Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Jesus

  • Your Mistake – Leaders Handling Controversy

    Your Mistake – Leaders Handling Controversy

    Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.

    Matthew 22:29 NLT

    An Answer to Controversy

    How do leaders under constant scrutiny of the public eye handle controversy?

    Perhaps a leader or two from our times may come to mind. A typical scenario: A leader makes a statement, then media analyze endlessly, opponents criticize constantly and the controversy recycles. It’s always an “us versus them” scenario, with spins in the marketplace of public opinion. What is true, what’s best, what is or should have been required?

    I could point out the obvious that God is a ruler or leader above all things and all mankind. Yet many would question even this prerequisite to leading others in the paths of righteousness and prevailing in the truth.

    No man has ever been such a controversial leader as Christ Jesus. He was proclaimed as ‘King of the Jews.’ We won’t see many leaders follow in His example; for our Lord was crucified on a Cross.

    The crucifixion of Jesus Christ seems like our biggest loss of any leader ever, but in truth His Sacrifice is a victory over sin. No other man could do that!

    Jerusalem in the time of the Passover

    Few places become more important for celebrations of religious festivals than Jerusalem. Israel’s most important celebration is the Passover, a celebration of the miracles of the Lord in Egypt. When the Hebrew people escaped Pharaoh they could not have done it without the Lord. Moses may be given much credit, but the scriptures record how many miracles of God made freedom possible.

    Two-thousand and some years ago an upcoming leader among the captive jews in their own land challenged the teaching of Jerusalem’s authorities. Jesus of Nazareth made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover festival from another captive part of Rome’s empire.

    No man was ever so controversial as Jesus and even to this day no man is more controversial than Jesus.

    Jesus, Son of Man, has been teaching among the Jews for three years. He had taught in Jerusalem before, but by now Jesus has crowds following Him. Christ Jesus creates not only converts but also controversy.

    A Triumphal King of Controversy

    Jesus a King of controversy approaches Jerusalem

    Crowds of worshipers lay palm branches before this King of the Jews, followed by multitudes to the gates of Jerusalem guarded by Romans. The good news spreads quickly to those who do not know Him. Jesus spoke truly the words of controversy many suppressed in their hearts. His words ignited a new hope in their down-trodden lives.

    Furthermore, many followers witness the recent resurrection of Lazarus in nearby Bethany to others in the crowd. Here comes a King with power!

    On Monday Jesus storms into the Temple, overturning the tables of its merchant money changers. The crowds have all heard of Jesus controversial teaching of the past three years. Followers echo His words.

    Matthew 10:

    34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword… 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household… 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

    Matthew 11:

    16 “But to what shall I compare this generation? …18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

     20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.

    Matthew 12:6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

    38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

    Jesus IS Controversial

    No human intellect can stand against the immeasurable knowledge of God. Yer many attempt to find flaws in scripture or in the answers of Jesus. In fact, the religious authorities do not even agree with each other.

    For three years Jesus of Nazareth challenges pharisees, sadducees, scribes and rabbis. He taught on the mountains, by the seashore and in synagogues throughout Galilee, Samaria and Judea. Even the names of these Roman provinces differed from cultural references by the captive jews.

    Controversy: who rules over this captive promised land?

    After making the entrance of a King and entry into the Temple with all Authority, Jesus will answer accusations of those in power. He answers with truth, even though Jerusalem’s powerful leaders seek to murder the innocent Son of Man.

    Matthew 22:

    15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. 16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. 17 Tell us, then, what you think…

    The Passover Sacrifice

    The true controversy of Christ will be a Passover Sacrifice which changes the relationship of Almighty God to created sinners.

    Jesus Christ IS the Good News of Easter and the resurrection. The King or Kings and Lord of Lords leads His subjects differently than every man.

    He IS God With Us! Controversial to any created man or flesh, who will not bow down to the Creator King.

    To be continued…

    Your Mistake – You don’t know the Scriptures

  • WE do not presume

    God’s Righteous Judgment

    Romans 2:

    .. do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

    So I ask you: are you repentant? Are you sorry for your sins? Shouldn’t we confess our sins against God? Yet repentance demands both confession and turning back to the way of righteousness.

    The LORD is God and we are not! Bow down, o man of dust, to the One Who IS and was and will be forever, the LORD!

    WE seem to have forgotten

    Listen to the lyrics of our music. Much ado about ‘us,’ or ‘me,’ some about ‘you’ and even a little about God. Not so surprising in our worldly wireless abyss of media, but subtly self-centered in an emotional entertainment of worship music. Paul cautions the church at Rome in the preceding verse:,

    3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 

    Who are we to claim Christ with words rarely mentioning Jesus by Name?

    While we rail against the outside world, ‘christians’ claim WE are a people favored by God. Was fallen Israel so different after Solomon? A fallen nation abandons God’s favor for freedoms of over-expression. We accuse each other of forgetting our roots, never once claiming that we have forgotten the Lord.

    Prayer of Humble Access

    We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.  …

    What presumption that the Lord God should accept our everyday sin without just punishment or consequence. Most certainly this age-old problem of sin confronts every created being of every generation.

    13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

    Regardless of your church traditions of worship and the law, the Lord must judge rightly. Listen to law or ordinance with indifference or never consider it, yet the Lord must judge sinners.

    Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this Law.

    God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. – Romans 2:16b ESV

    Presumption

    Look to today’s news  (or news of any era); presumptuous leaders rise to prominence, replacing our presumptions of yesterday. I speak not only of a president, leader or another country or political party, but of all ambitious men and women. 

    Can any stand before the Throne of the Almighty with a claim of innocence? The time of their judgment will soon enough be at hand, as it has been in every generation.

    Ecclesiastes 1(ESV)

    All Is Vanity
    1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

    We hear accusations and counter-claims from the rich and powerful. Yet even Solomon recognized the inevitable fall of a mighty kingdom given to his leadership. Solomon advised:

    Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake…

    [to the messenger of the media, if you prefer]

    For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. – Ecclesiastes 5:6a,7

    WE presume much in the contention of carefully-crafted words and excesses of mistaken condemnations. Agendas of man will fail without the purpose of the Lord.

    The antonyms of presumption are knowledge, truth and humility.

    God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

    psalm 5:

    Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness
    because of my enemies;
    make your way straight before me.

    For there is no truth in their mouth;
    their inmost self is destruction;
    their throat is an open grave;
    they flatter with their tongue.

    Make them bear their guilt, O God;
    let them fall by their own counsels;
    because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
    for they have rebelled against you.

    Truth

    Who can we believe?

    Only God; only the humble. (May the Lord make us humble before Him.)

    John 1:

    14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

    17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

    Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6

    And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Matthew 23:12 KJV

    Confession of the humble before God

    Prior to communion with our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus; prior to our confession: “We do not presume…” Our hearts ought to have come to a more complete acknowledgement of our sin.

    Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness..

    Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake…

    The simplicity of Christ’s Sacrifice for us: humility on a cross does not presume forgiveness, but the love of God for repentant sinners.

    Father, forgive us, for we do not know the Sacrifice of Your love.

     

  • Time Beyond Years – Alpha

    Time before the beginning

    ‘I AM the alpha and the omega,” says the LORD!

    What can it mean? Can you, o man, measure the time before the beginning?

    The alpha of man’s measurement of days and years:

    Consider generations, centuries, the millennia of temporal days beginning with the creation of man. How can the created explain the ways of our Creator beyond the alpha or our temporal days? Can we know the ceasing of man’s measurable time?

    Surely the Lord will bring to completion all He has created and man’s will be marked by the omega of time.

    Revelation 1:

    The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place…

    8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

    Yet prior to the Apostle John’s interment on Patmos and prior to his revelation from the risen Christ Jesus, John had written the Good News of the place of Jesus in creation.

    John 1:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    The logos λόγος was God θεός !

    Time of the Beginning

    Therefore He spoke all things into existence and He created life and light, shining through the darkness and void.

    You have heard it, as the story of creation unfolds as revealed by the LORD to Moses. And in the Pentateuch (five books) Moses reveals a history of man peering back beyond our own sin, even into the depths of nothingness and dark skies of chaos and emptiness void of the LORD.

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

    And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

    The LORD spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, then began the measurement of days – temporal, created days – for the heavens, for the earth, and finally for the creation of the first man until the last.

    And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.. – Gen. 1:26a

    The LORD creates the heavens and the earth in His unmeasured time explained in simplicity to Moses as days. Then the LORD creates ‘man’ (actually, man and woman) ‘in our image, after our likeness.’ God gives us a glimpse of time beyond our understanding, the Creator revealing what was to be measured my man as the alpha of all time and beginning of creation.

    Jesus reveals His timeless Presence

    Christ, Son of Man, born of a virgin, revealed to those with ears to hear the divinity of His own presence and relationship to God our Father.

    John 3:

    2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

    “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

    3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    And if you listen carefully to Jesus in the ensuing conversation you will hear with certainty the divinity of the life-giving Spirit required of all those who will receive life eternal, life with resurrection from certain death by sin.

    5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit…

    12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

    13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

    Is Jesus telling the learned Pharisee Nicodemus that He IS descended from heaven into the flesh of a son of man?

    Yes. And Jesus further confirms His eternal status before the alpha of time.

    John 8:

    12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

    Debate ensues between pharisees and the rabbi Jesus.

     14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.

    19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

    The pharisees accuse Jesus of being illegitimately born to Mary, who by the Lord had born a child as a virgin. Jesus later replies:

    56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

    57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

    58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

    Only the LORD God could have claimed to have lived before Abraham. Jesus answers with the LORD’s words to Moses’ question after the LORD appeared to him in a burning bush. 

    Exodus 3:13-14 KJV

    And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

    And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

    Jesus: He IS before David, before Moses, before Abraham; yes, even before Adam. The Lord God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, before time and before creation.

    Revelation 1:8

    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

    If Christ Jesus IS the beginning and the end, what must you do?

    To be continued…