Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: worship

  • Interrupting Jesus 4 – Samaritans & family black sheep

    Interrupting Jesus 4 – Samaritans & family black sheep

    Israel.

    Let’s get something straight: There was NO Israel in the Roman Empire. (Just take a look at the map).New Testament Palestine

    Call it Israel or call it Palestine; you will see that to the Romans, Judeans and Samaritans, Israel does not exist except as part of a long-gone past.

    A certain hatred existed in the days of Christ Jesus as it does today. Mention the name ‘Israel’ and it means different things to different people. Observant Jews look back to a Kingdom united by David and Solomon, a Kingdom and alliance of the twelve tribes of Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel). After the United Kingdom was divided, ten tribes lived in Israel to the north. Judah was just two of the tribes. Samaria had been purchased in 925 B.C. and became the capital of Israel (after the division of the United Kingdom of Israel).

    You might say that most people of Hebrew heritage in Galilee, Samaria and Judea were ancestral cousins.

    Residents of these northern Roman provinces of Samaria and Galilee were perceived as black sheep of the family of Abraham, not quite so pure as the Judeans of Jerusalem. Samaritans refused to worship the LORD in Jerusalem. Look to post-Davidic history and stories of the Gospels and you will discover that Samaritans are treated no better than contemptible foreigners by faithful Jews, even though Samaria lies only about 30 miles from Jerusalem.

    Christians and non-Christians alike probably know the story of ‘the good Samaritan‘ told by Jesus. In it he tells of a man who encounters robbers in his travels on a journey such as those Jesus and His Disciples made frequently through the mountain trade routes. The point of the parable is that it is not the religious men who showed a man mercy, but a resented Samaritan.

    What does a merciful God require of us? Show mercy to others, as God has shown us.

    Jesus’ mission to Israel (the remnant of faithful Jews of Judah, Galilee and beyond) would seem to include redemption of even the lost sheep in the hills of Samaria.

    On their way back to Galilee from Jerusalem, Jesus sends the Disciples ahead for some lunch ‘to go.’ When they return to Jesus with the food they discover how our Lord has dealt with an interruption of the lowest of those Samaritans, a woman living with a man not her husband.

    It all started out with Jesus asking for a drink of water. Christ Jesus was thirsty, as any man would be after walking to this well. Jesus interrupts this Samaritan woman as He waits for His Disciples to return with lunch.

    John 4

    7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

    9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

    11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

    13 Jesus said to her,“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

    15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

    [What’s going on here? Why doesn’t this Samaritan woman just give the man, Jesus, a drink?]

    16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

    17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

    Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

    [Jesus had never met her. How could He possibly know that? How this woman must have been astonished at His unveiling of hidden truth of her sinful situation.]

    19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

    21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

    25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

    26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

    27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

    28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

    … 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

    43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

    When did you ever set out on a journey or send out for lunch and instead pause to minister to a needy soul? When have you ever interrupted your daily life for two days to tell the Good News of Christ Jesus to some soul in a place off your route?

    A lowly Samaritan woman may have been the first Jew to hear from His own mortal lips, ‘I AM the Christ, the Messiah, the Promised One.’ Jesus had time for her and for the misled people of her town who had continued in the sins of their ancestors.

    Do you have a minute to ask someone for a drink of water? Is your compassion for saving souls of the lost sufficient to minister to their friends and family for a couple of days?

    Do interruptions of your day demonstrate a Christ-like love of a Good Samaritan?

    Does your journey treasure time for the people you encounter?

     

  • I AM the Resurrection and the Life

    I AM the Resurrection and the Life

    “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

    John 11:

    The Word Became Flesh

    John 1 (ESV)

    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.

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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.

    26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

    Genesis 2: 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

    9b The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

    Genesis 3:

    22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

    Genesis 5:5  Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

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    If there is one time in our mind we really would like to question the indisputable inerrancy of the Bible it is probably a quote of the devil’s question in the garden:

    He said to the woman, “Did God actually say…?” – Genesis 3:1b

    Follow Satan’s deceiving question with whatever evil your mind may conceive, but the premise is false answer of Satan.

    4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die… 

    Walk up to Eve or Adam and ask either of them if what Satan has assured them as enticement to sin is true?

    Yes, every one of us knows that we will surely die! Therefore, what is our hope? (And I remind us now that the Bible is God’s guaranteed word.)

    God IS, the LORD exists before time and measurement of creation; God IS, the LORD remains after the time of creation can no longer be measured. This is unfathomable to our limited created mind (which now has the knowledge of good and evil). This is why we must believe by faith.

    Have you ever considered how different our world would be without sin? Have you ever dared to think what it would be like to NEVER die, while living in a Paradise of God’s love?

    Consider the resurrection by faith: that the LORD who created all things, the LORD who created each particle of your flesh and bones, your brain and body, your heart and soul; that the LORD who made you can make you eternal!

    We can be raised from the dead to a life God intended! Praise our Lord Jesus Christ!

    Evidence of Christ’s resurrection is well-documented, yet still not believed by those not saved from death by their own sin and disobedience. They do not want to believe God. By their own will many will not bow down to any, even God the LORD!

    Evidence of the resurrection, which some of the Jews did not believe, is presented in scripture even before the Cross of Christ Jesus.  Some always refuse to obey God in spite of the evidence of scripture.

    Is faith by evidence of scripture so far beyond the evidence seen only by your eyes which can deceive?

    By Faith

    Hebrews 11 English Standard Version (ESV)

    Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

    By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him.

    By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

    By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

    Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ by faith, when you know ‘you will surly die’?

    1 Kings 17:

    18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

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    Is that what you think of Easter? Is that what you think of all the hope of the empty tomb of Jesus? Where is your faith?

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    20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”

    21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.

    23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.”

    Indeed, the Son lives! He IS resurrected from the dead.

    Ezekiel 37:

    tomb and crosses
    He is risen!

    The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.2 And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me,“Son of man, can these bones live?”

    What do you think: When you run to the place where the body should be, do you have faith in the resurrection?

    5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath [It is the same word as in the beginning, Gen. 1:2] to enter you, and you shall live.

    6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

    7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.8 And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.

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    Is that what you say of the body that has died?

    “There is no breath in them. They are dry bones forever.”

    The Prophet Ezekiel is witnessing creation of a man by the Spirit of God! – resurrection from the bones of men who have died!

    It was a battle for Jerusalem where faithful men died defending the Holy City of the LORD.  Faithful fallen followers of God, who wept over Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

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    Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”

    10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

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    Resurrection at the command of the Living GOD! Men dead, given life from the dust of our bones!

    Do you hearken to the upward call of the Voice of the Living One?

    Resurrection! Do you believe this?

    This is 600 years before Christ Jesus. This is the same time even Jews persecuted their own Prophets. This is the time of Jeremiah who they threw into a pit to die. This is a time when Daniel would interpret handwriting on the walls for Kings who had destroyed Jerusalem in 607 BC; a time when the faithful were led as captives into Babylon, as before Moses had led Israel from the slavery Egypt.

    It is the LORD who brings floods on all of the earth. It is the LORD who parts the sea before the Hebrews to pass over. It is the LORD who commands spirit into the lifeless body, which lies in the tomb of hopelessness.

     Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son

    Luke 7:

    11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.

    13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

    15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

    16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and“God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

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    I have sat through memorials for my mother and for my wife…

    They lay in the grave without sinew to embrace me in the flesh; lifeless rest, without spirit to have compassion on me… Is there hope for these?

    Yes! I say. In Christ they live. By their faith, their bones will hearken to the upward call of Jesus, when at last He will return once more on the clouds of Heaven… and then the Judgment.

    Even with evidence of the Prophets and witness of Jesus, the Son of Man raising a boy from the coffin and giving him back to his mother: many refused to believe. Yet the work of the resurrection is never finished until Jesus says, “It is finished.”

     John 11 (ESV)

    The Death of Lazarus

    Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha… 5 Now Jesus loved [agapaō] Martha and her sister and Lazarus…

    8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” …

    14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

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    Not a lot of faith here from a disciple who knew Jesus raised the boy at Nain from the dead. Fear and doubt: how easily we forget our faith in the Lord when our flesh is at stake. We are just like him though; for we would want to put our hands in the wounds of the nails.

    We pray for Jesus to heal the inevitable sickness leading to death of a loved one, when their true sickness is the sin of our souls.

    17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother…

    21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

    23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

    24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

    25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

    27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,who is coming into the world.”

    … 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

    … 38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

    … “Lazarus, come out.”

    44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.

    Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

    The Plot to Kill Jesus

    45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

    47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

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    Jesus Christ is not the only one to ride into Jerusalem in triumph. The Table of Sacrifice for the Temple is prepared. The proof of the resurrection, even in the person of Lazarus, is evidence!

    “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD,” shout some.

    Then when it is time for the Sacrifice, many flee. Many betray the Lord to hold onto their comfortable sins. They shout, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him.“

    Like a Lamb he is led to the slaughter, scourged for the punishment of our sins, and nailed to a tree with the curse of our unrighteousness.

    “Crucify Him! Crucify Him,” we witness by the fruit of our quick run from the Cross after we worship most Sundays. Yet He loves us so much.

    Christ died for our sins.

    For the Tomb will be empty…

    And so will be yours…

    The Savior returns.

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    Do you believe this?

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  • Reflections in Windows of Time

    Reflections in Windows of Time

    Looking back, running away from God is nothing new. We who would be so critical of Peter denying Jesus three times have now looked back to others faithful to God with moments of doubt.

    Note: Our Lenten reflection continues from where ‘Running from God‘ left off – an introduction to examining a history of relationships between God and believers.

    Moses, God’s chosen Prince, Prophet, Law Giver, Chief Justice, Administrator of the day-to-day lives of the rescued Hebrew nation: even Moses had had it!! – with these rebellious chosen people. Moses was ready to give up on the whole exodus thing more than once during their forty years stranded in the wilderness.

    Elijah, God’s great Prophet who stood against the evil King, with his foreign Queen – Elijah, a true Prophet of God who mocked the false prophets, who mocked the false idols – Elijah, God’s Prophet who both predicted and demonstrated the immeasurable Power of the One Almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth!! as the LORD Jehovah came into the place of his witness – Elijah turned from the victory of God and ran in fear for his own life.

    Christ Jesus never shrunk back from the fearful inevitable providential call of the Lamb of God to become the Living Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    Not only Peter turned away from what seemed like defeat for God – defeat for righteousness – defeat for the witnesses of God’s true word and God’s true will.

    You and I turn from God as well, in our everyday lives.

    Look through the many windows of time. What do you see?

    Are the reflections of our unrighteousness not evident in every millennium, in every century, in every generation?

    Look though the reflection of time: at Jerusalem; at Israel and Judah; look at the Hebrew people before they had a King, before they conquered a land; look before Judges and Generals, reflect before Moses and Abraham: what do we see through the reflections of the windows of time?

    We see God’s patience, God’s mercy and God’s love.

    IF YOU were God or if I was God, WE would have done it differently, wouldn’t we?

    None of this rebellion stuff! None of this disobedience allowed! And the SIN… why.. we would wipe it right out EVERY time, just like in the days of Noah and just like when God destroyed the evil men and the evil women in Sodom and in Gomorrah.

    I do not think you or I could be a merciful God (not even in our best moments).

    No work of any good man or any good woman is sufficient to the Holiness of God.

    The Bible only gives us glimpses into the windows of time at just part of the lives of a few righteous imperfect examples of God. Yet these good men and these good women had their moments of failing – every one of them.

    Jews and Christians and Muslims, who all believe in the ONE GOD, all tend to hold up story lines of convenience, while failing to acknowledge the sins and failings of our fathers of the faith.

    ALL men and ALL women of faith fail in the light of the example and teachings of Jesus Christ!

    The zealous and learned Jew and Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who we know as Paul, addresses God’s righteousness in Romans 3:

    “None is righteous, no, not one;
    11     no one understands;
        no one seeks for God.

    David, in a moment of weakness appeals to God:

    Psalm 143

    Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my pleas for mercy!
    In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!

    Enter not into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

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    We are too harsh! God is merciful.

    King David was not only God’s anointed King who united the Hebrew tribes into a United Israel; David, recall, was an adulterer and murderer.

    According to the Law of Moses, should not David have been executed for his sins?

    We see even through the broadcast windows of these evil days, merciless zealots of a false prophet executing judgment without mercy!

    God is patient; God is merciful. Our loving God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will save yet more enemies of the One True God. Was Saul of Tarsus not one of these?

    God seeks repentance in the hearts of all men and all women of every faith; that these will come to the love and grace of His mercy through Jesus Christ, Son of Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    Look through the windows of time with eyes to see and ears to hear. God has given us the Holy Bible. NO other book is Holy!

    History reveals the hearts of men and women are only continually evil. Why should we worship any man or woman who is NOT God? Why would we kneel or bow down at their idols or lift up their ancestry or follow their teachings from man-made books?

    None is righteous, no not one. Yet God in His mercy reveals both His love for us and our own failings in the lives of the best of us.

    To be continued…