We next see Jesus encountering a leper in Matthew 8:1-3. And since I already blogged about this over a year ago, I’ll just repost it now.

In Biblical times leprosy was a dreaded disease. It affected skin and nerves, flesh and bones. A leper could have oozing sores and gross disfigurements, especially in the face and hands and feet. Lepers were shunned, driven from society, forced to live outside the community, and denied human contact with non-lepers. And you can well imagine how they smelled!  And when they encountered anyone while walking down a road, they had to cry out “unclean, unclean!” That’s why when a leper approached Jesus in Matthew 8:2 and said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,” Jesus’ reaction was so astonishing.  The first thing he did was touch him!  Then He said, “I will; be thou clean.”

Oh, how much this tells us about Jesus! About His heart. His kindness. His love. His mercy. He could just as easily have healed the leper with a word.  Only a few verses later in Matthew 8:5 He does just that for a centurion’s servant. 

Since the Bible is full of types and shadows it’s easy to see that leprosy symbolizes sin. We are all spiritual lepers, and Jesus wants to make us clean, too. And He’s not afraid to put His finger into our puss-filled sores. He’s not afraid to touch the dirty, the defiled places within us. He’s not afraid to look upon our poor spiritual deformity. In fact, He delights in it, delights in healing us, delights in making us what He always envisioned us to be. The wonderful thing is this: God sees us for what we really are, but loves us anyway. And He loves us not because we’re good, but because He is good.

We might as well settle this once and for all. We’ve all sinned and fallen short.  We all need a Savior. Could there be anyone more wonderful or tenderhearted than Jesus? We need not fear committing everything to Him.  And when we do, He will begin to make those ugly wretched places in us, beautiful.

The question is, do we have the courage to let Him?

Until next week,

Sylvia

Right after Jesus told everyone what a blessed life looked like, He continued with His radical teachings (Matthew chapters 5 to 7). I wonder what the people thought when He told them things like, they were the salt of the earth and if they lost their saltiness they were not good for anything but to be trodden underfoot? Or that they were the light of the world and shouldn’t hide their light because it gives praise and glory to God? Or that He had not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it? I imagine their heads were spinning. But Jesus didn’t stop there but continued with His University of Life, as it were. Their righteousness had to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. Was that even possible? And they shouldn’t bother offering a gift to God if they were angry at their brother.

And then came the really radical stuff. Just lusting after someone other than their husband or wife was adultery. And divorce was out except for the case of adultery. Forget it if their wife burned their dinner every night. They could no longer issue a bill of divorcement. They had to live with it. Next came the swearing of oaths. No more swearing. Just let “yes” be “yes.” And then the hair curler: Love your enemies! Do good to them who hate and persecute you! I imagine they were really squirming in their seats by then. After all, hadn’t life taught them that might made right and one should give as good as he got? You know, the “eye for an eye” thing. Now this Nazarene was not only telling them to love their enemies, but if they didn’t forgive everyone who had ever hurt them or done them wrong then God can’t forgive them either! What? Surely the only reason Jesus could say this was because He didn’t know their Aunt Mable or have Mr. Scrooge as a boss. If Jesus only knew what they had to put up, surely He wouldn’t be asking this of them!

But wait, it gets worse. Jesus goes on to say they and, by extension, we can’t serve two masters. It’s got to be either possessions, riches and whatever else we trust in or Him. Just Him. And He says stop finding fault with others. Stop looking at that little speck in their eye while we have a great big beam hanging out of ours. Stop judging or we’ll be judged.

Jesus goes on to talk about so many things. All hard, all radical. And then the clincher. If we want to follow Him we have to enter through the narrow gate. For only the narrow gate leads to life while the wide gate leads to destruction. Oh wait! That sounds so restricting. Does that mean we can’t do our own thing?

Finally, He wraps up these life lessons by saying that we will know each other by the fruit we bear. Good trees will bear good fruit and every tree that does not will be “cut down and cast into the fire,” and only those who do the will of the Father will enter into the kingdom of heaven. That’s heavy. That gives one pause. That takes a lot of guesswork out of the equation and removes all wiggle room. But then Jesus ends with a wonderful promise. Everyone who learns His life lessons and applies them are building a house on solid rock that neither the adverse rains nor winds of life will be able to destroy. But not so the others. Those who do not follow His admonitions are building their house on sand, subject to the elements and “great and complete was the fall of it.”

There’s so much here in these lessons of Jesus. And without Him, they are all completely impossible to apply with any real measure of success. But the Bible tells us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, and that He who began a good work in us will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. We are His workmanship and He’ll never give up on us. Aren’t you glad we don’t have to do this on our own?

Until next time,

Sylvia

Last week in Luke 4:33-42 and Mark 1:23-35 we saw Jesus busily healing and delivering everyone who came to Him. Now, in Matthew 5:1-11, we find Him on a mountain giving what is often called the “sermon on the mount” and where nine times Jesus says, “blessed are” then describes the blessed, beginning with “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and ending with “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

The number nine in the Bible means finality or judgment, and also completeness as in the nine gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8-10) and nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

But who exactly did Jesus call “blessed”? It’s a strange collection of people, really. They are poor in spirit, they mourn, they are meek, they hunger and thirst for what is right, they are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and persecuted. In short, they sum up what Christians are to be with the help of the Holy Spirit. When you look at Jesus’ nine “blessed bes” it’s amazing how much they actually correspond to the fruit of the Spirit. They are the measuring rod, the standard, if you will, of Jesus’ evaluation and judgment of our Christian’s life.

This should comfort us for it encompasses the highs and lows of our walk. It reminds us that we came to God because we saw our poverty, our great deficiency in spirit, and how this realization is a true blessing. It tells us that God sees the times we are merciful; the times we strive to live in peace with others; the times we walk meekly instead of proudly and full of self—and when we do, we are blessed. It warns us that there will be times when we will mourn and times when we will be persecuted, but to take heart, God sees and we are blessed. 

The Christian life is not an easy one, and actually would be down right impossible without the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. But it’s a blessed life, a life that pleases God, both those times of joy and those times when we suffer for doing what’s right or for His name sake. And here’s the icing on the cake. It’s what Jesus said after pronouncing those nine blessings, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”

So those times we feel unnoticed, unappreciated and like a salmon swimming up-stream in a world antagonistic to all Jesus stands for, we need to take heart. Our reward is great. Only, we can’t expect it until we get to heaven.

Until next time,

Sylvia

Continuing to follow Jesus we really see Him in action in Mark 1:23-35 and Luke 4:33-42. First He encounters a demon possessed man in the synagogue who acknowledges Him as the “Holy One of God.” Jesus quickly silences the demon and commands him to come out of the man. Then Jesus goes to Simon Peter’s house where Peter’s mother-in-law is laying sick with fever. Jesus quickly rebukes the fever, leaving the mother-in-law feeling so good she immediately gets out of bed and begins waiting on the entire party. Then after sunset (when the Sabbath ended) the entire town shows up outside Peter’s house with all their sick and “those under the power of demons.”

And what does Jesus do? Does He say, “Look fellas, it’s been a long day and I’m tired. Come back another time”? No. Luke 4:40 (KJV) tells us that “he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.”

Jesus poured Himself out for these people. And when He saw a need, He didn’t close His eyes or turn His back. He met it. I imagine He saw a bit of everything; some terribly sad cases; others less so.  But the point is, He was there for all of them.

Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” That means He’s here for us, too. He won’t turn away. There’s nothing too small or too big for Him to handle. And He’ll never tire of us coming to Him, either.  He’ll never say, “What? You again? How many times do you expect Me to help you?” We simply can’t exhaust His love or His patience or His goodness or . . . His power.

Jesus said, “Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” So be comforted. We have Someone we can really count on: our beautiful, inexhaustible Jesus.

Until next time,

Sylvia

Continuing to follow Jesus’ footsteps we find that according to John, Jesus’ first miracle was changing water into wine at a marriage feast in Cana. When His mother tells Him the wine has run out, Jesus says something strange, “My hour is not yet come.” And then He goes ahead and changes the water in six large pots to wine, pots that were for ceremonial washing and purification. Naturally this wine is superior to the wine the host had been serving all day. Still, on the face of it, it seems like a small, almost insignificant “first miracle.” But when you dig deeper it is both beautiful and stunning, and so in keeping with who Jesus is and why He came.

Genesis 49:8-11 gives us our first clue. Jacob is blessing his sons and has come to Judah who Jacob calls a lion and who holds the scepter. Jacob also tells Judah that his brothers will bow before him, thus establishing Judah as the tribe from which Jesus, the Messiah, would come. Then verse 11 is the clincher, “Binding his foal unto the vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.”

Isaiah 63:3 adds to the picture. It’s talking about the day of the Lord, the tribulation, when Jesus will return to rule the earth. “I (Jesus) have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garment, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.”

Zechariah 9:9 adds to our understanding. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh unto thee; he is just and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

And finally, Revelation 19:11-16 completes the picture, “And behold I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True . . . and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood . . . and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

The bible always explains itself, and what it’s saying here is this: That the first time Jesus’ garments are stained with blood it would be His blood when He comes, meek and lowly, riding on an ass just before His crucifixion. Six is the number of man, indicating imperfection, as opposed to the number seven which stands for God’s perfection. So the water pots represent mankind who are in need of cleansing and purification, and Jesus’ wine, His blood, is the means of that cleansing. At the last supper, didn’t Jesus tell His disciples that the cup of wine represented His blood that would be shed for them for the remission of sins?

Now, as for the second time Jesus comes, He will be riding a horse and His garments will be stained with the blood of those who will experience the winepress of His wrath, those water pots not filled and cleansed by Him.

In addition, it will be those represented by the six pots filled with wine that will be part of another marriage feast, the marriage feast of the Lamb and His bride, the church.

So what Jesus was saying in Cana was that it wasn’t time yet for Him to ride the ass or the horse, though incorporated in the message is the promise of this two-fold ministry as Lamb and Lion. And there’s another promise, too. It’s the promise of that other wedding feast which our wonderful Bridegroom and we, the bride, will celebrate together, only made possible by Jesus changing our imperfect means of cleansing with His perfect means, i.e. His blood.

Oh, how wonderful God’s word is!

Until next time,

Sylvia

As we continue to follow the footsteps of Jesus we next see Him teaching in the synagogues of Galilee. Luke 4:16 (Amplified) tells us that he “came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.” And on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah 60:1-2a saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight of the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound).” Then He rolled up the scroll and announced, “Today is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

What was He saying? Well, Isaiah 60:1-2 outlines the characteristics and office of the Messiah, and by saying it was fulfilled meant He was declaring Himself as Messiah. It’s interesting that He stopped short and didn’t finish reading Isaiah 60:2b where it talks about the “day of vengeance of our God.” That day is to come in the future, during the tribulation when God will pour out His wrath on unrepentant mankind, but right there in Nazareth, Jesus was telling the people their deliverance, their healing, their salvation had come. What a testimony and promise! 

But what was the reaction of the people? Luke 4:28 tells us that the people were “filled with rage.” Not only that but they even tried to kill Jesus by dragging Him out of town so they could throw Him off a cliff.

It’s amazing how this liberating gospel message often generates the same response today. Instead of rejoicing over our wonderful Savior and accepting what He has done, people often get angry, hostile, and downright confrontational. That’s when God’s love just amazes me, because He really cares about people, even those who are so hostile to Him. But for those who listen and believe, Jesus’ message is still powerful, still liberating, still healing. And Jesus still wants to free the captives, all those bound in sin and addictions, all those who are oppressed and depressed.

Surely it’s an offer we can’t refuse.

Until next time,

Sylvia

I’m again pausing my “following Jesus” series because I can’t resist writing about the Feast of Tabernacles. I love this feast. Every year our church celebrates it for eight days and nights. As I wrote last year, the Feast of Tabernacles is one of seven feasts of the Lord. It commemorates the time when the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years and literally tabernacled with God. But it’s so much more. It speaks prophetically of a time when Jesus will return and tabernacle with us here on earth, and set up His thousand year reign. Of course the Spirit of God already tabernacles with all true believers, but the Feast references the physical return of our Lord.

Throughout the past eight days, as I praised and worshiped, as the dancers whirled around with their colored flags, as the breathtakingly beautiful banners were paraded through the sanctuary declaring Jesus as “Soon Coming King,” “Lord of Lords,” and “Lion of Judah” it was easy to envision the splendor, or at least a small part of the splendor and pageantry and glory that will accompany the event that all Christendom awaits. And when I glimpsed it, it created such a longing in my heart it actually hurt. Scripture tells us that all creation groans for His return (Romans 8:22-23). I think all our hearts groaned last week. I could see it on the faces around me. They groaned because there was such a sweet presence of the Lord in the sanctuary. And while it was wonderful, we knew it was but a foretaste of things to come, a foretaste when once again God will tabernacle with man, and we would have to wait. I was never good at waiting.

But the Feast did something else for me. It reminded me of the here and now, and how important it is to live life fully for the Lord. He is to be our number one priority followed closely by the people He has placed in our lives. He has a plan and purpose for each of us, and we have only one lifetime to get it right. We need to take this seriously because everyday we don’t, is a lost day.

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God . . . And he had on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:11-16).

Oh, come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Until next time,

Sylvia

As we continue following Jesus’ footsteps, we next see Him gathering His disciples. According to Matthew 4:18-22 He first encounters two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew. Both are fishermen. At once, Jesus tells them to “follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” A little further on, He sees two other brothers, James and John, also fishermen, repairing nets with their father Zebedee. And after He calls them to come, they immediately leave their boat and do so. John 1:43-49 tells us the next disciples who joined themselves to Jesus were Philip and Nathanael. John doesn’t say much about them in these passages. We only learn that “Philip was from Bethsaida, the same city as Andrew and Peter.” And Nathanael?  He was hardly a stellar candidate, for when Philip tells him he has discovered the Messiah, the One Moses and the Prophets wrote about, Nathanael responds with, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Not a very promising beginning to the greatest ministry the world has ever seen—four fishermen and two others the Bible tells us little about except that one of them has great doubts whether the Messiah or any relevant person could ever come from Nazareth. But it highlights the obvious. Jesus didn’t search among the educated, the rulers, the religious elite of His day for His disciples. No. These six were men of little distinction. Six more would join the ranks down the road, but it was with these six Jesus began His ministry.

When we consider who the scriptures have already told us Jesus is—the Son of God, a King, the Savior, the living Word, the Lamb of God, God Himself, the Creator of everything, the light of men—the choice of these six defies logic. Where were the CEOs? The dignitaries? The chief priests? Where were the “movers and shakers” to jump start Jesus’ ministry or help organize a massive PR campaign getting out the word that a mighty ministry of deliverance, healing and salvation was about to unfold? Yet . . . if we remember how Scripture reveals Jesus’ humility and meekness, His willingness to lay aside the majesty, the glory, the honor due Him, choosing these six makes perfect sense.

And it says something else, too. While Jesus is still looking for disciples today, He isn’t just looking for them among the exceptional or the great of this world. Oh, He wants them too. But He’s looking for the ordinary, the simple to follow Him and to be used by Him to further the Kingdom. 1 Corinthians 1:27 tells us “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” That means I qualify. And that means you do, too.

Until next time,

Sylvia

My blogs have been following Jesus’ footsteps, but I will pause this series whenever I feel compelled to write on another topic, as I do today.

Who has not heard of the sad events in Libya where US Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others were killed in cold blood by Muslim extremists? But make no mistake, it wasn’t only sad for America but for all democratic countries that have embassies around the world, for it signals no one is safe in places where Muslims can take to the streets and rampage and destroy and kill at will for some perceived or trumped up offense against their religion. In truth, they need no offense, real or perceived, for the goal of the agitators, like the Muslim Brotherhood and their countless offshoots, is world domination, a Muslim caliphate. It hates the western world and all democracies, and is determined to bring them down. But surely there are moderate Muslims who want a less repressive society? Yes. But they are not the ones carrying the guns or explosives and killing anyone who disagrees with them. 

But the thing that increased my sadness over the Libya tragedy was President Obama’s and the US State Department’s official handling of the matter. Over and over and over again we saw them apologize for some obscure film trailer that I’m sure very few of the Muslim rioters even saw, and thus provided an excuse for their wanton murder and destruction.

On the other hand, where are the apologies from Muslim leaders for the countless Christians slaughtered every day in Muslim lands around the world? Where is the outrage? Or even the official free-world protestations? Thousands of Christians are being butchered in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia. Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, wholeheartedly supports their official motto, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is Our Law. Jihad is Our Way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” So just forget about democracy there.

Also consider these events: In March of 2012 the WND or World Net Daily reported on Muslims announcing their plan to “eradicate” Christianity. In May of 2012 it reported the slaughter of hundreds of Christians in Nigeria. In July the BBC News reported on how 15 were killed when Muslims attacked a church in Garissa, Kenya. In August WND reported that Muslim extremists were crucifying Christians as well as their own people who they believe to be Western sympathizers or who protested their radical actions. Egyptian Muslims were also kidnapping Coptic Christian women and selling them into slavery. And then in September, during the so-called protesting of the “film,” thousands of Pakistani radical Muslims, carrying kerosene and rifles, attacked a Christian church, tired to kill its pastor and his family, desecrated the alter, destroyed Bibles, then burned down the church and some surrounding buildings. Yet aside from Libya’s interim President, Mohammed el-Megarif, I’ve not heard even a hint of an apology from any Muslim leader for all the ongoing atrocities perpetuated by Muslims against Christians.

“Eradication” of Christians, crucifixions, murders, kidnappings, destruction of churches and Christian businesses—it’s all happening NOW. And I ask again, “where is the outrage?”

It’s time for the free world to wake up while it’s still free.

Until next time,

Sylvia

Jesus knows all about the wilderness. He spent 40 days and 40 nights there, without food (Matthew 4: 1-11). Verse two says He was hungry. That had to be an understatement. But I imagine He was thirsty too, because the days had to be brutally hot. I also imagine the desert winds whipping His face and grinding dirt into his skin. His mouth and tongue were probably coated with dust, too. And was He lonely? In that great expanse of wilderness? Among the wind and wildlife? He was probably cold after the sun went down. And the ground had to be hard and uninviting as a bed. Maybe He even had to fend off wild animals. Then at Jesus’ weakest, when He was physically drained, Satan comes along with his three temptations. And all this on the heels of Jesus’ glorious baptism in the Jordan where God His Father publically acknowledged Him not only as the “lamb who takes away the sins of the world” but as His beloved Son in whom He delighted.

Jesus responds like a gentleman and quotes scripture.  I think if I had been in His shoes and with His power, and hungry and thirsty and sandpapered by the wind for 40 days, I would have been cranky enough to squash Satan like an irritating bug. But once again, Jesus shows His superior character, His gentleness, His meekness, even to the traitor, Satan.

So why did Jesus have to endure all this? Because it was a time of preparation and, as strange as it may seem, a time of strengthening for His ministry which was to follow—both the one as sin bearer and the one as High Priest. Hebrews 4:15 (Amplified) says, “For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.”

Imagine how well God understands us because He’s allowed Himself to experience temptation and hardship! What can any of us say in the face of a God who will go to this length for man who He created and loves? I suppose nothing that really expresses the magnitude of it all can be said. We can, however, remember our precious High Priest when we are going through our own wilderness, when we think we are alone and facing trials and dangers and temptations that threaten to break us. Jesus understands. He knows our frame, our weakness, and He’s more than able to step in and be our strength. And we must also remember that our wilderness experience often times is preparation, perhaps preparation to become more Christ-like, or preparation to go into a deeper place with God, or preparation for some ministry or job He wants us to do. God never wastes anything. What’s more, He’s right there in that wilderness with us.

Until next time,

Sylvia