Author Todd R

Getting Close to Jesus

Todd R 2 Comments

When Jesus walked the earth, He was both fully God and fully man, a mystery we may never fully understand.  It didn’t take long for such a person to get a lot of attention, especially once He began healing people and performing miracles.  John recorded in his gospel that after Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, the crowd “were about to come and take him by force to make him king”[1]  In this instance, Jesus withdrew from the crowds, but people continued to follow Him, sometimes from town to town.  However, this was not usually for the right reasons.  Many wanted to benefit from His power, but they didn’t want to call Him their own personal Lord.  They wanted to make Him king, but only so they could get what they wanted out of it.

Even today, many are like those who crowded around Jesus in ancient times, wanting to be identified with His power, but not wanting Him to have power over them.  But by God’s grace, there is always a remnant of people who truly believe in and are faithful to Him.  There’s a great example of the contrast between these groups in Mark chapter 5.  In verse 25 we learn that “a great crowd followed’ Jesus, and in verse 26 Mark brings the focus to one person: “there was a woman.”

Jesus was (and is) always interested in the needs of individuals.  As God, His attention span is unlimited.  He can see the whole and He can see the parts, but He gave special attention to specific parts to demonstrate His love.  In this case, the individual woman “had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.”  At this point, she knew there was nowhere else to go, so she fought her way through the crowds in order to get close to Jesus and “touched his garment.”  She was immediately healed of her “flow of blood.”

Photo by Edwin Andrade on Unsplash

Next, Mark tells us, “And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”  And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  With many people “pressing around,” obviously many were touching Him, but did His power only go out to some?  So, Jesus’ closest followers were surprised that, among the crowds of people, Jesus would distinguish one person from the others.

Then, “the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.  And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.””  Out of the whole crowd, Jesus could tell whose faith was genuine and whose wasn’t, who believed in who He really was, and who just wanted the benefits of being around Him.  His saving power only goes out to those with true faith.

This idea is important even today.  The Life Application Study Bible notes: “What a difference between the crowds who are curious about Jesus and the few who reach out and touch him! Today, many people are vaguely familiar with Jesus, but nothing in their lives is changed or bettered by this passing acquaintance.”  Yes, what a difference!  Especially in eternity.

It makes me ask myself, who am I in this story?  Am I the selfish crowds trying to hang out with Jesus for my own benefit, or am I the woman who puts her faith in Jesus because she knows her problems can be solved by no one else?  Am I concerned only with my earthly, physical problems, or do I come to Jesus knowing I have a spiritual disease only He can cure?  Only if my faith is like the woman’s and not like the crowds will Jesus say: “go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Do you ask yourself these same questions?  There are always those who “follow” Jesus but don’t truly believe in Him.  If so, do we just hang out with the crowds of religious people who only superficially trust Him, or do we reach out for Jesus Himself!  The thing we should do is fight our way through them and get close enough to touch Jesus Himself!  If we do, Jesus will find us in the crowd and satisfy our deepest need.

Don’t let the crowds discourage you or keep you from Jesus – find a way to get close to Him today!

[1] John 6:15

Don’t Fear Jezebel’s Algorithm

Todd R 1 Comment

Sometimes we can get frustrated with the way the media, either traditional or social, seems to ignore or block out positive stories about God or Christianity.  Online networks like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook can be very efficient at this, using complex algorithms to filter information, but on top of that human editors can intervene and block users they decide don’t fit their “community standards.”  However, resistance to spreading God’s word is as old as time, and God has never needed the assistance of any kind of media to accomplish what He wants to accomplish.

Consider the Old Testament story of Elijah, who prophesied during the reign of Israel’s evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel.  According to Who’s Who in the Bible, “Jezebel devoted herself to bringing the worship of Baal and his consort Asherah to Israel. She employed 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophetesses of Asherah (1 Kings 18:19), and persecuted the prophets of the Lord, including Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-9).”[1]  Many prophets were killed.

Elijah despaired, as written in 1 Kings 19:10 – “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”  It was as if all Christian voices but Elijah had been silenced by the authorities, and even he couldn’t feel safe.

Apostles also struggled to stay strong, including Paul.  When he was frustrated at resistance and lack of progress in Corinth, “the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”[2]

When Paul needed an example to encourage others to persist, he used Elijah’s story in Romans 11:2 – “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?  ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’  But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’” Corinth seemed like a lost cause, but God reminded Paul not to trust his own judgment.  God had it under control.

Therefore, our hope is not in the editors of our newspaper, or in social networks where we can share God’s message, or in the benevolence of the programmers of algorithms that choose who sees what we post, or in the regulators and legislators who monitor the public square, or in the founding political documents that give us rights.  But:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
            and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
            giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
            it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
            and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11

Like Jezebel killing all the prophets while promoting Baal and Asherah, censorship of Christian content may seem to be everywhere.  However, social network algorithms, editors, regulators, and governments are not our enemy, but our enemy is the one who tries to convince us we need these things more than we need the God who made them and who made us all.  His word will accomplish its purpose, and we have Elijah’s and Paul’s words and actions as evidence.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

[1] Gardner, Paul D., editor.  The Complete Who’s Who in the Bible.  (1995)
[2] Acts 18:9-10

Standing Firm

Todd R Leave a comment

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.” – Philippians 1:27-28

Romans 12:20 says when we love our enemy, we “heap burning coals on his head.”  Alternatively, panic in the face of opposition is what happens when we rely on our own strength and methods.

May He be strong in us.

What’s in Your Temple?

Todd R Leave a comment

When describing His holiness, God provided pictures like the one in Isaiah 6:1 – “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”  Because “the train of his robe filled the temple,” there is no room in the temple for anything that isn’t holy.  Or in Revelation 15:8, which says: “and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”  Until God’s judgment was complete – both on the unrepentant and on the cross for His people – there would continue to be no room in the sanctuary for anyone but the Lord.

How do these pictures apply to us?  Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”  Therefore, we ask ourselves: does the train of the Lord’s robe fill our temples?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

A transformative moment came in my Christian life when I understood sin in contrast to holiness, rather than as a list of “don’ts.”  It’s possible (perhaps even easy) to convince ourselves we are not sinners in need of grace by defining sin as things we don’t do.  However, much of the time, the word “sin” in the New Testament is a translation of the Greek word hamartia, which means “to miss the mark.”[1]  The word has athletic connotations, such as if an archer couldn’t hit the bullseye, they wouldn’t win the competition and the prize.  As we all know, archers are supposed to be accurate, and if they aren’t, they’ve “missed the mark.”

Therefore, when Paul writes in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he is not saying everybody failed to follow a list of dos and don’ts, but that we have not fully lived the life God intended us to live.  Romans 3:23 declares that while we wouldn’t set up idols in our church building, all of us tolerate some idols in our soul, which is where the Holy Spirit of God chooses to dwell.  The train of His robe does not fill our inner temple, and we too often trod on it with dirty feet.  We’ve “missed the mark” any time there’s other stuff in our temple, directing our thoughts and actions.  However, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we have both a hope of living with God and a future where His metaphorical robe does fill us.

In Paradise, God’s people will – individually and collectively – “hit the mark” perfectly for eternity.  His perfect temple will be completed in Paradise, with the living stones of all His people.

Paul returns to holiness again in 2 Corinthians 6:16 to 7:1, quoting several Old Testament passages, since holiness of His people has been the plan from the beginning –

“What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
             ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
                        and I will be their God,
                        and they shall be my people.
            Therefore go out from their midst,
                        and be separate from them, says the Lord,
            and touch no unclean thing;
                        then I will welcome you,
            and I will be a father to you,
                        and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
            says the Lord Almighty.’

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

Amen

[1] Greek Strong’s Dictionary

Hypocritical Bread

Todd R 3 Comments

One of the reasons Jesus encountered so much opposition was that He could see many of the religious leaders of His time as they really were – sinners condemned by the law and in need of a Savior – and was not afraid to call them out on it. Once when some scribes and Pharisees were crowding Him, trying to catch Him in an error, Jesus said to His disciples:

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.  Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.”[1]

Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites, which means someone deceitfully playing a part, using leaven as a metaphor.  Leaven is yeast, but how is yeast like hypocrisy?

Beware the nooks and crannies of the Pharisees! Photo by Debbie Widjaja on Unsplash

Looking at leavened bread and unleavened bread from the outside, they might look the same: they both look like solid loaves of bread.  However, in the process of making bread rise, yeast creates gas bubbles that form holes inside the bread (or “nooks and crannies” as in an old English muffin ad).  So, when you break or cut open a piece of leavened bread, it does not look solid on the inside like it does from the outside.  It is full of holes.  On the other hand, unleavened bread tends to be more solid, such as many flatbreads or tortillas.

Yeast is like hypocrisy because the hypocrite is not the same on the inside as they are on the outside.  The image they carefully craft for themselves fails inspection to One who can see inside.  In the case of the Pharisees, who wanted to appear superior in their knowledge of, and observance of, Jewish law, Jesus revealed that they were “like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”[2]

Later in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 8:1, the apostle Paul wrote: “we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up.”  Paul’s warning was that knowledge, if not used in love, puffs us up as yeast puffs up bread, making it full of air bubbles, and hollow inside.  Knowledge can make us proud and inflate our own sense of importance if we aren’t careful.  Love, on the other hand, seeks to build up others in humility.

Therefore, whose who seek to walk in integrity before God, to live an unleavened life, must reach out to the only One who can see all of our inner nooks and crannies, yet still loves us.  Though we are still sinners, by His blood we are justified in His sight and being made whole by our Maker.  We should pray as David prayed in Psalm 139:23 –

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!
            Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
            and lead me in the way everlasting!”

He can supply everything we lack.

[1] Luke 12:1b-2
[2] Matthew 23:27