Acts of the Apostles - The Preamble ...

Who cares about you?  Who really cares?  For most their parents may come to mind, or their spouse if they have one, perhaps even their children; for when we think about who may care for us, we immediately associate care with love, and the question quickly becomes one of who loves us for real in the world in which we find ourselves.  But there is perhaps another important dimensional lens to examine a question such as this.  He or she who cares about us may well be he or she who reaches out to us, to assist us in the journey back to God, and back to eternal life.  For in the scheme of things, who demonstrates their love for you in a more tangible way, than he or she who is trying to help you along your journey back home, to the heavenly home where God intends for you to be.  When you think about your eternal life is there anything more important than that?

When you think about it in that context, teachers we have had may come to mind.  Or perhaps preachers or evangelists who have impacted us in a profound way and helped steer our journey.  But in this light the role of our parents is even more important for they must guide us every day.  The role of our spouse becomes even more important for they must encourage us every day and they see us more closely than others do.  And lastly the role we play as parents to our own children cannot be overstated, for what parts of the gospel we live out in front of them, become the lamp posts they remember as they confront their own lives.  But in all of this there are choices we make, choices who we befriend, and what that friendship will mean to us and to those we choose to be kind to.  Sometimes in that group a best friend arises.  Someone who just seems to be closer to us.  Someone who just seems to “get us” better than other folks do.  And while our friendships may form around many things, a friendship that forms around trying to point each back to God, is perhaps the most meaningful of all.

In that context, I ask you to remember Theophilus.  Theophilus was not my friend directly, but I benefit from the friendship he formed with Doctor Luke of the New Testament Biblical age.  While Theophilus was never famous, the churches he founded may never have carried his name.  Theophilus was a believer, perhaps an infant in the faith.  Asking all the questions a young child asks as he discovers life.  Why this, and why that.  And because of the beauty of faith and friendships, Doctor Luke set about to pen two letters to his dear friend to answer those questions, to explain what we believe and why we believe it.  We know those letters as the Gospel of Luke, and the book the Acts of the Apostles.  Luke writes to his beloved friend the entire story, or at least the entire story as he knows it.  Told by the witnesses who lived it.  Relayed by those who spoke directly with Jesus, and who felt the grip of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

For then and now the Holy Spirit is as real as the breath we take.  And we invite the Holy Spirit to inhabit our minds, our hearts, and our bodies He answers with the gifts He deems are the ones we need at the times we need them.  Each of us different.  Each part of the body of Christ fulfilling its mission in order to benefit the whole.  But while each of us remains unique, the common mission we hold, is the friendship we shower on those we choose.  In that we find the giving more meaningful than the taking.  We find the encouraging we spend on each other the substance of memories we cling to over time.  We find the kindness we share the stuff of legends.  But in how we aid the discipleship of others we leave our legacy upon the world, and in the next one.  That is the Holy Spirit’s highest gift to us, His greatest offering, as to make us partners in the cause of God, in the redemption of others.  We are not Saviors, only Jesus will ever be that.  But a word of encouragement can be the vehicle in which the tangible love of God is shown to ones most in need of it, at times most critical in their own journey, if not in ours.

We sometimes think of mission as something between one person and many.  The believer reaching out to thousands or hundreds in need.  Indeed, that is mission.  But mission is also the one person reaching out to the other, a one-to-one relationship.  Think of it this way, the person who knows you, who you believe truly cares about you, you have more reason to trust that person, to ask for help when you need it.  More importantly to accept help when it is offered.  One-to-one relationships offer context.  Luke writes to Theophilus with more than just a casual knowledge of what his friend needs.  Luke has obviously taken an interest in him.  He knows him.  We could know others better in a spiritual context if we chose to make that aspect the more important one of our relationships.  If we chose to make mission a thing of one to one, perhaps with our spouse, or our children, or our parents, mission might take on new meaning and new importance.  Do we have the courage to think this way?  Perhaps in so doing the entire world benefits from someone so personal as we collectively do from Luke and Theophilus.

In Acts chapter one and verse 1 it begins ...”The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, [verse 2] Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: [verse 3] To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:”  Luke here talks about the contents of his first letter, which we know as the Gospel of Luke.  It is the story of Jesus while He was here.  It lasts all the way to after His resurrection for the 40 days He spent appearing and visiting with His disciples and followers.  This was the time when the Gospel was being sealed and finalized for the first evangelical ministry.  Being certain of the living Jesus, was something needed and received in those 40 days.  It was after that the power of the Holy Spirit would fall upon those early believers.  Jesus Himself had predicted this and said it would be good for the believers because the Holy Spirit would not be bound to a single person or region or place.  The Holy Spirit could be in many places at once, and in many different people at once.

Even without any more of the story, these few verses should have been enough to stoke the fire of belief in Theophilus and in each of us.  You will note there has never been a time limit of the Holy Spirit.  No end of Him proscribed until the very end of time when He will stop striving with mankind.  But what the Holy Spirit did in the days of Luke and Theophilus He could very well do in our days, and in our lives and hearts.  Luke and Theo would have been looking for Him, are we?  Or do we read the pages and stories of the Bible as some sort of history lesson, never to be repeated in our days, or our lives.  We know better than to believe “we” have the power of anything beyond what normal men do.  But do we lack the Holy Spirit because we do not look for Him, or perhaps because we crave credit for every good thing we do so much, that we might take credit for His power and goodness reflected through our lives?

Luke continues in verse 4 saying … “And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. [verse 5] For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”  Luke reminds us that Jesus told of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Again, in our day it is not about us gathering together in Jerusalem, for the Holy Spirit is already here.  But it might well be about the gathering together in “unity” that we lack.  Each of us thinks we hold to some unique part of the gospel that no other one can see.  And instead of producing a blending outcome like that of a choir in perfect unison of different voices and parts, we wait to sing a solo so that every other one can appreciate the truth and beauty of what we alone have discovered.  But the beauty of the choir’s anthem does not require that every member think and be alike, only that every member is willing to sing and blend his own voice with that of his neighbor.

And I do not believe the Holy Spirit will fall on only one denomination signifying it alone has the composite of all truth.  But instead, the Holy Spirit will fall on the willing, the willing to be led, the willing to be taught.  We are not meant to teach Him, or to affirm what we already believe by His presence.  We are meant to learn from Him, and to begin to see truth our limited minds have been to blind to see, before the Holy Spirit became a part of our learning process and leader of it.  And we are not to obsess over when the final return of Jesus will be.  We should obsess instead over being transformed and living lives like we were already a part of the kingdom of heaven, under its rules and freedom, and under its leader Jesus Christ.  Heaven without transformation, would be to us Lucifer repeated.  Salvation then is not something that can only happen at the end of all things, Salvation can happen right here and right now, to be saved from … us.  I need to be saved from me, from the “me” that I am now.  I need to be the version of “me” that Jesus intends for me to be.  His version, not mine, not my ideas, but His.

Luke continues in verse 6 saying … “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? [verse 7] And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. [verse 8] But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  Even to the end, the disciples were still looking to find out when Israel would be restored to the glory described about heaven.  Jesus redirects them to not obsess about “when” and instead focus on the Holy Spirit and taking the gospel to uttermost ends of the earth.  You will note the Holy Spirit is not deterred by the presence of unbelievers.  It is not the pagans that sends the Holy Spirit away.  It is believers who think they don’t need Him.  It is believers who think they already know all the truth there is to know.  It is believers who do not wish to be led by anyone of anything, only by the dictates of their own minds and hearts.  The American Dream reinforces all these ideals.  Work hard and earn your way to the top.  Whereas Christianity teaches, Jesus Himself teaches, “wait” and receive the Holy Spirit first, and then be led, don’t try to do the leading.

We are to be dependent upon God, and humble in our minds and hearts.  We are to be servants of all, not because we are compelled to, but because it has become our highest desire our highest ideal.  The only “when” important in that goal is how quickly we will let Him transform us into that kind of creation.  As for me and my house, the quicker the better.

 

Understanding Scripture ...

Without the lens of Jesus Christ, scripture is impossible to understand.  But when looking at scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ there is no mystery that will not be revealed.  And it is upon this truism where nearly every Christian church has gone astray.  We may come by it honestly.  But where our forefathers tripped up and stumbled, we seem bound and determined to have history repeat itself in our generations and in our hearts.  We treat Jesus like a topic, like a person who lived and died some 2000 years ago.  Oh sure Jesus may have risen from the dead and gone back to heaven, but that is just part of His story where we are concerned, and sadly for most of us, we treat it like the end of the story.  Jesus is just another subject matter contained in the Bible. 

We don’t use Jesus as the Rosetta Stone by which to interpret scripture.  We treat scripture as independent units that do not require Jesus to properly understand.  For instance, the Law, that is the Ten Commandment Law, is treated as fully independent from Jesus.  It talks about God in it.  But since it does not specify Jesus by name, we apply a generic “God” into its interpretation and set about deciding what everything in it means.  “Love the Lord with all your heart” should equally apply to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost with God interpreted in a generic sense of the word.  But what if this was Jesus as the author of this law referring to His Father God as the object of who we are to love?  It changes our understanding if thought about this way.  Why would it be important to Jesus that we love His Father so much?  Could it be that Jesus wants us to understand that Father God is every bit as interested in having an intimate loving relationship is, as our savior is?  And when we get generic with our meaning of who God is in this directive, what do we do with the Holy Spirit?  We know there is One.  But we understand that part of the Godhead so little.  How do we love what we understand so little?  But a Dad is easy to understand.  And a Savior is even easier.

My point is not to offer “the understanding” of the Ten Commandment Law, but it is to examine it once again through the lens of Jesus Christ.  Take for example once again, the Sabbath Day and what we are supposed to do and not do to honor it.  Jesus completely turned over all the traditions of His day while He was here.  Yet He made it His tradition, His habit, to always go to synagogue and worship every Sabbath while here on earth.  Was that example?  Was that important?  Was that just for our benefit?  The answer might be found in what He did in the synagogue every time He went – He opened the scriptures and taught.  Not the old traditional views of scripture.  But new ways to see the same texts people had been listening to since birth.  He opened the eyes and ears of the people to the Bible (or what they had of it back then) in ways that were literally brand new to them.  The priests were often offended.  But the people ate it up.  Does that sound like church to you these days?  Do you come home talking with your family about the message where scripture has come alive to you, and showed you something new you never saw before?  Or have we buried the “sermon” in all the packaging we surround it with, never once using Jesus to see Old scriptures, but instead talking about Jesus like He is a completely different topic than anything in the Old Testament, or perhaps outside of the 4 books of the gospels.

And if Jesus was meant to be the lens by which we interpret scripture, and we leave Him out of what we do, and what conclusions we draw – we have become the Pharisees of old; the right church, the right scripture, the right God – and no understanding of anything.  And lest you think you do not need Jesus to understand scripture take as a case in point Jesus teaching in the Temple for 3 days when He was only twelve.  Those priests, Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, and leaders were absolutely captivated by every word He offered, every conclusion He drew, every insight He revealed.  This was no 2 hour sermon.  This was a live 3 day event.  Think about that.  Those priests knew He did not belong to any of them.  They probably knew his actual parents would be searching for Him at that tender age.  But they didn’t care.  They were so intent listening to this great mind and great heart, they were like addicts craving more teaching from the lips of this mere Child.  And their minds were opened.  Yet somehow we see this event as something for someone else.  As if how we study the Bible, is just fine as it is, leaning on the traditions our churches offer, and looking for no new insights.

But it was not just the priests and leadership who needed Jesus to show them scriptures when He was 12 years old.  Nor was it the people who attended synagogues who needed His wisdom imparted every single Sabbath day while He was here.  Those men and women closest to Jesus, the ones who knew Him best, and understood Him best, who bore witness to His life – they still needed to have scripture opened to them.  The disciples, despite all that access, and all that involvement in the very story of Jesus, were actually no better off than the typical priest or scribe.  Even after the resurrection they still clung to the old versions of how the Bible was to be interpreted.  In their mind, maybe NOW after everything, the Messiah would finally kick the Romans out of dodge.  But alas, the Romans were still fully in charge.  Even the very ones who beat Jesus, who pushed a crown of thorns deep in His skull, who nailed Him naked to a cross and watched Him die.  All of those very Romans were still untouched, unpunished, and weirdly loved by Jesus.  Nothing they expected from scripture or tradition about Christ the conqueror had come to pass as they expected it to.  The lens of Jesus was to be applied once more.

Luke picks up the story in chapter 24 of his letter to his friend about what we believe and why, at the end of the chapter in verse 44 it reads … “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. [verse 45] Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,”  Notice what he does, Jesus opens their understanding.  Before Jesus is applied to scripture our understanding is muted.  Without Him and His example, we lose not only meaning, but love itself.  Go back to our example about Sabbath keeping from the Ten Commandment law; Jesus never put the day ahead of healing of one in need.  He could have.  He could have said to come back tomorrow, or to meet Him at Peter’s house the next day.  Jesus could have done a time-based-healing where the minute the sun went down, the healing took place, no matter where He was at that moment in time.  The sick would have still been overjoyed to be healed.  They were sick their whole lives, waiting a few hours more would have been nothing to them, just a few more hours in pain.

But that lesson is the lesson we needed to learn, both then and now.  Jesus never waits to love us, or meet our highest needs, He does what He does right here, right now, we need not wait a second longer.  And Sabbath is not more important to Him than your pain, He treasures His time with you, and will not let you spend it suffering for the sake of tradition and misunderstanding about how a Sabbath law should be kept.  Our salvation is the priority, Sabbath is a tool to help us see that, not a wall to keep us in pain, even pain we created for ourselves.  Without the lens of Jesus Christ, it is easy to make Sabbath arbitrary, cold, unfeeling or unsympathetic.  But with the life story of Jesus as it pertains to Sabbath, we begin to see the joy of learning, of loving, and of making care of each other the highest form of worship there may ever be.

Luke continues in verse 46 saying … “And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: [verse 47] And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. [verse 48] And ye are witnesses of these things.”  The life of Christ was to be one of suffering for our sins, to conquer us through transforming love, not to conquer the Roman kingdom by force or other means.  The life of Christ would die willing for us, to save us from ourselves.  The Romans were not the threat.  They could kill the body, but could not touch the soul who believes.  No political power can ever rob you of your belief in Jesus.  They may be able to kill you for your belief, but they cannot take it from you.  Only you can give up or let go what you believe in.  Other people are not the true threat to your salvation.  You are.  So Jesus offers you a way to ground your faith in Him, and a way to see your sin driven from you by His power, through His means on His timeline.  The repentance and remission of sins.  Not just to feel bad about them.  But to see them driven from you.  For you to be made free from them.  And all those many disciples both men and women in attendance in that upper room were witnesses to all of this.

Jesus then moves the focus of scripture from the past to the present and the future.  Luke concludes picking up in verse 49 saying … “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.  [verse 50] And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. [verse 51] And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. [verse 52] And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: [verse 53] And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.”  The disciples needed the power of the Father God in order to strengthen them for the ministry each of them would live and die for in the near future.  To be faithful to the end was part of what was given each of them.  But here Jesus shows them what scripture could not, a point of view of what was happening right then, and what was to come.  Luke records it in his letter.  We have it from what has become the gospel of Luke.

Just because Jesus is in this book, does not mean we will understand even this gospel, without asking Jesus for understanding, following where He leads our minds, and letting Him reveal it to us.  And by applying what we learn of Jesus here, to other passages and stories in the Bible, we begin to see scripture more consistently.  Stories in the Old Testament we once thought of in destructive terms, flip on their heads, as we begin to see each story is one of salvation, or of God’s desperate attempts to give us salvation.  There were only 8 people in the Ark of Noah, but it would have housed many more if they but would accept it.  And if many more than that were convicted, perhaps the flood itself might have never come.  When God came to Noah, it was to save Noah.  And in the process of that saving, 120 years went by, with Noah preaching to people from all over the world, who came to see this “Noah’s folly”.  Those people were exposed to the powerful preaching of Noah, endowed with the Holy Spirit to add fire and conviction to his words.  But still the hearts of evil clung to evil, and chose death.  Not for lack of knowing the truth, but for lack of wanting “that truth”.  The flood did not happen in 2 hours, or 2 days.  It was delayed 120 years.  The progress of the building of the Ark was slow but measurable.  Jesus was bent on saving us, and only destroying evil.  But we would not let go of evil.

Whether we see the flood of Noah as world wide destruction, or as a desperate attempt at our salvation by a God steeped in love is a matter of whether you apply the lens of Jesus Christ to this story in scripture.  You know how Jesus loved based on everything else you have read.  Did you think that love only happened then for mankind?  Did you think Jesus only came to save the people in His own time?  No, Jesus has loved us since He created us.  Jesus has been desperate to save us since then if only we would let Him.  But as in the days of Noah, when man was sure there would be no end to his evil and his potential to do even greater evil, so in our day, an end is coming.  The final destruction of this world is meant to be a final destruction of those who simply prefer evil and will not give it up.  Yet the story is not about those who are lost, it is about those who were saved from this fate, through Jesus.  To really understand it all, we must seek Jesus to show us, and to open our minds to it.  It is the only way to really see.

 

No More Time to Doubt ...

The women were the first to speak the truth of the gospel.  Then two men of the inner circle came bursting into the upper room bringing the same words of the gospel good news.  Jesus is alive.  Don’t care that we all saw Him get crucified and die.  Don’t care that we all know He was laid in the tomb fully dead.  He just walked with us all the way to Emmaus and showed us right out of scripture how all of this was fore-ordained.  We nearly ate dinner with Him before He just disappeared.  And Luke picks up the story right as they are speaking the validation of the women’s first gospel testimony that should have never been needed to be validated.  But just to put a nail in the coffin of doubt forevermore Luke interrupts what goes on there continuing in chapter 24 of his letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  In verse 36 it says … “And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.”  While they were yet testifying as to what they had seen, heard, and experienced.  They are interrupted by this Jesus Himself appearing right in the middle of them.  No knock on the door.  Not tired from running the whole way there from Emmaus.  God does not need to run.  God moves where He wants.  God goes where He is needed.  No prophet ever did that.  Jesus is not just some mere mighty prophet.  Jesus is God.  And God is very much alive.

The time for doubt to die is here.  The time for faith born in evidence is now right there in the middle of that room looking them straight in the eyes and hearts.  But once again, human weakness, is the response to Jesus, even when He just got finished saying “peace be unto you”.  In effect Shalom.  A greeting of peace.  A greeting meant to assuage fear.  But when we refuse to see, we often refuse to hear, all because we are so set in our ways that even if Jesus appeared right in the very room with us, we cling to our notions of the past.  Luke continues recording their responses in verse 37 saying … “But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.”  It winds up easier for us to believe in ghosts than God.  We prefer the darkness to the light, even when it shines right in front of us.  Consider that every disciple in that upper room (man or woman, part of the 12 or part of the 70), every one of them, knows and has seen firsthand Jesus raising the dead while He was yet with them in His earlier ministry.  They know it can be done, because they have all seen it done.  Some of them will do this in His name in the future.  But regardless, they all know it is possible.  No ghosts back then.  No tricks back then.  But when Jesus shows Himself to be alive, we reject the possibility of resurrection and cling to the notion of evil spirits or ghosts.

Is it any different today?  We accept death as inevitable and permanent, never considering for a moment that our resurrection is assured.  Never considering that God may even bring us back to this world early to accomplish the mission He has in mind for us.  But no one asks that prayer.  And worse NO ONE believes it could ever happen.  So NO ONE tests their own faith in the name of Jesus by asking it.  We just see death, and give up all hope, barely trusting in the resurrection that will one day come.  We just assume death is the will of God.  How could it not be?  If God did not want death, then why is it so inevitable?  But these musings are the thoughts of believers who accept the results of sin, without considering that God never intended for us to understand death at all, let alone to experience it.  We were created with the notion of forever in mind.  Time was to have no end.  Endings would be a foreign concept.  So why do we believers now choose to NEVER ask for God to bring life back in the here and now, in order that we may continue the work He has set for us.  It is possible that work was prematurely ended by death.  And it is possible that God would have that work restarted now, if those fellow servants would only have the faith to ask and believe in those same possibilities.  What is the worst that can happen; He says “no”.  Seems like we are already settling for that answer, without ever asking for something else.

The lesson in this upper room is one for our church today.  Our ideas of the past, what we believe the doctrines dictate, so inform our judgment that even a risen Lord is unable to penetrate them.  We get in our heads what we think things should be, then cement those ideas so that nothing can shake them.  Even a plainly risen Lord Jesus, is translated into the ideas of a spirit or ghost instead.  A spirit or ghost is still consistent with their earlier beliefs, a risen Lord is not.  And are we any different?  Our ideas create our fear, our doubt.  Any evidence, or testimony, that lends itself to the notion we are mistaken, is discarded in favor of ridiculous conclusions that keeps us fully in line with the past.  We choose, like our disciple forefathers, to look backwards even when standing in the presence of God Himself.  And in so doing we nurture our fear and self-reliance, not our faith, and our ability to step forward.  Imagine if even when you do not have the money, you pay your tithes anyway.  Common sense tells you that this is a financial mistake.  There is no way that spending money you do not have, on church of all things, or ministry of all things, could possibly make sense.  But I challenge you to challenge God and spend that money that way, then stand back and watch.  Somehow, someway, everything works out.  It does not make sense, but it does work out.

And this lesson is to be applied to more than just our money.  Imagine if instead of returning some well deserved righteous indignation to someone who has wronged you, who is guilty, who clearly has it coming and they know it – instead – you return some undeserved love and total forgiveness, you show kindness where it is not deserved.  And believe me, kindness is the last thing that will be expected in that situation, from them or you.  But instead of “being human”, you react through the power of His love, letting it flow through you, and only then; lives will be changed, perhaps yours most of all.  To apologize when you have done no wrong, to be humble when you are in the right, to be forgiving when you are the aggrieved party; these are the hallmarks of a true believer in Jesus Christ as your lord.  We should not need evidence before we are able to trust this way.  We should not need Jesus appearing in our living rooms, to truly know that living this way, is living a better way.  And no difference of doctrine or denomination should warrant a limit to our love, our forgiveness, or our kindness.

Luke continues in verse 38 saying … “And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? [verse 39] Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. [verse 40] And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.”  So Jesus must reach out to us even farther.  He offers his own flesh as proof of His identity.  Jesus humbles Himself enough to let His followers poke the holes in hands, or feet, or side.  Imagine how far Jesus will go, to assuage your doubts and fears, to turn you from looking backwards and start you on looking forwards to what really matters.  The only way the incorrect beliefs or doctrines you hold to will ever be corrected, is if you look forward to Jesus, and to where and how He leads you.  Nothing can change while we cement ourselves in a backwards posture.  Looking to Jesus can be the full death of doubt if we let it.

But humans can be stubborn when we choose to.  Luke continues in verse 41 saying … “And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? [verse 42] And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. [verse 43] And he took it, and did eat before them.”  So even when we start seeing the potential in the future, even when that potential introduces so much joy we can hardly stand it, we still find a way to keep doubting, and keep the door to all that - sealed shut.  Where Jesus is concerned, too good to be true, is not yet good enough.  Jesus always brings more good, more joy to us, than our limited brains ever thought possible.  As a final demonstration that He is not some spirit or ghost, Jesus eats something right in front of them.  In the kingdom of the Lord there are no spirits or ghosts save the Holy Ghost or dimension of the God head we do not fully understand.  Think about it, other than that, when Enoch goes to heaven he is translated alive in full bodily form, just as he was born to his parents.  When Moses dies, he is buried in a secret place by God, but when the devil finds his body, Moses is resurrected and taken to heaven in full bodily form.  When Elijah goes it is the same story.  When Lazarus was brought back it was in no spirit form, but in full bodily form, as was every other resurrected person during the ministry of Christ.  When the firstfruits go to heaven, it is the same story once again, resurrected in full bodily form.  And Jesus is no different.  God does not need a shell of who we are.  He did not make us this way, He has no interest in seeing us this way.  We are either living as we do now, or dead and sleeping in a grave with no memory, or interest in what happens today. 

But the disciples were more inclined to believe in demons masquerading as spirits or ghosts of those no longer alive, than in a resurrected Lord.  It took more than just His appearing in their room and speaking with them.  It took more than poking the holes of His wounded flesh, wounds He has chosen to keep forevermore.  It took Jesus eating a meal in front of them, before they would finally set aside their doubt.  This was Jesus subtlety teaching them their superstitions should be undone by what is real.  We don’t need the ghosts of the past, we need the Lord of today, the Lord of the future.  We should not allow our ideas of doctrines and what we think “should” be, cloud our notions of what the Lord is actually doing right now, right here in front of your face.  God is bigger than our box.  God is greater than our limitations, or our imaginations.  Now is the time for the doubt of the past to meet its end.  Is your faith capable of letting go of the past, and fastening hold of the future Jesus has in mind for you?  I hope mine is …

 

So I had a Heart Attack ...

I very rarely take an intermission from my weekly BLOG centered on taking a second look at scripture; right now we are in the book of Luke.  But my personal testimony was amended this past week to including going through a heart attack, and I believe God deserves a praise report on this experience from top to bottom.  It began on December 1^st a Wednesday with a phone call from my wife on her way to work.  She had a car accident, and called me first thing, having been hit from behind with damage to our car, but way more importantly with pain in her back and neck.  So I at once began trying to help her any way I could.  Calls to 911.  Trip to the site.  Exchanging insurance information, waiting on the police report.  Then taking her to the CentraCare facility to be X-rayed and triaged and given pain shots, etc.  It took most of the day before we were driving home having addressed the crisis for my wife.  When only a few blocks from home, it hit me.  Both sharp and constant pain in my chest running down my left arm on a scale of one to ten, it was a traditional eleven.  But I finished the drive and retired immediately to my big yellow chair.  My whole life, I always do great in a crisis, and fall apart only after it is done.  I assumed this was that.

I have had pain like this before.  And I do things to not pay attention to it.  I work.  I watch TV.  I focus on my iPad.  Or in the worst of cases, I go to bed and hope that a long sleep will change the outcome when I wake up.  Thursday came, and my pain was better, down from an 11 to a 7 or 8.  I just assumed this was me getting better.  When Friday came, my pain was down to the 3 or 4 range and I assumed this entire incident was behind me.  As if you were unable to read between the lines already on what God deserves praise for, from here the interactions become even more unmistakable.  As it turns out, I had a heart test scheduled on Tuesday of this week (the day before my wife’s accident).  And a second different heart test scheduled at the hospital on Friday (the third day since it all began).  My wife had arranged to take me to this test and stay with me throughout it.  That heart test revealed (you guessed it), I was in the middle of an active heart attack.  One of my arteries was 100% clogged.  But miraculously, my heart had found “work arounds” from other veins/arteries in the area providing blood to that part of my heart for no explicable reason.  I was rushed from testing lab to ER (only spent 5 mins there), and was admitted to the Cardiac ward immediately.  The doctors who read my tests understood what was going on, but could not provide a real good explanation of it.

I was immediately given huge doses of aspirin, and nitro glycerin.  My interventionist was called and the next morning (Sabbath for those keeping track), they attempted to do a procedure where they go through my wrist, up my artery, and insert a stent into my clogged artery providing a sort of rubber hose bypass to get the blood going.  They managed to get a balloon in there to force it open; but could not place a permanent stent because the smallest stent was still too big for that particular artery.  So that means my artery was cracked open once by balloon, but the junk is still in it, and it could re-clog up at any time.  The plan of attack is now just heavy meds to try to clean it out that way.  Obviously, I am changing my diet, and trying to mobilize as best my back and remaining lack of breath, and lack of flow will permit.  I feel like a truck ran over me.  But I guess that is a common feeling when getting out of a hospital.

So back to God for praise.  My wife never left my side.  She even slept in my room in the hospital and I use the word “sleep” lightly as that rarely happens.  But she was not just “there”, she was praying for me, for my doctors, and the staff the whole time.  My two primary nurses (one day, one night) were outstanding.  I got the on call cardiac interventionalist, but he happened to be the best one in the entire department, very very experienced, and did the stents for my best friend, so I already knew of him.  The care at AdventHealth (formerly Florida Hospital) in Orlando, is second to none.  I had multiple EKGs, blood tests, and sonograms of my heart throughout my experience.  How I got the best people, at the time when just a little more delay might have killed me, is not coincidence, it is providence.  My whole experience was like a well-oiled machine.  You would have thought everything was planned in advance, choreographed, and then executed with flawless precision.  It was.  It just happened to be God’s playbook, unseen by us, but still carried out flawlessly.

So what happens now?  I am home.  My wife was given a week off to care for me.  She has.  I have been the subject of much prayer, and I am so grateful for that.  I welcome every prayer sent up on my behalf.  Even though I still feel like I was run over by a truck, and even though these meds will take a while to fix me, I know it is God who has the final say over me.  If I reclog up tomorrow and find myself passed away from this mortal coil, I will yet sing the praises of my Lord Jesus Christ.  I love my family.  I was able to see my baby granddaughter through all of this.  They snuck her into my room.  And her smiles light up a city.  That kind of medicine only God could have arranged.  You see they live in Los Angeles and decided to travel here only to see us without ever knowing these events would transpire.  God will decide when or if I am briefly parted from her, or my wife, or my family.  But while I am here, I will praise the Lord.  And I will try to continue to serve Jesus Christ with every second, and every breath I have left.  He does so much for each of us.  And everything He has done for me, overwhelms my heart, in no matter what state I find it.

My wife and I have found new passion in greeting each day with prayer to God, thanking Him for a new day of life, and then enumerating to Jesus the needs He already is way ahead of us on for others.  You can bet that precious baby granddaughter tops the list, but she is followed by our children, our parents, our families, and then each of the ones Jesus puts in our path.  My wife carries a long list there, and I am grateful we are still able to lift them up in prayer.  That is the least we can do, and perhaps the most we can do.  If you have time and would like to pray for my wife, I know she needs it.  As you may recall this whole incident began with a horrible car crash that actually accordianized the offending vehicle against the back of my wife’s car.  She spends so much time caring for me, I think she is ignoring her own needs, so once again I would welcome prayers for her graciously.  I hope you do not ever have to experience a car accident or a heart attack.  But I am beyond certain, that God has seen us both through this one.  I don’t know what I will be able to do going forward, but while I can, I hope to pray often.  If you have a need, please message me and let me know, it would be my honor to lift you up in prayer to my God who I have personal testimony hears and answers in His tender mercies.  Everything I have been through shows me that over and over again.

 

The Words, not the Source [part 2 of 2] ...

God did something nobody expected.  Often, when we focus on the story of the resurrection, we focus singularly upon Jesus, and that is the main part of the story worthy of our focus.  But it is not the entire story.  As we noted in our last study, women were the first to carry the gospel or good news of Jesus.  Mary Magdalene the first to be directly commissioned by Jesus to go and tell the others what she has seen and heard of the gospel, a personal testimony of which she alone could give account.  I wonder how many of our pastors today have an equal testimony to offer?  How many tell us about things, stories or events, but not the testimonies they have been a personal part of.  But as we also noted in our last study, too often people cling to their personal biases, and when the source of truth is not what we think worthy, or good enough, or appropriate, we reject the truth because of our judgment of the source of it.  This is why the priests of the days of Jesus largely rejected what Jesus had to say.  You see, Jesus was humble, from Nazareth, and had no formal training or endorsement.  How on earth could He possibly be right?  How on “earth” indeed.

So even the personal testimony of Mary Magdalene was not swaying the believers as yet.  But let us back the train up just a little bit.  Taking us back to the angel descending from heaven to the tomb of Jesus, the entire Roman company fell before that angel as dead men locked in fear they had never known.  Watching that stone roll away as nothing, watching those chains snap as tissue paper, watching that seal be broken in two as nothing.  And then out of the tomb emerges Jesus Christ in a brilliant light.  Imagine the fear and guilt that burns within the heart of each soldier there.  They had asked for proof of His divinity while torturing Him, never believing for a second in some Jewish version of God, in some Jewish version of Messiah of all power.  But here He walks right out of the tomb from death to life, by the power of His own will.  If there were ever a doubt in the mind of a Roman soldier about who Jesus was, and more importantly what Jesus was, that doubt vanished in terror at what each of them saw with their own eyes.  It was more than just the angel who descended from heaven to unlock the door and get their attention.  It was the risen Lord who walks out of the grave in a brilliant robe of light, by the power of His own will.

But there is something else.  Had this been Jupiter, or Mars, or some other form of any Roman idea of deity, where all their gods demanded obedience and sacrifice for favor; and should they fail to please their gods, they visited great destruction upon them.  Jesus is different.  Jesus is certainly God, He is proving that now is mind bending ways.  But the expression on His face is NOT one of anger.  Jesus is not looking for revenge.  None of them are hurt, not at all.  Jesus stares at them with such love in His eyes, that love breaks their hearts and tears at the very fabric of their souls.  Jesus is not angry and full of righteous fury.  He should be.  He deserves to be.  He should be wreaking revenge upon them and tearing the flesh from their backs, revisiting the crown of thorns driven deep into their heads, beating them, punching them, and finally driving spikes or spears deep into their flesh.  They have it coming.  They laughed at Him.  They did all this while laughing and spitting on Him.  They made fun of the shame of His nakedness.  They still had His stolen clothes in their possession.  Even though He seems not to care about any of this at all.  He is looking into each of them deeply, with a look of love that would break the hardest heart of stone.  And everything they knew, or thought they knew, was now going to change.

What the priests hoped to contain was now to backfire on them.  Instead of guards to keep Jesus in the grave, a full Roman detachment now moves from non-believer to personal witness of the resurrection of Jesus.  And it gets worse … for them.  More than just one grave opens.  And not just in one place.  All over Judea, specific graves tear themselves open at the call of Jesus, and patriarchs and prophets from the history of Gods people from Adam until Christ, begin to come forth at the call of Jesus.  A first fruits offering for God the Father.  These men and women who bear testimony to the divinity of Jesus will come forth and begin spreading the gospel about what has happened throughout Judea.  A personal testimony to a resurrection called by a living Lord, a risen Lord.  And when the ascension happens, these first fruits will ascend with Jesus to heaven forevermore.  Wakened from the sleep of death, and transformed into what we are all to become, perfect in the eyes of our Creator, who re-creates us thus as He intends us to be.  Now throughout all of Judea, the dead will also bear testimony to the divinity of Jesus the Christ.

The gospel message is beginning to explode.  Yet still the disciples are unaware of all of this.  They still congregate in fear in an upper room.  And fear crushes belief … for now.  Luke continues the story in chapter 24 of his letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  Picking up in verse 13 it says … “And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. [verse 14] And they talked together of all these things which had happened.”  Two of those disciples gathered in that upper room decide to strike out for a small village of Emmaus.  It could be they had family there to hide them.  It could be it was just friend.  But while they walked, they had much to talk about.  Rumors of Roman soldiers who give testimony as to a risen Lord, until the Priests could buy their silence with some story about sleeping on duty.  But if they were sleeping, they would not be bragging about it, because the penalty for that was death.  So you know some small fortunes must have changed hands to keep them alive and quiet as to the real truth.  And still the truth was leaking out.  Then even more rumors about past prophets arisen, maybe one of them was supposed to be in Emmaus.  Then the testimony of the women.  They claim to have seen angels.  They claim the angels spoke of the Lord as among the living, a risen Lord.  Could it be?

Luke continues in verse 15 saying … “And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. [verse 16] But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.”  And once again God does something we did not expect.  And He does it in a way we did not expect.  These men did not expect Jesus but here is Jesus.  Yet their eyes are “closed” in such a way they are unable to see Jesus for who He really is.  Ever wondered if you have encountered Jesus and did not recognize Him for who He is?  Ever wondered why?  Why would Jesus appear to us and keep us from recognizing Him?  Perhaps because the words matter, the truth matters, and source is less important.  Our favorite religious preachers are capable of getting the message wrong.  And the homeless man on the street is capable of getting the message right, even when we are not comfortable with it.  It is the truth that matters.  Truth will not disagree with truth that came before it, for truth cannot change.  But sometimes truth will shatter our interpretations of truth.  Take these two disciples for example.  They believed the Messiah would come and end Roman oppression.  But Jesus did not do that.  They believed Messiah could be the very Son of God, and Jesus did that.  But then Jesus was tortured and killed, how could God allow Himself to go through that.  The truth was consistent.  But our interpretations and expectations were simply completely wrong.  And perhaps Jesus would shield the eyes of these disciples to first correct their beliefs, founded in the truth of scripture, before He revealed Himself.  Let them accept the correct truth of scripture, not the incorrect expectations of our past.

Luke continues in verse 17 saying … “And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? [verse 18] And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?”  Luke reveals one of the two disciples was Cleopas, although not one of the twelve he may well have been one of the 70 and had been with the others in the upper room to hear what was going on.  Jesus asks them what they are talking about and why they are so sad.  Cleopas asks this stranger if effectively he has been living under a rock?  How could he not know what was going on in Jerusalem this past weekend?  Luke continues in verse 19 saying … “And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: [verse 20] And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. [verse 21] But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. [verse 22] Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; [verse 23] And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. [verse 24] And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.”

Jesus asks the two disciples “what things” in order to probe from them what they have heard, and deeper what they believe.  Cleopas and his companion begin with a description of Jesus, a “prophet” mighty in word and deed before God and all the people.  It is here where the foundation of their faith just did not quite go far enough.  The story of prophets come to an end.  The story of God does not.  Have you ever considered that the problems you have in life, or in your relationship with God come because your faith just does not go quite far enough.  You trust God.  But do you trust God a little, or completely?  You believe in God, but believe a little, or with everything you have?  Put it this way, do you trust and believe, even when things make no sense to you, even when it is not logical, even when it looks stupid to do so?  Maybe your life is coming up short, because the foundation of your faith has had some artificial limit you set for it.  Many believe as long as it makes sense.  Many will love others, as long as others love them back.  But loving the stinky, the repellant, the difficult is just too hard.  And so we live lives of mediocrity, content to have a notion of God within us, but never giving Him everything.

Then Cleopas continues telling of the betrayal of Jesus by the chief priests and rulers.  And these two disciples believed Jesus would have redeemed Israel.  Not from sin mind you, but from the Romans.  But it is the third day since all of this took place and Israel is still under Roman rule and Jesus was killed.  But then, the story should have taken a turn for the better.  Strangely, it did not.  Cleopas tells of the women who “had seen a vision of angels”.  Again their faith was not large enough to embrace the truth of what the women said, it was no vision, it was an encounter.  But the angels said He was alive.  Even though the men who went to the same grave found everything as the women had said, but did not find angels.  We need men to prove out what the women said?  We refuse to embrace the truth, because we can only accept the words when it comes from a source that meets with our standards.  And in so doing, we join our Pharisee forefathers and reject the Truth of Jesus, for what good thing could ever come from Nazareth?  And sometimes our accepted sources are just like the men who went to the same grave, and saw not.  The Truth was right there, it came from the mouths of the women, it was the truth.  The men could not give testimony to it, because they did not embrace it.

And our biases are not just a male / female thing.  They extend to age-ism.  Someone is too young, or too old to be a proper source of truth.  Too new in the faith.  From a different denomination or brand of Christianity to have a message from God for me.  Our biases extend to race.  We refuse truth because the source does not share our racial experiences or past.  Our biases extend to wealth.  Surely the very poor or the very rich could never really understand the Truth of God, in a message for us.  The poor are too lazy.  The rich are too spoiled and greedy.  And so Jesus must disguise Himself in order to get through to us, and we so biased, are not even willing to hear Jesus because He does present Himself in “right package” for us to pay attention to.  But it has never been the package that matters.  It has always only been the message that matters.  If the message is truth, then it is truth.  Because it comes from the lips of a sinner or saint does not make truth less true.  Nor can it make a lie more true.  It can however, make a lie look more appealing, when it comes from a package that is appealing to our biases.

Jesus listens to the whole story of the gospel already laid out by these two followers, who despite saying it, have yet to believe it.  Then Luke continues in verse 25 saying … “Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: [verse 26] Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? [verse 27] And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”  “Fools”, a word Jesus does not use lightly.  And yet are we any different?  We have all the truth we need in front of us, preserved at great cost in the Bible we now want to throw away as nothing but stories.  And yet the first thing Jesus does to prove Himself, is NOT a great revelation of divinity and power, but instead just a walk through of the scriptures taught the right way.  Jesus wipes out the bad interpretations.  Jesus shows them in the printed word, everything that would come to pass exactly as it has.  He reveals what was there all along.  If we were willing to let go our ideas of certainty we might have found it from the beginning.  If we were willing to let the past go, we might have seen what God was trying to show us in the present and for the future.  Trusting God first, letting Jesus lead, letting Jesus teach our hearts and minds.  Jesus was validating the message of the women who carried that gospel to them, validating it through scripture.  What was true is still true.

This conversation had changed.  While they still did not recognize Jesus in physical form, there was something distinct about what this man was saying.  Luke continues in verse 28 saying … “And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. [verse 29] But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. [verse 30] And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. [verse 31] And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.”  Jesus pretends as if He has farther to walk.  But the two disciples are eager for Him to stay the night.  So He agrees.  Sometimes Jesus likes to be asked for things.  Sometimes our prayers accomplish just that.  Our prayers teach us what we really want, or perhaps should want.  Jesus stays with them.  He visits with them through the evening.  And when supper comes, He takes the bread and blessed it as He had done thousands of times before, and broke it and gave it to them.  And at that moment their eyes were opened, and they saw what was there right in front of them all along.  It was Jesus.  Jesus was alive.

Luke continues in verse 32 saying … “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? [verse 33] And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, [verse 34] Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. [verse 35] And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.”  And Luke reveals the name of the other disciple here along the way as Simon.  He is not specific as to whether this was Simon Peter, or Simon the former Zealot (probably the latter).  But now Cleopas and Simon talk about how their hearts burned within them as Jesus had opened the scriptures to them the right way along their journey.  They became so excited, they left to run back to the upper room, braving the night.  For fear had departed, they had been with Jesus.  The coming of Jesus into your heart will displace the fear you might otherwise carry.

They burst into the upper room, startling everyone there quite a bit.  And the first words out of their mouths was the same as that of the women who preceded them.  The Lord is risen indeed.  He appeared to both Simon and Cleopas along the way to Emmaus and at dinner breaking bread as He always did, in the same manner and habits.  The first two male disciples to carry the gospel were not Peter and John still locked away inside the upper room fighting incorrect perceptions, sadness, and fear.  But were instead Cleopas and Simon who had left the safety of the upper room to travel to small village called Emmaus.  Have you ever wondered if God is waiting for you to take action first?  To leave the safety of your home or church pew, in order to join with you in your mission.  God may radically redirect what you were intending to do.  The women went to ordain a dead body with spices and ointments, that task of love was not needed or finished, a greater task of carrying the gospel was assigned instead.  These two men went to Emmaus for whatever reason, and they barely stayed there, a greater task of carrying the gospel back to the others was something that called them past their fears.  It does not matter what you set out to do.  It matters what you may find God assigns you to do, even if it is something completely different then what you intended, and something totally different than anything you would have ever thought of on your own.  But the point is, your first action out the door is required, before those assignments are ever presented.  You need to be moving.  Stepping out in faith.  Then listen, follow, and do what God leads you to do.

When we finally embrace the truth, the gospel is opened to us.  When our humility trumps our pride, the Truth is able to break down the barriers we have erected for it, and the gospel is opened to us.  Are you brave enough, and humble enough, to hear past the biases you have long carried to the voice of God calling just to you, with a message He has just for you.  Its there.  God is not silent.  Can you listen, in spite of what you might think about the source, or the package it may come in? …