Year 8, Day 157: Mark 10

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As we draw closer to the cross in the Gospel of Mark, we get more of the identity of Christ.  He is still a teacher.  He is still a healer.  But he is also God’s Messiah. He is the one who will save the world.

I’ll start at the end of the chapter today.  What does the savior of the world do?  What is His example for us to imitate?  Jesus listens to those the world would shush.  Jesus has compassion on those that the world overlooks.  Jesus invites those whom the world would discard.  God’s Messiah looks to the fringes and fills them with love.

What else does God’s Messiah do?  God’s Messiah handles the silly idiotic humanity of His disciples.  Two of them want Jesus to promise them positions of power.  As anyone who knows the human heart would guess, that starts off a feud between those two and the other ten disciples.  Everybody is being irrational, acting out of the desires of their own heart.  What does Jesus do?  Jesus speaks to them rationally.  He calms the scene.  He teaches them all about servant nature.  Jesus deals with human irrationality by being rational in return and reframing the perspective causing the irrationality.  God’s Messiah is about changing perspective, not allowing poor perspective to persist.

Speaking of changing perspective, look at how Jesus works with the rich man.  Jesus tells the kid, who confesses to being perfect in the eyes of the Law, to go and sell everything that He has.  I used to think that this passage was a condemnation of wealth. On some level, especially combined with other passages such as “the poor will always be with you,” it is.  However, I think this is actually an attempt to show the rich young man that his perspective is wrong.  Since the rich young ruler wouldn’t rise to the humbleness required by the comparing our life to the Law, Jesus shows Him that he also won’t rise to the generosity of giving things to people who are in need.  It isn’t that there is any greed sin behind having some money – although the love of money is the root of all evil.  The problem is that the rich young man thinks he is perfect.  His perspective needs to be challenged.

This is God’s Messiah.  Jesus challenges those who are arrogant, proud, or otherwise human.  Jesus teaches the humble.  Jesus heals the needy.  Jesus meets with the outcast.

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Year 8, Day 156: Mark 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I’ve spent a good amount of space in my blogs in Mark talking about the humanity of Jesus’ disciples and how Jesus still invited them into the ministry.  In Mark 9, we make a big transition from the ministry of Jesus to the mission of Jesus.  For the most part, the rest of the stories in the Gospel of Mark will be about lifting up Christ as He fulfills what the Father sent Him to do.

The first story in this Gospel shows us this concept immediately.  The transfiguration is all about Jesus being pronounced as God’s Son.  God tells us that He is well-pleased.  God tells us to listen to Him.  Jesus tells us that He will be mistreated and held contemptuously.  In fact, Jesus makes that point clear twice in this chapter.  Love Jesus as much as the disciples did, they needed to understand that Jesus mission was to come, die, and bring us into a relationship with God that is based on forgiveness.

The next major thing that we learn about Jesus is that His kingdom is based on servant leadership.  If someone wants to be first in the kingdom, they must be last in the world.  To be like Jesus means that we live with an eye for what we can do for others.  That doesn’t mean we live like doormats; Jesus certainly didn’t get pushed around!  What it does mean is that we live in a way to be open and responsible to ways to help God’s love shine into the lives of others.

A third thing that we can learn is that being like Jesus means being open to receiving and mentoring innocence.  Jesus takes a little child and says to His disciples that anyone who receives a little child in His name receives Him.  If we look at what Jesus has done all throughout the Gospel of Mark is to receive disciples who had a very childlike faith.  Then, Jesus mentored them.  He’s still mentoring them.  He will continue mentoring them.  To be like Jesus means that we are in the business of looking for people we can mentor until their faith is mature.

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Year 8, Day 155: Mark 8

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When I read Mark 8, I am reminded again about humanity.  We are a glorious people; God made us this way.  We are a gloriously flawed people; we made ourselves this way.

The passage starts with a wonderful miracle.  Jesus feeds 4,000 people in much the same manner as He fed 5,000 people earlier.  Notice that once more Jesus invites the disciples into His work.  We are glorious because God imparts His glory into us.  We are glorious because God asks us to participate in His incredible grace and love.

Also notice that the disciples continue to wonder how Jesus was going to feed all the people.  We are gloriously flawed people.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the disciples didn’t connect the dots between the feeding of the 5,000 to the setup of the feeding of the 4,000.  However, I know that I have been similarly blind at times.  I can’t fault them any more than I can fault myself.  But the reality is that the disciples don’t get it.  Jesus invites them into the plan even though they are blind to what He is doing!

Furthermore, notice that as they leave the feeding of the 4,000 they forget to bring bread.  They start arguing about the fact that they forgot to bring some food.  They still don’t get it.  Jesus can make food appear in plentiful quantities!  The disciples are with Jesus.  People who are with Jesus do not need to fear the lack of basic needs.  Yet, the disciples don’t pick up on this fact.  They continue to quibble over who is at fault for forgetting food when they have the ultimate source of satisfaction in their presence!

This reality is made even more potent by the story about confessing Christ.  Peter says that he believes Jesus is the Christ, God’s Messiah.  He has the faith.  He believes in his heart.  Yet, he is a human being.  The same lips that professed Jesus as Christ argues about bringing bread along!  We get that Jesus is Christ in our hearts.  We get that we need a savior.  But we don’t often get Jesus in our heads.  We have faith in our hearts, we lack divinely inspired wisdom in our minds.

There’s one more way present in this chapter that demonstrates our glorious flaw.  Because we don’t often get Jesus in our heads, we ask for signs.  We need proof.  We need someone to explain it to us.  In this I am just as guilty as the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  How often have I asked God for a sign when making a decision?  How often have I asked God to make life simpler?  As glorious as God has made us, we are indeed gloriously flawed.

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Year 8, Day 154: Mark 7

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Mark 7 gives us an incredible change to traditional theological understanding.  In the past, traditional human wisdom says that if you want to stay clean, keep away from dirt.  This makes sense.  As little children we are taught that we don’t go out and play in the mud when we are dressed up for church on Sunday morning.  You don’t see women who are dressed up for a night on the town open up the engine of their car and start working on the greasy parts.  Before putting on a fresh pair of clothes, most of us know enough to take a shower.  We understand this fact.  To stay clean, get rid of the dirt and stay away from it.

If this is a motto for our life, then it worms its way into our theology as well.  To stay ritually clean, we need to keep away from sin.  If I don’t have contact with nefarious people, I’m supposedly less likely to become nefarious.  If I want to stay away from lust, then I need to stay away from situations that will cause me to lust.  If I want to stay away from greed, then I need to avoid things that will cause me to become envious.  It all makes logical sense.

The problem is that it is horrible logic.  I still get angry, even if I stay away from people who make me angry.  I still have lustful thoughts even if I avoid looking at people dressed in such a manner as to evoke lust.  I still become greedy even if I avoid conversations and situations that inspire a keeping up with the Jones’ mentality.  I still become impatient when I’m driving down the road in a car all by myself!

What we learn here, and what Jesus is teaching us in the first two-thirds of this chapter, is that sin does not have to originate from the outside.  Yes, I can be led into temptation by external forces.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have enough means of sinning that comes from the inside of me, too!  I can get into enough sinful behavior with what lies within my heart; I don’t need external help.

This is why Jesus teaches us to pay attention to what is going on inside.  I need to monitor the condition of my heart and the desires of my flesh.  If my inside is clean, then I will have an easier time avoiding external temptation.  But if my inside is sinful and unchecked, then no amount of avoiding external temptation will keep me from sin.

So often we think that if we could just live inside a perfect spiritual bubble that life would be easy and righteousness would come.  That’s a lie.  Jesus tells us as much in these passages.  It is the condition of my heart that is far more significant than the circumstances of my life.  If I truly want to pursue righteousness, I need to look within first.

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Year 8, Day 153: Mark 6

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Mark 6 contains several big name Gospel stories.  We get the feeding of the 5,000.  We get Jesus walking on water.  We get Jesus’ rejection in His hometown.  We get the sending out of the disciples on their own mission.  Of course, we also get the death of John the Baptizer.

Instead of going story by story, I’m going to spend the time today looking at the big picture.  We start with the rejection of Jesus.  People in Nazareth, where Jesus was raised, have trouble seeing Jesus for who He is.  All they can see is the young boy that grew up among them.  There’s a lesson here.  Our past can hinder our mission.  How we behaved – even decades ago – can make it hard for people to see God within us.  That’s just human nature, and it affects Jesus just as much as anyone else.

From the big picture perspective, though, look how Jesus responds!  Jesus sends out the twelve. When Jesus’ ministry in an area is hindered, Jesus sends out people who won’t necessarily be hindered.  As Jesus goes into the surrounding villages, he lets His disciples do the talking, the working, and the discipling.  This is a tactical move on Jesus’ behalf.

Continue to look at the big picture.  The other thing going on in this chapter is the arrest and death of John the Baptizer.  John’s primary mission was to call people into repentance and then point them to Jesus as a means of their salvation.  If you look at what the Bible says that Jesus’ disciples did, they called people to repentance and then pointed to Jesus.  When Jesus sends the disciples out, He’s thinking big picture.  Someone is going to need to take John’s place in the declaration of our need for repentance.

This brings us to the last two stories.  Jesus miraculously feeds the multitude and then walks on water.  Although both of these stories have incredible depth in what they can teach us, continue to look at them from the big picture.  Jesus has just sent His disciples out to do mission and from other Gospel accounts we hear that they were reasonably successful.  In these stories, though, they stumble.  They don’t think Jesus can miraculously feed the crowd.  They don’t believe it is Jesus when they see someone walking on water.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d have logically made those same two errors.  I’m not discrediting the disciples, I’m simply reminding myself that they are human like me.

What’s neat about these stories is that in the big picture, Jesus knows their weaknesses.  Jesus knows that they aren’t perfect.  He knows that their eyes and brains are struggling to see the world through the lens of faith.  Yet, Jesus still sent them out!  Jesus still uses them to proclaim God’s message.  Jesus still uses them to distribute the bread and fish.  The big picture of this whole chapter is how God continues to work when human failings make their presence known.

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Year 8, Day 152: Mark 5

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Mark 5 gives us three terrific healing stories.  In each of these stories, we get to see real life mixing with the divine.  This chapter gives us a great glimpse at how a fallen and broken world interacts with a perfectly divine being.

In the first story, we have a man with an incredible amount of demons healed of the demons.  The man responds favorably, going about and teaching people about how Jesus has saved him.  The world of the Decapolis, the region where the healing occurred, can’t handle what happened.  They ask Jesus to leave.  They don’t want Him interfering with their lives.  He’s already shown he can change the life of a man nobody else could control.  Who can say what Jesus would do to their lives if they give Him a chance?  Rather than risk it, they send Him away.

In the next story, we meet a woman who is also in need of healing.  She simply reaches out to touch Jesus.  She has such faith in Jesus that she merely knows that contact with Him will change her reality.  Jesus turns and demands to know who had such faith.  Jesus’ disciples show their humanity and complain that such a question is unreasonable given the density of the crowd.  Jesus, however, knows that the disciples are missing the greater point.  It’s impossible to know all of the people who bumped Jesus, but it is not impossible to know the one person who touched Jesus with intentionality.  It’s not impossible to know the one person who did exactly that for which Jesus is looking.  He wants to know who has a faith that will go deeper and try to understand what He is doing and teaching.

In the last story, we meet a young girl who dies.  The world around her moves to mourn her death.  When Jesus comes along, they laugh at His declaration that she isn’t dead. They don’t understand; they aren’t even willing to understand.  Jesus puts them out of the house and doesn’t even give them the opportunity to see Him at work.  The little girl is saved, and Jesus’ disciple get to see an incredible moment of divine work.

Each of these stories gives us an example of faith at work.  In each story we see a person who goes deeper with Jesus.  In each story we also see a greater world that misses the picture.  This is the reality in which Jesus lives.  Jesus doesn’t stop doing ministry and trying to reach out to the world simply because ministry takes place in a world that constantly misses the point.

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Year 8, Day 151: Mark 4

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I think Mark 4 is the perfect chapter to show both the potential and pitfalls of humankind.  A large crowd gathers around Jesus to hear Him.  The likely gather to see Him perform some great miracle, too.  They follow Him because of what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard.

When Jesus teaches the crowd, He uses parables.  He tells us the reason why.  Jesus can’t possibly disciple the whole crowd.  He doesn’t have enough hours in the day to meet the needs of everyone who needs to be discipled!  He also is smart enough to realize that just because people are coming to Him to listen and watch doesn’t mean that they have what it takes to commit to following Him.  Therefore, Jesus needs a way to make sure that His efforts are well spent.  Jesus also needs to teach this technique to His own disciples.  Jesus needs a way to weed out the insincere while drawing the dedicated close so He can pour into them.  He uses parables to accomplish this goal so that He can see who is willing to ask questions and go deeper in understanding.

The interesting thing about the subject of the parables is that He is talking about how faith grows.  In the first parable, we hear that people respond differently to the faith.  Some don’t care about it.  Some receive it for a short time but then don’t give it attention.  Others get distracted.  Some receive it, foster it, and let it grow until it produces more fruit.  This last category of people are the ones that Jesus is looking for.  These are the people that He’s looking to find through the parables.  These are the ones who are going to ask questions, who are going to grow, who are eventually going to bear fruit for the kingdom.  These are the ones whose faith will grow far larger than anyone could have suspected, growing so large as to provide for a place for other people to gather and learn and be discipled.

On the flipside, we end this chapter with the storm and the calming of the sea.  Listen to the critique of Jesus as He calms the storm.  He asks His own disciples if they have so little faith!  In other words, Jesus has given them a very practical lesson about everything that He’s been teaching.  In a moment where they lose focus, they so easily revert back to people who respond out of their humanity instead of their faith!

Jesus’ point should be incredibly clear.  Faith takes work.  Jesus teaches they way that He does because He wants to see who is willing to do the work.  But the disciple must also be willing to work or there isn’t any point to it!  The calming of the sea is a practical lesson that discipleship is more than just being in the presence of Jesus.  Discipleship means that the disciple must be constantly vigilant about their faith, their growth, and their relationship with God.  When anyone loses focus – even one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples – we revert back to a human being living instinctively instead of through faith that can move mountains and produce great fruit.

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Year 8, Day 150: Mark 3

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As we move into Mark 3, we get a taste of the first few themes blending together.  In the first story, we see the religious leaders immediately going out to seek a way to ill Jesus.  They know when Jesus is doing.  He’s not living up to expectations and He is winning the eye of the crowd.  They need to do something about Jesus, and they need to do it sooner rather than later.  As people immediately start to follow Jesus, the religious leaders need to act immediately to maintain the status quo.

We can continue to talk about people who don’t react well to Jesus’ ministry because of expectations.  There are two stories in this chapter that speak about Jesus and His relationship with His family.  First, notice that Jesus’ family comes to take Him away from public ministry.  They think Him mad.  They think that He is going out of His mind.  Their expectations for Jesus, expectations no doubt based in their own understanding of what a poor Jewish boy from Galilee should be doing, simply don’t match what Jesus is actually doing.  They think Jesus has begun to go crazy! 

At the end of the story, they come again for Jesus.  Jesus’ response is very telling.  When people tell Jesus that His mother and brothers have come for Him, Jesus reverses the expectations back onto them.  Jesus says that His true mother and brothers are those who have listened to Him and are responding.  Jesus makes it perfectly clear that His expectations are God’s expectations and anyone who doesn’t match – including family – isn’t really family.

On that note, we turn to the disciples.  These are people who have followed, they have listened, and they have begun to imitate Jesus.  They are people with whom Jesus shares His power.  He invites them to go out into the world with power and authority.  When we go forth embracing God’s expectations for our life, He equips us and empowers us to be a part of His will!

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Year 8, Day 149: Mark 2

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Mark 2 is all about expectations.  We can look at this idea from multiple angles.  First, Notice that Jesus does not come to meet human expectations.  We could also say that Jesus came to live up to the expectations of the Father, not the human beings around Him.  Furthermore, the religious leaders are willing to judge Jesus on their expectations.  This is where the clash occurs.  The religious leaders have their perspective limited by their expectations; Jesus has no desire to meet their expectations.

For example, Jesus falls into judgment from the religious leaders because He eats with sinners.  They want Jesus to judge the sinners, not invite them to dinner!  They want a righteous Messiah who will come to dominate over the world, not save it.  On the other hand, Jesus doesn’t want to dominate this world, He wants to save this world so that we can live eternally with God.  We can clearly see the conflict in expectations in this issue.

In the same light, look at the healing of the paralytic man.  Jesus forgives the man’s sins, which doesn’t meet the expectations of the religious leaders.  They don’t believe that anyone can forgive sins!  Jesus’ mercy upon a sinner puts Him at odds against the religious leaders because their expectations don’t match those of Jesus.

To be honest, every time I read this passage I come close to falling in the same trap as the religious leaders.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no trouble with Jesus forgiving sins.  My trouble is that Jesus heals the man and forgives his sins based on the faith of other people around him.  Part of me screams, “How can Jesus forgive sins of one person based on the faithfulness of another?”  To put it another way, how can the righteousness of one person bring about the forgiveness of another.  Can you see where my expectations put me at odds with God?  Do I really want to find fault with the Son of God because He doesn’t meet my expectations?  Furthermore, am I not saved based on the righteousness of Jesus?  If that’s true, how dare I take issue with Jesus forgiving the sins of the paralytic man based on the faithfulness of the man’s friends!

Before leaving this chapter, I do want to make one point.  Don’t overlook the verses here that talk about how popular Jesus has become.  Many are following Him.  They are following Him because of what He represents.  They are following Him because they don’t mind the change in the status quo.  They are following Him because of what He represents and what He can do.  For now, they are happy that His actions aren’t living up to the expectations of the religious leaders.

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Year 8, Day 148: Mark 1

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Mark’s Gospel is all about immediacy.  There is no birth narrative.  Jesus’ own baptism is little more than a prelude to the greater story.  Even John’s ministry is abbreviated to the bare bones.  Mark wants us to get to the story as quickly as possible.

Even within the story, Jesus does things with little wasted movement.  He immediately goes into the desert to be tempted.  He immediately begins to preach on the Sabbath.  He immediately casts out demons.  He immediately heals Peter’s mother-in-law.  There is little wasted motion with Jesus.  He sets his mind to something and it happens.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John immediately follow Jesus when he calls.  They see a man of action and follow his lead.  They imitate what they see in Jesus.  They see a leader who is making things happen and they get caught up in the movement.  They want to be a part of what Jesus is doing.

What does all of this immediacy tell us besides the point that Jesus can accomplish what He sets His mind to do?  Jesus knows from day one that there is a race between Himself and His mission.  Every day that goes by means that the cross is one day closer.  Jesus has much work to do.  He has disciples to train.  He has a message to teach.  He has miracles to perform.  He has scripture to fulfill.  The clock is ticking on Jesus, and Mark’s Gospel helps us feel that ticking clock like no other.

This is one of the reasons that I love the inclusion of the last story in the first chapter of Mark.  Jesus heals a leper.  Knowing the clock is ticking and not wanting the clock to advance faster than it needs to advance, Jesus asks the leper to say nothing.  The leper disobeys, spreading the word of what happened.  As a result, we are told that Jesus can no longer go into the populated areas.  We don’t know if this is because He got mobbed by the needy or because of religious persecution.  Either way, though, we see why the immediacy is necessary.  We aren’t even through the first chapter of Mark when Jesus’ ministry starts to become hampered by human sinfulness.

Jesus understands the stakes.  He came to accomplish a mission.  He then invites us into that mission.  We need to be like James, John, Simon, and Andrew.  We need to see the immediacy of God’s plan and join Him where He leads us.  That doesn’t mean we are always going to jump from big mission to big mission.  Jesus Himself doesn’t always jump from miracle to miracle.  Sometimes He spends a quiet day in prayer or a quiet evening in the house of Simon’s mother-in-law.  But Jesus is always doing something, big or small.  We should likewise be doing something in God’s kingdom, promoting God’s love and His grace with each moment we can – big or small.

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Year 8, Day 147: Ephesians 6

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In the last chapter, we spoke about how we should live.  However, living a life of righteousness is hard work.  As Paul said yesterday, we live in a dark and evil world.  There is constant temptation to sin.  There are always opportunities to turn from righteousness and slip into selfishness, greed, lust, and other passions that dwell within.  We need help to navigate the evil in the world and within ourselves.

To this end, Paul gives us a great passage about where we can find the strength to live righteously.  Our belt, that which binds the armor together, is truth.  Our breastplate, that which protects our most vital areas, is righteousness.  Our shoes, which protect our ability to move and bring God’s Word to other places, is peace.  Our shield, which is our mobile defense against attack from any angle, is faith.  Our helmet, which protects our brain and decision making abilities, is the Word of God.  Our sword, which is both a parrying weapon and our means of attack, is also the Word of God.

Note, however, the arrangement of the source of our strength.  All but one of the pieces is a defensive piece of equipment.  The armor of God is first-and-foremost for our protection, not for assault and attack!  This should make sense.  God does not need us to fight His battles for Him.  He does invite us into His work, but He does not need us to assault His enemies.  God will do that Himself.  God will assault the strongholds of evil.  We merely need to stay strong, prepared to act in righteousness when God calls upon us.  Defense is primary to our role in God’s kingdom.

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Year 8, Day 146: Ephesians 5

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Ephesians 5 is largely a common sense chapter.  Paul gives us good advice for living.  He encourages us to behave in ways that build up the community around us.  He wants us to allow the light of God to shine through us.

Here are some of the things that Paul encourages us to do.  Rather than getting drunk, fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit and lift one another up with joy and praise.  Rather than make foolish decisions, wait upon and pursue the will of the Lord.  Don’t partner with empty actions.  Don’t allow our lusts to rule over us.  Speak words of encouragement instead of filthiness or crude jokes.  Husbands and wives should love each other.

These words simply make sense.  If we are going to be God’s people, we need to reflect God’s ways.  If we are going to reflect God’s ways, we need to live in truth.  We need to be building up the community around us.  We need to be observant about the needs of others around us.  We need to speak truthfully about the lives we see round us.

What Paul is really getting at here is something that we all know through our lived experience.  It’s one thing to talk a good talk.  It’s an entirely different thing to walk the walk.  Words sound hollow when we say them but live contrary to our words.  We come across as hypocrites when we do so.  Paul wants to make sure that our testimony is supported by, not hindered by, our actions.

There is another side to this as well.  Paul also wants to make sure that we remain in God’s will.  He wants to ensure that we receive the inheritance of God when we have finished with this life.  When we fill our life with sin, we risk abandoning God and forfeiting His grace.  Paul wants to make sure that we firmly hold on to what God has offered us through His own graciousness.  We live righteously not just for others, but to keep ourselves headed in a right direction.

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Year 8, Day 145: Ephesians 4

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As we turn to Ephesians 4, Paul’s talk about the salvation that comes from God turns to how we should be affected by it.  God does save us because He wants to be in relationship with us.  However, it is God’s desire that we change when we have His Spirit within us.  Dwelling with God should change us.

The first change is that we should be a people of forgiveness and compassion.  God was compassionate and forgave us; we should do the same.  We need to bear with one another’s faults.  We need to be a people who are truthful and honest with one another, not a people who speak soothing and hollow words.  We are to deal honestly with one another.  We should be a people who reflect the nature of Christ within!

Another change that should occur is within our demeaner.  We should be a people of peace.  We should be a people of patience.  We should be humble.  We should be gentle.  Our demeaner should be one who looks to the other instead of looking to ourselves.

Finally, there is a third effect.  We should be drawn into unity.  If there is one God and one Spirit, then we who have that Spirit within should be able to be united with one another.  How will we convince the world that there is one God if we are not able to be united as His people?

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Year 8, Day 144: Ephesians 3

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We continue to experience Paul’s greater theme for this book.  That theme is the salvation of the Gentiles.  God wants anyone to be able to come to Him, not just the Hebrew people.  This is what Paul continues to call the mystery of Christ.  We are saved by grace, not by our works or by our pedigree.

What’s neat about this chapter is that Paul demonstrates several effects of this reality.  One such effect is that Christ may dwell in our hearts.  We can know what it is like to dwell with Christ here and now.  We can have the strength of God’s Spirit within us.  This is a great effect of His mystery.

This gives us another effect.  Through His Spirit, we can grow in our wisdom and understanding.  We can live in a love that surpasses knowledge and understanding, reflecting the very love that God gives to us.  We can know the fullness of the measure of God.  These are all a part of the mystery of God.

There is external effect, too.   Through the mystery of Christ, God can establish His people.  Through His people, God can make His wisdom known to the world.  God can make His wisdom known to the heavens.  Through His mystery, God reveals Himself to all of creation around us.  God is working not just for our sake, but for all of creation.

In the end, this is a wonderful cycle of God’s grace.  He is gracious to us, inviting us to become the next level of demonstration of His grace to others.  God cares deeply about us, but He cares just as deeply about those who do not yet know Him and who need an opportunity to do so.  It comes around full circle to relationship with God.  That is indeed a mystery.  God desires to be in relationship with us.  He desires to dwell with us.

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Year 8, Day 143: Ephesians 2

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Today’s chapter is largely about one significant word: adoption.  The author of Ephesians reminds us that we are saved by grace.  It isn’t our works that saves us.  It isn’t our pedigree.  It is God’s grace that works through faith.  We are saved by grace in faith.

This leads us to the idea of adoption.  We cannot come to God on our own.  He comes to us and adopts us.  He comes to us because it is the only way it can be done.  He comes to us to bring us into His family.  He extends relationship.  He extends belonging.

The reality is that this is true of both Jews and Gentiles alike.  Could Abraham save himself?  Could Abraham bring himself to God?  Of course not!  God had to come to Abraham and offer covenant with Abraham.  Yes, Abraham was a man after God’s own heart.  Abraham, however, was still not righteous.  Abraham was a man who needed God to come to Him and offer him relationship.

Every human being who is in God’s family is there by adoption.  We all only come to God at His invitation.  We are all a people of grace.  That should be something that unites us instead of divides us.  It is Christ who is the foundation of the relationship that binds us to God and each other.

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Year 8, Day 142: Ephesians 1

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Today we start another equally short book authored by the apostle Paul.  Galatians was a very gritty book, teaching practical theology and making a defense for salvation by grace through Christ alone.  Ephesians is a far loftier book, speaking prolifically about Christ and our gift from God through Him.  Make no mistake, though.  Both books are firmly centered on the significance of Christ.

What has God given to us?  He has given His own Son to us.  Through that gift we gain adoption in His family.  We also gain forgiveness of our sins.  He gives us holiness.  He giver us holiness.  He bestows a new life upon us.

He does more than this, though.  He gives us an inheritance.  He allows us to look ahead in the time to come and anticipate life eternal with Him!  He allows us to be His praise!  He chooses us through whom He works so that people might see Him.  He bestows upon us an incredible future!

He gives still more to us.  How do we know that all of this is true?  We get the Holy Spirit.  God comes and dwells with us.  He seals us.  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our salvation.  With the Holy Spirit within us we can know that God’s promise is not only true, but ours.

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Year 8, Day 141: Galatians 5 & 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As Paul gets ready to end his letter, he continues to hit home with respect to truth.  The first thing that he tells us is that we should be careful to know from where our salvation comes.  If we are saved by grace through Christ, the we are not saved by the Law through our works.  If we think that we are saved through the Law, then Christ has done nothing for us.  Paul isn’t saying that the Law is useless in Christ; he is simply saying that we should be confident that our salvation comes from Him.  Christ saves us, the Law illustrates how much we need Him.

Paul then speaks about love. What does it look like when a person is living in Christ?  We live in the same kind of love with which Christ lived.  A person who follows Christ makes sacrifices for the other.  He forgives the other.  He is patient with the other.  He makes peace with the other.  He helps the other.  He celebrates with the other.  The person who follows Christ looks like Christ is living through him.

People who are living in Christ do not provoke one another.  People who are living in Christ are not envious.  We are not haughty.  We bear one another in love.

In the end, Paul gives us a great perspective.  Circumcision – or not being circumcised – is nothing.  What is something is being a new creation.  It doesn’t matter if we are wine or grape juice for communion people.  It doesn’t matter if we are worship on Sunday or Saturday people.  It doesn’t matter if we are King James or English Standard kind of people.  What matters is that we are a new creation.  What matters is that Christ lives in us and through us.  That is what matters.  That should be our focus.

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Year 8, Day 140: Galatians 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There are multiple levels that we can go with this lesson today.  I think the most readily insightful teaching is the one about law versus gospel.  Paul says it in multiple ways.  Law equates to bondage; gospel equates to freedom.  Law equates to immaturity; gospel equates to maturity.

As I was taking this all in, an analogy about human civilization hit me.  I’ve begun to notice that the more we legislate people’s behaviors, the less they seem to be able to behave in society.  I’m not talking about rebellion, I’m actually talking about decision-making capacity.  The more laws we make, the less we teach people to think.  The more laws we make, the more restricted we allow people’s brains to become.  They grow unaccustomed to making decisions because the law tells them exactly what they cannot do.  Since they become unaccustomed to making decisions, when an opportunity for a decision comes along, they are more apt to make the wrong one.  We don’t want a civilization where people are legislated into right choices because it’s the only choice available to them!  We want a civilization where people grow up to make right choices because they have been taught how to make good decisions and they want to make good decisions.  Righteous people come out of freedom, not legalism!

Here’s another analogy.  It can be amazing to watch someone who has only gone to a specific restaurant suddenly go to a new restaurant.  Take a child that has only ever been to McDonalds and only ever gotten the hamburger kids meal.  You pick them up and put them in a restaurant that has a good, yet normal, selection of food.  In most cases, even though the child could have anything they want, they will want the hamburger – and probably not even want lettuce, onion, or tomato on it.  They will want a bun, some meat, and few condiments.  That’s what legalism does to people!  That’s why Paul wants people to be free in Christ, not bound by the Law.

Another direction that I went as I read today’s verse is that Paul seems to be asking the Galatians why they reverted back to legalism.  Paul wants to know why someone would choose bondage when freedom is available!  Paul wants to know why someone would go into a wonderful restaurant professionally trained chef and voluntarily choose to order the plain burger.  Why do human being so often prefer to be bound than free?

The answer is usually easy to discern: simplicity.  Choice is difficult.  Making good decisions is a hard skill to master.  Learning how to choose what is best instead of what is fun or easy takes maturity.  That’s why legalism doesn’t lead to maturity!  It is far easier to get up and go through the motions every day than to get up and make meaningful decision after meaningful decision.  It’s easier to believe in a religion where there is only one right course of action than it is to believe in a God who offers you a plethora of right decisions and knows that the opportunity for making a plethora of bad decisions also exists!

Why did the Galatians go back to the Law?  Why does the child who only knows hamburgers order a hamburger at every restaurant?  It’s easier.  It’s not a matter of better.  It’s often not even a matter of happier.  It’s a matter of ease.  Human beings are creatures of ease, which is what makes us creatures of habit.

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Year 8, Day 139: Galatians 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Galatians 3 is a powerful chapter to read, especially in moments of judgmental thought.  We are heirs to the promise because of faith, not works.  It is not our perfection that appeals to God, but our heart.  It is not the amount of sin in our life that is paramount; it is whether we are after His own heart.  It is not our great sacrifice than God desires, but rather it is a broken and contrite heart.

When I see people capable of being condemned, I need to remember that I cannot know their heart.  I need to remember that God looked past my condemnation to give me grace.  He doesn’t want me to live under the burden of my condemnation.  He does want me to recognize my sin, but He wants me to live under His righteousness and His grace.

There’s a deeper meaning to the consequences of this passage.  So often we like those who are like us.  Perhaps we only love those who act like we do.  But that’s not what God is teaching us through Paul’s words.  We are heirs by our faith, not our works.  Our spiritual family is not the people who look like us or act like us.  Our spiritual family is made up of all the people who have equally flawed lives as us but whose hearts are inclined towards the same God.  Being God’s heir is an internal state, not an eternal state.

Don’t get me wrong.  Faith without works is dead.  We should see evidence of faith around us.  But we will not see perfection.  We shouldn’t even expect it!  What we see will be people trying to put forth the faith within them.  We will see success; we will see failure.  We will be able to celebrate; we will need to forgive.  The neat part of this is that in this understand we see the mind of God.  We imitate Him.

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Year 8, Day 138: Galatians 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Paul continues to speak to us about his own life.  He has gone before the disciples; they didn’t make him do anything other than what Christ ahs entrusted him to do.  Paul has even challenged Peter’s authority in making people live a certain way because Peter himself doesn’t always follow all of the rules.  Paul’s own ministry speaks to his own love of God and his desire for obedience.  Paul’s point is that he is living the life he preaches.

What is the life he preaches?  Paul is living a life that salvation comes only through Christ.  It isn’t about what I eat.  It isn’t about putting in the right hours.  It isn’t about being seen doing the right things by the right people.  It isn’t about rote repetition of meaningless behaviors.  It is about Christ, His love for us, and His death on the cross.  We are saved by His grace, not by any circumstance of our own life.

What does this reality look like in our life?  Paul tells us matter-of-factly.  We have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.  It’s that simple, really.  Christ died for us so that we can live in relationship with God.  If we truly believe that, why would we spend time pursuing our own selfish desires any longer?

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