January 14

I was re-reading the passage in Luke and I came to these verses;

Luke 14:12-14 (NIV)
12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.
13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Can I be honest and tell you that I don't like the truth that I just got? I like truth, and the life that is found in it, but man this thing is hard! The Kingdom life is hard sometimes, it's uncomfortable, it's unfair in my thinking!

Jesus says here to seek out people who cannot pay you back and give to them. Don't just invite your friends, give to your friends, lend to your friends, but do it to people of no means! Do it to people who can't give you squat in return! Did you get that? Does this rock you like it rocks me? If not, please write me about the last time (I am sure this week) that you did this and how it went. The Kingdom - the rule of God's territory is propagated strangely. Think about this though; If we are this way, giving and expecting nothing in return, being kind to strangers of no means, etc..., people would not only be without excuse before God and in their own minds, but we would change the spiritual climate of this territory by creating an avenue for the Kingdom of God to "drive". Think about it.

January 13

Does the reading in Luke answer some questions in Job? Perfect! Jesus is saying that just because tragedy happens to some, that doesn’t mean that they are worse sinners and thereby have invoked some “worse” judgment. He put all men and women on the same playing field. They all are sinners, they all will face judgment, they all must repent! There is another lesson within these verses in Luke 13, Jesus was telling the people to quit trying to figure out other’s lives and why this happened and how bad they were to deserve it, (the people of the day strongly believed that if something bad happened to you that it was God judging you. In other words, you deserved it!) and think about your own life! Isn’t that so true? You hear a sermon and you think about others who need to hear it! God wants us to think about our own life and in this passage He is challenging people to repent because they too have fault before God.

The woman who got healed was bound by satan for 18 years. When Jesus healed her He simply proclaimed her healing. Then He laid his hands on her, as if to transfer something because when He did that, she was healed. Maybe we should “pray” for the sick like that. Maybe the sick we pray for are bound by satan and we need to address that. Interesting huh?

January 12

Job 12:22 (NLT)
22 “He uncovers mysteries hidden in darkness; he brings light to the deepest gloom.

I have found this recently true in my life – yesterday! God has a way of uncovering hidden mysteries about us, bringing us into the darkness that is already there, and showing us why such darkness is there. It’s not as if we don’t already know that we have issues, (although some of us are decisively ignorant of them – maybe even self deceived). God uncovers the darkness and reveals why it sticks around! He gives us something to repent of, to “change our thinking” about. When this happens we have a chance to get the darkness out of us and be free of the deepest gloom! Warning! This process isn’t “nice” nor is it “wonderful”. I don’t know about you, I am thankful for it, but glad when it is over. Who of us doesn’t want to be brought to greater wholeness? Who among us doesn’t want to be rid of the deepest gloom? When you with God in the hidden darkness, look for the light and follow it out.

January 11

Job’s next friend steps up to the plate, Zophar, and gives Job yet another ear full. He mixes truth like, “can you fathom the mysteries of the Almighty”, with the blame of Job being a “deceitful man” who has been recognized and therefore judged by God. Zophar like the others incorrectly judges Job when you and I know that God was displaying Job and loved Job incredibly. I am sure I have people in my life that would say or at least think the same, but today I thought about me! I think I may have Zophar and the 2 others living inside of me! My biggest accuser is --- ME! Those inner voices, call them demons, call them the voices of my past, call them the legalism of my flesh, call them whatever, they still speak and although they don’t accuse God, they sure do accuse me, especially when things go wrong. Condemnation is quick to come and hard to drive away. I don’t know how they got in there but I do know how to get them out, Jesus and the work of His Spirit. I must cling to the truth of the Word like Rom. 8:1! I must seek out deeper revelations and most of all the revelation of God’s great love that He has lavished on me! When I dwell in that place, the place of the finished work of Christ, the place of His great love toward me, then I will silence the Zophars within!

January 10

Luke 10:41-42 (NIV)
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Martha was “serving” the Lord. That is not a bad thing. We are servants of the Lord, in fact, the word that we translate servant in the New Testament is actually “slave”. When we look at this passage sometimes we can have an either or mentality but I don’t think it is supposed to be that way. There are times that we are supposed to serve, like when Jesus fed the 5000 and told the disciples to serve them. However, when Jesus is sitting down with you and talking or teaching it is time to sit down, stop serving and listen up! Jesus was there to fellowship and teach and Martha didn’t get it. She thought that it was still serving time – it was sit down and listen time. When she asked Jesus to “make” Mary help her, Jesus told Martha what her problem was, she was “worried and upset about many things”. That is a whole study in itself. Today my encouragement is, when Jesus is ready to fellowship, shut up, stop working (even when there are things to do) and sit at His feet. IF you never come to those times (when Jesus just wants to fellowship), may I suggest that you in need of a spiritual revolution! Jesus is not like that, you are His daily delight! He wants to sit down and fellowship with you all the time!

January 9

Jesus gave them power (ability) and authority to drive out demons and heal diseases. So they did – period. This brings up two things, first that they were willing to do it! They didn’t shy away from it but must have figured that they had the authority and ability to actually do something with it. My question is, do we? The second thing is that they actually did it! They did the stuff that Jesus gave them the power and authority to do – they accomplished the actual act of healing and delivering people. (Verse 6)

Of course what I didn’t mention is that they were also charged with preaching the gospel, which they also did. It isn’t funny how we separate this commission? We are supposed to preach the good news while doing the good news! I can preach when I want, but I can’t heal when I want – right? That is how we think! Maybe that is why the sick aren’t healed too often. That question will be for the ages, however the settled matter is this – if we are to be like the disciples, (who were being like Jesus), we are to preach the gospel, heal the sick and deliver the demonized.

January 8

The Eliphaz school or friendship goes like this. Hear about your friend who has been devastated and come just sit with the poor guy for 7 days – saying nothing. Then when you speak, blame him (in this case unjustly so) for everything that has happened. What a guy! I think the church has taken a page from Eliphaz’s manual of how to be a good friend. We kick people when they are down in our attempt to get them out of where they are at. At times we are right when we accuse people (whether to their face, but most likely behind their backs), but what does that prosper anybody? Job needs PRAYER! How about coming along and helping the guy instead of condemning him!? We have got to stop our pride from telling others why they are in their situation and realize that we are in a situation too! There are times that God’s Spirit uses us to help others and bring them out of their situation, but a blanket and general blame isn’t a part of that even if you must issue a rebuke! This guy’s family is dead and you blame him! By the way, Eliphaz blamed Job because he didn’t understand the spiritual realm. We better be sure, before we correct anybody, that we have understanding of the spirit realms interaction with the situation in someone’s life. It seems to me, if we can tell people what is up with them and why they are in the situation they are in, then we ought to be able to pull the curtain off the spirit realm to see what is really going on there. I guess I would call that a precursor to giving someone “advice”.

Jesus said to the disciples (after he calmed the storm), where is your faith? In other words, if you are on the boat with me, trust that the boat isn’t going to sink! Jesus said lets go over to the other side of the lake. That meant the boat was going to get there. The disciples were worried that they wouldn’t make it – that maybe even Jesus would drown. They didn’t trust Jesus to get them there so they called out to Jesus and asked Him to do something. Interesting isn’t it, they didn’t trust Jesus, but they looked to Him for help. Think about that. So if you are in the boat with Jesus and He has to go somewhere, then you are safe – only believe.

January 7

Why did the centurion have such great faith? Because he understood authority and believed Jesus had it. He believed that Jesus had the authority to heal and all Jesus had to do was to say it and it would be done. Why do we beg God to do something that He already said we have the authority to do? Because we don’t believe we have the authority to do it. We have prayed for people and not seen them healed so we figure that the Bible is wrong or we have wrongly interpreted it. We don’t believe that in the rest of life (go ahead and think about it), but we do in relation to healing. Healing is the children’s bread! Jesus said “I am willing”! He paid for it and gave the authority to us – He lives in us by the Holy Spirit! Do you want to have great faith, believe in the authority of Christ!

One more thing –

Luke 7:30 (NIV)
30 But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.

If you want God’s purpose for your life, you must repent (change your thinking and therefore a change in actions will come) and humbly obey. There is so much here that we need to think about to safeguard ourselves to not reject God’s purposes. Study the Pharisees and see what they were like. Choose to be the opposite of them.

January 6

The very difficult passage of Job started today. The why question will not be totally settled until the day we get to ask Jesus face to face about it, or maybe we will run into Job himself and ask him, but until then, we can only learn (which may be one of the answers to the why).

First we must see that Job was protected because of God’s hand. We too are protected because of God’s hand. Second we see that the destruction came at the hand of satan and NOT God. The destruction of everything came because God took His hand of protection away from Job. Third and most importantly was the example of Job’s reaction – this cannot be missed or understated! He determined the proper response to the suffering was worship. He came close to God! His wife had the other response – curse God. Also notice that it was his integrity that she said that he had to lose before he could curse God. Think about that.

We know there is suffering in this world and we will surely experience it in our life time. Will it bring us toward God or push us away from God? It really is our decision you know. If our heart is toward God, we will come to God, however, if our heart is toward God only to “get” (receive blessing), then we will be mad at God and even curse Him when trouble comes. It’s time for a heart check!

January 5

I was most likely the biggest catch of Peter’s life. Imagine having the best day in your business. If you are a stock trader it would be like taking in twice your monthly salary or more in one trade that took you 30 minutes! So right after you are living in the prosperity blessing and your business has the best day ever, Jesus says, leave it all behind and come with me. It doesn’t say whether they thought that they were coming back or not, but to them, it didn’t matter. The man they had met previously, who they had seen do miracles and who they thought may in fact be the Messiah was calling them to come along with him. I am sure they probably thought that they were going to be His luggage handlers or crowd control, but Jesus had called them to be His disciples who would change the world! Whether they hoped for that or not I don’t know, what I do know is that they were convinced that leaving EVERYTHING after the biggest fishing day of their life, was a done deal! It was worth it all and they did it – left there net where they lay and went with Jesus. Could we do the same?

January 4

It had only been 12 generations until the earth was full of nastiness! There was only 1 guy who found God’s favor, 1 guy who preserved himself from all the evil, 1 guy who walked with God – Noah. What did Noah get in return? A covenant! What interested me today was the lesson of Noah’s children and their wives. They came under the covenant that God made with Noah. The Bible doesn’t say whether they were righteous or not, and even hints that Ham had a flawed character, but God made the covenant with Noah and thereby with his sons and their wives (and Noah’s wife too).

Either God has to make a covenant with you or you have to be related to someone with whom He has made a covenant with. In other words, blessed by association! Who are you associated with? I know that all of this relates wonderfully to Christ, and I don’t want to pass up that distinction – of course it is when I am hid in Christ that I receive the new covenant that was made with Him. I get all the benefits of the covenant through Him. So if I reject Christ, I reject the covenant. If I fail to believe in that covenant, I don’t get the benefits of the covenant. If I am ignorant of the covenant promises, then I can’t stand on them and expect God to deliver. Likewise, if I think that it is by my own actions or righteousness that I attain the promises, I am not relying on the covenant that Christ “cut” with God the Father, but on the old covenant (and I fail at that). However, the life of the Word came to me today and said that my children will benefit from my relationship with God. That was the word to me today. Your children, and the people connected with them, will benefit or have the chance of benefitting from your relationship with Christ and the covenant that you are under! Are you getting this!? This is especially towards the heads of households, but all of us have an eternally significant effect on the people we are related to and in relation with. That is an incredible blessing that needs to be thought through!

January 3

I noticed something interesting in the genealogies today. First there were people who were the “father” of people who did certain things, (like played the harp). We might not be able to “father” people who were the first to do certain things, but we can raise a standard, hone a skill or talent that we can and should pass down to our children and/or our disciples. (We can create a trademark – thanks Pastor Heather for a great sermon!)

Did you notice where Joseph’s line came from, Seth. It was Seth’s line that was detailed in Genesis 5 and in Luke 3. Not Cain, Seth. While God did spare Cain, there were definite consequences for his sin. God warned him – personally! He said that sin was crouching at his door – but he must master it! What was the sin? Jealousy and anger! Those provoked him to kill his brother and be marked forever by it! People of God, whatever sin is crouching at your door, you MUST master it! Don’t let it ruin your life. What is done (in the past) is done, and there is nothing you can do about that. Cain couldn’t work the ground well, but he built a city! Use what you have to move forward and master that sin before it dictates the rest of your life!

January 2

In Genesis, after Adam and Eve disobeyed, God still talked with them and took care of them. Have you ever thought of that? Yes he delivered the “curse”, the death that He promised if they disobeyed, then he made some clothes for them. As we will see, there was still a great blessing on them as well. God doesn’t discard people after they mess up! There is a time where He will “give us over” to those things that we long for, but here we see a repentant Adam and Eve being talked to and taken care of by their loving God. Within this passage is the promise of God to redeem man from his own choice of death, but more on that later.

The other curious thing to me was in Luke. After an angel spoke to Mary and to Joseph and something quite miraculous happened, and after the birth of Jesus more miraculous things and angelic appearances occurred, it was circumstances that dictated where Jesus was born. There is no doubt that God dictated the circumstances and inspired the governor to call for a census or foreknew that he would, which meant that Joseph had to go to Bethlehem with his VERY pregnant betrothed. Isn’t it interesting with all the angelic appearances God decided to use a census to get Mary to the right spot? God uses many things to direct us – look for his direction even when it was an inconvenience.

January 1

It is the beginning - again! For us this begins a new year and a new day to start something fresh. God started creating - will you create this year? The life of Jesus the Son of God on earth begins with 2 miracles and the forerunner, will you believe for miracles this year and will you be a forerunner? This day is a great day to decide to change, to shift gears, to put the petal to the metal and live beyond 2010 in more ways than the change of date. Give your life freshly to God today and start living new - again!