Category: Teaching Topics

Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving. Mark 10:21-22

My husband’s father used to preach a message about the rich young ruler’s visit with Jesus. After asking Jesus what he had to do to gain eternal life, Jesus told him to take all his possessions and give them away to the poor. He went away from Jesus feeling sad because the price seemed too steep. The point of my father in law’s sermon was this: Everyone leaves Jesus sad, mad, or glad. I used to think it a bit simplistic but now, many years later, simple is right. Are there more reactions to Jesus than this? Perhaps not.

Sad ~ You’re attracted to Jesus. You see the light. You know you’re in the presence of holiness. You know your life will never be the same but after weighing everything involved in following Him, it’s just too costly. The sadness is so great that you walk away and suspect you missed something beautiful.

Mad ~ Your pride is offended. How dare Jesus say that you’ll never be good enough. How dare He call you a sinner. How dare He require that everything you love and everything you want come second to Him. The offense is so great that you walk away and believe you missed nothing.

Glad ~ You find a treasure. You recognize, in Jesus, what you’ve always longed for. Real love. Lasting forgiveness. A second chance. Eternal beauty. A cause bigger than yourself. Though you lay your life down, it is nothing in comparison to what you gain.  The joy is so great that you walk away celebrating.

Is there someone in your life who is fighting Jesus? There are a few people close by to me who are. One is mad ~ offended at the thought that God forgives too recklessly. He wants others to pay for what they’ve done to him. Another is sad ~ offended because there would be loss of control. Trust in anyone, including God, seems wrong. And the last person is also sad as she believes that she’s too much of a loser for God to love her.

As I re-read the scripture for today, I notice that before Jesus told the young man to give everything away, it said that Jesus felt love for him. I can often believe that what Jesus asks me to give up is driven by something other than love. It’s not. He knows that my joy will be full when I love Him most of all.

For every one of us today who are seeing ‘mad’ loved ones, or ‘sad’ loved ones, help us model the joy of having found you as the pearl of great price. Amen

And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers seated.  And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple.  John 2:14,15a

Jesus is God.  Because of that, He knew the great significance of the Passover, the holiness of the temple, and the sacrificial system of offering the blood of animals for the forgiveness of sins.  He didn’t view any of this as man would, but as God would.  Consequently, I can only begin to imagine His reaction when He made his way to Jerusalem, entered the temple court and saw the commerce being carried out there by greedy men.  Outrage must have been instantaneous.

Two sins were being committed.

1.) To pay the temple tax, one had to have temple currency.  Jews who had come from long distances only possessed Roman currency. Money changers were needed to convert one kind of currency into another, much like what we see in airports when we travel abroad.  The problem was, the money changers had inflated the rate of conversion, perhaps giving priests a cut of the profit.

2.) If an animal, brought to be sacrificed, had a blemish and was considered unsuitable, temple businessmen would sell a Jewish man a replacement at ten times the cost. In response to all of this, Jesus turned over the tables and sent coins flying.

I find that most people, including me, have a distorted view of a God who gets angry. Either I re-construct an angry God into a passive and loving one, or I fashion Him to be one who is angry and unreasonable all of the time.  No middle ground. Both views are rooted in the erroneous conclusions we made about God because of painful relationships here on earth.  The ones who represented God to us didn’t do a very good job. We experienced great permissiveness or great oppression under their reign.  Satan loves imbalance and doesn’t have to work very hard to thwart our intimacy with God when this kind of foundation is laid.

My desire is to follow Jesus in all things.  That means that I can get angry, as He did, yet not sin.  I must hate the things that He hates yet love the people who commit them.  Most of the time however, my anger is tainted with my flesh. I am angry over injustice, how sin destroys, and at that point, I am like Jesus. But then, if the offense is personal, I am angry at the one who hurt me.  I must constantly sort anger issues out with the help of the Counselor, the Holy Spirit. If I’m going to turn tables over anywhere in my life, using my tongue and some decisive action, I must be sure that I have bathed the issue in prayer, searched my heart, and allowed God to sift out any unholy qualities in my response.

So much of this issue feels like a graduate course in the life of the Spirit.  Like everything else, I approach Jesus with the heart of a child and say, “teach me!”

These are hard lessons, Jesus.  There are times I have longed to see your anger over injustice.  Other times, my sin has been the object.  Help me see anger asYou see it.  Teach me.  Amen

Many of the people believed in Him.  They said, “When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?”  John 7:31

Miracles can bring confusion.  If I am hungry and Jesus miraculously feeds me with a boy’s lunch, does that mean that I’ll never be hungry again?  If I am Mary or Martha and I’ve watched Jesus raise my brother, Lazarus, from the dead, does that mean that he will never be sick again?  That he won’t die a second time?  Many people came to Jesus because of the signs they saw Him perform.  They believed in Him and wanted to crown Him king.  Yet, they were not prepared to take up their cross and follow Him in the paths of discipleship.  When things got hard, they became disillusioned and abandoned Him.

My faith can be that shaky unless I know how to cultivate something deeper, a faith that can’t be shaken by false expectations.  When I cry out in my need and see Jesus come through with a miracle so personal and powerful that I declare His glory from the rooftops, I can be lulled into entitlement.  I believe He will do that every time.  It never occurs to me that the next time, He might answer in a different way.  I forget that I am also called to suffer as He did in order to show a world, who also suffers, that God’s presence is the greater miracle.  His love and grace sustain no matter how many, or how few, signs and wonders I may see in my lifetime.  The real miracle is my new birth, my awaiting destiny, and a relationship with a God who knows my name and draws near to me no matter what.

If many of God’s children were honest today, they would admit to preferring a financial miracle to the presence of Christ.  Miracles can appear to have far greater value than the presence of One I can’t see, can’t touch, can’t look in the eye.  This is a childish preference.  However, that is how we all begin our walk with Jesus but we are to mature past that point.

God loves His children and has promised to meet all their needs.  Sometimes it will be in the form of physical bread.  Other times, it will be grace to endure hunger.  Peter, when crucified upside down for his faith, experienced a Savior who provided for him.  Though he didn’t deliver him from martyrdom, he provided Himself as a companion through the experience.  Paul, imprisoned many times for his faith, saw deliverance happen two ways.  One time, his jail cell sprung open.  The next, he was beaten savagely.  Would he say that one time Jesus came through, and the next, He didn’t?  Hardly.  Our spiritual father’s faith was built, not on signs and wonders, but on kingdom realities.  The were mature enough in their faith to know that ultimately, it’s not about what happens to us in this world.  It’s all about the next.  Until I get safely home, Jesus is with me.  That is the greatest miracle of all and one I can depend on.

I pray there will be nothing in my life to bring my faith to a crisis of belief.  Lord, it’s not about deliverance from pain every time.  It’s about grace through the pain. I walk behind You, trusting in Your Father as you did.  Amen

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  John 3:3

Nicodemus came for a private teaching instruction from Jesus.  Instead of getting what he anticipated, Jesus changed the topic entirely.  I can imagine Nicodemus was greatly confused.  He was one of the most brilliant of the Jewish religious leaders, schooled his entire life in the scriptures, yet Jesus spoke of things for which he had no knowledge or experience, something as elementary as being born into the kingdom.

What I perceive as my greatest spiritual need can be way off base.  Though I think I know myself, I never see myself as God sees me.  I think I need one thing; God would say that I need another.

Some years ago, I was aware that I was losing the edge of my singing voice.  I prayed diligently for some years for God to heal it. He didn’t.  I was asking for one thing but God needed to address another, a subject related to my voice.  He was not concerned, necessarily, about my singing as He was about the strength of my voice in general.  My boldness was veiled under a layer of fear of perception.  God’s agenda was to take me on a journey of healing so that my voice, whether speaking or singing, was strengthened to say what I was born to say.  It was a seven year adventure.  Asking for one thing but God addressing another has certainly been my experience.

Perhaps you are there today.  Your frustration with God is high.  You might even assume that He’s not listening to you when you ask for what you think you need.  He most surely is.  He is the great Physician of the soul and though he cares about your desires, His passion is for your greatest good and that overrides your limited view of yourself.  Just as Nicodemus had to stretch beyond his expectations of this short visit with Jesus to go to an uncomfortable place of spiritual need, God’s children must do the same.

Jesus, I trust You to give me what I need.  Show me if what I’m praying for is stuck because my ears need to hear You about something else.  Amen

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6

I contend that every person hungers after righteousness. Who doesn’t want things to be fair? Who doesn’t want a childhood where they are cherished and affirmed? Who doesn’t want loyal friends? Who doesn’t want injustice made right? Who doesn’t love to see something breathtakingly beautiful? Solomon said that God placed eternity in our hearts. Indeed. But the root of all righteousness is a holy God and I need to be made righteous with Him in order to love the righteousness that is in Him.

And is this not the stumbling block? To be made right with a righteous God, I need to align my beliefs with His. I must see my sinfulness and need for a Savior. This is the very point where mankind is offended, defensive, and turns his hunger and thirst elsewhere. We seek to fill the empty void with everything but God. It never works.

I think of many sumptuous spiritual meals I have consumed over the years. Many of the moments have been personal, probably most of them. But some have been corporate. A good number of them happened while standing in worship at Desiring God conferences in Minneapolis. The teaching had been superb and then we worshiped. When I remember those moments, I long for them again. Since Jesus promised that we would feel full after hungering after righteousness, I was very aware that I felt full at the end of the conference. To be full is to have had so much poured into your spirit that you don’t even know where to start to talk about it. Some of it could be put into words but much of it went to a place inside where God moves freely, and deeply, but where there is no definition to any part of it yet. You just know you were changed. The leaves of sanctification are swirling up into the air but haven’t landed yet to make a form.

I must do whatever it takes to stay in touch with my spiritual hunger. If I feel dull and don’t know why, I must ask God what’s wrong. Living spiritually full was God’s plan for His creation. I contend that He loves to reveal whatever would be standing in the way of my joy. I was created to enjoy God forever.

Fed by Your hand. It’s the abundant life and I can’t believe it took me so long to get it. Amen

But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” Luke 4:25-27

The people of Nazareth wanted Jesus to work His miracles in Nazareth, not elsewhere to their exclusion. But Jesus tells them that prophets are not welcome in their own hometown. He gave them examples from stories they knew from history.

When Israel was experiencing famine, Elijah was not sent to Israel’s struggling widows. Instead, he was sent to Zarephath to a Gentile. Later, even though there were many lepers in Israel, Elisha, was sent to Naaman, also a Gentile. I wonder if Jesus’ hometown audience was aware that He was speaking prophetically as well. Jesus would not only be rejected by the people of Nazareth but by the nation of Israel at large. He is predicting that His Gospel message will also go to the Gentiles.

The Spirit of God goes where He is wanted. If not America, then China. If not my city of Athens, then another. If not my family, then the family next door. We might protest. “But we’re the ones that are sick and we need Him to come and heal us.” Can you hear the entitlement of the Nazarenes? The question begs to be asked. Is it the miracle they wanted or was it Jesus they really desired?

On the other side of healing, Jesus told many people to go and sin no more. What did sinning have to do with physical healing? Everything. To want Jesus is to embrace who He is and the salvation He came to offer. To only want healing is not becoming a disciple.

Lest Jesus’ actions and words offend us today, let’s stop and think a moment. When was the last time you felt used? Your value was in what you could do for someone rather than who you were. When did that knowledge come to you? Probably when you were tired, or busy, or felt led to direct your energies elsewhere. That’s when anger and entitlement usually surface and it isn’t pretty. But we are different than Jesus. We withdraw because we’re angry and hurt. Jesus went elsewhere in obedience to God.

I test my own love for Jesus today. If He gave me nothing but salvation and companionship until heaven, would I love Him just as much? What if He didn’t rescue, provide, heal, and do the myriad of things I often ask of Him, how would I respond? If I erased petitions from my prayers, would there be anything to talk about? I spend time with people I love all the time without asking them for a thing. My relationship with Jesus shouldn’t revolve around asking.

I love You for You. Amen

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Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. Luke 4:23-24

It’s hard for Nazareth folk to take Jesus seriously. Can you imagine their comments that precipitated Jesus’ response to them?

• “Can you believe what we’re hearing about Jesus? We knew him all those years and he never did one miracle in Nazareth!”
• “We knew he was special but claiming to be God? What’s gotten into him?”
• “I’m curious. Let’s see if Jesus will come here so we can see if what he’s doing other places is legitimate.”
• “Quite frankly, it’s a little much to believe the stories being told. I mean, he’s just Mary’s son.”

To the curiosity seekers of Nazareth, he was an anomaly to be explored. To the unbelievers of Nazareth, he was someone to watch perform in order to discredit. Were there any true seekers? Perhaps, but they were the tiny minority. Why would Jesus indulge his hometown people when they merely wanted to see what he could do?

Hometowns don’t give their prophets much credence. They will forever regard them as the children they once were; as the student they taught in school, as the playmate they engaged on the playground, as the person they once dated, and even as the teenager who once rebelled. The stereotypes are cast in stone in hometown settings and rarely are people willing to see someone new.

As one who came out of a small town of 1200 people, and as one who grew up to gain some notoriety, I can attest first hand to some of the challenges. In my youth and immaturity, I wanted nothing more than to prove myself to family and friends. I could see early on that they weren’t bent to take me seriously and that made me work all the harder. At some point, I gave up and a period of bitterness set in. If only I had reviewed and understood this passage about Jesus and his own hometown. I’d have better understood the dynamics and let it go.

How the people of Nazareth missed out! Never had any villager loved them like Jesus loved them. In his childhood and adolescence, he forgave every sharp word spoken to him. He answered every angry tone with gentleness. He was a loyal friend to the underdog. And yet love was spurned when the truth of the Gospel and the Kingdom were preached. Convulsive reactions to the conviction of sin will always trump any warmth someone might feel when in the presence of Love. Human pride runs to the core of our DNA. Oh, what we miss when we refuse to stand in the presence of Jesus and see our sin and His holiness – then His great love and mercy.

Don’t let my familiarity with You blind me. Amen

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

Jesus had a history of astounding religious leaders with his grasp of the scriptures. He was the Jewish boy wonder of Nazareth and when he was twelve, he went to Jerusalem and amazed them there as well. Having a grasp of the scriptures earned him respect and awe as the gifted son of Joseph and Mary. But this day in Nazareth, just as his public ministry began, the Jewish world was shaken up. They thought they knew Jesus but to hear Him pronounce Himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah 61 was shocking. Did Jesus have to take a deep breath to make this announcement? Did He momentarily deal with fear? He probably knew that rejection and controversy would follow.

At what actual point did Jesus learn that He was the Messiah? Perhaps Mary told him as a child but maybe not. Did He know it as He astounded religious leaders in Jerusalem at twelve years of age? We’re not told but there was a good indication that He was self-aware of His identity at that point. He referred to the temple as ‘His Father’s house.’ My husband, Ron, believes He always knew it since He was filled with the Holy Spirit from conception. Perhaps.

Fast forward to Luke and today’s scripture. To announce His divinity to family and friends had to shake up every relationship He had except the one with his mother and Joseph. How did He feel about that day? As One divine, we know He was bold to declare the truth and didn’t think twice about following God’s lead. But as Incarnate, did He experience any emotions that we might feel when we announce something we know will be controversial? Did He sleep the night before? Was it agonizing to think about possibly losing friends and long standing relationships?  This would change everything. His brothers would be embarrassed by His claims and remain so until after the resurrection. Three years is a long time to feel the scorn of your siblings. Jesus was gone before his brother, James, called himself a bond slave of Christ.

We are called to do bold things. Jesus paved the way for us in showing us how to weather the extreme fickleness of people. Those who hate you one day can align with you the next. Those who claim to love you today can turn, oftentimes on a dime, over your strong Christian beliefs. No matter how comfortable our life is today, we follow a Savior who shakes up with world with the many implications of the Gospel. Many are warmed by our unwavering allegiance to Christ but many more are repelled. God gives us grace to walk the walk – whether with family or strangers.

You infuse me with the grace and courage to follow Your lead. Amen

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And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Luke 4:9-12

One of the first things I need to know about my enemy is that he will regroup. If he doesn’t succeed after several tries to corrupt my trust in God, he will keep at it by looking for a more effective way to persuade me.

Satan came at Jesus with pretty clever ideas in the first two temptations. Jesus stood firm. But in the third temptation, Satan went for the jugular by quoting scripture. Jesus saw through the ruse and stood firm again by re-framing the scripture Satan used with another scripture.

One can prove almost anything with a bible verse if it is isolated it from its context and from the total revelation of God’s Word. Cults are formed on partial, misrepresented scriptures. Picking and choosing verses at whim and calling them ‘words from God’ is not living by faith. That’s not to say that God doesn’t, out of the clear blue, give us a verse. He does. But if this comprises my way of life to form my spiritual compass, I need to be careful.

Jesus balanced Satan’s use of scripture with another scripture. He did this while standing on holy ground – at the highest pinnacle of the holy temple. Yes, Satan is not above treading into churches and small groups to mis-quote the Word. He’ll invade my devotional time; he’ll even invade my prayer life. By taking God’s Word out of context, he’ll try to convince me of sin when I’m really under God’s favor. He’ll convince me that I’m about to be disciplined when I’m on the verge of being blessed. He’ll remind me of some Old Testament story when God judged severely if my view of God is more harsh than loving. He loves imbalance!

I can’t afford not to know my Bible. The reason Jesus was so skilled in wielding scriptures was because He spent his first thirty years in disciplined study. There was no shortcut for Him (even though He had the advantage of knowing His Father) and there is no shortcut for me. How can I tell if what I’m hearing is God’s Word or a false word? I have to look at the end result.  Am I encouraged to compromise or stay faithful? Am I drawn toward God or away from God? Am I fearful or more trusting? Am I repelled or more worshipful? Satan’s agenda is always to create a breach in the relationship between God and His child. If I keep that in mind, I can usually perceive whether there’s a snake in the grass.

Your Spirit inside of me knows what’s up when Satan tries to plant a bad seed. Lord, cause his words to be instantly revolting to me. Amen

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ^{Luke 4:5-8}

If I’m struck with a disease no one can cure, I feel powerless. If I’m trapped in a loveless marriage, I feel powerless. If I’m languishing under a mountain of debt and there is no way to repay it, I feel powerless.

Powerlessness drives me to edge of utter despair. Feeling powerless is not a sin but what I choose to believe next determines whether faith will live or die.

Was Jesus struck with the temptation to feel powerless? I suspect the answer is yes when I consider that a wilderness is not something anyone can control. Jesus was powerless against a place with no water, no food, and no shelter. Powerlessness was another one of Satan’s attacks against Jesus. Just as Satan wanted Him to feed Himself prematurely by turning stones to bread, He also wanted Jesus to assume power and authority prematurely so there would be no need to go to the cross. But Jesus knew that suffering comes before glory.

Was He tempted to ease the pain of powerlessness by taking Satan’s bait? If He was tempted in every way that we are, I believe the answer is yes. But He understood that the avenue to this premature authority would mean satanic worship. Jesus, once again, saw through the lure, chose suffering, and quoted scripture to silence His tempter. He served the enemy legal papers by reminding him that there is only one God to worship.

Many never pray until they feel powerless. There is only One who is mighty to save when all else fails. Waiting for His salvation is the hard part. We never know if God’s saving hand will be immediate or deferred. We know that in some cases, our own glory also comes after suffering.

In whatever ways you are tempted to give up waiting on God today to go for some man-made, Satan-endorsed, remedy….stop. Your way of coping simply might be to stop hoping and to succumb to numbing despair. But those who hope in God will never be put to shame. Each of us could benefit by looking into the face of what traps us today to declare the following ~ “I am small and powerless but I rest in the hands of my powerful God. Never have I been safer. Never have I had a greater panorama of options.”

I don’t need to see. You look over the top of my cage and plan my victory. Amen