After Jesus rose from the dead, there were two tasks He needed to do prior to ascending, besides just appearing and encouraging the believers: Peter, and then final instructions. Why Peter? Peter disowned even knowing Jesus three times. The night Jesus was betrayed, the very night Peter said he would go to prison and die for Jesus, Peter denied even knowing Jesus or being associated with Him. And Jesus was not going to sweep that under the rug.
So, during one of His appearances, Jesus gives Peter another miraculous catch of fish, mirroring the moment the two met, and then gets some one-on-one time with Peter. Three times, Jesus asks: “Do you love me?” And Peter says yes each time. Then Jesus tells Peter to take care of His sheep. Peter didn’t realize what was happening until the third time and renewed his vow to go wherever Jesus went. And Jesus then told him how he would die: by execution, and Peter would be crucified. Yet to show his love for his Savior, he asked to be crucified upside down, a more painful death, lest he not die the same way Jesus did. Then Peter looked at John and asked about him. Jesus basically said it was none of Peter’s business, and John never died a martyr’s death. But not because the Romans didn’t try. He was thrown into a pot of boiling oil and came out unscathed. That is why he was exiled to Patmos.
Then Jesus gathered His disciples to the Mount of Olives for one final set of instructions, and they were simple. First, they were to wait in Jerusalem until they were imbued with power, and then to go make disciples starting in Jerusalem and to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Remember, they were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit yet. Yet when this happened and the disciples were empowered to carry on Jesus’ mission by the Holy Spirit, the religious centers and forces of darkness, who were reeling from Jesus alone, now had a much bigger problem. The very power and authority Jesus had was now with the disciples.
Jesus is in the business of restoration. Peter and Judas are often compared because both betrayed Jesus. The difference is that Peter was grieved that he had betrayed his master, but Judas just felt guilty that he had done a bad thing. Judas would attempt to make semi-amends by returning the blood money he got for giving Jesus to the Pharisees, but they just laughed it off. Judas not only betrayed Jesus, but he got played in doing so. And so Judas went and hung himself, but the tree couldn’t hold his weight, and when his body fell, it burst open. Peter, however, had a spirit like David, who sinned against God, but the weight of it grieved him because he lost his relationship with his God. Peter was similar. He sinned against Jesus, not defiantly, but due to his fear of man. And keep in mind that Peter was a BIG man. He was burly and very strong, not just because of his fisherman trade. And yet he became the biggest baby, cowering before a weak slave girl.
This is what happens when men rely on their own strength. Physical prowess means nothing to the weak spirit. But despite all this, Jesus restored Peter. Now, would Jesus have restored Judas? As Jesus only did what the Father said to do and had marked Judas as a devil from the start, I wonder if Jesus would have forgiven Judas. He forgave all those who crucified Him, knowing they knew not what they did. But would He have forgiven Judas? The empathy part of me says, yes, but the analytical part of me says no. Why? If God rejected King Saul for something far less, why would He spare Judas, when Jesus even said it would be better for him not even to be born? In all cases, Judas never gave it a chance and killed himself before it could have been done.
Then, after Jesus ascended, the disciples went to Jerusalem and met in the upper room, possibly the same upper room where they had the Last Supper. They prayed for ten days, chose Matthias to replace Judas, and then Pentecost happened. Peter the coward suddenly turned into Peter the bold preacher and proclaimed the name of Jesus, showcasing how the languages being heard were the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. When Peter told the crowd that they had crucified the very Savior they had been waiting for, the crowd spoke up and asked, “What must we do?” And Peter said, “Repent and be baptized,” and 3000 were added to their number that day.
From that time forward, the disciples became the Apostles, and the church spread like wildfire. The world was never the same again. The Sanhedrin tried to stop them, but imprisonment and the Jewish beatings only encouraged them further. The Romans really didn’t care, but then it got worse when Paul was converted, and the entire Roman Empire and the known world were completely turned upside down. The world would never be the same again. God had come to the world, and as the Church obeyed its command to make disciples, everything as previously known would cease to exist. Bars would shut down, the occult businesses would be shut down, and instead in places where there we no schools or hospitals, now these would be built. Take notice that no group in the world has ever built schools or hospitals for the general population, when Christians did not do it first. And any school and hospital that is not run with the Christian mindset or at least a Judeo-Christian ethic tends not to be the best places to be. And this was all able to happen because Jesus left us. Next week, we’ll look at the last thing Jesus did on earth: His ascension.
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Matthew 18 has been a very difficult passage for many people to properly break down, and that difficulty stems from treating the “headers” as different topics and events. Matthew 18 is the famous, or infamous, passage regarding church discipline followed by the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. This chapter has some of the most misquoted passages in the Bible as well.
Matthew 18 explains how to deal with a brother who sins against you. This is regarding personal sin, one-on-one. This is not dealing with false teachings. This is about church conflict between members. Slander, gossip, rudeness, jealousy, and the list goes on. I am also not talking about being nosy; it is not our job to go around seeking to correct everyone in their sins, especially when we have our own to deal with. However, when someone sins against you, the first step is to go to that person and confront them. If they refuse to listen, then take a couple of witnesses who have seen the same behavior. If they still don’t listen, then go to the church, namely some church elders, who have seen the same behavior and confront the person with them. If they still refuse to listen, then they should not be welcome in the fellowship.
However, a very key part of this is the goal of restoration. Restoration is never to be granted without clear repentance. While one may forgive, one is not to restore until that sin is dealt with. It may not be perfect, but a mere “I am sorry, I got caught” is not going to cut it. There must be clear evidence of seeking to deal with that sin. And in that process of dealing with sin and dealing with restoration or removing from the congregation, we have this statement of “if two or three are gathered in my name, what you loose will be loosed and what is bound will be bound.” That passage is not talking about a church gathering. It is talking about the restoration or removal of a congregant who was in sin. It is not talking about getting two or three people to “bind Satan” or proclaim whatever thing comes to the mind to be set loose. No, it’s talking about dealing with sin in the church, confronting it, and seeing the sinner restored. It is also worth noting that if it gets to the point of removing someone from fellowship, and in some cases that needs to be done immediately, and the earlier steps need to be skipped, that person is not to be treated as a total outcast but as the mission field. If someone is that steeped in sin, chances are very high that he is not a believer and has not been born again. The issue is not if they have believed in Christ or not; the issue is if they have bent the knee to Christ or not. This was actually put into practice in the Corinthian church. Paul told the congregation to boot out a sexually immoral man, but after he repented, to restore him to the fellowship.
Then Peter asks how many times he must forgive before he can say “enough,” and Jesus says, “seventy times seven,” meaning more than you can count and keep forgiving. He then gives a parable of a servant with a truly unpayable debt to a master. The servant begged for mercy, and the master forgave the massive debt, but then this same servant refused to give the tiny trifles of a debt that he was owed. So the master put the massive debt back on that first servant. Jesus gave this parable to show that any of the sins we do against each other is next to nothing compared to the sins we have done against our Father in heaven. If God is able to forgive our massive rebellion against Him, why should we be so hard to forgive those who commit the tiniest offenses against us?
Now, a debate often arises whether one must repent before one can be forgiven. Some have argued that you can forgive in the context of surrendering the desire to see a wrong made right to the Lord to deal with and not hold a grudge. I have often presented that picture. But this does not allow for restoration until repentance is found. Others have argued that you cannot forgive until repentance is found, and one has to be careful with this position to not use that as an excuse to hold grudges. I am not going to try to solve that one here. I will say that there must be repentance and forgiveness together for restoration to be had.
If that sin is done by one in a position of authority, then there is another issue to deal with because the sinner didn’t merely sin against the person and against God, but they also violated the position of authority they held. And when I have seen proper church discipline done, when someone is restored after violating the position, they cannot hold that position again. They can be restored to ministry, but it must be a different ministry, and, more often than not, it is a ministry that will specifically help people deal with that very sin.
Jesus makes a point in these teachings that our sin against each other is very small and tiny compared to our sin against God. David understood this. He committed terrible sins against Bathsheba, betraying one of his Mighty Men, one of his closest friends from his time of training on the run from Saul, and then having him murdered to cover for it. But David realized his sin against them was small in comparison to the real sin he had committed against God, by despising the Law of God, which he had repeatedly sung about and loved. If he had not sinned against God, he never would have sinned against Bathsheba or Uriah. David was restored because he repented, and while God let him keep the throne, it was not without consequence. David had violence in his house for the rest of his reign. David only got to keep the throne because of God’s promise to keep him on the throne.
Conflict will inevitably occur when people and relationships are involved, so follow what Jesus modeled as you deal with forgiveness and restoration when the need arises.
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Today is the day we celebrate and recognize the death of Jesus as He went to the cross to pay for the penalty for sin. The crown of thorns is a part of the story that most people think was just part of the crucifixion process and how Roman soldiers mocked the claim that Jesus would be a king. However, there is much more to this crown than we realize, and it goes straight back to Genesis. When I gave the closing keynote to the El Paso Creation Conference’s first conference in 2021, this was one of my key points and the audience said it was the point that resonated with them the most. Of the many times when God has shown me something in Scripture, this one brought me to a place of worship more than most others. Jesus wore a crown of thorns.
To see the significance of the crown of thorns requires returning to Genesis. God created a perfect world – a world without disease, decay, death, or corruption. While things like erosion and digestion would take place, there was no curse upon the creation. No groaning, earthquakes, tornadoes, predation, or anything of the sort. That is, until Adam sinned. When Adam sinned, the curse that was directly attributed to him was a cursed creation. The ground would produce thorns and thistles, and Adam would have to spend more energy getting his food than the energy the food would give back to him. As a result, Adam’s body would age and after 930 years he would die. But I want to emphasize the thorns.
Thorns did not exist prior to sin. Roses, Palo Verde trees, and cacti would not have had thorns on them, nor would actual thorn bushes and such. So God either cursed plants and changed their DNA to produce thorns, or He created plants that would be such things. This would be an exception to the “creation was complete” statement in Genesis 1:31-2:3. How it happened is irrelevant for this discussion. Before sin, no thorns; after sin, thorns. Thorns and thistles were a physical and perpetual reminder of the curse of sin.
Thorns show up several places in Scripture. One notable case is when Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham brought no sacrifice because it was going to be Isaac. Abraham bound up his son, the son of promise, believing God would raise him from the dead, and at the moment his hand came down, God stopped him. There to the side a goat was caught in a thorn bush, and that goat became the sacrifice. The substitute for Isaac was caught in the physical symbol of sin.
Thorns are an annoyance and are used in many places to describe people and nations to Israel who would continually harass them. Because Israel did not drive out all the nations from the land that was to be theirs, those nations would be perpetual thorns, leading them into sin and causing countless trouble for them. Paul continued this analogy to describe his “thorn in the flesh.” We don’t know what Paul was battling, but it was a perpetual annoyance that kept him humble.
Thorns keep coming back. They are weeds that never go away. When you think you have pulled them, they keep coming back. They require a high level of maintenance and give you no benefit whatsoever. This is why Adam would die by the sweat of his brow. In order to get his food, he would have to waste energy dealing with these thorns, and if he didn’t deal with them, the thorns would overtake his crops and choke them out. Jesus used this image in the Parable of the Sower. Soil that has weeds in it will not produce good food, because much of the nutrients will go to the weeds instead of the good food. And why would there be thorns and weeds in the field? Because the manager of that field isn’t taking care of it, letting the world have its way on that ground and person.
Then we get to Jesus. The Romans put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head to mock Him for His proclamation to be a king. While we think this may be just a trifling extra detail that goes into the crucifixion, understand that every single part of what Jesus went through that day had a point and a purpose beyond merely fulfilling prophecy. Jesus wore a crown made from thorns, the physical image of the curse of sin. Jesus literally wore sin to that cross and died as the “king of sin,” if you could call it that. He became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.
But Jesus’ crown also shows something else: man’s rejection of Jesus’ kingship. The Jews and the Romans rejected Jesus as the King. They knew He was the King, but they rejected Him, so they gave Him a crown of thorns to mock His claim to be the King and the Savior. Sinful man will not bow his knee to Christ, even if it is the most logical thing to do. Sin is the utter hatred, defiance, and treason against God, and sinful man will not accept God to rule over them. The Jews and the Gentiles both rejected Christ. They rejected His kingdom, and they rejected His commands. Yet He still rules today, calling for all to repent of their treason and their rebellion against God before He comes back to crush all those who remain in rebellion. His terms of peace are His terms of peace, and there is no alternative. We have no say, and we cannot negotiate. We can only accept or reject – all or none.
While we are still in our sin, we are thorny people. We’ll try to marginalize it and say we have some rough spots around the edges, but our sins still poke and skewer us, and it’s not fun. People don’t want to touch roses because of the thorns. Jumping cactus is extremely annoying because if you get near it, it shoots it thorns at you. We can all be like jumping cacti if someone hits that button of ours. That’s why we need to submit to Christ, who wore the crown of thorns. When He died, the thorns on us died as well. We need to die daily to self so those thorns don’t grow and so we can be handled gently and not ‘poke back.’
If we are in Christ, when He died, we died with Him; but when He was raised, so we too shall be raised. When Jesus was raised from the dead, He no longer wore the crown of thorns but was instead given the crown above all crowns. Jesus is not just King of the Jews, but the King of all Kings. And if we are in Christ, we too will no longer bear thorns but the righteousness of God. As we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ this weekend, let us honor and remember what Jesus did that day and submit to His rule and His Kingship.
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“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are —yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” -Hebrews 4:14-16
Because the word of God is what it is as discussed last week in Hebrews 4:12-13, the author now moves to discussing Jesus as our high priest, which we’ll look at for the next few weeks. This is one of the primary themes of the book of Hebrews, and it’s the only book in the Bible that addresses this specific topic.
But first, since this is a topic many of us today don’t think about regularly, what exactly is a high priest? The first person appointed as the high priest was Moses’ brother Aaron (see Exodus 29). The high priest wore certain clothing, and he was the only person permitted into the Holy of Holies in the temple (where the presence of God dwelt), which would only happen once a year on the Day of Atonement. On that day, the high priest would wear all of his priestly garments when entering the temple, then in secret he’d take most of them off until he only wore a simple linen garment. He would enter the Holy of Holies alone, make expiation (reparation, making amends) for the sins of the people, sprinkle the blood of the sin offering on the mercy seat, and offer incense. When done, he would put his priestly garments back on and go back out in front of the people (Leviticus 16). Other than that one special day of the year, the high priest would serve in the same temple duties as the other priests.
To summarize this, in the culture of the people of Israel, the Day of Atonement was the one day each year when their sins would be forgiven. It was the work of the high priest to make this happen according to the instructions God had given.
Hebrews 4:14 specifically calls out Jesus as our great high priest. The title of “great” singles Jesus out as being greater and superior to all of the high priests that the nation of Israel had for generations. Jesus was not just an earthly priest, but He had ascended into heaven as well, again noting Him as superior to the other high priests who had lived.
It is because of this role that Jesus holds that we can “hold firmly to the faith we profess.” We can have confidence in our faith because of who Jesus is and the work that He has done. Remember how the regular high priests had to perform their work every year on the Day of Atonement? Jesus is greater than those high priests because His work only needed to be performed ONCE. Period. The high priest’s work would remove the sins from the nation of Israel for the past year. Jesus’ work on the cross removed the sins from all people, everywhere, past, present, and future – forever! This work is so much greater than what the high priests did each year, and because of that, we should hold firmly to our faith in Jesus.
Verse 15 tells us more about Jesus and why He can be given this title of the great high priest. He was tempted to sin in every way, just like we are all the time. All of the high priests of the nation of Israel were also tempted to sin, too. The difference is that Jesus did not sin – not even once, ever! He can relate to us and empathize with our weaknesses, but He also lived the perfect life that was required so that His sacrifice would be worthy to forgive the sins of all people. He entered into our sinful weakness, yet He remained without sin. It’s easy to think that Jesus living a perfect life was easy for Him since He is God, but the author of Hebrews makes it clear that wasn’t the case. Jesus was still tempted in every way, just as we are, but He resisted each and every one of those temptations. His sinlessness was hard-earned.
So what does the sinless life of Jesus mean for us? Verse 16 tells us: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Earlier in Israel’s history, only the high priest could enter the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, and even then, only once a year. But because of the work of Jesus the great high priest, we can approach God with confidence! God has extended His grace to us because of the work that Jesus did. Jesus’ life and death paid the penalty for our sins, so that we are now able to approach God with confidence.
While we may feel unworthy to approach the Almighty God of the universe, we must remember that He does not see our sinfulness when we approach Him; rather, He sees Jesus’ perfect life. We know that we need God’s mercy and grace, because by ourselves and in our sinfulness, we are not worthy to be anywhere near Him. But because of Jesus the great high priest, we may approach God whenever we find ourselves in a time of need, and His grace and mercy will always cover us.
Jesus was fully successful in His work as the great high priest, and then He approached God’s throne in heaven so that we, too, may have the opportunity once we put our faith in Him. Hold fast to that faith and approach God with confidence, thanking and praising Him for the work of Jesus, the great high priest!
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Last week, I looked at Old Testament examples of men who sinned and how God handled them in the restoration process. One thing we see is that restoration never takes place unless there is brokenness and repentance. Every time someone sinned, when we see them restored, we see that person go through a period where they truly experienced the conviction of the Holy Spirit and came before God as a broken, shattered vessel, pleading for mercy. If a person refuses this, then we do not see restoration taking place. But let’s take a deeper look into what is actually happening in this process. Last week, I asked you to read Jeremiah 1:10. This is also repeated in Jeremiah 18:7 and Jeremiah 31:28.
Today I am going to focus on this pattern given of four steps of destruction and two steps of starting over. The four steps of destruction are 1) root out/pluck up, 2) pull down/break down, 3) destroy, 4) throw down. Then the two steps to restoration are 1) build and 2) plant. Each of these four steps of breaking down and destruction have their own nuances; partly for time’s sake and for purpose’s sake, I won’t be able to go into that. I can say that Hebrew and general Eastern ideas use multiple images and terms and ideas to speak about the same central message. So, in a nutshell, we see “complete total destruction” of the former, and “starting over” with the latter. Last week, I shared how before restoration can take place with an individual, that person needs to be broken and repentant. The Jeremiah passages are more specific towards a nation, but it applies to individuals as well.
So, before God can restore someone, there must be brokenness. Voddie Baucham has a powerful sermon about brokenness, primarily over Psalm 51. He says if life is a highway and we are going the wrong direction in sin, getting off that highway is repentance, and brokenness is the off-ramp. If you go through a rooting out, a pulling down, a destruction, and are thrown down, “brokenness” would be an apt one-word summary of that. Another thing Baucham addresses in this sermon is how our culture despises the notion of brokenness. It doesn’t matter whether it’s theology or psychology or medicine. The avoidance of pain at any cost is our #1 goal in our culture. How do I know that? Look at how easily we were duped into shutting down our lives for a small virus. News flash. Pain is part of life. Sickness is part of life. Diseases are part of life. You know they are there. Move on. But it is through pain that we learn to do or not do things. How do we know fire is hot? We’ve felt the flames. Likewise, brokenness is the spiritual state when we realize we have sinned against God and have reaped the consequences for it.
The nation of Judah had lived in habitual sin. Ezekiel 23 depicts Samaria and Jerusalem, the capitals of the Northern and Southern kingdoms respectively, as two harlots. Samaria was bad enough as is, but Jerusalem out sinned Samaria. Both out sinned Sodom and Gomorrah, which God reduced to mere ashes. Jeremiah’s message was that God was going to completely level Judah. To save the Jews and maintain the line for the Messiah, he would send the Jews into captivity in Babylon while he cleansed the land from all the corruption done to it. God would root out all seeds of idolatry. He would pull down all traditions and thoughts that were not in agreement to God’s commands. He would destroy the idols and throw down every thought and idea that would come against Him.
When I read through Jeremiah, I kept seeing the United States, not in a replacement or theological context, but in a historical context. As I read what Judah was doing and I see what we are doing and what is happening, I see doom and destruction not merely coming but having just arrived. I do not believe God is warning us any longer about the spanking that will come if we continue down our path. I believe God is currently taking us down the path to go behind the woodshed where He will spank us. There is no turning back now; the spanking is going to happen.
But the brokenness is just one step in the process. We have a choice to make: to submit to the discipline or to defy it. There are many people who hit rock bottom and found Christ because they had nowhere else to go. But there are many others who hit rock bottom and shook their fist at God anyway. Jeremiah 42-43 gives a clear picture of this. I’ll have a separate post on that issue. We need to see our need before God and come to Him, broken and humble. Think of the woman caught in adultery or the Roman jailer in Philippi. Both came broken and seeing their need for salvation.
When we reach this point, and only when we reach this point, can God begin the restoration process. He will build and plant. It may take a while to see fruit and results. In order for God to be able to restore us, He must completely break us. He has to strip us down to the foundation, and then He can begin the process to bring us back. However, there are many false teachers who call for restoration without brokenness or repentance. You can’t have one without the other. A clear example of why that’s true is with David and Absalom. Absalom murdered his brother for raping his sister and sent himself into exile because David didn’t do anything about it. Then later, David made the grievous error of welcoming Absalom back without testing to see if Absalom had any repentance. David was wrong in how he handled Absalom, but Absalom was unrepentant and restored anyway. As a result, Absalom threw a coup and nearly succeeded. This is why God does not restore anyone until they’ve been broken. This is also why it is very dangerous to try to restore your image if it falls on your own strength. If your name falls into ill repute, then let God be the one to restore it. If that means you remain in anonymity, then so be it.
God will be the one to raise us up, and He will keep us there or put us down if He must. Our priority should be to be obedient to Christ and receive His discipline when it is called for. He may break us, crush us, smash us, or grind us to powder, but after He does that, He will bring us back and rebuild us, not only fully restored, but in even better condition than before. If you are not experiencing the discipline of Christ, that means you very likely are not saved. God does not discipline those who aren’t His. But He does judge them. Being broken does not necessarily mean you are saved. Only being restored indicates you are saved. Examine yourself to see where you stand.
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Today’s phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, “But deliver us from the evil one,” is the continuation of the sentence that we looked at last week in Matthew 6:13: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
The conjunction (“but”) at the start of this phrase implies that it’s the opposite of the previous one. Instead of leading us into temptation, we pray for God to deliver us from the evil one. But what exactly does that mean?
The verb used here for “deliver” could mean to spare from, save from, preserve against, protect against, rescue from, or deliver out of. All of those have the same general idea; rescue us from something where we cannot rescue ourselves. The specific meaning here somewhat depends on how we interpret the previous phrase; see last week’s post for more on that.
The next important phrase here is “the evil one.” While the Greek noun here is not specifically the name of Satan, it is clear that this is who is meant if this word refers to a person. There are multiple other occasions in the New Testament where this same word clearly has the context of referring to Satan specifically. Many English translations also simply leave it as “evil” rather than “the evil one.” The Greek isn’t clear on that, as the same form of the word could either mean a person (the evil one) or a thing (evil in a generic sense). Either way, we need to be delivered from evil or the evil one; we cannot do it ourselves.
We as humans don’t like to consider ourselves as helpless, but that’s exactly what we’re implying in this phrase. If we could save ourselves from the evil one, why would we need to ask the Lord to do it for us? Without God’s power working in us, we as humans are powerless to deliver ourselves from the evil one. We are powerless to resist the temptations of evil. We are selfish human beings and we want the pleasure that comes with sin, the way of the evil one. After all, if sin weren’t enjoyable, we wouldn’t do it!
But does God really have the power to deliver us from the evil one? Remember, this prayer is ultimately addressed to “Our Father in heaven,” so that’s who we’re asking for this deliverance. For evidence of that, read about when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11. Jesus was fully human, just like us, so He truly felt the devil’s temptations. But Jesus turned to the Word of God and the power of His Father to be able to resist the devil. Jesus needed the Word of God to deliver Him from the evil one.
We, too, have this same power available to us! We have the whole Bible to use to resist the temptations of the evil one. We can’t do it on our own; we need Jesus (the Word) to deliver us from the evil one through His power. Without this power of God, we are powerless against the evil one.
Needing God’s deliverance is definitely not a new concept in the Bible. We see that need as early as Genesis 3, right after the first humans disobeyed God. While Adam and Eve may not have specifically acknowledged that need, God was already making a plan for their deliverance (and the deliverance of all humanity) through the person and work of Jesus. Every human who has ever lived since then had needed God’s deliverance. We have all sinned and disobeyed God. We cannot rescue ourselves, because we know that the penalty for our sin is death, and a dead person cannot raise themselves.
But by God’s grace, He gives us the opportunity for salvation, for deliverance! Remember Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We should be amazingly thankful that Jesus was and is God’s plan to deliver us from the ultimate evil, the death penalty that we deserve for disobeying God. It is because of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection that we may have life instead of the death we deserve, and we may be delivered from evil.
When you pray “deliver us from the evil one,” remember who it is that is doing the delivering - it’s God, not us! We can’t deliver ourselves even from temptation, must less from the penalty after committing sin. Be thankful today that we can pray this prayer, knowing that God’s power is available to deliver us from any evil that may come in our lives.
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Those who have been following me the past few months have heard that I believe the U.S. has entered a state of judgment. I don’t believe it is coming anymore; I believe it is here, with only a matter of time for it be carried out. Yet, for the Christian there is hope. We need to share that hope. We will go through a time of fierce persecution. It will cleanse and purify us, but in that there will be a restoration process. Many people want revival and for us to get back to where we once were. Unfortunately, in order for that to be possible, we have to first go through trouble. This is God’s pattern.
Our sin is ultimate against God, first and foremost. That sin breaks our relationship with God. It doesn’t damage it. It doesn’t hinder it. It doesn’t merely “block our blessings from God.” It cuts us off from God. Despite that, God seeks to save us and to restore us. But He has a process for how He does this. Today and next week, I’ll look at this process.
It is critical to know the character of God and the nature of sin before I can move on here. God is a righteous God, a holy God, a just God. Sin is an utter defiance against God. God cannot dwell in the presence of sin. Not because sin is so powerful that it repels God like kryptonite. Rather, it is God being merciful and not destroying that sin on the spot. When we have sin in our lives, in order to let us live any longer, God has to withdraw Himself or He will crush us in His holiness and purity. So what has to happen for peace to be made?
The simple answer is the cross. Jesus died on the cross to take the penalty for sin. How was David able to get back in right standing with God after his sin with Bathsheba? Most people answer: because Jesus would take the penalty on the cross and David had put his trust on the coming Savior. But there is a detail that not many people catch. For David to be restored, he had to be broken. He had to recognize what his sin truly was and whom it was against. He had to turn from that sin, long to be freed from it, and fall at the feet of his Savior. David expressed this process in the greatest penitent song ever written: Psalm 51.
But David did something that few will: David presented himself before God, broken and humble. What do most people do? Continue on their sinful path until God stops them. Think of Jonah. During the storm, Jonah didn’t confess his sin. He insisted on being thrown overboard so he’d drown and not have to go to Nineveh. God obviously had other plans. In Jonah’s case, God stopped him and broke him. Spending three days inside a large fish (or whale) has that effect. It took extreme circumstances to get Jonah to finally submit to God’s command.
There’s a pattern here: 1) God’s command, 2) sin, 3) rebuke, 4) brokenness, 5) restoration. Let’s go through this with David. David was supposed to go to war, but he stayed back. He saw Bathsheba, committed adultery, and then murdered her husband who refused to unintentionally cover David’s sin. Then the prophet Nathan rebuked him. David realized ultimately what he did and wept before God, writing Psalm 51. Upon repentance, David’s relationship with God was restored (though the consequences for his sin would follow).
What about Jonah? God commanded Jonah to go preach to Nineveh. Jonah ran from God. God sent a storm against that ship where Jonah hid and then sent a large fish to swallow him. Jonah repented. God then gave him the command again and sent him on his way. Same pattern.
God always does things His way and we always see Him using the same pattern. But let me address what happens when the process isn’t completed. King Saul was one case. Let’s look at 1 Samuel 13. God commanded Saul to wait for Samuel for a sacrifice. Saul got antsy and impatient. He offered the sacrifice just as Samuel arrived. Samuel rebuked him, but there was no brokenness. No interest in repentance. No desire to be made right with God. As a result, no restoration. God gave Saul a second chance. He commanded him to destroy the Amalekites. Saul spared the best of the spoils. Samuel came to rebuke him. Again, no brokenness. No Godly sorrow. And this time, no further chances to be restored. Saul spent the rest of his reign in rebellion against God, plagued by evil spirits, and paranoid of the one whom God said would take over this throne.
We play the part of the sinner in breaking our relationship with God. God initiates the restoration process. But we have to man up and take responsibility for it. We’d never seek that restoration on our own. That’s what our sinful nature is like; we are in constant rebellion against God. It takes God to initiate the restoration process. After we’ve sinned, God rebukes us, we respond in brokenness and repentance, and then He restores us.
But there is more to this process. Next week, I am going to zoom in to the breaking and restoration processes. News flash: it’s not a pleasant time to go through, but it’s the most valuable and worthwhile process we could ever experience. Get a quick preview by reading Jeremiah 1:10.
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With this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, we’re jumping into the middle of a sentence. The whole sentence is, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). To get the context of the first phrase, check out last week’s post.
Asking God to forgive our debts (our sins, our disobedience, our wrongdoing) is only half of the whole concept of forgiveness. We sin, make mistakes, and disobey God, but others also sin and make mistakes against us. How do we handle those who have sinned against us?
The key is in the conjunction. Asking God for forgiveness when we sin against Him is great, because we know that He is faithful and will forgive us when we are truly repentant of those sins. But the important conjunction here is the word “as.” It also means like, according to, in the same way, or just as. Notice how emphasizing the conjunction highlights the meaning: “Forgive us our debts, in the same way as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Well, that just got more difficult!
How are you doing at forgiving others? Perhaps you need to forgive someone for a direct sin against you. Perhaps you need to forgive someone for a way they sinned against God, where you also felt the negative consequence of that sin. Perhaps you need to forgive yourself for wrongdoing that you know you committed or negative feelings you’re harboring against someone else. Any of those situations require us to be the one doing the forgiving of the wrongdoing.
When we put this whole verse together, we see that we cannot separate God forgiving us of our sins from us forgiving those who have wronged us. We would all love to always be on the receiving end of God’s forgiveness, but it’s much more difficult to be on the giving end of forgiveness to others.
Notice the timeline of verbs in this verse. The first half is us commanding God to forgive us (an action in the future), while the second second half says that we “have forgiven” our debtors (an action in the past). That appears to indicate that we must forgive others in order to earn God’s forgiveness, but I do not believe that’s how our loving God works. We know that being forgiven is not based on our work, but on the work of Jesus Christ in the cross. Ephesians 1:7 tells us plainly, “In [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
While this was originally written in Greek, it is believed that Matthew (who wrote this gospel) was Jewish, so he would have spoken Aramaic in daily life. Early Christian scholars believe that Matthew actually was thinking of an Aramaic verb tense here in this second half of the verse that would be more accurately translated like a present perfect - as we should forgive our debtors in the way that God forgives us. The verb tense used in Greek often indicates past action, but it can also mean habitual action in the present. This means that it could be translated “as we habitually forgive,” which lines up with the Aramaic thought that Matthew may have had.
Another school of thought is that it’s all about our attitude. We do not need to earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving others, but we need to demonstrate an attitude that would make forgiving others possible. If we are truly repentant of our sin and we see how badly we have been disobedient to God, then the sins of others to us are really quite small in comparison. When we realize that we are asking God to forgive an enormous sin - what we have done that’s disobedient to the God of the universe - anything that any human can do against us is miniscule in importance.
Sure, it hurts me that someone told a lie to me. But it hurt Jesus even more that all of humankind sinned against God, and all of that punishment was heaped on Jesus on the cross. While all sin is sin, the magnitude of sinning against God is so much greater than offenses between humans. Surely we can forgive what that person has done to us if Almighty God can die for the forgiveness of all of humanity’s sins against Him!
God’s Word has much to say about forgiveness that helps us interpret this section of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus gives additional teaching on forgiveness in Matthew 18:15-22. This phrasing of the Lord’s prayer is echoed by Jesus in Mark 11:24-25, where Jesus is teaching after HIs triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
The Apostle Paul also teaches us about forgiveness. Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” John echoes these thoughts in his first letter. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Does being forgiven by God depend on us forgiving others? No, it depends on the work of Jesus on the cross that has already been accomplished. But, we do need to be truly repentant of our sin in order to receive that forgiveness, and if we truly have a repentant heart, then we should not be harboring grudges or ill will against others who have sinned against us.
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In last week’s post, we looked at the phrase before this one in the Lord’s Prayer - give us today our daily bread. You may notice that this week’s phrase, “And forgive us our debts,” begins with the word “and,” linking it to the previous phrase. But what does forgiveness have to do with God’s daily provision of our physical needs?
Perhaps, God’s provision for our physical needs is not enough. Yes, we need food to sustain our bodies and maintain physical health; but our overall health is so much more than physical. Our health also contains aspects of emotional and spiritual health. We all commit sins against God and against one another, so forgiveness is a key part of being spiritually healthy.
When I learned the Lord’s Prayer growing up in the church, the word “trespasses” was used instead of “debts.” The word in Greek is opheilema, which can mean a debt, an obligation, something that is owed, a wrong, a sin, delinquency, an offense, a fault, etc. As you can see, there is a wide range of meanings for this one word. Today, the word “trespass” is most often used in the context of trespassing on someone else’s property - being in a place where you should not be. Instead, the word debt has the idea of something being owed, though this often has a financial connotation to it.
My fellow writer Charlie Wolcott wrote about the idea of debts being forgiven a few weeks ago. Being forgiven of a financial debt means we no longer need to pay that debt. The debt still exists; someone needs to pay for it. But if I have a financial debt that is forgiven, I am not the person responsible for paying it any longer. From a spiritual sense, we owed God a debt because of our sins, and Jesus took on that debt through His death on the cross. The debt was still owed, but we’re “off the hook” for paying that debt because Jesus paid it for us. It still had to be paid.
The idea of forgiveness is spoken of in many places in the Bible since it’s something that we all need! Psalm 32:1-2 says, “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.” Psalm 130:3-4 says, “If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.” Ephesians 1:7-8a says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” Jesus Himself forgave sins in Mark 2:1-5. He also shared how His blood would be poured out for the forgiveness of our sins during the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-29).
This phrase of the Lord’s prayer calls out our sins for us and reminds us that we need to confess those sins. As 1 John 1:8-10 tells us, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” Anyone who says they have not disobeyed God is not being truthful. Saying we have not sinned makes God out to be a liar, and we know that God does not lie. Instead, we need to confess the times that we have sinned against God, and then we can receive His forgiveness for those sins.
Confession of our sins is important to recognize the ways we have done wrong against God; if we don’t recognize and acknowledge our sin, then we are much more likely to repeat that same sin. If we think we’re perfect (or even “good enough” to meet God’s standards, which we aren’t), then we’d have no need for God’s forgiveness. Confessing our sins keeps us humble.
This phrase of the Lord’s Prayer also reminds us that forgiveness of our sins is not something we can accomplish on our own. We need to ask God to accomplish this for us. The verb here used in Greek for “forgive” is an imperative, which means it’s a command. We’re strongly asking God to forgive our sins; we know we can’t do this on our own, we need God to do it for us. We know that He is fully capable of this because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. Jesus paid that debt that we all have. We have all been disobedient to God and require His forgiveness for the sin that exists in our lives.
Confess the sins you have committed against God. Ask God for His forgiveness. Know that you will be forgiven, out of God’s great love and mercy for us. Next week, we’ll look at forgiveness between people.
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Today is “Good Friday,” the day that the bulk of Christendom celebrates the death of Jesus on the cross. Why do we celebrate the death of someone as a good thing? So few people understand the Gospel anymore because so few preachers are teaching what happened on this day. In an interview, Paul Washer recounted preaching on Isaiah 53 and after the sermon, a woman came up to him in tears. She said that she had been a Christian for 30+ years, loved the Lord, but never understood how the Romans beating up Jesus had anything to do with sin. The answer was: “Jesus was crushed under the wrath of God.” The problem with all this is there is such a focus on the “love of God” and such a lack of focus on sin. It seems rare to find a preacher that actually preaches against sin and what it really is. Washer also points out that he utterly despises any notion that says that “salvation is easy.” In reality, salvation was the costliest thing that could be imagined. We just don’t realize what it cost for it to be made available for us.
What happened at the cross was the forgiveness of sin, but few people know what forgiveness actually is. Matthew 18 has a lengthy passage about forgiveness. Jesus starts by talking about church discipline, how to handle a brother who sins against you. Then Peter asks, “How many times should I forgive them?” Jesus follows with the parable of the unmerciful servant. This parable is the key to understanding what Jesus actually did on the cross. I shared what I am going to share here on a Facebook post that addressed forgiveness. Someone replied that what you are about to read is the best explanation of what forgiveness is she had ever heard.
The common phrase is “forgive and forget,” but that is not what forgiveness is. Let’s instead go to this parable and we’ll see what it really is. A master had a servant who had stockpiled such a massive debt that working 120 hours a day for 100 years would still not pay it off (yes that’s impossible, and that’s the point). The servant pled for mercy and time to pay it off. The master had compassion and forgave the debt. I’ll come back to the rest of this later, but let’s sit here for a bit.
What happened to the debt? This is a critical thing. Tony Jones, one of the leaders of the “Progressive Christian” movement seriously asked this in “American Gospel: Christ Crucified.” He asked, “Why couldn’t God have just forgiven us? Forget death of someone. Just forgive it and move on.” Jones does not understand what forgiveness is. The debt of the servant never went away. If he owed $2 billion, having it forgiven doesn’t make even $2 show up. (Pay attention to this when you hear about student loan forgiveness arguments). The debt was still there. The master was still short $2 billion. It didn’t go away. When the master forgave the servant, all that happened was the servant was released from being held responsible for that debt. The master still had to deal with the debt; so what did he do?
He ate it. The master took the debt upon himself. The master took the massive loss, either his business or him personally; it doesn’t matter. The master himself chose to eat the debt. This is what happened on the cross. God’s righteous standards had to be satisfied. He could not just “let it go.” That debt had to go somewhere. So what happened? Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, took the debt upon Himself. God appeased His own wrath voluntarily. The cross itself did nothing. The cross was nothing more than an execution device that was used for the fulfillment of Scripture. It was so specific and because God didn’t want any attempted faker to have a means of being able to cheat the system. He called for an execution device from a foreign nation that would not rise to power nor invent that execution device until it was time for Jesus to be born. But it was on that cross where Jesus willingly took the sin of the world upon Himself and He bore the full wrath of God. He bore all the sin that man had done upon Himself, something that could only be done if He had no debt against God to begin with. And when Jesus shouted “It is finished!” the debt was settled. Salvation is not easy. It took the perfect, holy, righteous, sinless Son of God to surrender his life and to die so we could live. How dare we trample that gift?
But there’s more to it than that. For that debt forgiveness to apply to us, we have to appropriate it. We have to “receive” it. Let’s go back to the parable. That servant had his debt forgiven. The master chose not to hold the servant responsible for it. But he could revoke that claim as we will see. The servant held a debt for another servant that was ultimately just a few pennies worth, and he refused to give the other servant time to pay it back. So, the master called him in and forced the first servant to pay back the full debt that he would never pay off.
In Matthew 6:14-15 just after Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer, He warned us that if we don’t forgive those who sin against us, our Father won’t forgive our own sin. Likewise, if we do not listen to God’s offer for hope and salvation, despite the fact that Jesus took the debt, then that free gift will not apply to us. No man comes to the Father lest the Father draws him. No man can claim salvation unless God is offering it and that window is limited. It may open multiple times, but it may not.
We ALL have a debt we owe God. And this is not an infinite punishment for a finite crime. This is high treason against the infinite, almighty, Thrice-Holy God. Today’s preachers do not speak of sin as such a grievous deed. They do what they can to dismiss what it is and just pass it off as a “barrier between us and God’s blessing.” As a result, they end up as the Pharisees who make mockery of Jesus. They love little, because they viewed their own sin as such a trifle. But a sinful woman poured out her most precious treasure upon Christ. She was forgiven much, and she knew her debt, so she loved much. This is one of the great dangers those who were raised in the church (like me) face. I never had a “gutter” moment. While God preserved me, I have to be on extra guard because of how easy it is for me to take this gift for granted. I have my own sin that needs to be forgiven, but I have never experienced the dire consequences of that sin here in life. I’m still just in need of a Savior, no less than the drug lord or the mass murderer or the rapist. My end result, apart from Christ, is the same as the most wicked person we consider. We need to keep that fact in front of our minds.
Where do you stand? Go back over my posts since the start of the year on my series on idolatry and the Ten Commandments. Take a very serious self-examination and see where you compare to those Ten Commandments. All it takes is breaking one of them once to be guilty. Is there even one of the Commandments you haven’t broken? The rich young ruler thought he hadn’t and actually inadvertently considered himself as good as God. Jesus showed he really hadn’t kept the commandments by asking him to give away his wealth. That wealth was an idol and because he would not let it go, in his response he revealed he had a god (money) before the True God, he took the Lord’s name lightly by unintentionally equating himself to God, he lied about keeping the commandments, and it was a result of lusting after riches. And that’s just what was revealed in that encounter. He needed a Savior. You do too. So do I.
The Law teaches us what our debt against God is, but it is the grace of God that saves us. He died on that day 2000 years ago so we might live and become the righteousness of God. There is so much more worth sharing about this, and later on this year, I’ll take a serious look at and dwell on the Full Gospel. Time is so short, and we must plead for man to make terms of peace with God before his wrath takes its full force upon us. Repent and believe the Gospel and be forgiven of your debt.
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by Chad Koons
In my post last month, we looked at the definition of and the need for repentance. Now we ask the question: what does repentance look like? Thank God that we have excellent examples given by Jesus Himself! Although these two examples are different, they are very much the same.
In Luke 15, we find the story of the Prodigal Son.
To me, however, it seems more the story of the Joyful Father. You’ll see why in a minute. Anyway, it is here that we see not only a picture of true repentance, but also a demonstration of it. A father has two sons. The younger son requests his inheritance early, only to skip town and waste it all on a sinful lifestyle. Eventually the funds run out and he hits rock bottom. In his exhausted and wasted state, something stirs inside of him. He thinks to humble himself and return to his father. He planned to humbly confess, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” In this way, he would throw himself upon his father’s mercy.
It is important to recognize that the son had made a decision followed up by actions. He had rejected his sin, changed his mind, turned around, and began journeying once again back to his father’s house. This, my friends, is where repentance begins.
Upon eyeshot of his homeland, something nearly unheard of happens. His father sees him, and pulling up his robes, his father actually begins running down the road to meet his wayward son! He catches him up in an embrace and kisses his cheeks. The son, still compelled to humble himself as he should, confesses to his father, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” But the father, already knowing the sincerity of his son’s actions, immediately begins yelling to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” In this amazing display of reconciliation, the father not only meets and welcomes his son, but he ushers him in, forgives, restores, and honors him with celebration and gifts beyond anyone’s expectation! This is true repentance accepted. The Lord will do the same thing with you.
Repentance is also seen with the woman caught in adultery.
In John 8, Jesus was teaching a crowd of people in the temple. The religious leaders saw this as an opportunity to test and condemn Jesus, so they conveniently found a woman caught in adultery and threw her down before Jesus. “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women,” they said, “So what do you say?” Jesus famously stated; “Let you without sin cast the first stone.”
Some seem to interpret this story as a “do not judge” sort of thing – that love and grace are more important than our actions, that sin is unimportant, that repentance is not necessary, and that if Jesus canceled judgement, then so should we. Yet given the context of this story, the above interpretation could not be any more wrong! To say that Jesus ignored her sin completely devalues their encounter and entirely misses the point. Jesus did not ignore her sin, nor did He cancel it or treat it lightly. Jesus recognized a sinful woman in dire need of mercy. He expected her to reject her sin, and then He led her to repentance. After all, every sinner needs repentance, always and forever.
This woman had repented, and this is what caused Jesus to extend His forgiveness and invite her to follow Him. Otherwise, she would not have been forgiven. How do we know this? Because of what He said. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” Notice that she called Him Lord, implying that she had rejected her sin, repented, and had submitted to His Lordship. Therefore, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more” (John 8:11, emphasis mine). The Bible doesn’t tell us anything more about this woman, but I believe that she completely abandoned her sinful lifestyle and faithfully followed Jesus. Broken as she was, she had repented before Him, and His words of “Go, and sin no more” opened the door to her freedom!
Here’s something that completely overwhelms me. In each of these stories, there was a response initiated by both parties – by the sinner and by the Redeemer. It is absolutely amazing to me how the Lord will turn His attention toward us when we repent. He is so very loving and patient. His goodness leads us to repentance. No greater love exists. Come with your whatever scraps you have left, come with your addictions, come with your raw and bleeding wounds, come just as you are, but please come.
If the Lord is drawing you to repentance, act upon it immediately before it is too late. The Lord is commanding people everywhere to repent. He will run to you and make you His own.
If I could sum this up, here is what I would say; there is freedom, dear reader. No matter the struggle, no matter the depth of root, no matter the abuse that has bound you, no matter the heartache, no matter the chains digging into your skin, freedom is available, and it begins with true repentance. Come to Jesus and He will not cast you aside. Forgiveness and new life await.
“Lord, I come before You in need of forgiveness. I have sinned against You and I have sinned against others. I know that I need to serve You with my whole life, so therefore I make the decision to repent; to turn away from my sins and to turn towards You. Cleanse me from my sin, create in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. Jesus, You are my Lord and Savior.”
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by Steve Risner
Last week, I began writing on surrendering to the Lord. We looked at the importance of surrendering to Him and how we often may fail at doing so fully. This week, we'll focus on why God is worthy of our surrender and what it may be that we're not giving Him in this process. I hope you find it edifying and challenging.
God not only wants us to totally surrender to Him, but He's worthy of us doing so. And why does God deserve such surrender? Aside from the reasons outlined last week—His great love for us that drove Him to leave heaven's glory and be born humbly in a stable, live a perfect life, and die a gruesome and hideous death for our wrongdoings only to rise again under His own power and ascend to the Father so that we can have life both here on earth and in eternity with Him—there are many other reasons why we should have no problems surrendering to the Lord.
God is the Creator. He made the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them. Everything is the product of His mind. His power in creating the universe from nothing but His thoughts, and giving life to us, is unmatched and truly inconceivable. He's beyond description. He made us.
He loves us in a way that is far beyond any form of human ability to love. He is all-knowing and His will is perfect. He has great things planned for each one of us and they're far better than any plans we would ever have for ourselves. In Jeremiah 29:11, God tells us, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Now, many of us may feel we have pretty great plans for ourselves. But with our limited vision, our limited knowledge, and our limited ability to be truly good (we're humans, which means our plans are likely self-serving), our plans are stinking piles of filthy, rotting rags compared to the amazing plans God has for each of us. His plans are for our good but also for the good of the Kingdom, and for the good of many others quite often. Ultimately, His plans are to usher us into His presence both here and for all eternity, and there is nothing better than that.
I encourage you, reader and friend, to seek the Lord with all your heart. Ask Him what it is in your heart that is keeping Him from saturating your heart and life. Often times, what we're holding back are things we may not even realize are hindering us. A short list comes to mind, but this list is likely not extensive.
We may be sheltering a love for something that is not from God in our hearts. For some, that could be a boyfriend or girlfriend who is not a follower of Christ. It could be a friend who is a bad influence or is dragging us away from God rather than helping us grow towards Him. It could be a job, money, or position. It might be an activity that perhaps is not a sin in and of itself but is keeping us preoccupied and harming our relationship with God. It could be sinful behavior, that “pet sin” we don't want to give up because we enjoy it too much or feel we're in bondage to it and can't give it up.
Something we may be holding back is our future. It's possible we don't trust God's plan for our lives, or we don't want what He's called us to do or be, so we push it to the side and pursue our own ambitions. We want a great job that we love and can make a lot of money doing. We want power and position and notoriety. But maybe God has called us to do something we don't esteem so highly. Maybe it's a career that doesn't make as much money or have as much prestige. Maybe it's more difficult or in a location we hadn't counted on. Whatever it is, we can trust God that. As His Word tells us, His plans are better than our plans and they're for our good.
For some, the things we're holding onto that are hurting our relationship with the Lord are past hurts. We're not forgiving someone who hurt us, or in some cases we're angry with God because of something “He allowed to happen” or something like that. I don't mean to minimize or trivialize your life experience, but if this is you—if you are blaming God for something that happened in your past—please hear me here. God may or may not have had something to do with whatever it was than happened. Perhaps He called home a loved one before you were ready—a child, a parent, a grandparent, a close friend, or spouse. Realize that if the person you lost was a believer, your loss is their gain. They are in the presence of Jesus Christ right now celebrating and happier than they ever could have been on this earth. They're free to see Him face to face and they will never suffer again. You'll miss them, but if you stay faithful, you will see them again and celebrate with them in heaven's glory. Perhaps God has taken something from you, or in some cases NOT taken something from you that you desperately want Him to remove from your life—a relationship, a hurt, an illness or sickness/ailment. Whatever it is, perhaps, as Paul realized, this thing is there for your benefit in eternity. Perhaps the reason is He wants you to realize His grace is sufficient and He wants you to rest in Him.
However, in many (if not most) cases, the thing we're holding against the Lord was not really His doing. It's either the result of our own actions and we are reaping the consequences of those actions, or it's the result of someone else's actions—whether those actions were intended for good or evil. God isn't to blame for what others do. If you've been hurt by someone, you need to forgive them and set them free. Setting them free is actually setting you free. If that person is no longer living, you can still set yourself free from the hurt by releasing them. Rather than blaming God for what we or someone else did, perhaps we should lean on Him and trust Him to make us what He wants us to be through the incident or through the pain. Christ provides healing and restoration and to give us life—real life.
John reports that his close friend Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” I considered just quoting the second half of this saying of Jesus, but I realized the first half exposes the problem while the second half tells us of the solution. The thief—Satan—wants to use your experience to keep you from God and keep you from abundant life. His goals are to destroy you and anything you care about. Most importantly, he wants to put something between you and your Savior, redirecting you to hell rather than into the presence of the Almighty. Do not allow him to do this! Jesus came that we might have full, abundant life and, truly, the only life worth living is one immersed in Christ Jesus. It's the only form of true living and is the gift of God and the result of Christ's sacrifice.
As believers, we often sing songs of worship that focus on our surrender. “Here I am / down on my knees again / surrendering all / … I surrender / I surrender / I want to know You more.” “I surrender all / I surrender all / all to Thee my precious Savior / I surrender all.” “I'm giving you my heart and all that is within / I lay it all down again / to hear You say that I'm Your friend.” “All to You, I surrender / everything, every part of me / all to You, I surrender / all of my dreams, all of me / I surrender.” There are so many other lyrics of surrender—total surrender—but do we mean it when we sing it? Are we singing with our lips or our hearts? He is worthy. There's none more worthy. You can find these songs and others here.
Please consider praying about whatever it is and allowing God to show you what He wants you to surrender to Him so He can more fully pour Himself into you and use you to do awesome things in His name. It may be something obvious that you're aware you're holding back, but perhaps not. It could be something more subtle. Allow God to reveal it to you and (very importantly) respond. Thanks for reading and be blessed.
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In 1994, I was living in Seattle, Washington just under the Space Needle, pursuing my career in music and living for myself. I had been chasing after worthless things of this world hoping to become rich or famous and make something of myself. Then this Alice In Chains EP Jar of Flies came out and I really started to question the choices I had made from the very first listen of the very first song of this EP. The song is called Rotten Apple. It was so eerie, and I could feel the pain coming from the musicians from the beginning of this EP. They had previously released one of their most successful albums and it seriously started to make me wonder: if even these guys aren’t happy with their fame and fortune, why might it make me happy?
It got me thinking and I began to realize that I was moving toward the point of no return in my life. As it says in the song, Rotten Apple:
Innocence is over
Ignorance is spoken
Confidence is broken
Sustenance is stolen
Arrogance is potent
I had a decision to make. Was I going to go all out for fame and fortune and the happiness and excitement this world had to offer, or would I return to the faith of my youth? This was the faith my parents had tried their best to teach me as a child through their words and actions. Were they perfect? Well, no, they were not, and even they would admit to this. But they loved me; I knew without a doubt that they loved me. I didn’t really know why they loved me, but I can tell you now that I have six children of my own that I have a much better idea why.
My parents never gave up on me! They loved me with truth and in patience and self-control. They were there when I needed them. They were also willing to trust God and not be there when I selfishly wanted my own way. Sometimes they would just listen to me, and other times they would give me advice that many times I didn’t take into consideration. I mean, in my mind, they were old, what did they know? How arrogant of me!
In 1994, I came to a realization that I was either going to go my way or God’s way. I figured I was much too far down the road of destruction for God to take me as I was and to allow me into His Kingdom. There was no way, in my mind, that He was going to accept me.
I can assure you that He not only accepted me as a person, but I have tried to serve Him every day since an incredible day in January 1995. Later that year, I would meet that wonderful woman I would have 6 amazing children with. My wife Jaya and I got married in 1997, and we have tried serving the Lord together ever since.
Some of you might be thinking, “But Jason, you don’t know what I’ve done, you can’t understand.” Well, you’re right. I cannot understand, but I know the one who can. He loves you. He’s pursuing you even now. Friends, even when Jesus became my Savior, I still struggled with my past actions and sins against God.
In 1996, a band came out with a song that helped me overcome the shame and guilt of my past. Their name was Skillet and the name of the song is I Can. Here are some lyrics from the song to consider:
Do you really love my soul, even after I hated you?
Do you really know my name, can I really come to you?
Are you really more faithful than the changing of the seasons and the morning sun?
Do you really know my name, can I really come to you?
I can, I don't care if the rooster crows
I can
If you have breath in your body, it’s not too late. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
If you’d like to learn more about Jason’s story, you can find it in his book, How Being Consistent Changed Everything.
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“Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.” (Psalm 130)
This psalm is part of the collection of the 15 songs of ascent (like this one and this one) that were prayed by the Israelites as they would ascent up to the temple in Jerusalem. While some of the songs of ascent focus on praise, others like this one are more of a lament. This psalm is also considered to be one of the seven penitential psalms (along with Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, and 143) because of its aspects of realizing the weight of our sin and confessing it.
This psalm begins in verses 1-2 with a lament, crying out to God. Being in “the depths” is a metaphor for adversity or trouble in a person’s life. It’s like that feeling of being in a pit that you can’t get out of because of the weight of the negative things going on in life. It may even feel like alienation from God because we’re so deep into a bad situation. But even in a place like that, or maybe especially in a place like that, we can and should cry out to God. The psalmist prays for God to hear his cry and to give him mercy, as it’s likely that whatever bad situation he is in is because of a sin he has committed.
In verses 3-4, the psalmist recognizes his sin and knows God will forgive him. In the courts of ancient Israel, if you were going on trial you would be asked if you consider yourself to be innocent or guilty of the crime. If you plead guilty, you would remain seated, whereas if you plead innocent, you would stand. The psalmist uses that imagery here, saying that there is no way he could stand in innocence if God remembered all his sins. But he is so thankful that God does not keep a record like that, and that there is forgiveness available to him. The psalmist knows that he needs to be forgiven of the wrongs he has committed in order to be able to serve God well.
The psalm moves on in verses 5-6 to a sense of waiting for the Lord. He knows he needs God in his life, and he must patiently wait on whatever God is going to do through him. While he waits, he puts his hope in a word from God. That likely refers to waiting on a promise of salvation or deliverance, as at the time this psalm was written they likely didn’t have the Word of God in the form of the Scriptures yet. The psalmist waits on this word like a watchman waits for morning to come. The watchmen guarded the city against attacks overnight so its residents could sleep peacefully. They know the morning will come and they wait expectantly for it.
This hope then turns to confidence in God in verses 7-8. The psalmist is putting his hope and confidence individually in God, but he also called for the whole nation of Israel to do the same. The Lord is the only one who can provide unfailing love and redemption, and the psalmist is confident that He will. He is the one who will redeem all of Israel from their sins.
While the psalmist didn’t have the Bible as we have it today, and he was writing long before Jesus came to earth, we can see even more clearly that we should put our hope in God as well. We have the true Word of God - Jesus Christ - and we have the Bible to show us how God is revealing Himself to us. We don’t have to hope in an unknown God but one that we can have a relationship with.
We need to feel the weight of our sinfulness just as the psalmist did, but from the depths of our sin we too can call out to God to show us mercy. When we have faith in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, we know that God will forgive us when we truly repent of our sin. Because of that, we have the certain hope of life eternal with God. We know that He is the only way to get out of the pit of our sin and be truly redeemed.
Put your hope in God and His unfailing love today, and live out this week in the confidence of His redemption of your life.
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by Logan Ames
Two weeks ago, I had the tremendous opportunity to go to an all-day conference with over 1,000 brothers and sisters in Christ that was put on by The Voice of the Martyrs. It was truly a blessing to hear from men who have either seen or experienced firsthand the persecution of faithful Christians in other places in the world. It strengthened my faith to hear of these courageous men and women who ask for prayer more than any other needs, who choose to love even the enemies who are causing them lasting physical pain, and who say they don’t even pray for the persecution to stop because it actually keeps them on their toes and keeps their faith strong and growing.
The first man who spoke has not experienced direct persecution himself, but he is the VoM representative for a very large area in Asia where many Christians are being tortured and killed. Needless to say, he has seen the effects of persecution as he has traveled to those areas. He shared that as he was talking to some members of a church whose pastor had been murdered right in front of his family, one of the leaders brought up 1 Peter 4:1, which says, “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.” The speaker shared how he was blown away at such an incredible display of faith and obedience. He talked about how we so often arm ourselves with so many other things rather than Christ. But Peter knew that we must be intentional about arming ourselves with Christ’s attitude and avoiding that which comes from the flesh.
One of the attitudes that we have to avoid is what James talks about in James 2:12-13 - judgment. Instead, we should be armed with an attitude of mercy because that was the attitude of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. James tells us that we must “speak and act” knowing that we will be judged not by how well we follow every law known to man, but by “the law that gives freedom.” Interestingly, James is reminding us that even though we are not bound by the law in the sense that the Jews of his time believed they were, there is still a standard by which God will judge us and that standard is indeed LAW in his eyes. James’ older brother, Jesus of Nazareth, said something similar when he was questioned regarding which commandment is the greatest: “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’” (Matthew 22:37-40).
Have you ever wondered why Jesus gave an answer of TWO commandments in that response when the Pharisee was looking for one? The Pharisees probably would have agreed with just the first one, but Jesus quickly added the second one and said it is “like” the first. This means that the two really can’t be separated. Loving others is LIKE loving God, and the best way to self-evaluate our love for God is to look at how we’re doing at loving those he puts around us. The Apostle John also drew a connection between the two in 1 John 4:20: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen." All of these verses show that the writers of the New Testament, as well as early Church leaders and our Lord himself, were consistent in declaring that we are bound by the law of love, which is the “law that gives freedom” that James mentions. Unlike other laws, we are bound to this one gratefully and willingly, understanding that we are merely passing on to others what we have received from God.
Because James considers this standard a “law” by which all Christians are bound, there also has to be a consequence for choosing not to adhere to it. We must understand that refusing to show mercy to others who have hurt us, even those who are still severely persecuting us, would render us incompatible with the faith that is based on love and mercy. So, James continues, “because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful” (James 2:13). Once again, he is echoing our Lord, who said in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Do you want to find yourself in a situation where you have to answer to God for every sin you’ve ever committed and his wrath has to be satisfied? I certainly don’t, and that’s why I want to be armed with mercy toward those who hurt me and not judgment.
Jesus also said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judge. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1-2). It’s easy for us as human beings to pound our fists and want justice. We want people to get what they deserve, until those “people” are ourselves and those we care about. The New Testament is clear that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot judge others according to their adherence to the law but expect to receive mercy by the law that gives freedom. If you judge another human being by every hurt they’ve committed against you and hold a grudge until they satisfy YOUR desire for atonement, then you are showing God and others that you don’t really believe in the laws of grace and mercy. And if you don’t really believe in grace and mercy, you can’t expect to receive it from the One who freely gives it to those who DO want to live by those laws. James ends verse 13 by saying, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” If you have received mercy from God, you’re only fighting a losing battle if you judge others by the old law.
I’ll leave you with some lyrics from the all-time great song by the late Rich Mullins called “Awesome God." In part of the second verse, he writes, “Judgment and wrath he poured out on Sodom, mercy and grace he gave us at the cross." You see, the only One who could ever show judgment toward wrongdoers is the only One who never needed mercy. He’s never needed it, yet He freely gives it. And in a few circumstances where He, in His omniscient wisdom, determined it was necessary, He poured out judgment. Since you and I will always depend on mercy, we are not like God, and therefore we have no reason or right to withhold mercy from anyone else. If someone has hurt you, today is a chance to reflect on all the mercy God has shown you and then pass it on to that individual. Ask God to help you do what you know you have to do, and He will help you.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
