7 March 2024 - the finger of God

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute,

and when the demon had gone out,

the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed.

We might think that this deed would have been easier to celebrate, less likely to provoke a hostile response. But what would follow from celebrating the exorcism and cure of this formerly mute individual? It would mean that Jesus was truly from God, operating by divine authority, that he drove out demons by "the finger of God", and that therefore the Kingdom of God had come among them. It was probably some of the people who really thought through the implications of the exorcism that were the most likely to reject it in the strongest terms. Those people who didn't realize it called them to make a definitive response to Jesus himself could appreciate it casually. But in doing so, they failed to understand what it meant. 

Some of them said, "By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,

he drives out demons."

Do we ever do downplay or denigrate the work of God in a situation in order to get ourselves off the hook? Do we say hear something in our Spirit and think, 'That can't be God', because the implications are that we would have to increasingly give up control of our lives to him? Do we ask for signs when God has already proven himself in order to simply delay accepting things we already should know to be true?

Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste

and house will fall against house.

And if Satan is divided against himself,

how will his kingdom stand?

Jesus wants us to recognize that he is working for our good while Satan is working for our destruction. The sides are clear, and the impulses that help to build the Kingdom are those that of healing, restoration, and unity. Satan's kingdom is united only in his desire to stand against God, to destroy life, and to keep humanity under his thumb. Even others in Jesus' day that were not a part of his group, but who nevertheless drove out demons, were still doing so through the power of God. The demons themselves guarded their "possessions" for all they were worth in order to keep them safe.

When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,

his possessions are safe.

But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,

he takes away the armor on which he relied

and distributes the spoils.

Jesus was the one who was stronger than the enemy who overcame him, taking away the armor of ignorance and ambiguity, in order to set captivity free. He then distributed the spoils of the Spirit, love, joy, freedom, and peace.

When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,

and he gave gifts to men (see Ephesians 4:8).

Every intervention on the part of God is a call to deeper surrender to his will. But we often harden our hearts instead. Let us hear the words of the psalmist pleading, "that today you would hear his voice".

Hillsong Worship - Stronger

6 March 2024 - not in lawlessness

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Jesus did not come to merely supplant the previous revelation by God to Moses and the prophets, though sometimes his relationship to the law made this type of misunderstanding possible. He criticized merely human traditions that the Pharisees had come to regard with the same seriousness as the law itself. He pointed the external ordinances of the law toward the interior conversion of heart that they were always meant to entail. He set aside accommodations made for the peoples' hardness of heart. All of this required more fidelity to the original moral spirit of the law and not less. But as to sacrifices and ceremonial regulations, these would indeed end, but not as though they had simply been removed or replaced. Rather, they were fulfilled. Every sacrifice in some way pointed forward to the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus. Every mediator between the people and God pointed to him. Every place of worship looked forward to Jesus as the true temple where humanity would worship God in Spirit and truth.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (see Romans 8:3).

The ceremonial aspects of the law and the moral requirements of the law were both incomplete until they were fulfilled by Jesus. In different ways they both called out for the one who could come and transform them into something which would be truly life giving. The statues were meant to actually result in the people who followed them being so close to God that others would take notice, saying, "what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?" But without the grace of Jesus the law more often served to show the distance of Israel from what God intended.

But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments

will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

Now that Jesus has fulfilled the law he has made the commandments into the good news they were always meant to be, and the path by which we really can draw near to the living God. Thus, the command of Moses to Israel applies all the more to us:

However, take care and be earnestly on your guard

not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen,

nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live,

but teach them to your children and to your children's children.

Even already at this early point in the history of revelation we can see that the commandments were never meant to be carried out in their own outside of the context of the living relationship of God with his people. In order to truly embrace them we need to remember what God has done in salvation history and in this way appreciate how the law is fulfilled by Jesus. We need sacred memory of salvation history, and also of our own walk of faith with the Lord, to put the law in proper context. So let us remember the good things that the Lord has done so that we can embrace all that he still desires to accomplish in the world.

Bob Fitts - One God

5 March 2024 - without limit

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,

“Lord, if my brother sins against me,

how often must I forgive him?

As many as seven times?”

We often look for limits, trying to find out what the least acceptable effort is, the minimum required. But Jesus always calls us to generosity that mirrors God's own limitless mercy toward us.

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

However, we cannot imitate the generosity of God unless we understand and have gratitude for what we have first received from him.

When he began the accounting,

a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.

In respect of the debt we owe to God, all people start from the position of owing a debt they could never repay. Even before the sin of our first parents we were already indebted to God for all that we have and all that we are. After sin we had nothing to offer to make up for it since nothing in existence was strictly our own. We found ourselves separated from him by an infinite gulf, impossible to traverse from our side. Yet we did cry out from this pitiable condition just as we hear Azariah do in today's first reading. Our plea touched the compassionate heart of God who then did what we could not be forgiving the entire loan.

Moved with compassion the master of that servant

let him go and forgave him the loan.

The forgiveness of the master is not the end of the story. It truly matters how that mercy does or does not transform the individual hearts that receive it. This near brush with divine justice could possibly have the unintended effect of making us even more self-centered and self-protective. We might be motivated only by a desire to not experience the fearful lack of control that almost resulted in the master's wrath. If so we might go on to act like the servant and attempt to exert that control over others rather than to show them mercy.

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants

who owed him a much smaller amount.

He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,

‘Pay back what you owe.’

Instead of being turned inward and set on the defensive, the mercy of God is meant to inspire us with an abundance mindset ready to show mercy to others. The confidence we have in our own master's merciful heart is meant to be the prerequisite that allows us to lay down our claims over and against others so we can show them forgiveness like that which we ourselves have been so blessed to receive.

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,

they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master

and reported the whole affair.

The master is pleased when fellow servants bring to his attention not only injustice but also lack of mercy. In response to these servants he can enter situations to rectify them for those who are oppressed. But these servants did not gossip about the injustice, much less bemoan it on social media. Rather they took it directly to the master, understanding that his compassionate heart would not leave any repentant debtor without freedom. 

I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.

Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,

as I had pity on you?’

There is the fearful prospect that divine mercy might not have the fully transformative result in us that God intends. We should therefore be extra attentive to place not limits on the forgiveness we are willing to offer others, and this because we trust that the mercy and compassion of God's heart is itself without limit.

Vineyard Worship - Mercy Is Falling

4 March 2024 - home court disadvantage

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Amen, I say to you,

no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

The people at Nazareth refused to accept Jesus. They were initially impressed by his teaching but at the same time they wondered how this individual that had grown up in their midst now seemed to think so highly of himself. They were jealous of the mighty deeds done in Capernaum, thinking that they were entitled to such deeds if anyone was. They no doubt assumed that if there was anything to what Jesus said then they should have been among the first to benefit.

It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,

but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Jesus was not be accepted in his own native place and would thus go to others who would listen. He did not find much faith in Nazareth so he went elsewhere to search it out.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (see John 1:11-12).

Ultimately the hardheartedness of Israel at that time is what caused the message of salvation to go forth to the Gentiles. But from these examples of the widow of Zarephath and of Naaman the Syrian we can see that it was always a part of the divine plan that the message would not remain in Israel alone but overflow into the whole world. It was not an unanticipated setback that the Gospel wouldn't find welcome in a place that should have had the advantage of beings its home turf. It was always part of the plan that the rejection of the Gospel by some would lead to acceptance by others. That acceptance in turn was meant to signal to those who initially rejected him that there must have been something that they missed.

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them (see Romans 11:13-14).

As the Gospel continues to spread throughout the world we should take it as a word of caution that the so-called home court advantage often has the opposite effect one would expect when it comes to Jesus. We within the Church are, as much as anywhere, the native place of Jesus. And it is sometimes here in the hearts of Christians that he does not find welcome. We bring so many presuppositions and expectations along with us to meet him that we may find ourselves unable to hear his living word. We sometimes act with such a sense of entitlement as to forget that we need faith to see Jesus move in power in our midst. And when he moves not in our midst, but at the peripheries, among those who have obviously done nothing to prepare themselves or to make themselves worthy, we may find ourselves jealous. Naaman the Syrian can help by teaching us a lesson about how to divest ourselves of our expectations and approach God in humility.

But his servants came up and reasoned with him.

"My father," they said,

"if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary,

would you not have done it?

All the more now, since he said to you,

'Wash and be clean,' should you do as he said."

If we can only learn to thirst for the living God more than for the fulfillment of our expectations of how things should happen we can find the satisfaction in the living water Jesus longs to give us.

As the hind longs for the running waters,

so my soul longs for you, O God.

As The Deer

3 March 2024 - zeal for your house

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Take these out of here, 

and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”

When Jesus was still a boy and his parents found him in the temple and asked them, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?" (see Luke 2:49). So too here his zeal for the temple was a result of his relationship with his Father. Jesus was himself "something greater than the temple" (see Matthew 12:6) and was therefore qualified to direct it back toward its true purpose. It was not the place where people would worship the Father in Spirit and truth (see John 4:20-23). That place would be found in Jesus himself. Thus he went on to speak "about the temple of his body", the true place where God pitched his tent among us, where we can encounter the presence of God himself. Nevertheless, even as a sign pointing toward this reality Jesus was unwilling to see the purpose of the temple subverted.

He made a whip out of cords

and drove them all out of the temple area

From Jesus' zeal for the temple that was only a symbol pointing toward his body we can come to understand more deeply how he expresses care for the members of his spiritual body, the Church. We are meant to be living stones in the temple that is Christ. But to serve this role adequately we must be entirely consecrated, body, mind, and soul, to him.

If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple (see First Corinthians 3:17).

Obviously we would prefer that Jesus not require a whip of cords to set our hearts in order. But it is often the case that the money changers within us have gotten comfortable making ill gained profits in sections of our soul that are meant to be dedicated to God. It is better to experience the discipline of the Lord than to be left in that condition. After all, the Lord only disciplines those whom he loves.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives (see Hebrews 12:6).

As much as we shrink from the righteous anger of Jesus over sin we should nevertheless be even more consoled to see that he takes much more upon himself than he ever imposes on us. He himself was not only scourged, but was destroyed entirely, so that he could be raised again on the third day. Every little discipline we receive from the Lord looks to this hopeful conclusion for ourselves as well. Joined to Jesus, the true temple, his discipline is part of the path by which he draws us to eternal life.

we proclaim Christ crucified, 

a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 

but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, 

Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

What idols remain in our hearts, or what places within us remain beyond the scope of his reign? Let us surrender them to him today. We won't, as we may fear, find ourselves any poorer for having done so. Rather, we will walk with in increasing freedom. The commandments were given precisely to protect the freedom God had given to Israel by bringing them "out of the land Egypt, that place of slavery". His mercy endures "down to the thousandth generation".

The precepts of the LORD are right,

rejoicing the heart;

Maranatha! Music - I Will Delight (In The Law Of The Lord)

2 March 2024 - prodigal

Today's Readings

(Audio)

'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.'

So the father divided the property between them.

After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings

and set off to a distant country

where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.

We sometimes make the mistake of trying to take our inheritance and spend it far from the Father's presence. We think that if we can seize it for ourselves we can have unfettered enjoyment of it whereas when we remain with the Father it tends to seem to be a promise that is always around one more corner that we never quite turn. We don't often realize what the father in the story told the elder son when he said, "everything I have is yours". Our recourse is either to stay and become embittered like the elder son or to leave and squander our inheritance on a life of dissipation as did the younger son. 

For some reason it seems we usually have to learn the hard way that there is only one way to enjoy our inheritance. It is only possible in the Father's house when we learn that everything he has is already ours.

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's (see First Corinthians 3:21-23).

If all things are in fact already ours why do we often experience the feelings of absence and privation? Is it because we don't really desire what is good according to the mind of God but would prefer instead that he was merely the caterer for our own private party? Is it because the good things he desires to give are not really those things that we desire? He does have an inheritance that he longs to share with us, but it cannot be spent on the flesh or on dissipation. His riches are instead invested in heavenly treasure, lacking the impermanence of our earthly desires, treasure that neither moth nor rust can destroy (see Matthew 6:19-21).

that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (see Ephesians 1:18).

giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (see Colossians 1:12).

to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (see First Peter 1:4).

If we are experiencing dryness and hunger, if we long to eat even from swine pods of the surrounding culture to find some solace, let us come to our senses. Let us arise, and go to the Father. If we mistrust the Father because he has never seemed to provide us the party with our friends for which we secretly hoped and yet never even really asked, let us come in and join the feast that is already always in progress. The Father will run out to meet us, and plead for us to come in and enter the feast. His heart does not dwell on the mistakes of our past but rather longs to truly share his inheritance with us in the way he always intended.

But when your son returns

who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,

for him you slaughter the fattened calf.

We ought not spend time comparing ourselves with others when they seem to be receiving more than ourselves. No one has earned the feast to which we are invited. And yet, are all called to attend. There is nothing subtracted from ourselves when God blesses another. In fact it all redounds to a good that we are all meant to enjoy together.

But now we must celebrate and rejoice,

because your brother was dead and has come to life again;

he was lost and has been found.

Matt Maher - Run To The Father

1 March 2024 - fruit in due season

Today's Readings

(Audio)

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,

put a hedge around it,

dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.

The tenants were provided with a good and well ordered vineyard, about which the Lord said, "What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (see Isaiah 5:4). Yet the tenants quickly forgot what a wonderful gift it was. Something Paul wrote to the Corinthians could have been addressed to them, "What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (see First Corinthians 4:7). 

When vintage time drew near,

he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.

When one makes use of the landowner's vineyard, one has an obligation to the landowner at vintage time. The landowner did not desire his produce merely for his own sake. He would not have given the lives of so many servants just to satisfy his own desires. Rather, he desired that the ones set over his household would "give them their food at the proper time" (see Matthew 24:45). But the tenants of the vineyard appeared to be interested only in themselves. 

But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat,

another they killed, and a third they stoned.

Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones,

but they treated them in the same way.

The landowner gave the tenants invitation after invitation to freely choose to relinquish their stranglehold on the fruit they hoarded for themselves but which was never meant for them alone. He did all he could to demonstrate the goodness of his intentions. But they choose to cling instead to greed for their present riches.

Finally, he sent his son to them,

thinking, 'They will respect my son.'

How could they not respect his son? How could they not trust that his intentions were good if he was willing to go so far as to send his beloved son to them to plead for the fruit which they should have given freely? But they refused to see any of that. They only perceived another opportunity for selfish gain, thinking that with the son out of the way their would be nothing further to interfere with their complete control over the vineyard forever.

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"

They answered him,

"He will put those wretched men to a wretched death

and lease his vineyard to other tenants

who will give him the produce at the proper times."

Those who were guilty of the very sins to which Jesus alluded in his parable were able to recognize those sins in the abstract, but not in themselves. They had grown too comfortable controlling a vineyard which they only ever truly had on loan and as stewards. Any threat to that control and that comfort short-circuited their ability to think clearly about their moral obligations. Fortunately, God would not leave the fruit of his vineyard to be squandered by vicious tenants.

The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

by the Lord has this been done,

and it is wonderful in our eyes?

Of course this parable is about the Jewish leadership in the time of Jesus, and not ourselves, right? Right? Well, perhaps we are not entirely excused. We too have been entrusted with a great stewardship. Any ability we have to find and enjoy fruit in our lives is a gift from God. And any gift of this sort is not intended for ourselves alone. Let us at least listen to the invitation of the prophets and that of the Son to share our own fruit at the proper time.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (see First Corinthians 12:7).

Brandon Lake - Son Of Heaven