Do not grieve for your past sins, but lament, repent, embrace God's lavish mercy and grace, and live in the joy of his forgiveness and righteousness!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Chin Up, Hands Up
Do not grieve for your past sins, but lament, repent, embrace God's lavish mercy and grace, and live in the joy of his forgiveness and righteousness!
Monday, September 26, 2011
God of Purpose, Justice, and Holiness
I didn't write about small group last week, so I'm going to briefly talk about what we discussed these past two weeks:
Last Monday, the Hale small group discussed Luke 5:1-11, the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter and some other fishermen to leave everything and follow him. We noted Peter had several opportunities to deny Jesus, and could easily have been tempted to do so after the very long, rough, frustrating night of working so hard and catching nothing. Peter could have not let him in the boat, not put out into the water two different times, not worshiped Jesus, or not followed him when he called, but something drew him to Jesus. If you are reading this, you've probably experienced this too. Will you follow him and obey him, or not? You may seem like an unlikely person to have God call you to his great purposes, but so were Peter and Andrew--uneducated, unclean, social outcasts with personality flaws. Yet they ended up playing huge roles in God's plan for humanity's salvation.
Tonight, we talked about John 2:12-25, the story of Jesus driving the merchants from the Temple. On the surface, it seems as though Jesus simply objects to the buying and selling of animals in the Temple, yet this is not the case. There was extreme injustice taking place here, as these people were required to come from far off to Jerusalem for the Passover, and by the Temple rules had to buy their sacrificial animals here. What should have been the choicest animals were instead pitiful things, sold for much more than they were worth. Even the doves, the sacrifices of the poorest Jews, were meager and overpriced. Those in charge of the Temple and its rituals were making it an extreme burden on the people--especially the poor--to come and worship God as they were instructed to do! This injustice and greed at least as much as the use of the Temple courts for buying and selling (after all, this buying and selling was mandated by the law) is what drove Jesus to his extreme righteous anger.
The passage says that Jesus was consumed by zeal for the Temple. Do you realize that anyone who has been washed by Jesus blood has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him or her, and is now a Temple to the living God? What passion would your life ignite in Jesus? What unjust, unholy, unloving practices are attitudes reside in you that Jesus would want to drive out? These things affect our ability to properly worship our God. Ask God to bring these things to your mind, and if He does, confess of your sin, repent, and give thanks that God is merciful and just and forgives and cleanses us from our sins. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Last Monday, the Hale small group discussed Luke 5:1-11, the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter and some other fishermen to leave everything and follow him. We noted Peter had several opportunities to deny Jesus, and could easily have been tempted to do so after the very long, rough, frustrating night of working so hard and catching nothing. Peter could have not let him in the boat, not put out into the water two different times, not worshiped Jesus, or not followed him when he called, but something drew him to Jesus. If you are reading this, you've probably experienced this too. Will you follow him and obey him, or not? You may seem like an unlikely person to have God call you to his great purposes, but so were Peter and Andrew--uneducated, unclean, social outcasts with personality flaws. Yet they ended up playing huge roles in God's plan for humanity's salvation.
Tonight, we talked about John 2:12-25, the story of Jesus driving the merchants from the Temple. On the surface, it seems as though Jesus simply objects to the buying and selling of animals in the Temple, yet this is not the case. There was extreme injustice taking place here, as these people were required to come from far off to Jerusalem for the Passover, and by the Temple rules had to buy their sacrificial animals here. What should have been the choicest animals were instead pitiful things, sold for much more than they were worth. Even the doves, the sacrifices of the poorest Jews, were meager and overpriced. Those in charge of the Temple and its rituals were making it an extreme burden on the people--especially the poor--to come and worship God as they were instructed to do! This injustice and greed at least as much as the use of the Temple courts for buying and selling (after all, this buying and selling was mandated by the law) is what drove Jesus to his extreme righteous anger.
The passage says that Jesus was consumed by zeal for the Temple. Do you realize that anyone who has been washed by Jesus blood has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him or her, and is now a Temple to the living God? What passion would your life ignite in Jesus? What unjust, unholy, unloving practices are attitudes reside in you that Jesus would want to drive out? These things affect our ability to properly worship our God. Ask God to bring these things to your mind, and if He does, confess of your sin, repent, and give thanks that God is merciful and just and forgives and cleanses us from our sins. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Proximity
We just read Luke 2:41-52 as a small group in my dorm--the first real Bible study we've done this semester, and I felt like throwing down a few main points that we covered about the story of Jesus in Jerusalem as a boy. Before you read any further, I encourage you to read the passage for yourself and see what you can glean from God's word:
We thought it was really cool how Jesus seemed to just yearn for the presence of His Father. He'd already been in Jerusalem 8 days (the duration of the Passover celebration), and yet He seemed perfectly content to stay there (for three days or longer), questioning and answering the learned men, even after His parents had left. Talk about devotion to God and His call on Jesus' life! It reminds me of the passage in John where Jesus says that His "food is to do the will of the one who sent him" or something to that effect.
One question that was asked was this: "How could Jesus' parents have possibly lost him for so long? What kind of parents were they?" Notice though that the passage says they were traveling with friends and family, and culturally, they probably would have been traveling with men and women separate. So it's easy to understand how they (Mary and Joseph) could each have assumed that Jesus was with the other.
When they come back to Jerusalem then, frantic to find Him, they see Him discussing deep things with the scholars, amazing them with His understanding. This shows that He truly was extraordinary--like no Jewish boy who came before Him. But also that He was limited in his knowledge like any other human. He was learning and growing from the teachers of Israel. This is key to understanding how Jesus could be both man and God. Though He was God, He appears to have chosen to limit Himself to the point of being human, so that He could sympathize with us in our struggles and temptations and sufferings. What a wonderful, sympathetic God!
We noted as well that Jesus demonstrates great humility and obedience, both in coming with His parents, in respecting the teachers and His parents, and in returning to Nazareth with them when they left. Because Christians are called to become more Christ-like, seeing Jesus demonstrate humility and obedience should set off in us a desire to be more obedient and humble, like Him.
Another passage that we related this to is Acts 17:24-28, which talks about the God of the universe, Lord of heaven and earth, who ordains our days and gives us our life and breath; it says that He is very near to us, just waiting in eager anticipation for us to draw near to Him. This is the call that Jesus seems to have been responding to in the passage in Luke. Think for yourself for a moment--what is your proximity to God the Father? Is He pleading with you to spend your best time with Him? Is He pleading with you to share your life and plans with Him? Your heart and soul? The passage in Acts goes on to tell us about what God did to restore us to Himself: He came to earth and died in our places of His own pleasure and will, and then rose again to give us life through His victory over the grave. How will you respond to this radical call on your life?
We thought it was really cool how Jesus seemed to just yearn for the presence of His Father. He'd already been in Jerusalem 8 days (the duration of the Passover celebration), and yet He seemed perfectly content to stay there (for three days or longer), questioning and answering the learned men, even after His parents had left. Talk about devotion to God and His call on Jesus' life! It reminds me of the passage in John where Jesus says that His "food is to do the will of the one who sent him" or something to that effect.
One question that was asked was this: "How could Jesus' parents have possibly lost him for so long? What kind of parents were they?" Notice though that the passage says they were traveling with friends and family, and culturally, they probably would have been traveling with men and women separate. So it's easy to understand how they (Mary and Joseph) could each have assumed that Jesus was with the other.
When they come back to Jerusalem then, frantic to find Him, they see Him discussing deep things with the scholars, amazing them with His understanding. This shows that He truly was extraordinary--like no Jewish boy who came before Him. But also that He was limited in his knowledge like any other human. He was learning and growing from the teachers of Israel. This is key to understanding how Jesus could be both man and God. Though He was God, He appears to have chosen to limit Himself to the point of being human, so that He could sympathize with us in our struggles and temptations and sufferings. What a wonderful, sympathetic God!
We noted as well that Jesus demonstrates great humility and obedience, both in coming with His parents, in respecting the teachers and His parents, and in returning to Nazareth with them when they left. Because Christians are called to become more Christ-like, seeing Jesus demonstrate humility and obedience should set off in us a desire to be more obedient and humble, like Him.
Another passage that we related this to is Acts 17:24-28, which talks about the God of the universe, Lord of heaven and earth, who ordains our days and gives us our life and breath; it says that He is very near to us, just waiting in eager anticipation for us to draw near to Him. This is the call that Jesus seems to have been responding to in the passage in Luke. Think for yourself for a moment--what is your proximity to God the Father? Is He pleading with you to spend your best time with Him? Is He pleading with you to share your life and plans with Him? Your heart and soul? The passage in Acts goes on to tell us about what God did to restore us to Himself: He came to earth and died in our places of His own pleasure and will, and then rose again to give us life through His victory over the grave. How will you respond to this radical call on your life?
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