Consider a few examples of MORE where Scripture painstakingly demonstrates Christ’s Godhood in human form. John 3:13, 5:16-23, 8:58, Philippians 2:6-11, Colossians 2:9 and Hebrews 1:3.
However, while Scripture remains the essence of apologetics, NOTHING so powerfully supports, reinforces and substantiates Scripture’s proof of Jesus as his Lifestyle perfectly Consistent with his Teaching, claims and evidences. To make this blog short, THINK of three quick references. First, Jesus always clamed he came from God to perform in history what he personally saw God do in eternity John 5:16 ff—the very reason he came to earth, as Hebrews 10:5-7 underscored. Second, he always depended on God for his overcoming life, as his dependance on Scripture and Prayer demonstrated—not in any order: Luke 4:1-12, 4:42, 5:16, 6:12. Third, like his Father in Heaven, Jesus took extreme spiritual positions, John 3:13, Luke 4:14-30 and Mark 14:55-64 as examples, and never:
In summary, just like His Father, Jesus clearly taught that acceptance of him as God’s Son meant we live forever, John 3:16, Matthew 13:43. Rejecting him meant spiritual condemnation John 3:36, 5:29, Matthew 13:40-42. There’s lots more to be said, but that’s it for this blog and this week. V
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With irresistible military force Japan invaded the Philippines in early 1942. Appointed Commander when General MacArthur left for Australia, General Wainwright led a hopeless resistance. He continually, but vainly, pleaded for military reinforcement from Washington. In turn, the:
Easy for him to say, sitting in his cushy office chair, guarded by armed personnel. Knowing full well the Japanese assault faced outnumbered, outgunned and un-reinforced Filipino and American soldiers. General MacArthur received the Medal of Honor for being defeated. His army received merciless brutality. Leadership can fail the people it leads, while excusing themselves and seeing the led expendable. Jesus never asked or demanded of his people what he wouldn’t first model. A few of many more examples:
Jesus, the perfect leader, never failed his people. A claim his people can’t make vis à vis Jesus. No way exists that anyone, or any group of someone’s, in any generation, can praise, honor and worship Jesus sufficiently, let alone excessively.
SINCE: God appeared to the generations in turn through his Son, for his Son, to prepare history to reveal his Son—through prophets, priests and kings. SINCE:
SINCE:
SINCE: Jesus consistently and
SINCE:
SINCE:
SINCE:
SINCE:
SINCE:
And on and on in perpetuity. No way exists to qualify, diminish, overrate or otherwise exhaust, or render excessive Glory to Jesus. No way exists for him to be accorded TOO MUCH PRAISE, CREDIT, GLORY, since ANY and ALL ACCLAIM to him remains less then he deserves. He’ll always have greater dimensions to his personality—that await study, exploration and appreciation—and all to the Glory and Delight of his Father Philippians 2:9-11, Ephesians 2:7. This blogger read Louis L’Amour’s autobiography The Education of a Wandering Man. He’s now in possession of, but hasn’t read a biography of, L’Amour by Robert Phillips. However interesting the latter, can it equal in accuracy and depth of insight the great man’s own profile of himself? Can it reveal character traits he didn’t surface? Or explore faults he naturally ignored?
Having acquaintance with the man’s own story, this writer will find it hard to excel. We’ll see. However, and the point of this blog, the life of Jesus Christ has never been more accurately, or in superior depth, limned than in the Four Gospels. Indeed, as acquaintance with second century Christian authors has demonstrated to the writer, nothing IN THEM equals the scintillating dynamics obvious in every New Testament book. How do we account for all that? Since no one could equal Christ’s story as he lived it while here, how did the Four Evangelists succeed in recording his spell-binding nature? It’s simple, really, with a captivating originality: Jesus Christ sent to the writers the SOMEONE exactly like himself as God the Son, and exactly like God the Father…none other but God the Spirit, as John 14:16-21, 25-28, 15:26-27, 16:5-15 reveal. Jesus could use mortal authors to record his STORY, his LIFE, his MEANING by subjecting them to the direction, depth and accuracy of God the Spirit, the SOMEONE exactly like Jesus. Each writer wrote in his God-gifted style, but each in absolute submission to the Spirit’s inspiration and truth. Amen! A Christian friend recently had a water leak in the wall behind her washing machine. She called a plumber after self-efforts to resolve the problem failed. She watched him carefully as he worked to make the necessary repairs. Then paid the exorbitant $450 bill. She mentioned that by following his every step, she could have achieved the same result. Furthermore, it was the very thing she thought needed to be done.
The last point in the subject of this blog. The difference in a professional—meaning a person who achieves the desired outcome in the shortest amount of time—and the person hiring his expertise, exists in the difference between Thinking and Knowing what needs to be done and doing it. The plumber DID and our friend WATCHED. Practical points gleaned. First, whether she could afterwards have followed his skilled steps may be open to question, though possible. But not at the speed he accomplished it. Second, he knew through expertise-gained experience what she only thought should be done. Spiritual points. First, Jesus, the Master Teacher, knew how to pray. The disciples learned HOW by seeing him pray and asking for a lesson Luke 11:1. Which he gave. Which his disciples have followed, finding direction and satisfaction in prayer to God. Second, like our friend with the plumber, the disciples could never have been able to PRAY AS Jesus did in John 17. Only he could pray that way, being privy to the infinity of the Godhead, a point still true. Who, when reading John 17, doesn’t understand the spiritual distance between Jesus and us? Third, consider Simon Peter’s willingness to outdistance the Law by forgiving offenders SEVEN times Matthw 18:21. Only to discover the Master’s goal being unlimited times, Matthew 18:22-35, a matchless parable fortifying his teaching. And so on, Matthew 16:21-23, 26:33-35, two of many more examples. Proving the wisdom of Robert Schuller’s words: when you need an expert, HIRE it, not BE it. Especially in the spiritual realm, where mankind has always instinctively made its own rules. Only to find GOD doesn’t care what our rules are, since he has made HIS OWN, including accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. No other way exists to enter God’s Presence John 14:6. Therefore, so much for the critics who say the disciples:
That’s another subject. Bye for now. V God wanted Jesus to enter the tomb for several reasons in fact, one of which has received too little attention.
First, while undercover operatives LEARN the secrets they’re to steal, Jesus KNEW all that death held for humanity, and KNEW it held no power over him. Indeed, the Glorified Christ assured his servant John, “I hold the keys of death and hades” Revelation 1:18. Second, secreting his Son for the few hours in the grave proved to be the ONLY TIME Jesus spent AWAY from his public ministry. Third, while Isaiah predicted Christ’s assumption of all human infirmities, diseases and sins, 53:4, 6, Matthew 8:17, that left but one experience he lacked in being LIKE us…the one experience humanity has always feared most by having NO answer to it. Hebrews 2:9-18, especially 9, 14-18 addresses that experience. Had God willed, Jesus could have miraculously descended from the cross after paying the penalty for human sin, which he achieved particularly in the 3-hour span preceding his death. What a phenomenon he would have been! And how universally he would have been hailed and worshipped. And it would have left him one experience shy of being perfectly like humanity. Since…keep that word in mind…SINCE humanity, alone of God’s creation, FEARS death, Jesus perfectly identified with us by DYING. He came as Savior to forgive, so his sacrifice forgave the sins of the world. His death proved that he also understood what it meant to him to die. And his resurrection proved that death had no power over him, and therefore, has none over us if we follow Christ! In summary:
THEN…PRAISE GOD…UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE! Fini Jesus lectured the men arresting him in Gethsemane…”Every day I sat in the Temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me” Matthew 26:55. His chains rattling, Paul defended his preaching to King Agrippa, “I am convinced that none of this has escaped his attention, because it was not done in a corner” Acts 26:25.
God wanted Jesus in the tomb the way nations put spies into the intelligence networks of other nation2—but for an entirely different reason…. End Part II We know of moles as “burrowing insectivores…with tiny eyes, concealed ears and soft fur”, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary – Tenth Edition, p. 749.
We also know of espionage moles as planted agents of a government in another government’s intelligence system. Aldrich Ames served as such until his arrest in 1992 as a Soviet mole. The intention is to secure information that another government wants kept secret. Even corporations have moles, seeking information from competitors in their fields of endeavor—purely for the financial profit involved. Those moles who serve as spies can be motivated by political conscience, money, sex or a sense of perverted adventure—being involved in treasonous activities while creating a sense of political loyalty. Jesus came into history in Bethlehem, Judea, after many Psalms and prophecies predicted his arrival. But he always served as God’s Visible Spokesman, never in an undercover role, with an illegal purpose or to establish a secret organization for only a few initiated into its mysteries. End Part I A disclaimer: it isn’t always how a message is preached that determines its effectiveness. It may depend on how carefully it’s received by the listener Matthew 11:15.
For brevity, consider that God holds preachers accountable for the content of their messages. Initiative in preaching, then, lies with the messenger, not the people. They may not initially want mind-stretching messages. But hearing such remains the best way to help disciples prioritize faith in Christ and remove obstacles to deeper commitment to him. Once listening to such messages, believers may be forced to tolerate lesser preaching, but they’ll value what demands more of them. If they desire FEWER demands, they’re in danger of being thorny soil. Thus, the preacher must think more deeply about what he preaches. And listeners must develop the desire to hear something that takes time to mature them in belief and behavior. In summary, Christians would spiritually prosper without the interference of SO MUCH STUFF going on in their lives. And the best corrective of the thorny soil person is preaching that by its power as God’s Word urges obedience to God, not satisfies listeners with self. If STRONG, thoughtful Bible messages won’t change listeners who retain restraining influences that reduce the effectiveness of faith in Christ, WEAK preaching never will. And by preaching better messages the spokesman will at least have discharged his God-appointed duty. Jesus accepted rejection of his word. We need not despair when ours is rejected. As he continued proclaiming God’s truth in powerful ways, we can at least improve our messages to be better instruments of the Holy Spirit’s use. Finale Note: if I can, I’ll avoid lengthy, multi-part blogs. V In Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus summarized four reactions to Gospel teaching: Negative, Superficial, Conflicted, Productive. This blog won’t consider Productive.
The Pharisees embodied the Negative, opposing Jesus from his first public appearance, John 2:18, to his Last Week of Ministry. Often listening to and seeing him for 3½ years, they still couldn’t decipher where he got his authority. Judas embodied the Superficial. In Avoiding the Judas Complex, this writer suggested six reasons why Judas fell from enthusiasm for Christ to disillusionment with Christ until…a year before Calvary, he had become a Satan John 6:70-71. However, countering the Calvinism so prevalent in Bible scholarship today, Judas had originally been a member of the Twelve. Note carefully that in Acts 1:16-17, Simon Peter said, “he was one of our number….!” He had the perfect opportunity to precede Calvin by saying, “he never was one of our number.” But Peter said he WAS! Demas embodied the Conflicted II Timothy 4:9-10. Whatever drew him to Thessalonica from his companionship with Paul—family, a girl, night life, etc.—conflicted his mind. And that led him to consider present pleasure more important than eternal satisfaction. Demas warns American Christians: we can diminish our interest in Jesus simply by having TOO MANY competing interests in our daily life. Worse than that, we can LOSE interest in Jesus by feeling the need of present pleasure to God’s lasting presence. End Part IV Next: In Finale—how preachers can help their people guard against this response. |
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