Confrontation

Scripture:

24 “Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days.  25 And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”  (Acts 3:24-26)

Observation:

Peter and John are going to the temple for daily prayers and as they enter the gate called Beautiful, Peter administers a miracle.  The recipient, a man born lame, praises God and draws attention to what God has done for him.  This brings a crowd who react in surprise and are “filled with wonder and amazement.” 

Peter admonishes them, asking them why they look to him as though he did this on his own power or Godliness.  He points them to Jesus, saying: “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.  We are witnesses of this.  By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know, was made strong. “

Not once did Peter or John take credit or glory for the miracles.  Because they kept their egos out of it, because they always pointed the people back to Jesus, the Spirit of God was able to flourish – proving that not even death could stop the gospel message. 

While in the middle of admonishing the onlookers for their part in Jesus’ death (something that could have put a wedge of condemnation between God and his people), Peter pulls them in, reminding them of the promises God made to them through Abraham and the prophets.  He reminds them of the prophesy that the “Servant would suffer” (Isaiah).  He reminds them what God said to Abraham in the covenant “Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed”

Then he gets to the best part, he tells them something in their place and time that I can hold on to here in mine.  He says in verse 26 “When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you, by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

This was the opening door for many people who saw Jesus from a distance.  They’d heard who he was.  Might have been curious about him, but mostly just followed the crowd.  For some, this might have been the first miracle they’d observed (it says they were amazed).  They could no longer pretend he was just a good man, or a teacher.  Peter claimed that they weren’t doing any of those miracles on their own power – but by the power of the suffering servant who was raised. 

Peter uses the miracle to get the peoples attention, but the point of the whole thing was to confront them with Jesus; to get them to repent of their wickedness.

This was the blessing!

Application:

Tomorrow we will talk about the result of this confrontation, but let me circle back for a moment and ask you a question.  Have you confronted Jesus lately?  Have you found sin in your life that you’ve turned away from?  If you have… if you’ve conformed your life to His, then look for the blessing!

If you know you are on the wrong track, avoiding the saving work of Jesus, won’t you stop running and confront him?  Talk to Him about your hurts and your disappointments.  Give him the chance to talk to you and prove how surrendering your wickedness will bring blessings in your life.

Prayer:

Father God, I know that what I just asked them to do is scary.  We often feel so overwhelmed and harbor self-contempt, wondering how you could ever love us when we are so messed up.  It’s hard to believe that you can love us so much when we sometimes don’t even like ourselves.  But I pray for them, Lord, that you would give them the courage to speak to you honestly about their hurts and the things they love that they know are wicked.  Help them see themselves the way you do.  Increase their hope, and pour out your truth in their life so they can see past the delusions and enter into the blessing.  Amen.

Do What You Can

Scripture: Mark Chapter 14

Do What You Can

1Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2“But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

3While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5It could have been sold for more than a year’s wagesand the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

6“Leave her alone,”said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.7The poor you will always have with you,and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.8She did what (she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.9Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

10Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. 11They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

(Mark 14:1-11)

It’s the fourth day of his final week, two days before Passover.  He knows he has only a few days left before the crucifixion.  His heart and mind must be full of all the things he wants yet to say on one hand and the fullness of his purpose weighing on the other.

In this quiet moment before the betrayal, Jesus rests.  He’s finished his public ministry of teaching and healing, and moved into a priestly one.  The anointing by this woman signifies the internal changes happening within him.  A change that goes largely unnoticed by the people around him, and so he gives another clue to what he’s thinking: “She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

It’s interesting to me that this is the trigger point for Judas’s decision for betrayal.  Could it be that Judas finally gets that Jesus isn’t going to be a Roman Conqueror?  Could it be that when he hears the comment Jesus makes, his prediction that he’s going to die, he fears for his own life?  Could it be that he is deluded into thinking that betraying him into arrest might save his life – a desire to control a situation he sees unraveling with dire consequences?  Whatever his motivation, this episode moves him into putting the plans into place that set Jesus up.

I also find it touching that Jesus says of the woman who does this for him “She did what she could”.  Something he rewards her for with in an interesting promise that reaches across time and space and links her story forever with his in the telling of the Gospel.

Here’s what I get from this passage for application: Jesus has to transition from the person we originally thought he was when we first meet him, into the person that intimacy reveals him to be in our lives.  Are we willing to let our lives change, let our own ambitions fall, and truly enter into the life of service and sacrifice he calls us to?

Do we betray him, like Judas, wanting to have control for ourselves; or do we honor him and forever link our story to his like this woman with the alabaster Jar?

If you are like me you’ve have moments of both, constantly picking up and putting down that control. 

Father I pray that you use this moment in devotion to talk to those who are reading.  I ask you to reveal their inner ambitions and to give them the courage to “Do What They Can.”  Amen

For Those Who Have Ears To Hear

Scripture: Mark Chapter 4

11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that,

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,

and ever hearing but never understanding;

otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

33 With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.  34He did not say anything to them without using a parable.  But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

. 

Observation: 

Why speak parables?  Why not just say it straight out, especially with something this important? 

The best I understand, based on a comment Jesus makes in verses 11-12 is that Jesus knew that there were those in the crowd that had already hardened their hearts, they joined the crowd for their own reasons – likely to catch him saying something that could get him hauled before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish ruling counsel).  This presented a challenge!  How do you speak so that the right people hear the truth, and the others just hear a story?  

Jesus’ answer to his dilemma was the parable.  In this opening set of parables, Jesus reveals what the Kingdom of God is like, and he uses the imagery of seeds to explain it, something that a group of farmers would connect with immediately.

Application:

Fast forward to today.  What do you “hear” when you read the parables?  Do you hear the deeper truths or just a story?  If you don’t, the solution is within the first parable… check the soil of your heart. 

Prayer: 

Lord, I am so thankful that you found a way to speak and teach!  I am grateful to the Holy Spirit who searches out the deeper things of God and reveals those truths to us.  I pray that you open the ears of our hearts.  Amen!