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Tag: grace

  • Hebrews 12- Reject Not God’s Grace

    Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees

    Hebrews 12:12 NET

    The author of Hebrews assures us: “We have a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us;” therefore do not grow weary and lose heart.

    Life’s race shall not be to the finish of death, but to our completion in eternity.

    In Christ we have grace. So many witnesses of faith, as the writer of Hebrews points out, from Noah to Moses and David. These pointed to a more perfect place and worship.

    The imagery of the Priest making offerings to the Lord in the Holy of Holies is an earthly imitation of true worship and perfect offering made by our Holiest and Perfect Son of God, Christ Jesus! He alone sanctifies us. By His grace we are saved.

    Hebrews 12:

    a Few Cautions

    14 Pursue peace with all men… and the sanctification…

    The author of Hebrews cautions to believers echo: “Love one another,” and be holy before the LORD your God.

    15 Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God…

    Who is the author addressing? Brothers (and sisters) who believe in the Lord. Yet what is their understanding of the grace of God?

    We often reject the grace of God when roots sprout from our selfishness. He cautions next to make sure ‘that no root of bitterness springs up…

    A ‘root of bitterness‘ springing up draws on the imagery of weeds (among the good crop), an extreme wickedness and hatred growing from the depths of your heart. He compares this by example to the attitude of Esau, of whom the Lord said: ‘but I have hated Esau.’

    Come to the Mountain

    crowd worship at base of Mount Sinai
    Worship at Mount Sinai

    You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai.

    Hebrews 12:18 NLT

    Sinai or Zion: Fear or Joy

    20 [CSB] for they could not bear what was commanded: If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. 21 The appearance was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear.

    וְזֹאת הַבְּרָכָה אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַךְ מֹשֶׁה אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְנֵי מֹותֹֽו׃

    וַיֹּאמַר יְהוָה מִסִּינַי בָּא וְזָרַח מִשֵּׂעִיר לָמֹו הֹופִיעַ מֵהַר פָּארָן וְאָתָה מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ מִֽימִינֹו אשֶׂדת לָֽמֹו׃

    Devarim (Deuteronomy) 33:1-2 (WLC)

    Do you fear Almighty GOD!?

    Moses did, many prophets did, Saul of Tarsus and others all fell prostate before Almighty God.

    … and his face was shining like the sun at full strength.

    When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.

    The REVELATION of Jesus Christ to John 16B-18 CSB

    Since the generations of Moses, priests entered the Holy of Holies with an expectation of meeting the LORD.

    Moses placed a veil over his face after descending Mount Sinai with his face shining with the glory of the Lord. The Holy of Holies was separated from other rooms of the Temple by a veil.

    The LORD is fearful and awesome! What mortal may face Him?

    Mount Zion, above all the high places

    To enter the Holy of Holies is to step across the threshold of holiness to encounter the LORD in a place above His creation.

    Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. – Matthew 27:51-53 NKJV

    22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem)…

    The author of Hebrews describes, in part, the heavenly abode of the Lord God and Christ Jesus. Moses could not fully explain the Face of God. Ezekiel and other Prophets could not fully describe the glory of the Lord. John could not fully reveal the Heavenly Place of the Lord or the Apocalypse of this created heavens and earth.

    Yet here the author assures us of the joy we have in Christ Jesus. He describes this holiest place of the Lord as the place of our Priest making His Perfect Sacrifice.

    … 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.

    Do Not Refuse the Voice of Jesus

    New Covenant, therefore, a new Priest – a Perfect Sacrifice and Perfect Mediator between the LORD God and sinful man. Which will you choose?

    25 “See that you do not refuse Him… “ states the NKJV. Once again, the author of Hebrews invokes our natural fear of the Lord quoting well-known scripture. HE WARNS YOU FROM HEAVEN!

    Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.

    Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord,
    at the presence of the God of Jacob.

    eXODUS 19:18; pSALM 114:7

    28 [NIV] Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”

    Two covenants, two mountains, two types of High Priests to intervene for you before Almighty God. Will you worship by the grace of Christ Jesus?

    To be continued...
  • 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.

     

  • Interrupting Jesus 7 – a lowly woman

    Interrupting Jesus 7 – a lowly woman

    Luke 7:

    36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.

    Nice. One of the leading men of your church asks you to dinner. Jesus did just what we would do: He accepted.

    37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment…

    alabaster-jarYou go to a nice house of one of the leading citizens in town and chit-chat while the food is being prepared. You begin enjoying your dinner and conversation; but like so many times during Jesus’ mission, some of the common people in town hear about the Messiah’s dinner plans and just show up uninvited.

    38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

    Now what?

    39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

    You are trying to convince an important religious leader that He needs to believe that you are the One God has sent to Israel as the Messiah. (If you or I had been sent all we would need here is a small miracle; or perhaps we would make a more persuasive logical argument from the Law or the Prophets, like so many times before.)

    Jesus (as we know) doesn’t deal with interruptions by people the same way you and I do, fortunately.

    He lifts up the lowly and humble and rebukes the high and arrogant.

    Jesus speaks the truth in love to his host.

    40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

    (Jesus has a way of telling stories which convicts softly.)

    The impact of a parable is in the love for the hearers convicted.

    41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

    43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.”

    And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”

    [Note now the gentle body language of our Lord as He turns to the lowly woman, glorifying her, while He speaks the gentle truth of His rebuke for His host, the Pharisee, Simon.]

    Woman annointing Jesus' feet Olejek44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

    Three strikes for His host: no water, no kiss of greeting, no anointing. Here is where we fail in our everyday dealings with ordinary guests. Simon is most certainly convicted, while Jesus points to the humility of the woman who interrupted them as a better hostess, even though she is a sinner looked down on by society.

    47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much.

    But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

    • Do you dwell comfortably at a table of those with little to forgive?
    • Do you consequently lack compassion for those whose sins seem worse than your own?

    48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

    [The dinner and Bible study continues. The host and invited guests wonder at the compassion of Jesus as He sends this sinful woman away.]

    49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”

    50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

    Shalom. Your faith in the Messiah Jesus has saved you.