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Tag: Gospel

The Gospel is Good News to all who will humbly accept Jesus and listen to His teaching.

We refer to the four books of the Bible which tell the story of Jesus Christ as the Gospels. These books are named for their authors: Matthew, a Jewish Apostle; Mark, a disciple of the first generation who recorded accounts of Peter and the Twelve; Luke, a gentile Physician and disciple of the first century; and John, one of the Twelve Jewish Apostles chosen by Jesus.

  • Fully Trained – 1

    Fully Trained – 1

    …everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

    – Luke 6:40b

    What do these followers of Jesus look like? Would you recognize a disciple in a crowd?

    When the Lord, Christ Jesus began His three-year teaching mission He called disciples and from them appointed twelve Apostles, an inner circle of leaders among many disciples to be sent out with the gospel.

    Jesus immediately glorified as a teacher of Galilean Jews

    Luke 4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

    The gospel of Luke carefully records truth from eyewitness accounts of numerous historical citizens of the first century.

    The following is a fictional representation of witness of one of Jesus’ first disciples. 

    “I was in our synagogue the day our rabbi handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to Jesus. He read part of a passage so familiar to most of us:

    Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

    Isaiah had prophesied even more of what we had prayed for through many generations:

    To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. – Isaiah 61:3

    How we all hoped that this radiant new rabbi before us would offer such hope.

    Perhaps He would be the one to save us from our captivity by the Romans. And do you know what He said?

     “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

    – Luke 4:21b

    Yes! Of course this Jesus seems in every way to be our promised Messiah.

    But then He said some things which were not too nice about Israel (our former country before we were defeated). Most everybody got angry. Some of them even tried to run him out of Nazareth where we all grew up with him. But not me… and not some of my friends.

    No, we knew Jesus was much more than just a carpenter; really, we always saw that anytime we encountered Him. You could tell. Jesus was pleasantly unlike no other man, yet so much like us… like the men we wanted to be.

    So Jesus of Nazareth (as the Judeans would later call Him out of disrespect) slipped out of town right through the middle of the crowd near me and my friends.

    We looked at one another and right then decided we needed to hear more of Jesus’ teaching.

    What did He mean when in the synagogue Jesus said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing?”

    So some of us gathered our families together to follow this promised Teacher of Israel into the mountains to hear more and later into nearby towns like Capernaum. We just had to hear what Jesus had to say.

    holy-land--mount-tabor-munir-alawi (1)

    To be continued…

  • Days of Despair

    Days of Despair

     In Christ we have a Light of hope in a season of our dark despair.

    Job 30:

    16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;
        days of affliction have taken hold of me.
    17 The night racks my bones,
        and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

    Have you ever had a bad time in life like this?

    18 With great force my garment is disfigured;
        it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
    19 God has cast me into the mire,
        and I have become like dust and ashes.
    20 I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
        I stand, and you only look at me.

    IF you even ask, do you sometimes feel like God does not answer you?

    21 You have turned cruel to me;
        with the might of your hand you persecute me.
    22 You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
        and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
    23 For I know that you will bring me to death
        and to the house appointed for all living.

     

    Does despair, inward pain and silence from God turn your Christmas joy into a longing for the gift of hope?

     

    26 But when I hoped for good, evil came,
        and when I waited for light, darkness came.

    27 My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
        days of affliction come to meet me.

    28 I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
        I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

    Bible trivia: Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.

     

    Job was a righteous man who had some big troubles test his faith. Perhaps you think that you are a righteous man or woman as well. You do mostly good. You live like you should (for the most part).

    You cry out to God for help… and nothing…

    Job could not help himself, except to pray to God. Often, neither can you or I.

    This time of year you may hear the familiar Christmas nativity story told by either Luke or Matthew. If we were to read on in Matthew to a time thirty years later when Jesus first began His teaching, we would read how our Lord heals the afflictions of mankind.

    Matthew 4:

    23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

    24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

     

    Are you just one in the Christmas crowds who follow Jesus just to see if He will heal someone else?

    Jesus Christ IS the balm for your wounded soul and the salvation of your sinful flesh.

    Hear these words of encouragement from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth:

    2 Corinthians 4:

    But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

    We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

    perplexed, but not driven to despair; 

    persecuted, but not forsaken;

    struck down, but not destroyed;

    always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,

    so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

     

    To be continued…

    This look at the afflictions of Job is the third installment in my Christmas series in the year of our Lord, 2015.

     

     

  • Crushed

    Crushed

    Let’s get something straight:

    You are not good enough for Heaven. I am not even good enough for my church, my wife or my child.

    If we cannot do enough good works to earn our place with a Holy God, how will we ever pay what we owe for our many sins?chained to sin

    Answer:

    We can not.

    No work we can do is good enough to pay the high price of our sins.

    Five hundred years ago Martin Luther and many others sought to reform church leadership. Those protesting rejected sacramental penance of man for the true repentance of a man’s heart won back to God.

     

    For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

    Ephesians 2:8

     

    Why did the LORD send Jesus to the Cross for my sins?

    A most unattainable thing about goodness: We cannot attain it. We will always trespass. We will always sin.

     

    Romans 7:

    crushed by guilt15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

    18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

    19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

     

    The Scriptures foretold of the coming of the Christ, who IS in the Person of Jesus.

    Around 700 B.C., the Prophet Isaiah [in chapter 53] described the Savior of Israel, the Redeemer of the world:

    He was despised and rejected by men;
    a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
    and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
    Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
    yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.

    But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
    upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.

    All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
    and the LORD has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

    Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;

    when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
    the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

    Isaiah 53:10

    What good work will your soul offer for your guilt?

    Mark 10:

    17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone…

    “… come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

    “Then who can be saved?”

    27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

     

    Are we good enough for Heaven?

    NOT without the grace of God by faith in Christ Jesus, alone.

    The generous philanthropy of the greatest foundation for charity to all the causes of good can not buy Heaven and eternal life for even one unrepentant sinner without the grace of faith in Jesus Christ.

    GOD gave breath to your spirit, formed you in your mother’s womb and calls you to a life by faith in the Spirit.

    Fellow sinner, when will you repent of your many sins?

    Are you not crushed by your sins when your mind is convicted in guilt and no good work will lift the burden from you? Do you still consider that another good work will pay the price of the Lord’s piercing and death for you?

    Confess your sin before Almighty God! Bow down your selfish will before Christ Jesus. Repent once more, dear fellow sinner. Turn back to the righteousness of our loving Father.

    For God intends for your brief journey here beneath the immeasurable heavens and timeless creation to glorify your Lord. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

    Let us confess that we among many cannot do good without the grace of God.

    We are saved by faith alone: in Christ Jesus, the only Son, One with the Father.

    Humble your failing flesh to guidance of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, eternal Judge of all mortal souls.

    crushed by guiltREPENT! Self-righteous sinner.

    Turn back to the LORD by faith in Christ Jesus,

    While it is yet today;

    Before you are crushed

    By sin and death,

    Before your good legacy becomes

    Another forgotten rotting vanity.