IF I BE LIFTED UP I WILL DRAW MEN UNTO ME....

IN THIS... I KNEW NO SHAME... FOR THIS CAUSE CAME I INTO THE WORLD. 

Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into headquarters and gathered the whole company around Him.  They stripped Him and dressed Him in a scarlet robe.  They twisted a crown out of thorns, put it on His head, and placed a reed in His right hand.  And they knelt down before Him and mocked Him: "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then they spit on Him, took the reed, and kept hitting Him on the head.  (Matthew 27:27-30)

12 Days until Easter

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

  JESUS SHAME DEALT A DEATH BLOW TO ALL OUR PRETENTIONS!

  "They stripped Him."

This interesting phrase describes the trial of Jesus.  Why did they strip him?  Why this naked abuse?  Perhaps because when the accused is naked and the accusers are clothed, shame and humiliation are most intense.

Solzhenitsyn was once interrogated naked before a Russian tribunal.  He said it was very hard to reply to any question before one's clothed accusers.  To be forced to reply naked is the most irrational of humiliations.

Humiliation!  How rightly Francis de Sales reminds us that we cannot gain the virtue of humility without humiliation.  Considering all that Jesus has done for us, I am amazed that we are so reluctant to bear any sort of embarrassment for His name.  We want to be humble without enduring a cross of any loss of self-respect.

Yet Jesus, who was longsuffering in his tolerance of human abuse, waited through the naked mockery.  Even this humiliation could not keep Him from holding on  to His identity.  No level of taunting or torture could force Him to forget who He was --- the Messiah of salvation for which He now stood trial.  He knew that on the cross, He would endure the mockery of Satan that He might destroy it forever.  In his nakedness, then, then, he really knew no shame...because shame comes from knowing you have done something wrong.  Thus ethe endurance of this humiliation pleased God.  Obedience always does.

PRAYER

[My dear, precious, loving and gracious]  Lord, I am ashamed that in your lonely hours of persecution, the full weight of my sin fell upon you.  It was my sin for which  you were hated, mistreated, and abused.  As I think of the pain and humiliation that followed you to the cross, may I desire more than ever to be pure.  Help me see in your vivid example that there is a purity of life so real, it is incapable of shame. 

For additional Bible reading: 1 Peter 2:20-25

Taken From:  THE CHRIST OF EASTER,

 Readings for the Season of Resurrection ~ 48 days of Devotions

 by Calvin Miller.

Pilate: After he had said this,

he went out to the Jews again  and told them. 

"I find no grounds for charging Him."

13 Days until Easter

Monday, March 30, 2009

ALL DEATH WAS SHATTERED BY THE SHEER FORCE OF ONE LIFE AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE LIVED.

"You are a king then? " Pilate asked.  "You say that I', a king,"  .  "Jesus replied I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify of the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice."   "What is truth? said Pilate.  After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told then.  I find no grounds for charging Him."

John18:37-38

Which doctrine of Christ is most important?  I would say the doctrine of his sinlessness.  Some would argue.  "What about his resurrection?  Surely that is more important than his sinlessness?"  Of course, in many ways the Resurrection created Christianity.  If the Resurrection created it, though, the sinlessness of Christ authenticated it.   If Jesus arose from the dead but only as a sinning savior, could he truly save?  In what way could a sinner's resurrection liberate the rest of us who need to be set free from our sin?  To help us, Jesus must first be our moral superior. 

Humankind has always struggled with sin.  Even though the Greek religions carved their gods and goddesses to be ideal --- well formed in body, strident and tall, a picture of what humankind was supposed to be --- their gods were capricious and indulgent.  No wonder their religion did not live.

Jesus, however, was sinless.  Even Pilate could see that this man was not a criminal deserving of death.  After hearing the witness against Jesus, Pilate said, "I find no grounds for charging Him."

Pilate may not have believed Jesus was sinless, but in some way he seemed to sense that Jesus was morally superior to him.  Pilate spoke more than he knew.  There was literally no fault at all in Jesus.  He was, indeed, a lamb without spot and without blemish.  He was the sacrifice offered once and for all for our sins.

Almost every religion has some sense of sin and has devised some ritual of forgiveness --- always to no avail.  The writer of Hebrews admitted that the ancient blood-sacrifice system of the Jews was also ineffective. If the sinner's trust was merely in the ceremony:  "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4).  What can be done, then?  The apostle Paul wrote that God made one "who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him"  (2 Corinthians 5:2.1)

Jesus truly is the no-fault Savior.  Because He was the perfect Son of God, your imperfections are covered by His blood.  You are forever free!

PRAYER:

Lord, have we forgotten that it was your perfect life, which covered our imperfections?  Have we forgotten that the blood of your perfect sacrifice healed our sin?  Because I am so sinful, I treasure a Savior who was tempted in all points like I am and yet lived without sin.  Because of your sacrifice, my own sin is now removed as far from me as the east is from the west.  [It is now in that perfect blood of the lamb and whose name we pray.] Amen!

For additional Bible Reading:  Hebrews 7:23-28

SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2009

 14 DAYS UNTIL EASTER

FEAR CAN BE A GOOD COUNSELOR

WELDING OUR FRIGHTENED SELVES TO

GOD'S SUFFICIENCY.

When they had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down together, Peter sat among them.  When a servant saw him sitting in the firelight, and looked closely at him, she said, "This man was with Him too." But he denied it: "Woman, I don't know Him!" After a little while, someone else saw him and said, " You're one of them too!"  "Man, I am not!" Peter said, .... "I don't know what you're talking about!"  Immediately, while he was speaking, a rooster crowed.

Luke 22:55-58, 60

Throughout the coming days, our focus will be on the most notable, most gripping events of the Holy Week.  Again, we'll be contemplating these happenings so that we can live with them longer than a half hour or two at a Good Friday Service --- so that we can awake on Easter morning with a surer sense of our salvation, with a deeper awe at the glory of t the resurrection.

So, . . . come, let us wander into a torch-lit courtyard in Jerusalem, abuzz with all the electric intensity of a developing news story:  Jesus is on trial.  His unorthodox chickens were coming home to roost (so the Pharisees thought).  He is lined up in the crosshairs of mob justice.  His disciples are scurrying into the shadows ... to see without being seen. 

Peter is among these lurking stragglers ---- Once, twice, three times he denies having anything to do with Jesus.  Then he runs.  He falls to his knees.  He weeps.

But lo, these are good tears!  Our best tears are a sign of strength and not of weakness.  When we reach into our hearts and see what our betrayals have cost Christ, we ought to weep.  Such well-spent tears measure not our betrayal but our authenticity.

We are never more real than when we weep for what we know is wrong at the center of our lives.  We have only to contrast Peter's tears with Judas's suicide to see why godly sorrow redeems us, while self-pity only condemns us.  There is not a great deal of difference between what Judas did and what Peter did.  The difference lies in how they reacted to it.  Judas only grieved over his loss of place in the kingdom; Peter knew how much he had hurt his Savior.

Do your tears flow because you feel bad about your self-image?  Let them flow because you know that your sins have hurt the heart of God, who has called you to be faithful to his Son.

PRAYER:

Dear Lord, help me never to see my sins as having so little consequence that they may be dismissed without tears.  Help me to feel some bit of Calvary in every offense.  I ask this in  your name, my precious Savior.  Amen

For additional Bible reading: 1 John 1:6-9

Taken From:  THE CHRIST OF EASTER

Readings for the Season of Resurrection ~ 48 days of Devotions

by Calvin Miller.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

15 DAYS UNTIL EASTER

While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived, with him was a mob, with swords an clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.  His betrayer had given them a signal.  "The one I kiss," he said, "He's the one; arrest Him and get Him securely away."  So when he came, he went right up to Him and said, "Rabbi!"  --- and kissed Him. 

 (Mark 14:43-45)

LIVE IN SUCH GENUINE SIMPLICITY

THAT WHO YOU ARE IS WHOM YOU SEEM TO BE

Betrayal and hypocrisy often dance together.  Don't we see them intertwined in Judas --- betraying Jesus while pretending to be his dearest friend at the same time?

The kiss of Judas! Long the theme of poetry and art!  Long the arch symbol of treachery!  Our fascination is not with the kiss.  We are fascinated as to how Judas felt about what he did. 

On the night of Christ's betrayal, Judas arrived in Gethsemane and kissed the Savior.  This was nothing that the other disciples would have thought unusual.  Kissing was the way people in ancient times greeted each other.  But what the kiss said was that the person being kissed and the person doing the kissing were great friends.  It was a loving gesture, an expression of warmth and familiarity.

Truly, the ones who are most guilty of keeping the church in splints and bandages are usually the out-and-out enemies of Christianity.  More often the pretended friends of Christ do it ---- those who project one kind of loyalty yet demonstrate another.  The Judas kiss is a strong issue of duplicity that tasks us to offer up our own definitions of testimony and loyalty.  Sometimes we may actually give the impression that we don't know Jesus at all.  Or we may be caught at some activity, which others see.  Then they wonder why our profession of faith and the living out of our faith dwell so far apart from each other.

The only way to be of much use to God is to be sure that the image we project and the one we live out are the same.  In our Gethsemanes we ought to be found as lovers of Christ.

Then hypocrisy and betrayal will not keep company in our lives.  Then what we profess to be and what we are will be the same thing.  Then the Jesus we name in public worship will also be the Jesus of our private worship.  Then our love will be as declarative in the darkness as it is in the light.

PRAYER:

Dear Jesus, did Judas kiss you with a blatant lie of open faithfulness?  Help me to learn from his treachery.  Help me take this bitter Easter moment deep into my heart, immunizing my loyalties from ever being able to declare my love while defying your right to rule over me.  Keep me honest in the ministry I offer you.  This I pray in Your sacred name.  Amen

Additional Bible reading:  Proverbs 3:1-4

Taken From:  THE CHRIST OF EASTER,

 Readings for the Season of Resurrection ~ 48 days of Devotions

 by Calvin Miller

 JESUS, YOU ARE THE CENTER OF MY JOY!

 ON FIRE FOR GOD....

What does it mean to be on fire for God?

-It means that He is the center of your life and of your joy.

-It means that He is your first love.

-It means that you have a passion for Him, His will, and His purposes in your life.

-It means that you are indeed in love with your creator and wish for His presence with every breath you take, for you realize that He is your creator, who is your heavenly Father, and the lover of your soul.

-It means You are so in love with Him that you want to talk about Him all the time.

-It means You want to tell all your friends and family about Him.

-It means You want the world to know Him, for there is none other like Him - and absolutely no one can take the place of Him in your life, or do the things that He does, or make you feel the way you do!

Do you remember your first love experience?   All day you would think about the one you loved.  You would long to hear the voice of your loved one.  You couldn't wait to be near that person again.  You were excited, thrilled, and totally absorbed by the feelings of love you felt!

When you learn to love God in this way it is extremely rewarding because the feelings are more than mutual, and even more, He will never leave you nor forsake you.... for you are at the center of His heart.   There may be times that it may feel that He isn't there; but on my dearly beloved friend, He always is.  The more you get to know Him, the stronger your desire grows to know more of Him, and long for Him to be close to you. There is nothing created in this earth that compares with the Love of God for you, and what that love does to lift you higher and give you peace, joy, and freedom in spirit!

It was because of those feelings that caused me to kneel before Him this morning.... It was almost as if He were calling me to Him.... and so I write to you today to share my prayer. 

Heavenly Father, Abba Father,

Thank you for a new day and another opportunity to praise Your Holy name, and to praise You for all that You have been, and continue to be in my life.  I want to praise you for all that You have done, and continue to do in my life...... But most of all, Father, I want to thank You for Your faithfulness to me, even during those  times I have not been faithful to You! Please forgive me when I experience those moments of doubts as to Your love.  Thank You for not letting go of me!

Today, Dear Lord, I pray that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, that you rekindle that first love experience - when no matter what the circumstances, or the distractions, or perceptions of what felt I needed to do.... I could not wait to be alone with You and Your Word, and enter into Your presence.   Every free moment I had.... I was seeking You. 

So I ask You today Father, please make it like it was, when hungered for your love endlessly.  I know that you are able to make it like it was.  There is no one, or nothing in this world that can compare with You, or how You make me feel when I have entered into that intimate relationship with You and enjoying Your Holy presence in my life!

I ask this of You, Dear Father, in the name of Jesus, with whom You are one, and who lives in my heart today. Amen!