January 12, 2016
Jesus answered the question of the disciples of John the Baptist with His own question. Indirectly, His question revealed two things about Himself: 1) Jesus is the Bridegroom, and 2) He would be taken away. These two facts were more important than their question concerning why Christ’s disciples didn’t fast. Of course, He answered that too, by saying they will fast after the “bridegroom is taken away from them.” John’s disciples came to Jesus wanting to know why His disciples didn’t fast. Why didn’t they deny themselves to focus their souls on hearing from God? And Jesus essentially told them that they didn’t have to fast because God is with them already, the Bridegroom, the Messiah had come. He also let them know that He would be forcibly taken away, predicting His coming crucifixion.
January 11, 2016
This was the response that Jesus gave to the man who expressed interest in following Jesus, yet asked for a delay in reporting to duty in order to bury his father. It seems a harsh response, but it clarifies the priority of which the call of Christ demands. Jesus asks those that would follow Him to leave all behind and to put Him first. But before jumping to judge Christ’s reply too harshly, consider the possible meanings:
1) Christ is not banning His followers from attending funerals. He is taking away excuses from those that would delay following. (How many have told a teacher that they missed school on a test day because their great aunt died?).
2) Christ is making a connection between being spiritually dead and physically dead when He says let the dead (spiritually) bury the dead (physically). In contrast, Christ’s disciples are to be involved in the ministry of bringing the spiritually dead to life.
3) When the disciple asked for a delay in following, so that he could bury his father, it didn’t necessarily mean that his father had died. He may have meant that he wanted to stay home until his aged father died, before following Jesus. He didn’t feel that he could answer Christ’s missional call until his father was dead.
4) It also may have been a reference to the possibility that his father had already died, but the son now felt constrained to enter into the year-long Jewish burial practice of that day. According to this practice, the body would be laid out on one side of a burial crypt until it decayed, then the bones would be placed in an ossuary box and put with the other boxes on the other side of the crypt nearly a year later.
Regardless of the setting, Jesus knew the man’s heart and gave the very response to the man’s request that was needed to expose it. He was asking him the same question He later asked Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15).
January 10, 2016
Abraham instructed his servant to get a wife for his son Isaac from his “father’s house,” not from the Canaanites which surrounded them. Abraham wanted to make sure that his son’s spouse believed as they did, not only for marital compatibility, but also for the future upbringing of their children. We have to be careful in drawing an application from a narrative passage, but there does seem to be one here. Believers should choose to marry other believers who belong to the “Father’s house,” and not choose a spouse from this world. Another application might be that we should let the Father help in selecting our future mate. These are practical applications. We might also see a spiritual foreshadowing in this beautiful story of God the Father, sending His Spirit to bring the bride, which is the church, to His awaiting Son, Jesus.
January 9, 2016
When Isaac asked his father about the sacrifice, Abraham’s faith-filled response was: “God will provide the lamb.” Surely, Isaac had accompanied his father on many occasions as he made sacrifice to the Lord. Yet, on this day, they brought no offering. Fire and wood they brought, but no lamb. What a long, difficult climb up the mountain this must have been, as Isaac watched his father’s face for a hint of explanation and Abraham listened for the Lord to whisper some new instruction. Both Abraham and Isaac passed this test of faith. Abraham, obedient to God, took his promised son, the child that had brought laughter to his old age, and prepared to offer him as a sacrifice. And Isaac, obedient to his father, willingly surrendered himself, going silently to the slaughter. But God did provide. Isaac didn’t have to die. This story of Abraham and Isaac foreshadows God’s offering of His only Son, Jesus, as the Lamb. God has provided for “himself” (not from us, from “Himself”) a Lamb, so that we don’t have to die. As John the Baptist declared when he saw Jesus approaching the Jordan river, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
January 8, 2016
Worry is a wasted activity. It is also a sin. For it begins with a lack of faith that doubts God’s protection and provision. Worry is like a puppy that won’t return its master’s slipper, gnawing and growling, it won’t let go of a shoe that it neither owns nor needs. Can you change your tomorrow with worry? Can you add one hour to your life by being anxious (Matt. 6:27)? Worry is anxious self-talk. Why not use the same effort to turn this inward dialogue upward? Turn your worries into prayers. Give the “shoe” back to the Master owns tomorrow.
January 7, 2016
The Lord’s visitation to make a birth announcement concerning Abraham’s wife, Sarah, began a pattern of such divine announcements in the lineage of Christ. Isaac, the child of laughter and of promise, was clearly a miraculous birth. God opened the womb of a woman “advanced in years,” one in whom the “way of women had ceased to be.” This birth announcement was a foreshadowing of the announcement Gabriel made to Joseph and Mary. For in a similar fashion, God chose the young virgin Mary, and caused her to be with child, also visiting Joseph to call him to accept her and to name the boy child, “Jesus,” adopting him as his own. The birth of Isaac points to the birth of Jesus. In fact, the whole Old Testament points to Christ’s coming.
January 6, 2016
A repetitive phrase that Jesus used in His Sermon on the Mount to contrast the letter of the law with the spirit of the law. “You have heard it said…” that thou shall not kill… thou shall not commit adultery… thou shall not divorce… “but I say…” Jesus listed many of the ten commandments and levitical laws and challenged His hearers to understand that even the attitude that precedes the action is sin. As Jesus illustrated, “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Those who thought that they had kept the law and were therefore righteous, now understood that they weren’t. Jesus taught that the action of sin begins with the attitude of sin. Encountering Jesus we are convicted of our self-righteousness, the sinful attitudes of our hearts are exposed, and our need for salvation is revealed. Many will turn away, determined to cling to their own self-efforts at being “good.” But some will admit the condition of their hearts deadened by sin and receive Jesus, and their hearts will come alive in Christ!
January 5, 2016
This is more an expression of resolve by the petitioner than an expectation that the Lord will hear the petition. “O Lord, in the morning [and every morning thereafter] you [will] hear my voice.” The psalmist David is expressing his determination to begin his days in prayer. He uses metaphoric language in the Hebrew to describe how he will pray. He speaks like an archer, saying “I will send my prayer towards You and to You alone, and watch to see that it hits the target.” Or like a priest, David plans to “prepare” his prayer like a morning “sacrifice,” arranged carefully upon the altar, and then, to watch the smoke arise to the throne of heaven. David is determined to begin his days in the offering up of prayers to God. These will not be sleepy, memorized mutterings, but carefully considered and arrayed prayers… prayers aimed at the heart of God.
January 4, 2016
After Jesus overcame Satan and returned from His wilderness fast, He began His public ministry. News of Him soon reached other lands, including Syria. In the book of Acts we read that Christians were in Damascus in such number that the persecutor, Saul, headed there to bring them to trial. Of course, His mission was changed when the Lord struck him blind along the way. Instead of persecuting them, he ended up preaching the gospel there. A large Christian fellowship of believers has lived in Syria since the 1st century. Yet, today they are experiencing terrible persecution once again. Pray for the Christians in Syria. Before the civil war, they made up over 10% of the population. Untold numbers have been persecuted and killed. Pray that the Lord once again directs help to a street called “Straight” (Acts 9:11).
January 3, 2016
God seems to have favorite numbers. Both the number 40 and the number 3 are significant in today’s OYB reading. The number 40 generally symbolizes a period of testing, trial or preparation. We see the number in both our OT and NT readings today. Noah and his family were kept safe in the ark while God sent 40 days and nights of rain to flood the earth (Gen. 7:12). And in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus was led into the wilderness for 40 days of testing by the “Spirit.” This time of “temptation” points back to at least two events in the OT: 1) The Israelites 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and 2) Adam and Eve’s 3-part temptation in the garden. The 40 days for Jesus marked his preparation for public ministry, just as the 40 years for Israel marked their preparation for entering the promised land.
And the 3-part temptation by the devil was familiar too. Notice the similarity between Satan’s temptation of Eve (Gen. 3) and later, of Jesus:
1) Eve: “good for food;” Jesus: “stones to bread”
2) Eve: “delight to the eyes” Jesus: “let the people see the angels save you”
3) Eve: “wise like God;” Jesus: “give your worship to me instead of God”
Of course, the difference is that Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation, but Jesus overcame it.
The apostle John reminds us that in Christ, we can be “overcomers” too. Notice the three temptations listed by John and then the promise.
“For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world… Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 2:16, 5:5).