Talk of JESUS .com

Category: Easter

Easter or Resurrection Sunday is the day the tomb of Jesus is found empty and when the risen Messiah appears risen after His crucifixion on a Corss
HE IS RISEN!

Easter or Resurrection Sunday

  • A King Unexpected

    A King Unexpected

    Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

    Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” – John 18:37

    We want a King to fix what is wrong. The economy demands hard work, which is difficult to find and pays little. We demand a different leader. Forget that tyrant in charge now. What does the present King or Emperor or President or Chairman or Pharaoh care about us? What does God have to do with us? After all, our nation is devastated by the greedy and oppressed by the strong.

    Oh… does this sound a bit too much like our 21st century life and not like the same old politics of Jerusalem, Rome and the Nations for centuries long past?

    In truth, the Jews then and Christians now easily miss the point. We miss the significance of Jesus because He is not the King we expected.

    In fact, the Jews only begged for a King to be in charge so that they could escape direct obedience to the LORD. (Are we so different?) Moses had warned them, as Jesus has cautioned us to be prepared for His return to a new Jerusalem – as He has prophesied perfectly of the new heavens and the new earth.

    Deuteronomy 17:

    14 “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.

    Years Later in the Promised Land

    1 Samuel 8:5b ” Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”

    … 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

    Saul was a popular King until things went wrong. David was even more respected as King, for David was a man after God’s own heart. Solomon became one of the most powerful kings on earth, yet Israel separated into two weaker kingdoms as his sons abandoned the LORD. The LORD even set kings of enemies of Judah and enemies of Israel against his own disobedient fallen kingdom and chosen people.

    It is the LORD who rejects those who reject Him. It is the LORD who rejects those who refuse the sacrifice of the Son, Christ Jesus. Let the reader understand the surpassing love of God and the final judgment of every man’s sin.

    Hosea was a prophet who lived and prophesied just before the destruction of Israel in 722 BC. He preached to the northern kingdom. https://bible.org/seriespage/1-hosea

    NASB (UPDATED) TEXT:13:9-11
     9It is your destruction, O Israel,
     That you are against Me, against your help.
     10Where now is your king
     That he may save you in all your cities,
     And your judges of whom you requested, “Give me a king and princes”?
     11I gave you a king in My anger
     And took him away in My wrath.

    The LORD punished by the hand of God’s enemies.

    Rome we know. Babylon and Persia and Egypt… Israel was no more.

    Judea, Syria, Palestine all provinces of conquering generals, pompous emperors and corrupt caesars. Ungodly men leading enemy countries by the might that would make right, the conquest that brings glory only to a mere mortal.

    They use religion as tolerance of diversity and intolerance of righteousness and truth. The fallen fall into the snare of the conquering culture, offering the bribe of peace and the negotiation of principle.

    Into Rome, into Washington, into Moscow, into Beijing, into Mumbai, into Lagos… into Jerusalem a man comes.

    Armies have destroyed and conquered before him. Kings and rulers have been killed and taken away in chains before. It is time to negotiate under the terms of our captors. We are not free to live in peace… to have hope for food and families and homes of our own. We serve no King. We serve noone… yet we cry out for a new King to our liking.

    Will this man overthrow Rome? Will he use His evident power to defeat the enemies of our own lusts for sin?

    Into Jerusalem rides a King who will act when He will.

    He came once as the Son of Man to be sacrificed on a Cross for our sins. He was raised from the dead, in body and soul! He IS and will be.

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John:

    1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

    Revelation 5:worthy is the Lamb
    6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne…

    Revelation 15:

    3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

    “Great and amazing are your deeds,
    O Lord God the Almighty!
    Just and true are your ways,
    O King of the nations!

    4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
    For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
    for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

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    Is Jesus the King you expect?

    Therefore I ask you, as we celebrate a weeklong festival of Passover about to be celebrated by the crowds entering Jerusalem… a conquered Jerusalem without a godly king some two millennia ago:

    Do you expect Jesus to return as our King?

    By your life and witness, is Jesus your King?

    For He IS and will return unexpected.

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  • Perfectly Changed

    Perfectly Changed

    Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you. Philippians 3:15 HNV

    How can a sinner like me be perfect? Of course, I cannot. Our perfection is only in Christ Jesus.

    Once we are changed into a servant of our Lord Jesus Christ we are perfectly forgiven by His Perfect Sacrifice and love for us.

    He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

    – 1 John 2:2 ESV

    Paul says in his letter to the church at Philippi, “3:22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.

    He also tells us through his letter to the church in Galatia what he considers to be “fruitful.”

    “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” – excerpt Gal. 5:22-24.

     What does the Spirit have to do with us?

    In Genesis 6, before the flood which destroyed all but Noah and his family: Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

    Genesis 6:5 goes on to state: The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

    Quite a contrast: the Spirit of the LORD and the wickedness of man. (We would do well to learn more of the full meaning of the Spirit of the LORD and to follow His leading.)

    The King James Version reads: My Spirit shall not strive with man forever… Gen. 6:4a An apt description of the chasm between a Holy God and evil mankind. Why would God strive with an evil man or woman like you or me?

    Answer: The Lord’s Perfect Love has redeemed the price of our sin by the Blood of His Son Jesus on the Cross.

    Once we are saved by His grace, we become acceptable to the LORD once more. Now that we are saved by Christ’s love and Sacrifice, we become Perfect in the eyes of God our heavenly Father.

    This chasm of strife between God and mere mortal souls like yours or mine, clothed merely in flesh and blood, is bridged by grace and covered in Christ’s holiness.

    Matthew 5:48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

    How do we become perfect?

    Only by justification through Christ Jesus.

    Once we have bowed down to Christ Jesus, it is the Lord who gives us the Holy Spirit to guide our own spirit reborn into eternity, that we may be found perfect before an eternal, holy and almighty God.

    Romans 5:

    Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

    6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—

    8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

    The perfection of grace is a joyous thing.

    Let us praise our Lord, Jesus Christ, now and for ever.

    Amen.

    This is the seventh message in my Lenten series in preparation for Easter, 2016.

     

  • Reprogramming Our Brain

    Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    What does it mean to make Jesus your Lord and Master?

    Our 21st century thinking is clouded with delusions that every man is his own master. The world tells us that anyone who would lord it over you is one denying your freedom to his own advantage. Even Almighty God is not allowed to be in charge.

    Simon Peter and the Apostles had no delusions that God could not be in charge, yet like us they doubted if they could be worthy to serve a Holy God and Perfect Savior.

    If Jesus called you, would a moment of humility shape your answer as the divinity of Jesus humbled Simon Peter?

    Luke 5:

    Jesus Calls the First Disciples

    On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

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    Like Peter, I’m busy just trying to get by. What time do I have to think about Jesus? My own little world goes haywire all around me daily. Yet one encounter with Jesus makes me aware of one thing I know well: I am a sinful man.

    I’m not worthy to approach Almighty God! I am most unclean, certainly unholy and more opposite of Jesus the Son of God in most that I do, even more so by the sin I conceive in my brain.

    You might not have noticed that Simon Peter called Jesus “Master and Lord.” Simon’s humility in this moment bowed down to One greater than our everyday troubles. Peter stood face to face with the conviction of the judgment while yet in the flesh. Peter confessed his unworthiness to look into the loving eyes of the Lord.

    … And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

    1 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

    Do we have enough humility to fear who Jesus IS?

    He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3a

    Jesus Christ is the Very Face of The Eternity we can’t get our heads around. He Is Perfect Image of the One God who created the intricacies of a beating heart, breathing lungs, a brain free to choose humility and unable to control our
    failing flesh. Jesus IS enemy of new age of man’s futile self-aggrandizement. He IS the old age before the measure of time and the Eternity beyond the bounds of men of dust and dust to be destroyed.

    What do you think about? Is Jesus and God any part of your consideration of your soul? Is a resurrection body perfected in the love of God even something you desire?

    What is the moment to moment motivation of your life?

    Putting a positive spin on it may make it better (for a while), but it won’t make it positive. Take aging and death, for instance. The positive spin of the failing flesh will not affect a negative spiral toward hell.

    What eventualities do you think about: not just positive, for some realities are negative? Death? Judgment? Eternal life?

    Jesus interrupts the thinking and futile life of a fisherman with the catch of a few fish where all hope had been abandoned. Peter bowed down and the Lord smiles and assures, do not be afraid.

    Are you a sinful man or woman?

    Choose eternity with Christ.

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    This is the sixth message in a Lenten series in preparation for Easter, 2016, to be continued with a short course on how to change our thinking once we have met Jesus Christ.