Year 6, Day 212: Hosea 13-14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The last two chapters of Hosea are awful bleak.  As Hosea looks to the close of God’s message through Him, he sees a people who have refused to listen.  They refuse to hear.  They refuse to look at their life.  They refuse to change.  They refuse to admit that anything might be broken.  They want to live their life the way that they see fit and they want to be left alone while doing it.

This is why Hosea calls them the “morning mist” or “dew that passes away early” and “smoke from a window.”  Each of these things are extremely temporary.  They look neat for a very short time.  But the world comes along and with a remarkably little effort it gets rid of each of those things.  That’s what Hosea thinks as he looks upon the Hebrew people of his day.

However, as bleak as these words are – and most of the rest of chapters 13 and 14 – you’ll notice that Hosea doesn’t end with judgment and condemnation.  There are large sections of judgment and condemnation in these chapters, but it isn’t how they end.  They end with a promise of God to heal wounds and forgive apostasy and love freely.  He promises to protect them in His shadow.  He promises that they will flourish and blossom.  These are words of forgiveness and restoration.  This is the message that Hosea wants to end upon.

As Hosea says, the wise will heed these words.  The wise will look upon God’s ways and embrace them.  The wise will look towards the time of healing and restoration with hope and anticipation.  God’s forgiveness is an amazing and incredible gift for which we – like the Hebrew people before us – do not deserve.

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Year 6, Day 211: Hosea 11-12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

When we take a look at Hosea 11-12, we have a distinct contrast in themes.  In Hosea 11 we hear words from God that are words of mourning.  In Hosea 12 we hear words of indictment.  It’s not that these messages are conflicting in any way.  The Hebrew people have turned away from God.  It is only natural that God would mourn their desire for sinfulness and at the same time acknowledge their guilt.  Human beings often feel this mix off emotion when the people around them sin, it makes sense that God, who made us in His image, feels this too.

This is actually the perfect lead-in to why I am focusing on the idea of Father today.  When God looks at His people, He can see their sin.  He can burn in righteous anger at the way that we treat each other and pursue our own desires rather than pursuing His desires.  After all, He knows what is best for us in the long run.  So often our own pursuits don’t end up the way we want.  Therefore, He mourns when we continue to turn and follow that which is not in our best interests.

Can you hear the words of mourning in Hosea 11?  He loves us in our childlike innocence.  He cares and nurtures us, often in ways that we completely fail to recognize.  He looks upon us with gentleness and kindness.  Yet in the midst of all of our sin, He cannot give us up.  He continues to fight for us.  He continues to desire relationship.  That’s what it’s like to be a true Father.

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Year 6, Day 210: Hosea 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

“Israel is a luxurious vine that yields its fruit.”  Yet, the more fruit it yielded the more alters they built.  Israel is showing its identity.  The Lord allowed them to be successful and prosper.  However, as they became more successful they also grew a taste for success.  They fell into superstition and false beliefs about why they were successful.  They stopped remembering that it was God that made them successful and latched onto other things.  From God’s perspective, the chief offense of those other things is other gods.  They built alters to other gods to continue to try and increase their success.

However, as they grow in power and wealth and overall success, they lose sight of any leadership, not just God.  They also claim to not have a king because they have no fear of the Lord.  They aren’t really being led by their leaders.  They are led by their identity: the pursuit of their success and overall wealth and status.  As prosperity increases, not only does the need for humbling oneself before God decrease, so does the desire to humble oneself before the appointed leadership.  As we become more successful and more prosperous, our identity is wrapped up in getting what we want and no longer looks to what is truly good for the community around us.  When our identity is off, we lose spiritual and communal perspective.

Hosea gives us some specific characteristics that we can see as Israel loses spiritual perspective.  Israel plowed iniquity and reaped injustice.  Israel trusted in its own strength, rather than honestly humbling themselves and knowing God’s strength in comparison to their own weaknesses.  When we lose our identity from God, we become focused on ourselves.  Our methods become unscrupulous.  We no longer care about things like justice and right.  Life becomes about me.  That’s what life looks like when we forget our identity in the Lord.

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Year 6, Day 209: Hosea 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Prophet

• Prophet: A prophet is one of the fivefold ministry categories that is used throughout the Bible and especially lifted up in Ephesians 4:11. The prophet is primarily concerned with whether or not the people are hearing the voice of God.  The prophet is also concerned about whether or not the people are responding to God’s voice.

When we are reading through the minor prophets, we need to remember that the first group are typically writing about the Northern Kingdom of Israel and looking towards the Assyrian captivity.  That’s where Hosea fits in.  Thus, when we read through this book we hear lots of warning, lots of speech about bad consequences should they not repent, and all kinds of imagery that will put fear in your eyes.

It is in books like these that we get a great glimpse of what it is like to be a prophet who is asked to bring an unfavorable message.  Did you hear the description of the prophet in verse 7?  “The prophet is a fool.  The man of spirit is mad.”  Why does Hosea say these things?  “Because of your great iniquity and great hatred.”  What does it look like to be a prophet called to bring an unfavorable message?  It means that the people think you are a fool and out of your mind.  As verse 8 indicates, it means that people look for ways to set snares in your path.  It means that you are hated, even in the place of God, which is where you should be the most welcome.

Do you hear how this chapter ends?  Suddenly we get a change in perspective.  The whole chapter is written from the perspective of God, but suddenly at the end we get Hosea’s own perspective.  It is mournful.  What does this show us?  It shows us that the prophet who brings an unfavorable message is also a prophet who mourns for the people.  It is a prophet who is at home in heartache.

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Year 6, Day 208: Hosea 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

I love the saying, “Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”  It is a really creative way of saying more than “you reap the consequences of your actions.”  What it is really saying is that not only do we reap consequences, but those consequences are usually more drastic than our original sowing.  Just so we’re clear, this doesn’t have to only be true in a negative context.  Often times when we sow good things, we reap consequences that are far better than what we originally sowed.

However, in the context of Hosea 8 this expression is absolutely a bad thing.  The Hebrew people are living into their sinfulness.  They are pursuing their own desires.  When enemies come upon them, rather than turning to God for help they are turning to the foreign nations around them.  They are looking for support and strength in the world around them, not in their God.  The consequence of all of this – the whirlwind, if you will – is that there is an incredible dwindling of spirituality in the northern kingdom.  They are no longer able to live the moral and ethical lives necessary for good society.  Even their reliance upon foreign powers puts them in a foreign domestic policy that they cannot manage once the threat is removed.

Given all of this, why am I focusing on competency?  Competency is being able to do what God has intended you to do.  The people were intended to be in relationship with God.  God makes it possible for any of us to be in relationship with Him.  But the reality is that in this regard the people are not competent.  They could have pursued God’s ways, but they didn’t.  They could have turned to God and relied upon His provision, but they didn’t.  They could have relied upon God to protect them from their enemies, but they didn’t.

The Hebrew people, much like the rest of us, struggled at being spiritually competent.  They reaped the whirlwind of their spiritual incompetence.

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Year 6, Day 207: Hosea 6-7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Hosea 6-7 present us with a great opportunity to study the forgiveness of God.  After all, look at how God mourns His people in these verses.  What are the words that He uses to describe the people?  “Your love is like a morning cloud, a dew that goes away early.”  “They transgressed the covenant.”  Again we hear the return of the accusation, “They have dealt faithlessly with me.”  They are like robbers who “lie in wait.”  They are “silly and without sense.”

Okay, with that string of quotes, you are probably wondering how it is that I see this chapter as a chapter of forgiveness.  It certainly sounds like a chapter of condemnation, doesn’t it?  Of course it does!  But look at the subtext.  What is God longing for?  God is longing for the day that He can restore them.  If God wanted to destroy them, He could have easily struck them down and erased them from the face of the earth.  He’d already shown capacity to do it in the flood.  Why couldn’t He do it on a limited spectrum with His people here?  The reason is simple.  God’s wrath is designed to bring us to a place where God can instead reveal His forgiving love and redemption.

One of my all-time favorite quotes in the Bible is Hosea 6:6.  I like it because the reference is easy to remember.  But I like it even more because of the message that it contains.  “For I desire love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt sacrifices.”  In other words, God longs for and desires true relationship!  God isn’t waiting for a time to punish these people as thoroughly as they deserve.  He is waiting for a time when they repent in truth and He can open up the floodgates of His love.

God wants to forgive them.  That’s why He tells them the secret about love and knowledge being more important to Him than sacrifice and burnt offerings.  God wants us to dwell in relationship with Him that is sustained by His forgiveness.  He wants us to focus more on obeying Him because of His love rather than our fear.

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Year 6, Day 206: Hosea 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

As you will see as this post unfolds, I could have easily spoken about this chapter under the idea of ambition.  However, as I wrote about that yesterday, I think I’ll turn this around and look at this topic in the idea of character.  Either way, I believe that we will arrive at the same conclusion.

If we look at verse 5, we get a glimpse of the sin about which God is angry.  Israel is proud.  Their pride has caused them to stumble in their guilt.  They aren’t coming to the Lord for guidance and wisdom; they think that they know it all already!  They are not looking into their life to try and find places where they might be guilty of sin and making mistakes.  They are convinced of their greatness.

If we continue this thought in verse 7, we see that they are faithless with respect to the Lord.  Faithlessness is the great product of pride.  If I am proud and have the character of leaning upon only myself, how am I going to be faithful to anyone else?

Now we turn to the end.  What is the condition that God sets up for the removal of His wrath?  The people need to turn to Him and repent.  God is showing us the character that is needed.  So long as our character is leaning upon ourselves, we risk God’s wrath.  But when we have the character to humble ourselves before God, rely upon Him, and do His will then we find that we are readily placed in His vast mercy.

In the end, it really is about character.  Do I pursue the things of my own ambition and focus on myself?  Or do I pursue the things of God and adopt a more humble character in His presence?

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Year 6, Day 205: Hosea 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Ambition

• Ambition: We all need a goal to which we can strive.  When our ambition comes from God, we find fulfillment in our obedience into that for which we have been equipped because our Out is in proper focus.  But when our ambition comes from ourselves, we find ourselves chasing after our own dreams and trying to find fulfillment in accomplishments of our own making.
• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

As I read through Hosea 4, I hit a particular verse and it stuck with me.  What is it that God finds despicable about the Hebrew people of the northern kingdom of Israel?  It is simple: they have forgotten God’s laws.  But there is something really deep that we can get at if we delve into this.

Look at Hosea 4:7 closely.  The more they increased, the more they sinned against me.  Do you see the pattern of humanity?  The more we get, the more opportunity we have for sin within us.  This can be taken as a whole population, as God means it here.  The more people there are in a locale, the more kind of sin can be involved.  There is greater opportunity for sexual sin.  There is a greater opportunity for cheating.  There is more opportunity for lying, stealing, malicious slander, all kinds of abuse, etc.  The greater the amount of people in an area, the more opportunity we have to sin against them.

However, I think we can also look at this in a personal sense.  The more money I have, don’t I want yet more?  The more power I have, doesn’t that increase the amount necessary to appease me in the future?  The more popularity I have, don’t I require even more in the future?  The more success I have, doesn’t that cause me to need more success in the future to be content?  This is the danger of ambition working in conjunction with appetite.  When I get used to a certain level of almost anything, it requires even more to satisfy me in the future. I get into trouble when my ambition is derived out of my appetite and my appetite is not coming from that which God wants for me.

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Year 6, Day 204: Hosea 2-3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Want to hear a challenging situation?  Imagine that you are Hosea.  You’ve been asked to marry a prostitute.  You’ve done it.  You’ve even had kids with her and named them horrible names.  The next thing you know, she’s off living her old life with other men.  Instead of God allowing you to file for divorce as the wife has abandoned you, He tells you to go and get her back.  The real kicker is that you have to buy her back, not just take her back.

Talk about challenging!  I am not sure that I would have been able to rise up to the challenge.  As we’ve talked about obedience much lately, I think it is fair to say that if I did rise to the challenge, it would only be through a sense of obedience that I did.  However, because Hosea was able to rise up to the challenge of God, we get access to a great teaching from God.

We rebel from God.  We run after many false gods.  God desires us to be His, but we throw ourselves into the beds of other masters.  Many times we do this in our life.  Yet each time, God comes back to rescue us.  In fact, God turned around and paid a price to take us back from our foreign gods.  He sent His Son as the price.

Hosea was challenged to do the unthinkable.  Because of the challenge – and his ability to rise to the challenge, we can see an incredible truth about ourselves and our relationship with God.  God often uses challenge to reveal His truth in our life and the lives of people around us.

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Year 6, Day 203: Hosea 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

This is a very disconcerting chapter.  God comes to Hosea and tells him to take a wife.  Normally, that would be cause for celebration.  However, God tells Hosea to take a prostitute for a wife.  I don’t know too many God-fearing prophets of God who would look to that message and obey without question.  After all, it doesn’t sound like a thing that Go would tell someone to do.  But, Hosea obeys.  He believes and trusts.

Then, Hosea begins to have kids.  God comes to Hosea and tells him to name his children, “Jezreel,” “No Mercy,” and “You are not My People.”  Talk about your bummer names!  There is no joy in these names.  Imagine being looked at by God and realize that He is telling you to name your child “No Mercy” or any of the others.  But again, Hosea obeys.

What we can learn from this passage is that there are going to be times that God tells us to do things that might not make sense in the moment.  There are going to be times that God gives us a message that might seem confusing and maybe even contrary to what we believe His nature to be.  Those times will come because we cannot fully know God.

In those moments, we have to remember the importance of obedience.  We cannot fathom the depths of God.  We cannot know Him fully and truly.  We cannot ever fully hold onto the whole character of God.  In those moments where we are unsure, it is our obedience that will hold us true.

Very few people would have seen Hosea as making righteous decisions in his day.  Yet he was making decisions of obedience.  From God’s perspective, he was doing exactly what he should have been doing.

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Year 6, Day 202: Matthew 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Calling

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.

Matthew 28 is a great chapter upon which we can reflect calling.  Yes, this passage contains Matthew’s version of the Great Commission.  It’s where the disciples are called to make disciples of all the nations.  When we talk about calling, these passages are the go-to passages.

However, I want to focus on the less obvious calling passage.  We see calling at least twice in the opening verses of this chapter.  Mary and the other women come to the tomb to do their duty.  They come once the Sabbath is over in order to take care of Jesus’ body and give it the proper burial that He deserves.  They come to care for the dead body of their great teacher.  Even though they have suffered great defeat, they come and do what needs to be done.  They have been called to love and support Jesus, even in death.

However, when they arrive, these women find that their calling is shifted.  Twice they are told to go to the disciples: once by an angel and once by Jesus Himself.  Instead of being called to be the ones who prepare Jesus for a proper burial, they become the first preachers of the resurrection!  They are faithful in little, they get an opportunity to show themselves faithful in much!

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Year 6, Day 201: Matthew 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

There are many reasons why Jesus died.  From the perspective of the Father, He died so that we can have true relationship with Him again.  From Jesus’ perspective, He died because it was the Father’s will for Him to die.  From the perspective of His disciples, He died because they were sinful and they needed His blood to redeem them.  But Jesus didn’t only die for good reasons.

From the perspective of the religious elite, Jesus died because of the concept of authority.  Jesus’ authority came from the Father.  That’s why he taught the way He did.  That’s why He made disciples the way that He did.  That’s why He debated the way that He did.  That’s why He performed miracles the way that He did.

The problem is that the religious authorities didn’t get their authority from the Father.  If they did, they would have accepted Jesus.  But they were getting their authority from themselves and the culture around them.  This caused them to clash.  That’s why Jesus died from their perspective.

How do we see this in Matthew 27?  Who is it that comes up with the plan to kill Jesus?  The religious elite, that’s who.  Who is it that convinces the people in charge to kill Jesus?  The crowd that was stirred up against Him.  Who is it that takes Jesus’ life?  The Roman soldiers who are paid by the government.  Nowhere in this story do any of these people turn to the Father and check to make sure that their decision was in line with the Father.  They are getting their authority form the other people around them.  That’s a dangerous thing to do.  When that happens, we usually find ourselves acting contrary to the will of the Father.

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Year 6, Day 200: Matthew 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

I am awed by Jesus’ obedience.  He came to die for our sake simply because the Father willed it to happen that way.  That is the very definition of obedience.  The Father asks, the obedient follower obeys.

But the depth of His obedience is truly mind-boggling.  Let’s take a few examples here.

• First, Jesus knows that He is going to die well before it happens.  It’s one thing to be courageous in the moment.  It is sheer obedience to know you can walk away safely but instead you go headlong into danger just because it is the will of the Father.
• Second, Jesus experiences the bickering of His own disciples because the will of the Father sets a different morality and ethic than the expectations of the world around Him.  In spite of the disciples bickering, Jesus stays obedient to the Father.
• Third, not only does Jesus experiencing some verbal dissension, He also experiences outright betrayal.  One of His own hands Him over to the enemy.  Worse, Jesus knows this ahead of time!  Yet, Jesus remains obedient even though He can foresee the incident.
• Fourth, and perhaps my favorite moment of obedience in this chapter, is the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus is clearly struggling with what is coming.  It is a hard moment.  It is difficult to imagine all of the emotions and pain that Jesus will endure.  He asks if it is possible to go another route.  However, He folds his own will and accepts the will of the Father.

So many of these incidents could have easily taken any of out of obedience to the Father’s will.  There is external pressure and inner angst.  Yet, Jesus remains obedient.

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Year 6, Day 199: Matthew 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

Matthew 25 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible to study.  I think it is also one of the scariest chapters in the Bible.  It is all challenge.  As with most things that deal with challenge, the reason that it is challenging is because it causes us to wrestle with our character.

For example, take the parable of the ten virgins.  Some take the time to prepare and are received well.  Others don’t prepare, trusting in the mercy of the master of the house, and they are cast out.  Clearly Jesus’ message is clear.  We need to be ready.  We need to be preparing for what lies ahead.  We don’t want to be caught off guard.  The character question that this raises is whether or not we are doing what God desires in order to prepare ourselves.  Are we really doing our part in response to His invitation?

Then, we take the parable of the talents.  Three servants get talents.  They go out and risk.  They make more.  They use their talents to increase the master’s kingdom.  They are praised and celebrated because they are willing to take chances and extend themselves outside of their comfort zone.  The third servant, however, doesn’t.  He plays it safe.  He buries the master’s talent and returns it to him unchanged.  This servant is chastised and even removed from the household!  The message is clear.  God doesn’t want us to simply preserve what He has given to us.  He wants us to go out, take risks in faith, and be a part of growing His kingdom.

The third story is a particularly nasty – but good – one.  This parable tells of the sorting of the people.  But here’s the thing: everyone who is there thinks they’ve done well!  Everyone who is sorted is convinced they’ve been obedient.  The ones who are received well are very humble about what they’ve done.  They know it hasn’t been enough to earn them the kingdom; they are merely grateful to receive it.  The other group can’t believe they are being rejected because they are sure of what they’ve done!  Their lack of genuine humble hospitality is their downfall.  There is a character question here, too.  Not only is it important to use what God gives us to extent the kingdom of grace, love, and mercy, but we need to do so humbly and without arrogant self-assurance.

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Year 6, Day 198: Matthew 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: King

• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

Whenever I read about predictions of judgment, I immediately think about God as King.  Some people read these passages with fear and trembling, only able to focus on the negative aspects of these words.  I agree with them.  The time of judgment and the days leading up to them will not be pleasant.  But in the end, each of us will have our eternal lives held by the hand of God.  I can personally think of nobody else that I would desire to entrust to hold my eternal life and judge me in His own righteousness.

Think about how many parts of this passage speak to His power and His all-knowing.  Of course, I’ve already mentioned the whole judgment thing.  And then there is the timing, which nobody can know except for Him!  If that alone doesn’t demonstrate His kingship I don’t know what does.  Who else is going to be able to save us from the judgment of other people and give us words to say?

Why do we want to acknowledge Him as king?  For me, the reason is rather simple.  There are going to be all kinds of deceiving impulses in this world.  There are going to be false prophets who come along our path.  There are going to be deceptive teachings that bend our ear and lead us into cheap grace – or not grace at all!  If we aren’t centered on Him as king of our life, we will surely not navigate the choices of life amidst all of the distractions and temptations along the way.

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Year 6, Day 197: Matthew 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Matthew 23 is a very interesting chapter.  Jesus gives us seven woes.  However, notice to whom each of these woes is directed.  Jesus is taking it to the religious elite.  He is taking it to the people who think they know.  He is taking it to the people who have been unwilling to listen all along.  As Jesus’ ministry ends, He ushers forth one more great big challenge, and these challenges are to the people who have opposed Him all along.

That doesn’t mean that we who are His disciples cannot learn from this challenge.  Look at the main points that Jesus brings out:

• We should practice what we preach rather than lay heavy burdens upon people while living differently than we tell others to live.
• We should be people who are opening up relationship to God rather than driving people away by our actions and words.
• We need to make sure that we understand priorities when it comes to worship and that God is more important than the trappings within His house.
• We need to make sure that we are more about God’s grace love and mercy than we are worried about all of the legal minutia.  Of course we should try to keep God’s Law, but grace and forgiveness should be extended to the repentant always.
• We need to make sure that we are always looking within ourselves to look for areas to improve and bring into alignment with God; we should be more critical of our own shortcomings than the shortcomings of the people around us.
• We need to be careful that we present our true selves and not present grand and perfect facades that aren’t real.
• We need to be humble about our faults and not think that we are better than others, especially other people who are recorded in God’s Word.  It is easy to think that we wouldn’t have made the same mistakes they made, but we need to be honest and admit that hindsight is always 20/20.

This is a very big list of challenge for any of us.  Each of these points work against our human nature.  Yes, these woes were originally directed against Jesus’ foes.  But if we are honest, we can all learn from these words.

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Year 6, Day 196: Matthew 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• Competency: Being able to accomplish what one is called to do.

We have now come to the last few days before the crucifixion.  He is where Jesus takes on some bite, perhaps even venom.  No longer is Jesus defending off the challenges of the religious elite.  Now Jesus is taking the fight to them.  This is where we see that Jesus is not just love and grace but also challenge.

In each of the stories we see Jesus asked to explain His teaching.  He is asked to defend Himself.  In each story He rises up to the challenge and successfully answers the questions.  This shows that Jesus has been given the authority from the Father to speak competently in the faith.

However, Jesus doesn’t just answer competently.  Jesus’ words silence His opponents.  Jesus turns the questions upon the religious elite and they are unable to answer Him!  The people marvel.  The religious elite then leave Him alone.  They go away and prepare for what is to come next.

Jesus is a competent teacher as we already knew.  But what I think is most telling is that Jesus knows where His competence will lead.  He will die because He is so competent in His teaching.  Yet, He willingly continues to do the Father’s will knowing full well where it leads.

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Year 6, Day 195: Matthew 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from our Father.

This chapter oozes obedience in almost every section.  What’s even cooler is that some of the stories are great examples and some of the stories are examples of how not to act.  Let’s take a look at what we have.

As for good examples, let’s look at the disciples.  Jesus tells them to make preparations for the Triumphal entry.  Jesus gives them some unusual directions.  However, they don’t complain.  They do what they are told.  Through their obedience, the will of God is done and prophetic passages are fulfilled.

Furthermore, we see Jesus at work in the temple.  God says that His house should be a house of prayer.  However, Jesus sees people getting ripped off by money-changers and the religious elite.  He drives out the sin.  He cleanses the temple.  He draws the wrath of the religious elite.  However, He is obedient to the will of His Father.

As we transition from good to bad examples, we look to the parables of the two sons. One son is disobedient in word but obedient in action.  He is praised.  The other son is obedient in word but disobedient in action.  He is not praised in the least.  What we take from this is that action does speak louder than words.

As for the rest of the examples of disobedience, we don’t have to look too far past the fig tree.  The tree is supposed to bear fruit, but this one doesn’t.  Jesus curses it and it withers.  This is symbolic of the Hebrew people.  They were supposed to be working to bring the world in relationship with God.  But instead they had isolated themselves from the world.  They are disobedient.  For the record, the same thing could be said about the parable of the tenants.  God called Israel to live in the land and produce good fruit.  They have instead lived in disobedience – even looking ahead to killing the Son.

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Year 6, Day 194: Matthew 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

I’m willing to bet that the first teaching of Jesus has plenty of places for us to identify.  Ever be that person who follows the rules, does what they should, gets what they agreed to get, and then watches someone else get the same thing for far less work and effort?  Or have you ever seen someone else work really hard and you work far less hard and get the same result?  This is life.  This is grace.  It’s easy to get mad when we’re the hard-worker and we see others working less hard.  It’s easy to get lazy when we don’t work as hard as others but still get the same good result.  What keeps us in line is our character.  Character knows we should work hard without getting upset about other people and their effort.  Character keeps us humble when our effort was poor but we’re the beneficiary to grace.

The same thing is true about the passage with a mother requesting special treatment in the kingdom of heaven.  We are a people called in grace.  None of us deserve anything!  Good character looks towards eternal life and the kingdom of heaven and simply responds with an attitude of humbleness.  When we don’t it is inherently a character issue.

What stops us from having a bad character?  Jesus gives us an example in between the two bookend stories in this chapter.  Jesus came to die.  He came to put Himself behind the needs of others.  He came to serve, not be served.  That’s character.  The person who comes to serve and not be served doesn’t worry about having the best seats, the most honor, or getting paid more than others who may not have put in as much effort.

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Year 6, Day 193: Matthew 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Matthew 19 is loaded with challenge.  Every single one of these parables has a story where the people around Jesus are shown where they can grow.  This chapter proves that if we are going to be in proximity to Jesus, we have to be willing to look at ourselves.

Jesus begins with a teaching about divorce.  Yes, this is about divorce.  But at a deeper level this is about forgiveness.  Anyone who has been in a relationship that runs as deep as marriage knows that there are times when it is hard, mistakes are made, forgiveness needs to be extended, and hurt feelings need to be overcome.  It’s hard.  It may be one of the hardest things that you can do in life.  But it is necessary.  If we are going to follow a God who is gracious and loving and merciful, we need to commit to be a people of grace, love, and mercy ourselves.  That starts in the home.  It starts with our perspective on marriage.

Then, we hear about Jesus’ disciples and their interaction with children.  Do you hear Jesus’ words?  Let the children come.  We want to minimize children. We want to think that they aren’t old enough, aren’t mature enough, they can’t understand.  But we are wrong.  You can never be too young to start learning about God and His ways.  You can never be too young to begin to learn to imitate Jesus.  As adults, we need to understand that, too.

And then we hear about the rich man.  Jesus tells us flatly that there are many things that will come between us and the kingdom of heaven.  Isn’t that the truth!  Life is a daily struggle with respect to remembering to put God and His ways first.

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Year 6, Day 192: Matthew 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The story that ends this chapter is one of my favorite – and one of the most challenging.  It is one of my favorite because the action is so clear cut.  Here is a man who is forgiven so much and then cannot find it within himself to forgive something so small.  Clearly he is wrong!  Clearly he is violating God’s ways.  In such a straightforward story, it is hard to go wrong.

However, it is one of the most challenging stories because when it comes to forgiveness I find that it is so easy to be like this man.  When we are in the wrong, it is very easy to beg for forgiveness and want to be on the receiving end of mercy.  Yet when I am the one who is violated, it can occasionally be so hard to forgive.  When someone offends me, or crosses a certain line, or attacks someone I love, it can be easy to want to see them get what they deserve!

Am I really any different than the man in this parable?  No, not really.  And that’s Jesus’ point.  We all want to be forgiven.  But we need to be willing to forgive as well.  If it wasn’t so hard and if it wasn’t so commonly human, Jesus’ wouldn’t have needed to give us a parable for us to learn.

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Year 6, Day 191: Matthew 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

When we talk about authority in spiritual circles, we talk about where it begins first.  Authority comes from God the Father.  When we look at this chapter, we have a great illustration of this in the story of the transfiguration.  In this story, God Himself looks down and says of Jesus, “This is my son.  With Him I am well-pleased.”  Clearly we can see – and show know and believe – that Jesus’ authority is rooted in the Father.

Of course, authority isn’t just something to brag about.  Authority is something to practice.  What does Jesus do immediately after His authority is affirmed?  He goes out and heals a boy.  He takes an incident that has stumped His disciples and proves that the authority that has been given to Him by the Father is for real.

Furthermore, Jesus then takes His authority and deflects away challenge to His authority as well.  When He is questioned about the tax, He tells His disciples that since they belong to the Father, they truly don’t owe tax to live in the Father’s world.  However, to make sure that He doesn’t ruffle any feathers, He gives Peter some instructions about how to pay the tax, although the tax paid is done through supernatural means.  When challenged, Jesus shows authority in answering the challenge as well as through making sure the disciples stay right with the people.

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Year 6, Day 190: Matthew 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

There are three concrete examples of challenge in Jesus’ teaching in this chapter.  The first one that we come by is the Pharisees.  They ask Jesus for a sign.  However, Jesus turns on them with a high bar of challenge.  He tells them that if they can look at the sky and tell what kind of day it will be, they should be able to look at Jesus and teaching and tell what kind of a person that He is.  Jesus is telling us that we should be good at reading the environment and context around us, especially with respect to spiritual matters.

Following this theme, Jesus teaches the disciples to be wary of the leaven – that is, the teaching – of the Pharisees.  But the disciples get it wrong.  They think Jesus is talking about their lack of ability to bring along some food for the trip.  Jesus challenges them to remember how Jesus brought food out of nothing when He fed large crowds twice in the past.  Again the challenge is present.  We should know that the spiritual is more important than the physical.

We end on a really great note of challenge.  Jesus asks His disciples who they think that He is.  This is a bold moment.  Are the disciples able to claim that He is God’s Messiah in spite of the fact that all of the religious leaders of the day are looking to do away with Him?  They are!  They rise up to the challenge with Peter leading the way.  In spite of all the hatred, or even confusion, about Jesus’ identity, His disciples know that He is the Messiah.  Jesus gives them an opportunity to be challenged and they rise up to meet it.  Part of being able to use challenge is not just to know when to give challenge to cause people to think but also to use it to allow people to succeed, even exceeding their own assumptions about what they can do.

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Year 6, Day 189: Matthew 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

One of the things that I love about the Gospels is that everywhere we look we find stories focusing on the character of Jesus and the people around Him.  Every day – if I wanted – I could write about character.  That’s why I usually save it for days like today when we get neat things happening with contrasting perspectives of character.

Do you hear the question that the disciples in verse 12?  They tell Jesus that when He teaches about the importance of what comes out of our mouth that the Pharisees get offended!  Honestly, listen to what the disciples are saying.  The Pharisees care more about external appearances than internal character!  By getting offended at Jesus’ teaching, they expose their character and that they care about the wrong things.  The Pharisees care more about what a person does than who the person is.

On the other hand, we can see the faith of the Canaanite woman in this chapter.  She believes Jesus s powerful enough to help her.  She comes before Jesus, and in a way, Jesus tells her no.  But her character is one who doesn’t quit about important things.  Her character shines through as she is willing to humble herself for the sake of others.  Whereas the Pharisees are interested in keeping up their appearances, this woman is willing to forgo any sort of reasonable appearance just to have a moment with Christ.

Yu want to know what good character looks like?  Look to this woman who humbles herself.  Want to know if you have any bad character issues?  Take a look at what you get upset over.  Anything that upsets you that is contrary to God’s grace love and mercy shows character flaws, just like it does with the Pharisees.

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Year 6, Day 188: Matthew 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Abide

• Abide: This is a moment, day, or even a season when we focus on God.  It is a time when we are rejuvenated by God.  It is the time for us to gather up what we will need for the coming growth after a season of pruning.  However, abiding is not the end.  We abide so that we can grow, bear fruit, prune, and abide again.

Jesus understand the need to rest.  Jesus understands the need to commune with the Father.  He understands the need to search deep within Himself, evaluate what He sees, understand where His heart and mind is at.  In a word, Jesus understands what it means to abide.

John the Baptizer is arrested and then beheaded.  Jesus hears the news and He withdraws.  He knows that He needs to go and process what has happened.  He needs to go and spend time with the Father.

However, when He tries to get away He finds that there is a crowd waiting for Him.  Here’s the interesting thing.  Jesus doesn’t dismiss the crowd.  He has compassion upon them.  He teaches them and feds them miraculously.  Even though He knows that He needs to abide, He still works.  Then, when evening comes, He knows that He will have the time to abide that He needs.

Jesus understands abiding.  He also understands the need for ministry.  Like all things, Jesus understands balance above everything.  He knows that He needs to abide and bear fruit.  But He refuses to let these things be in conflict with each other.  He finds an appropriate time for both.

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Year 6, Day 187: Matthew 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Teacher

• Teacher: One who holds forth the truth and is excited by it. The teacher looks for ways to explain, enlighten, and apply truth.  A teacher's authority doesn't come from how smart they are but from the Word of God and the power of a transformed life.

Ever since I was a little boy, I wondered if Jesus’ disciples were really dense.  How many of us don’t understand the parable of the soils or the parable of the weeds?  Of course we do!  We’ve been taught these parables since before we can remember.

That’s actually an issue for us.  Because Jesus taught in this manner, our own pastors and spiritual leaders imitate Him and teach in this manner.  So when we get to passages like this, we have been trained to think about symbolism and analogy and we quickly sort through the information and arrive at the answer.

This didn’t happen with Jesus and is disciples.  Jesus took fishermen and tax collectors and other basic people and taught them.  They weren’t religiously trained.  This is actually why Jesus teaches in parables.  By using parables, He is teaching His disciples to think more and more abstractly and make connections that are not obvious to everyone else.

There’s a really neat side-effect to this as well.  When Jesus teaches in parables, He can sift through the listeners and figure out who it is that is really paying attention and who is just along for the ride.  He can hear the questions from the people who are asking questions.  He can see the people who come and listen and leave without asking questions.

Looking at this chapter, we see what it really means to be a teacher.  A teacher takes opportunities when they are presented.  A teacher causes people to start with the known and probe into the unknown.  A teacher sees any opportunity as an opportunity to sift through those around them and discern who is truly looking to listen and learn.

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Year 6, Day 186: Matthew 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

What is Jesus’ identity?  Of course, those who are familiar with Jesus should know the answer.  He is the Son of God.  He is the sacrifice God sent to allow us to know His redemption.  He is the one who came to invite us back into genuine relationship with the Father.

That really is the question of this chapter.  The religious leaders question His identity.  They accuse him of casting out demons with Satan’s power.  Naturally, of course, they do this because they are opposed to Jesus.  This gives us a very important lesson to learn.  When we are looking at identity of someone else, so we take into account whether we like them or not?  After all, if I allow my personal human emotions to influence where I think their identity is rooted, I’m likely to get the whole decision wrong.  As Jesus teaches here in this passage, we will get a better clue about a person’s identity when I look at fruit, not my personal opinion about them.

We also get a sense of identity in the people who come and ask Jesus for a sign.  I can understand this moment.  More than once I have asked God to prove His existence.  I’ve hinted with Him that if He was going to pick a moment to demonstrate His power that now would be a good time.  But those moments say more about me and my identity than they say about Him and His identity.  God isn’t great because He does what we want.  God is great, period.  We believe in Him because He is great, not because He does incredible things.  When we ask God to prove His power, it shows that we are not truly getting our identity from Him as we should.

Finally, we get a very interesting story about His family.  They come to see Him.  But Jesus turns to the crowd around Him and tells them that His family are the people around Him.  I think this is one of my favorite identity stories.  Jesus doesn’t define family according to biology.  Jesus defines family according to spirituality.  His identity doesn’t come from His mom and dad and their character.  His identity comes from the Father and those around Him whose identity also comes from the Father.

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