Easter Posts

“I’m Coming Back For You”

04 Apr , 2012 No Comments

“So always be ready, because you don’t the day your Lord will come.” Matthew 24:42

It’s interesting that on the final week of Jesus’ life He spoke much about His return. It should come as no surprise. The scenario is pretty simple as He explains it in John 14. “Don’t worry. I’m leaving for a while, but I’ll be back. And when I come back, I’ll take you with me.” The return of Christ is certain. His return is final. And when He comes again He will separate those who are with Him from those who are not. Separation is a sad thing. Jesus knew a lot about separation. He was about to experience a separation such as He had never known before. When He cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”, He was experiencing the abandonment of His Father. His Holy Father turned His back on His Son as He took on the sin of the world. And He did it all for you. He did it all so that one day, He could come back and take you home. He, who had been separated from the Father, was about to be united again. Soon He would experience the warm embrace of His Father once again; the weary traveler from a foreign land would find Himself in the loving arms of His Father. That’s the same reunion He wants you to know as well. When He comes again, every person who ever lived will be judged on whether or not they had received His forgiveness. He’s coming back for you. Who will you bring with you?

“So you must also be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.” Matthew 24:44

Pray: Lord, I want to live every day in expectation of Your return. Today I will realize that I have been given but one life and that it is brief at best. I will maximize this day for Your purposes knowing that the day is coming when I will be united with You.

The Day God Got Mad

02 Apr , 2012 No Comments

Holy Week- Monday

“My Temple will be called a house of prayer but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” Matthew 21:13

Most of us have the mental picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd with a baby lamb on His shoulders, carrying it to safety. We think of the soft images of Jesus in the manger as a baby or as a grown up with children sitting in His lap. But there’s one picture few of us ponder very often. It’s the picture of Jesus on the Monday before His death storming through the temple like a wild man yelling at people to leave! In one of the most dramatic acts of His ministry, Jesus said more about the priority of prayer than in a hundred sermons on the subject. He actually did this twice in His ministry and the first time He made a whip out of cords and was thrashing people out of the temple.

Why was He so mad? As Jim Cymbala states in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, “His house was being prostituted for purposes other than what was intended.” The Bible never says, “My house shall be called a house of preaching, or programs that suit me perfectly, or lots of great music.” No, He says His shall be a house of prayer. Cymbala says, “I’ve seen God do more in people’s lives in ten minutes of real prayer than in ten of my sermons.” Then he asks, “What does it say about our churches today that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, and prayer meetings today are almost extinct?” What about you? Is prayer your first priority? Is your house a house of prayer? Is your life a life of prayer? Determine that it will be. Let’s let our first priority of the church be prayer!

“The prayers of an upright person accomplishes much.” Proverbs 15:8

Pray: Lord, I want prayer to be the first priority of my church and of my life. I don’t want to grieve Your heart because of prayerlessness in my life. I will devote time to pray to You every day. I will be in constant conversation with You today.

Palm Sunday- Entering the Holy City

02 Apr , 2012 No Comments

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of Him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Matthew 21:8-9

At first glance this looks like the biggest celebration Jerusalem had ever seen. No doubt, it was an incredible day, enough to cause quite a stir among the enemies of Jesus. But think about it. What the people desired was a mock procession of a conquering king. Philip Yancey, in The Jesus I Never Knew, imagines a Roman soldier riding up to check out the disturbance. He had seen processions done right. The conquering general sits in a chariot of gold, with stallions straining at the reins and wheel spikes flashing in the sunlight. Following him would be officers in polished armor displaying the banners from the vanquished armies. Following that was often a procession of captured slaves and prisoners in chains, showing just what Rome does to those who are against her.

The soldier peers through the crowd to catch the object of the crowd’s attention. He can hardly believe his eyes. He sees a solitary, forlorn figure, weeping, riding on no stallion or chariot, but on the back of a baby donkey with a borrowed blanket across its back. There may have been a bit of triumph in the air on Palm Sunday, but nothing that would have impressed Rome. Not for long anyway. This same crowd would be shouting, “Crucify Him!” just a few days later. And yet, this solitary man seems to be directing the entire process of events…

“…but made Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:7-8

Pray: Lord, I humble myself before You. You could have come as a conquering king and held on to all the rights and privileges that were Yours as God. But You humbled Yourself and took on the form of a servant and died for me. I will do the same for You today.

Better late than never.

05 Mar , 2012 No Comments

Luke 23:32-43 describes the story of the crucifixion and Jesus’ conversation with the men on either side of Him on Golgotha. Why were they not put together? The prophet Isaiah tells us why:

“He was numbered among the transgressors.”  Isaiah 53:12

God decreed that the most holy should die with the most unholy.  At His birth He was surrounded by beasts, and now, at His death He is surrounded by criminals, deserving of capital punishment. This “friend of sinners” finds Himself with them once again. In fact, it seemed that was where He was always most comfortable.  He lived among them, now He dies among them. Our attention turns to the two men crucified on either side of Jesus. One particularly captures our attention because he received the promise that we must share if we are to see our Lord in Paradise.  Pastor Erwin Lutzer wrote, “What a day for the thief!  In the morning he was justly crucified on a cross; by late that evening he was justly welcomed into Paradise by Jesus!”  Let’s look at this thief who is each of us.

The thief in the mirror 

I think we’ll discover he is you and me.  In fact, the two thieves on the cross represent every human being who has ever lived.

  • His failure we don’t know what he had done but we know, whatever it was, it deserved the death penalty.  He was the vilest of offenders.  Like us, he was trapped by his sin.
  • His fate his fate was determined by his sin.  He, like us, is paying the consequences for his sin.  Every person in the world is bound for the same fate, the same destination as this man- were it not for the intervention of Jesus.  Rom. 3:23- “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God…”
  • His faith Consider the faith of this man.  It was a simple, yet amazing faith.  Consider what he had seen.  On the one hand he had heard Jesus say, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  No doubt that prayer pierced his conscience.  He heard the inadvertent testimony of the crowd: “He saved others…but he can’t save Himself.”  No doubt he pondered, “What do they mean- “He saved others”.  And then there was the “first Gospel tract” ever- nailed to the cross proclaiming, “This is the king of the Jews.”  And then he had this conversation with Jesus.

Do you think his faith came easy?  Does faith come easy for you?  For most of us it doesn’t.  Consider that this man had perhaps never seen Jesus before.  It’s one thing to believe in Jesus when He does a miracle or has just provided some great teaching or act of love.  But this man believed at a time when it appeared that Jesus was entirely helpless to save anyone.  In fact, it seemed that Jesus Himself needed saving!  Jesus hung there as the hapless victim, not a king.  When you need saving, you don’t turn to someone in the same predicament that you’re in.  You don’t turn to someone who is dying in disgrace.  Or do you?  The scandal of the Gospel is that we worship the God who died.  This thief believed before the darkness fell over the land.  He believed before the earthquake rocked the place, and before the veil of the Temple was torn in two.  Improbable as it was, he believed.

Here’s the point- you too can believe.  Does God seem distant to you?  Does Jesus seem weak and powerless in your situation, in your life?  How can we explain the fact that this dying thief took a suffering, bleeding man for his God!?  There’s only one answer- it was the work of the Holy Spirit drawing this man toward the Man in the middle.  The Spirit is drawing you as well.  His faith was simple.  It was courageous.  It was enough.

  • His future  This man, whose entire life was consumed with a never-ending struggle to find meaning and purpose, enslaved to sin, now finds himself about to enter eternal paradise.  Notice the reunion would be that very day!  “Today.”  Jesus died before this man did.  Charles Spurgeon noted that “this man, who was our Lord’s last companion on earth” was His “first companion at the gates of paradise”.  Notice, he did not make a pit stop in purgatory en route to paradise.  His future- in heaven- secured by Jesus alone, began that day.  With such a dark past, how bright was the future of this dying thief!

One commentator wrote, “There is one such case recorded that none need despair, but only one that none might presume.”  Warren Wiersbe points out that this man was not saved at his last opportunity, but at his first.  Don’t wait another minute.

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

William Cowper, the great hymn writer, though plagued with doubts in his own life, understood that if the thief could be saved, then he could too.  He wrote a song entitled, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood”.  One of my favorite stanzas reads: “The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day; and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.”  The thief’s forgiveness should remind you that there is more grace in God’s heart than sin in your past.

It’s better late than never… but it’s better now than later.

Why Forgive?

27 Feb , 2012 No Comments

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34  The first of seven phrases from Jesus on the cross is a prayer, not for Himself, but for His executioners.

Now, you think of someone you need to forgive.  But remember, we forgive people, persons, (individuals) not institutions or groups of people.  You forgive what they have done, not what they are.  And you can only forgive someone who has done something to you directly that has wounded you.

1. It breaks the chain of “ungrace”  Only grace breaks the cycle of retribution.  If Jesus had prayed, “Father, give them what they deserve” there would be no forgiveness- no grace.  Do you forgive others who are “executing/crucifying” you?  You see forgiveness has that maddening quality of being undeserved, unmerited, unfair.  But as I forgive, as you forgive, we break the law of retribution- the chain of ungrace is broken.     

2. It sets us free from anger  Often we think, “I have justifiable pain!”  This is simply another way of saying, “I will not forgive.” 

3. It sets the offender free  Forgiving does not remove our scars any more than a funeral takes away all of our grief.  We often carry a scar even after the wound has been healed.  But if we continue to have resentment over time, we are “feeling again” the pain caused and our response in hatred.  “Forgiveness” in the Greek means, literally, “to release, to hurl away, to free yourself”.  You know you have forgiven the person when you release the person to God- and even hope for good.

4. It heals the relationship  Forgiveness brings life to the relationship again.  But, not always- Jesus forgave but not every one was reconciled.  Forgiveness doesn’t always mean reunion or reconciliation.  Sometimes we pay for our sin by being shunned, let go- we are left to our desires and pay the consequences.  

5. It sets us free to love again  One of the best books I’ve read on forgiveness is Lewis Smedes’, “The Art of Forgiveness”. In it he writes, “When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.”

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”- Colossians 3:13   

Theologically, the Gospels give a straightforward answer as to why God asks us to forgive: because that is what God is like.  We are never more like Christ than when we forgive.  Why?  Because Christ has forgiven you.  We are to forgive “AS” HE has forgiven us.  How has He forgiven you?  Completely. Unconditionally. You cannot fully forgive until you’ve been forgiven.  Was Jesus’ prayer answered? Every prayer He ever prayed was answered.  You have been forgiven so that you might be one with God.

You and I cannot muster up forgiveness on our own.  We must allow Christ to transform us from selfish, prideful, unforgiving people into those who extend grace to others. But it begins when we embrace the One who is Perfect, the Giver of grace.

“The object of my faith is not personal change. It is the unchanging perfection of another Person.” Byron Yawn

 

Forgive.