Tuesday, March 30, 2010

An Honest Answer

Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, "Why did you not bring him?"
The officers answered, "No one ever spoke like this man!"
- John 7:44-46

Jesus attends the feast of Tabernacles.  He initially goes quietly and by Himself.  But eventually He begins teaching in a very public place - the Temple.  The chief priests and pharisees had arranged for His arrest.  The officers were sent with a very specific assignment.  When they return empty-handed they were questioned regarding their failed mission.  The officers have a very interesting response, "No one ever spoke like this man."

As a law enforcement officer, I too have had many such assignments to locate and arrest people.  I cannot imagine giving a reason for failure to arrest a person because, "No one ever spoke like this man."  But then again I have been dealing with criminals and the officers referred to in this passage were dealing with God incarnate.

Their reason for failing to arrest Jesus was simply honest.  History agrees with the testimony of these officers; truly no one ever spoke like this Man.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Judgment & Mercy

"Let him without sin throw the first stone"
There remains an interesting thing to tell;
He was without sin, yet He knew His blood would atone
For her sin, and for ours as well

Caught in the act
Guilty and shamed
Deserving this punishment;
Angry mob with rocks readied and aimed

Yet it was He alone
Who could legally cast
The killing stone
Judgment trumped by mercy so vast

The judgmental crowd scattered
At His heart-piercing word
And it was not as if sin had not mattered
Yet it was His declaration of grace that was finally heard

He was the last to stand at her trial
Mercy triumphs over judgment in grace
And though her sin was so incredibly vile
Her darkness was vanquished by the light of His face


- A.B. Seal 
A meditation upon John 8:1-12



Thursday, March 25, 2010

Words of Wisdom

I had a very helpful meeting with a good friend this week. I thought I'd share one of the many helpful insights he had to share. Just one for now. I'm guessing if I were to try to list them all it would look more like a book than a blog post - there may be more to come later:

"What you see God doing is never as important as what you don't see Him doing."

"He is always up to more than we can see. Our eyes are too dull and His work is way too subtle for us to be too comfortable with saying 'This is what He is or isn't doing.' It's kind of like the light spectrum. We are able to detect with normal vision only a fraction of the actual visual field. So i suppose that if you are fleshing out the metaphor, it means that God does His best work in the ultra-violet and infra-red."
- K.G.

Friday, March 12, 2010

"Be Killing Sin or Sin Will Be Killing You"

Piper, while recently at Driscoll's church, delivered this message on the text of Romans 8:13.

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
- Romans 8:13

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Faith and Reason

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"
- John 6:41-42

Logic and reason are not sufficient tools with which to ultimately know Jesus. For logic and reason only have part of the picture in view. The rationality of the Jews sounded good, for they did know Jesus' mother and step-father. Yet they did not know the whole story, they did not see the whole picture as they imagined. True faith extends beyond mere reason and logic.

Remember what Jesus said to Peter after Peter proclaimed Jesus' true identity; (Mat 16:17) "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."

Just as it was the Heavenly Father that revealed to Peter who Jesus really is, so also it is with all of those who believe. So we see that logic and reason are not sufficient foundations for faith in Christ Jesus, for true faith in Him comes as a revelation from Him. Genuine faith is birthed through the Word and by the Spirit. It is a gift (Rom. 6:23).

All that said, throwing logic and reason away entirely would be like throwing out the baby out with the bath water. For even Paul reasoned with men in the synagogues, in the market places, and in the Areopagus (Acts 17:17-19).

Yet faith does not finally rest upon logic or reason but upon something much deeper, upon something accomplished by God, something revealed by Him.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
- 2 Cor. 4:3-4

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
- 2 Cor. 4:6

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Dinner a La King

Thousands gathered to hear Him speak
And surely their stomachs were growling
Yet He would not let them grow hungry nor weak
For His glory, to be unleashed was howling

He fed them first upon His word
Philip had no food, yet He gathered
The crowd to sit and prepare to dine
On a meal miraculous, a gift divine

No restaurants nor stores nearby
No food from shelves stacked very high
Yet these He does not ever need
In order for a few thousand mouths to feed

He needs nothing never, not even you or me
No, for you see, He is the anti-need
Yes, He is all-sufficiency indeed
And once He rolled up His sleeves
And came to serve a bunch of thieves

A King serving dinner to beggars
This is good news indeed

- A. B. Seal
(inspired by the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John)

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Me Monster



Brian Regan makes a great and humorous point.
But don't miss the main point:
There is a Me Monster living inside of every one of us.

It is a peculiar thing that humans are so obsessively mindful of themselves.  How could we think so highly of ourselves especially when we consider that:

  • We are only individuals on a planet full of about 6.5 billion other individuals
  • We did not chose to be born
  • We did not chose where we were born, nor into which family
  • We did not chose to be born blessed with eyes and ears that work
  • Every heart beat is a gift which we did not earn
  • Every breath of fresh air is enjoyed by lungs which we did not make
  • One day we will all die and dissolve into dust
  • One day almost everything we cherish will also dissolve into dust
This list could go on and on.  I wonder what you might add to the list?

It all reminds me of an intensely humbling verse of Scripture:
"What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?"
- 1 Cor. 4:7b

Monday, March 1, 2010

2 Free Audio Books!

ChristianAudio.com is offering the following two excellent audio books as free downloads during the month of March:

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, by John Piper