Is Jesus flipping over tables in my Temple?
Read John 2:12-25
“How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?” (v16)
“How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?” (v16)
Some Thoughts…
Worship is a gift not a product, and I am a contributor not a consumer…
Jesus was zealous about the Temple, because worship is God’s top priority, birthed in the hearts of holy people. Worship is God’s chosen path of communication, healing, and communion with those He calls. This is something we modern-day consumers have lost sight of. We live in a day where the gospel has become a marketable commodity and some ministers have become fast talking salesmen. Oh, what a dangerous place we are in when some of our religious leaders teeter on the edge of the judgment of God and the only reason Jesus may be present in our worship is because of a few faithful hearts that beat for Him.
Verses 24 and 25 are sobering words of Jesus’ willingness and unwillingness to trust some people. His testing ground is individual hearts. And on that day when the Temple tables flew and livestock was set free there were few who had hearts ready to hear from God. So, He spoke to the Pharisees and made accusations in ambivalent “Temple” terms (v.18-21), knowing they wouldn’t understand. And He knew that the “sign-seeking” hearts of so many in that crowd were too dull to grasp His message. So, He “would not entrust Himself to them” (v24).
I hope that the temple of my heart is a place Jesus can (and will) enter with joy instead of anger, that as He looks around the corridors of my soul he sees an unmixed life, and that he doesn’t hear the noise and clamber of a consuming world screaming for my attention at the expense of me missing out on hearing His voice. I pray that my life is a testimony of glory to the Father to point any wayward seeker to the only solution to what ails them; a gift that can’t be bought on the black market of counterfeit worship and quick-fix theology.
A Prayer…
Dear Glorious Father/God, forgive me of my self-centered worship, of my attempts to package your truth in a way that is more palatable. Make me ever conscious of what pleases You and what causes anger to well up in your eyes… I want to make you smile, not infuriated; I want to be a light that illuminates the real You, not some man-made counterfeit. Lord, turn over my tables of self-dependence and drive out all the distractions in me, so that you can be worshiped in spirit and truth. Amen.
Think Like Jesus
Read Philippians 2:5-11
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus…” (v5)
Some Thoughts…
The mind of Christ… His motive, His approach to life, His attitudes towards others … we need to think His way! And what was at the core of His way of thinking?
Self-emptying: Jesus willfully released the power and privileges of His God-likeness and took upon Himself the weakness and limitations of humanity. He didn’t cling to what was rightfully His so that I could gain what I have absolutely no right to at all.
Jesus is the example for living: Total dependence, trust, and obedience to God the Father and total self-giving to an imperfect, self-consumed and power hungry world of people.
Let His mind be in you!
That is the declaration of the chained Apostle. Go ahead and give yourself over to the ways of Jesus; to His way of thinking and His way of relating… Because one day everyone will have to submit to His authority … why not just willfully surrender now? It is when we truly giving up on our personal agendas that we begin to discover real peace, clarity, and somehow new purpose for living.
A Prayer…
Father, I plead for the mind of Christ! I desire nothing less than to be made into the image of Your Son. I beg for a divine drain to empty myself, so that the fullness of my Savior can fill me up. Amen.
Something for Jesus in it…
Read Philippians 1:13-20
“…It has become clear throughout the whole palace guard …that I am in chains for Christ.” v13
Some Thoughts…
Paul could have just sat there, doing nothing, waiting for his trial. He could have sulked and blamed God for his misfortune and all the injustice…but he couldn’t! He was a man on assignment: The defense of the gospel. (v16) He could have added to the moans and groans that came down the praetorian; a sound those guards were very familiar with. He could have turned to self-pity and missed the opportunity of a lifetime. But instead, he looked into the eyes of his captures and saw lives in more spiritual bondage than his physical chains that chafed his wrists could have ever been… So he continued on the mission that Christ had called him to.
He saw his chains as one more liberating step, one more chapter, in the story that God had written for him. So, he refused despair and exploded with joy, peace, and love to the point that it became known to everyone in the prison block as well as to the believers in Rome that Jesus saves! It even encouraged boldness in the witness of those on the outside looking in! I find this quote, as I read this morning that pushes me from self-pity to service for my King: A young believer complained of his circumstance to an older seasoned servant of God and the older said: “No moment will ever again be like this, let there be something for Jesus in it.”
A Prayer…
Father, let today be filled with something for You. May Your Kingdom be forwarded by my actions and attitudes today. Help me to see my “setbacks” as your assignments for me to defend the gospel by the way I live. Make me an obedient servant ready at all times, focused on You and Your calling, not on me and my failings. In the name of Christ I pray. Amen.
Know Him Better
Read Ephesians 1:15-17
“For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that…, so that you may know him better.” (15-17a)
Some Thoughts…
I am intrigued by this prayer that Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians. It almost appears to me to be a prayer that he prays from a Pastor’s heart for all the people whom God had led him to shepherd and teach. But before I think too much about “WHAT” Paul prayed, I don’t need to miss the “WHY” of his prayer. “For this reason…”, a phrase which is tied to the previous verses (v 13-14) talking about how these Gentiles were added to God’s family. They heard and believed and were adopted by God’s foreknowledge and grace…but the reason is found in their faith that expresses itself through love. And it is for that reason Paul prays for them…because they believed and committed themselves to Christ’s body.
But what grabs my attention, as a minister of the Gospel, is Paul’s commitment to intercede for these people. He “keeps asking” and he writes that he “had not stopped” praying (v 16). Paul had fallen in love with the object of God’s divine affections, and his thoughts were filled with them and he prayed for the Saints continuously that they would know God better than they know Him now (v 17). The verses that follow help me see how to know Him better, but I want to linger here a little while…in love with God’s diverse people…. never ceasing to pray that they (that we) would know Him better.
A Prayer…
Father, names and faces flood my mind…. people with kind hearts and great zeal for you, people who have shown me love, people who live out sacrificial love better than I ever could. And, I want to pray for them like Paul…I no longer want to forget. Please help us, Your Saints, to know you better. Amen.
Mystery Revealed
Some Thoughts…
God has not left us clueless and in the dark. Sense those first sparks of faith born in the hearts of men and women like Abraham and Sarah, God has been imparting visions of the Eternal in minds of the believer. (Ecc. 3:11) And here in this beautiful doxology, Paul set believers eyes where they must remain. From the foundations of creation (v 4) to the “fullness of time” (v 10) and all that is present (v7, 4), Paul points us to God’s plan – the mystery of eternal things, the reason for His choice to create us, knowing that we would fall. The point of it all is to one day bring all things together again in complete agreement and obedience to Jesus.
Any even though Paul wrote these words with chains on his hands, His heart ran free in the liberty of life-eternal under the loving leadership of Christ, under the unifying power of the blood of Jesus to break down all barriers to create a new people…a new nation of faithful followers to be family forever. It seems completely impossible from this side of eternity, but when “the times will have reached their fullness” everything will be under one Unifying Leader – Jesus…no more strife, no more war, only peace and praise and partnership.
A Prayer…
Father, I will wait in faith for time to be full and for you to bring everything to completeness. I will wait with eternal vision and a listening ear to the heart of anyone who is seeking Your truth. I will wait in holiness and humbleness…trusting you for everything. Amen.
God’s Adoption Plan
Read Ephesians 1:4-8
(In love) He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will.” (v.5)
Some Thoughts…
The mystery of God’s foreknowledge and His predestination plan before time ever began can seem foolish through worldly wisdom – why would God go ahead with creating a planet, animals, plant life, and stars; all the while knowing that the people He would place there would rebel and fall into sin?
Maybe there is a clue here in these verses. Maybe we were created for more than an earthly existence; maybe the process of paradise lost was necessary for God to make His family. Because not only were we predestined to be holy and set apart in order to be God’s very own (v 4), we were chosen to be children of God…adopted as God’s very own with the full rights of a natural born child.
God’s plan was conceived in love and carried out in His timing for His pleasure for the making of a family of dirty slaves turned adopted saints. What a privilege! I am God’s child…I have a place in my Father’s house because of what my big brother Jesus did for me…His life for mine…His pain in exchange for my joy. God’s grace has definitely been lavished on me (v8) and on the rest of my adoptive family. I’m (we’re) so undeserving, yet God’s love prevails and His will; His perfect plan will be completed, and I’m humbly thankful to be a part of it all.
A Prayer…
Heavenly Father,
Thank you, thank you, thank you. May I be a good son…may my life be a praise offering to you…remove all the trappings of the slave-life you’ve adopted me out of and tell me what to do next, and I will obey you, Father. I love you Lord…thank you, thank you, thank you.
Amen.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. May I be a good son…may my life be a praise offering to you…remove all the trappings of the slave-life you’ve adopted me out of and tell me what to do next, and I will obey you, Father. I love you Lord…thank you, thank you, thank you.
Amen.
He Allows Our Struggle
Read Mark 6:30-52
“But he answered; YOU give them something to eat.” (v37)
“He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because of the wind…He was about to pass by them,…” (v48)
“He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because of the wind…He was about to pass by them,…” (v48)
Some Thoughts…
I’m a little jolted by these verses this morning… Jesus allowed his close friends, his beloved followers to struggle… He even raised the tension level by telling them “YOU do it.” He was willing to leave them staining at the oars and just meet them on the other side of the lake just like he had told them. He even was willing (for a time) to leave them in their hard-hearted state by leaving the miracle of the loaves and fishes unexplained.
And even after WALKING into the boat in the middle of the water with a storm pressing down, He seems to leave them to their feeling of amazement without much of an explanation that HE WAS (and is) GOD!!!! HE is the provider and sustainer! He is the ONLY ONE worth putting our complete trust in for our lives (both now and for eternity)… He just let them struggle, he gave them room to figure it all out… to discover the majesty of who He was and is…
So, I guess I can be thankful today for my struggle to know him and to fight against the winds of this world… One day He will come and stop the winds from blowing, but until then I’ll do my best with what he has given me, even if it’s just a couple of fish and a few loaves when there are thousands of mouths to be fed.
A Prayer…
Father, please soften my heart to understand and trust You. Help me live today using all that you put at my disposal… All my strength, brain power, and emotional stamina for You and for Your Kingdom! Amen
Partner or Employee?
“Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” (Mark 16:20)
Some Thoughts…
I can’t get away from this phrase: “We are God’s fellow workers.”
What does it mean? Paul didn’t just say it once, he wrote it in three different letters. It must have been a predominate thought that drove his life and ministry. And as I read through Mark, God points out a little phrase in the last verse of that great Gospel. A phrase I’ve never noticed before. After Jesus is ascended into heaven, Mark summarizes the work of the disciples and tells us that “The Lord worked with them…” They were “fellow-workers!”
So, this question comes to my mind as I consider my efforts to serve God’s Kingdom purposes… Am I a hired hand or a partner in the business of Heaven? Do I punch a clock and pick up my pay check (weather it’s actual money or the payment of feeling good about helping others and making a difference or relieving some guilt over my sin) OR am I like a partner in a business venture? One who has sunk my whole life’s savings into this thing so that my efforts are motivated not so much by doing the bare minimum to collect my pay, but by doing all I can do in order to see growth.
It’s all a matter of investment really…
Am I “all in” – Lock, stock, and barrel? Or am I just going through the motions with someone else’s reputation and resources on the line? Am I a partner with Jesus or just working for Him?
A Prayer…
Father,
May I be counted worthy of your calling to partner with you in the investment of lives forever changed by your gospel – Not like a hireling that runs when the wolves come, but like a shepherd who will put his life between the enemy and his flock. Thank you that you stand with me…. Help me to stand with You!
His Child!
Read Ephesians 1: 4-8
(In love) He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will.” (v.5)
Some Thoughts…
The mystery of God’s foreknowledge and His predestination plan before time ever began can seem foolish through worldly wisdom – why would God go ahead with creating a planet, animals, plant life, and stars; all the while knowing that the people He would place there would rebel and fall into sin?
Maybe there is a clue here in these verses. Maybe we were created for more than an earthly existence; maybe the process of paradise lost was necessary for God to make family. Because not only were we predestined to be holy and set apart in order to be God’s very own (v 4), we were chosen to be children of God…adopted as God’s very own with the full rights of a natural born child.
God’s plan was conceived in love and carried out in His timing for His pleasure for the making of a family of dirty slaves turned adopted saints. What a privilege! I am God’s child…I have a place in my Father’s house because of what my big brother Jesus did for me…His life for mine…His pain in exchange for my joy. God’s grace has definitely been lavished on me (v8) and on the rest of my adoptive family. I’m (we’re) so undeserving, yet God’s love prevails and His will; His plan will be completed, and I’m humbly thankful to be a part of it all.
A Prayer…
Heavenly Father,
Thank you, thank you, thank you. May I be a good son…may my life be a praise offering to you…remove all the trappings of the slave-life you’ve adopted me out of and tell me what to do next, and I will obey you, Father. I love you Lord…thank you, thank you
Step by Step
Galatians 5:25
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
Some Thoughts:
Paul is calling followers of Jesus to walk on in a faith relationship with the God who is alive inside us…
As you stand gazing into the sky that Jesus ascended into after completing the job of saving your soul, you can begin to wonder if He has left you alone to figure this life out on your own. Then you feel a tap on the shoulder and you feel a strangely familiar person next to you… It is the Spirit of your Savior-God extending His hand and asking you to take hold of it. You feel a grip that is gentle yet unbreakable. And then…. He begins to walk down a path unknown and unfamiliar to you. You hesitate… and He stops. He is waiting on you… He wants to lead you down the path to maturity – The way of the Spirit-filled life, and away from the path of the worldly and what come naturally to you.
What will you choose? Will you keep in step with His Spirit or hinder His activity in you to make you whole for the glory of God?
A Prayer:
Father,
May today be a day of NO HESITATION! When you move in me, help me to move with You. And when you say wait, help me to hear your Spirit’s voice and come to a holy standstill until I sense you taking the next step. AMEN.