  That God longs to “grant justice to his chosen people quickly” when they have faith enough to ask. (Luke 18:8, NLT)

“What do you want?” Jesus asks of you.  Why don’t you tell him?  It will demonstrate your faith—even cause it to grow.  Furthermore, it will do you a world of good now, and in the long run, it will serve you well.

“The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer fetched the angel.” ~Thomas Watson

What if God Took Over?

What do you need today that would be best if God provided it?  Ask!

 

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Conditional Forgiveness

Many assume that Jesus commands his followers to blindly forgive, freely forget whatever offense might have occurred, and unconditionally reconcile even with those who show no signs of remorse for what they have done to hurt or offend us. That is not what Jesus said…

Read: Luke 17

“If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive.”   (Luke 17:3, NLT)

There are two extremes when it comes to forgiveness: On the one hand, we fail to practice it far too often. We conveniently and creatively bypass Scripture’s teaching on this matter so easily that it must grieve the Father’s heart. And this unwillingness to extend forgiveness is such a huge problem in the family of God today, since Jesus tied our forgiveness of others to the Father’s forgiveness of us.

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 5:14-15, NLT)

An unfortunately large number of “believers” will be surprised when they stand before the Great Forgiver and he informs them that the pardon of transgressions they hoped for had been held up because of their own unwillingness to let go of anger, bitterness, resentment, and hurt long enough to extend the hand of reconciliation to someone who had offended them. Jesus is pretty clear about the matter: You don’t forgive others, God can’t forgive you! For that reason, if you are like me, you need to practice forgiveness early and often.

On the other hand, we fail to properly understand forgiveness far too often. That is an extreme as well.  Many assume that Jesus is commanding his followers to blindly forgive, freely forget whatever offense might have occurred, and unconditionally reconcile even with those who show no signs of remorse for what they have done to hurt or offend us.  That is not what Jesus said.

Did you notice a very big condition that Jesus attached to this forgiveness directive?  “If” a brother sins, “then” when there is repentance, forgive him.  We need to be ready to forgive, willing to forgive, generous in forgiving—even if it is seven times for the same thing in the same day, we are called to forgive offenses (Luke 17:4, NLT)—but only if there is repentance.

God himself doesn’t dole out forgiveness unconditionally.  He is willing to, but his hands are tied if the offender doesn’t acknowledge their sin, feel authentic contrition in their heart, and offer the fruit of repentance (a change of mind and a change of direction) in their behavior. (Matthew 3:8, NLT, Acts 2:38, NLT)
To forgive, forget and reconcile with an unrepentant person is to go beyond what God, himself does. Now in that, there is yet another extreme into which Christians can fall:  Withholding forgiveness until proper repentance is expressed for every little thing that rubs them the wrong way.  My advice to you, if you are guilty of that:  Don’t be ridiculous.  Not everything that gets under your skin falls into the category of a moral offense—so grow some thicker skin and exercise a lot of grace, my friend!

Jesus is calling his followers to a balanced understanding and a generous commitment to the practice of forgiveness.  It is the lifeblood of his kingdom, and when it flows rightly and freely from your life, it is your calling card into the throne room of your gracious and forgiving Father.


What If God Took Over?
Who do you need for forgive?  I think you know what to do!