Thursday, March 26, 2015

Pointing to the Holy One of Israel

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.”—Isaiah 53:7 (NKJV)

“Me first!” That’s what I shouted at the other ten-year-olds as I raced to take charge of the gigantic pile of redwood mulch on the playground. Only one of us would end up on top. That someone was going to be me. Jon W., who gave me a bloody nose the week before, “accidentally” got elbowed in the mouth as I climbed over him to mount the top of the pile. Most of those kids had done something to me in recent days and whoever got hurt had it coming.

That’s exactly how a leader, king, or superhero comes to power, isn’t it? The conqueror thrashes each opponent while everyone pays tribute to him at his coronation as King of the Mountain.

When Isaiah wrote this verse, Israel was going through a dark period historians call the “hardening years.” It was troublous times. The Assyrians were looming large on Israel’s borders. They were infamous for cruel policies of torture, enslavement, and deportation of the people they conquered. Israel had exile in its future. Yet, Israel’s leaders marginalized and mistreated every prophet God sent to them. Isaiah had martyrdom in his future.

The most characteristic phrase Isaiah used was "The Holy One of Israel." As Isaiah thought deeply about the message he would give, a portrait of a different kind of King was painted. The Holy One of Israel wouldn’t be cruel. He would identify with the oppressed, because He would be marginalized and mistreated. Yet, despite the worst kind of cruelty ever inflicted by a government on a person, He would mysteriously and miraculously come to power as the most triumphant and just King that ever lived.

Isaiah offered hope with his words to this generation. And God, through His prophets, drops markers all throughout the Old Testament continually bringing the narrative back to Jesus, the Holy One of Israel.

God has taken miraculous measures to make sure you arrive at the cross of Jesus Christ. God will fill the whole earth with His glory, according to Isaiah. In his generation, Isaiah’s message fell on deaf ears. But in your generation, God wants to use you to point people to the Holy One of Israel. Are you ready?

This Daily Devotional was originally published at www.CalvaryFTL.org/DailyDevo

Friday, March 20, 2015

People Who've Died

“When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.”—Revelation 6:9 (NKJV)

Heaven is an unusual setting for a story. There aren’t many stories in the Bible that take place in heaven, especially ones featuring former earth dwellers. We have many more stories where angelic beings break through to earth. But in this story, it’s the other way around.

When the Word of God works to transform a person’s life, the prayer Jesus taught His disciples begins to get answered: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 NKJV). This actually begins to happen. As it does, the Christian’s life story has a plot twist. His or her story—testimony—begins to take shape around the Kingdom of God.

But the scene above takes place in heaven. And the characters are people who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their faith. They’ve affected the earthly status quo. They’ve changed the old systems. These souls are actual people who have walked (or will walk) on the earth. Maybe you’ve met some of them.

Here are some of the people numbered among those souls: Abraham M. Akouch, Alapayo Deng Ghazel, Daniel Aguek Cheng, John B., and Michael Bior Machar, all men who gave their lives while pastoring soldiers defending their country in South Sudan’s civil war.

William E. Koehn, Dr. Martha C. Myers, and Kathleen A. Gariety are missionaries who served at Jibla Baptist Hospital in southern Yemen. A lone assassin gunned them down because they preached Christianity. It was a regular day on the job for them. One was a doctor and two were hospital administrators.

Pastor James “Tripp” Battle died on a regular day of serving Jesus when an angry man with a gun shot him. His life was transformed by the Word of God and the witness of his life was to see as many people in his city as possible transformed the way he was.

These are people I’ve sat in classes with, shared meals with, and even hiked on dirt roads with. Most I knew and one was a friend of friends. These were all normal people, just like you and me. Their lives weren’t lifted from the pages of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs or the Left Behind series. What made their lives Revelation 6 worthy is that they made intentional life decisions around making God’s will happen on earth as it does in heaven.

This Daily Devotional was originally published at www.CalvaryFTL.org/DailyDevo

Saturday, March 07, 2015

Friend of Sinners

“Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”—Matthew 9:38 (NKJV)

Religious people are a funny bunch. Sometimes they’re indifferent. Other times, they’re just mean. The New Testament shows us examples of both—and more importantly, how Jesus went about his business in light of these fickle folks.

For Jesus, showing compassion, healing the sick, and forgiving sin were interchangeable tasks. One task wasn’t any more difficult than the other. So one day when Jesus had a crowd around Him, He forgave a paralyzed man of his sins. The outwardly religious people in the crowd called Jesus a blasphemer for forgiving sins. Why? Because by forgiving sin, Jesus had the audacity to equate Himself with God.

Jesus responded to their accusation with a powerful demonstration of His divine power. He healed the paralyzed man. The newly forgiven and healed man had to be carried to the meeting, but he walked out on his own two feet.

In addition to being called a blasphemer, Jesus also was called the “Friend of Sinners” by the religious group. You see, Jesus invited social outcasts like Matthew, a dishonest tax collector, to join His team of misfit disciples. Jesus welcomed sinners and was indeed a friend to them—because His ministry’s focus was to rescue them!

When Jesus was in town, miracles happened. He restored sight to the blind. He freed the demonically tormented. He gave a voice to the mute. And on several occasions, He raised dead people to life.
But there was always a “religious” person nearby who was quick to say Jesus worked dark deeds under the power of Satan. In fact, the more good work Jesus did, the more the religious demonized Him. And not only did the religious leaders distance themselves from Jesus, but they also separated themselves from the people Jesus came to save.

Matthew made this observation about Jesus: “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36 NIV).
In Matthew’s statement, sheep and harvest are words used to describe the crowds. Shepherd and workers describe the ones employed to show compassion to the hurting masses. But while there’s an abundance of sheep, there’s a serious shortage of shepherds.

When Jesus says the shepherds, or workers, are few, He’s not just making an observation. He’s also giving an invitation. You can choose to be like the religious leaders of His day who made it their job to criticize His good deeds. Or you can jump in with both feet and join Jesus in His life-changing work. It’s your choice.

This Daily Devotional was originally published at www.CalvaryFTL.org/DailyDevo

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

When Jesus Appears

“Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”—1 Corinthians 15:8 (NKJV)

Who actually saw Jesus? Who were the people He appeared to and why was it important? Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul specifically names Cephas (you know him as Peter) as a person who saw Jesus. Jesus made Himself physically available to the rest of the twelve apostles as well. Paul writes that an additional 500 people witnessed Jesus interacting with people as He talked to, walked with, and even ate with people in a physical, resurrected body.

It wasn’t just a small handful of really “holy” people that saw Jesus. In fact, Paul emphasizes just how UN-holy he himself was when he used the term “one born out of due time.” When people who spoke the local language used this phrase, it was a violently descriptive word picture to make the point that something was incredibly unlikely to happen. A more accurate translation is “one ripped from the womb.”

In the above verse, Paul owns his past as a persecutor of Christians and mocker of Jesus. While Paul was making his bones as the leader of an elite force of Christian killers, Jesus appeared to Paul to appoint him as leader of the movement he was trying to extinguish. Paul was then tasked with the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Paul lived one of the most wrenching plot-twists ever written. The resurrection of Jesus is not something Paul dreamed up! It’s an event that echoes through human souls causing explosive transformation. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the single most important event in human history!

Paul became the most innovative and hard working apostle of them all. He brilliantly turned common interactions with slaves into an opportunity for the gospel. When the scholarly elite mocked him for believing in the resurrection of the dead, Paul was so engaging that they begged him to speak some more. Christ-communities sprung up everywhere Paul went.

Paul turned incarceration in a governor’s jail into a seminar about the resurrection and the gospel. His message became a novelty act for visiting dignitaries. Whatever the motivation of his audience, Paul’s presentation always struck a nerve. He was never ignored and he knew it.

This Daily Devotional was originally published at www.CalvaryFTL.org/DailyDevo