Month: April 2023

Another Proverb that follows along the same vein is Proverbs 23:13-14, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with a rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.” Neither one of these Proverbs advocate child abuse of any kind, but both endorse starting a child’s life out well by using chastisement & instruction in order to change behavior. For it’s when we allow ourselves to enable our children rather than correct them that we will bear the guilt from the consequences of their unwise decisions.

The tomb is empty and therefore…

We have hope. (Romans 8: 38-39) We can trust. (Romans 15:13) We don’t have to possess an anxious heart anymore. (Philippians 4:6-7) We can face any challenge. (Isaiah 46:4) We can be encouraged. (II Thessalonians 2:16-17) We can have eternal life. (I Peter 1:3) We have forgiveness of sins. (Ephesians 1:7) We have peace. (John 14:27)

Simon Peter had nobly pledged his undying devotion to Jesus… only to break it not once, not twice, but three times. And in Luke 22:60-62 it tells us that when Peter had denied the Lord the third time, Jesus turned and looked straight at him…and the startling realization of what he had actually done caused Peter to go outside & weep bitterly. One of Don Francisco’s songs entitled, “He’s Alive” spells out the hopeless sorrow, guilt & anguish Peter experienced as he relived those grand but pompous promises he had made to Jesus, only to be shamed in the end by his self-serving actions. But if we think about it…we are all like Simon Peter. We all make promises to God that we break that only compound our regret. We all make grandiose declarations of faithfulness, only to fall away in times of crisis. And we all pledge our devotion, love & dedication to the Lord… only to forget we even made them. But the Lord’s mercy & grace is ever present…His faithfulness always evident… even when we disown Him… for He will never forsake or disown us.

Jesus was well acquainted with affliction… and today, Good Friday, as we ponder the agony, pain, & torment He endured on our behalf on the Cross, let’s consider affliction in our own lives. Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “The Lord’s mercy often rides to the door of our hearts on the black horse of affliction. Jesus uses the whole range of our experiences to wean us from earth & woo us to Heaven.” No one is immune from the crushing difficulties & hardships of life, and we see this in Isaiah 48:10, as it reveals how God tests us in the furnace of affliction in order to refine us. But we must also remember that the One Who endured all affliction for us is now sitting at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf. Thus by His merciful kindness we can lift our eyes above our current suffering & affliction to see eternity…or as Paul wrote in II Corinthians 4:17, “For our light & momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

Foot washing was a common part of hospitality & courtesy normally given all guests as they entered your home. The unseemly chore given to the lowest ranking member of the household…in an desert environment where everybody’s feet were dusty & dirty. So here we see the Twelve disciples & Jesus in the upper room with apparently no servants to carry out the task of the pre-meal foot washing. But what we also see is that none of the Twelve offered to take it upon themselves to do it…thus they all started eating with dirty feet…including Jesus. Did Jesus wait until the meal started to see if one of the disciples would man-up and serve his friends by washing their feet…not to mention washing the feet of the Master? I can almost hear Jesus sigh deeply as He got up from the table…the Creator humbling Himself before His creation in the great act of humility, respect, compassion, honor, & selfless love. His example demonstrating that rank & privilege doesn’t give us the right to be arrogant & self-important. Or as Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3, ” Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

Jesus knew that the time of His destiny was at hand, and so sought one last intimate meal & time of fellowship with His disciples. He chose this upper room where He could share those most precious moments with His closest followers & friends…the twelve Apostles. Now an upper room in Jesus’ time was more of a family room, an open air space on the roof where family & friends would gather at the end of a long day to reconnect, share stories, and sip tea…and was considered a very important part of the social fabric. So today I would pose to you this question…Do you have an upper room? A place to encounter Christ, but more importantly, where Christ encounters you. For it’s in this upper room where Jesus can fill & equip… where we can share true intimacy with our Savior…and where we can go at the end of a long day to fellowship with our Master. We all need to have an upper room…but remember this, an upper room isn’t about the place but about the Presence.

Judas…his infamous name often used synonymously with betrayal & treason. He was the only non-Galilean among the twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus. His name Judas, the Greek form of the Hebrew “Judah” – was indeed an honorable Jewish name for centuries. Judas of Iscariot held such hope & promise…not only by being selected by Jesus as one of the Inner Circle, but then elected by his fellow disciples to handle the funds from the common purse. But no one knows for certain why Judas changed…sinking into the depths of greed, deceit, & betrayal. It wasn’t that Jesus treated him differently…in Matthew 10:1-4 we see Jesus calling the Twelve to Him and giving them all authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease & affliction. And even to the end, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus called Judas “friend”.

The religious officials had been scheming for a while on how they might murder Jesus…but the last straw came when they heard He had raised Lazarus from the dead. The chief priest, Caiaphas, was an especially strong opponent of Jesus & His Message and had no regard for justice or truth when it came to getting rid of Him. That’s because Jesus’ teaching in the Temple Courts infringed on Caiaphas’s self-proclaimed title of “Keeper of all things” on the Law and the Prophets, and this encroachment on his authority infuriated him. So whatever form of trickery or deceit it was going to take in order to kill Jesus, Caiaphas was ready to make it happen.

Are we being pushed out of the Presence of God by distractions? It could be seemingly harmless amusements & diversions that take up a large quantity of our time…there by not allowing us to get into the Bible or pray daily. Other distractions could be perplexing events in our life that have us looking everywhere for answers but where we should…namely asking God for His perspective & clarity. Finally, distraction can come in the form of preoccupation with the superficial glamour & glitz of the world…and thus losing our attention to the eternal things of God. In Luke, we see Jesus coming to Mary & Martha’s house for a meal. Mary chose to sit at the feet of Jesus & listen while Martha was distracted & caught up in all the busy work. Mary stayed true to her priorities…while Martha’s got diverted by distractions.

Charles Spurgeon once posed this question to his Congregation, “If Jesus hadn’t shed tears, would He be able to wipe away ours?” We seem to forget that Jesus was fully man & fully God…that He was living in a mortal body & thus was capable of suffering in all respects as we do. Jesus was weeping out of compassion & empathy for the people He loved…something that’s happened to all of us one time or another. And we can take comfort in Revelation 21:4 when it says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.” That’s because, in the Presence of God’s glory, no tears can fall…and in the sufficiency of His grace, peace is found.