[A]ll the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

 Mark 1:1-8

[A]ll the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Mark 1:5

This morning, based on the recommendation of the author of my previous study of The Character of Jesus, I commence a study of Mark, leaning on the Christ-Centered Exposition commentary series volume for Mark.  I start with an unassisted review of Mark 1:1-8.

• The first thing I notice about the text is how Mark immediately goes to the Old Testament (see Isaiah 40:3) in vv2-3, reinforcing how we are to read the entirety of the Bible - not just the New Testament, and we should dive into our study of those books we may believe are more challenging, such as Leviticus.  See 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
• An expanded view of Isaiah (see Isaiah 40:4-5) reveals God's intention with Jesus that, unlike God who was on top of the mountain (Mt Sinai) and only available to Moses or later to the high priests in the inner most section of the tabernacle, He would walk and be among His people and be more accessible (straight paths).    
• Next, I notice how John is in the wilderness, perhaps giving hope to those who are in spiritual wilderness or desert, hungry, thirsty, and desperate for God - the promised Messiah.  The Israelites also wandered in the wilderness/desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land.
• Baptism in vv4-5 is described early in the Gospel and it triggers explanation of why a baptism is needed and a quick search of DesiringGod.com reminds me of how water is used in the Old Testament for ritual washing away of sin and how immersion and a rise from the water represents death and then a new life. 
• John appears as someone who lives off the grid and as less refined. Perhaps this is how many lived during this time, but still people from "all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him" as they were drawn to the message and again it is striking that people would go into the wilderness and find something of value - the Good News.  I am reminded how the Israelites also encountered God in the wilderness (parting of Red Sea, water from rock, manna from Heaven, Ten Commandments, guided by cloud during day, by fire at night).  John was part of God's plan from long ago (prophesied by Isaiah) and Gabriel further prophesied on John from Luke 1:5-24.  God meets us during our times of need to guide us and remind us that He is there always.        
• John the Baptist's delivers the message that Jesus is on the way, He is greater, and how He brings the Holy Spirit. Humility and truth.

John lived in the wilderness (see also Luke 3), and was led by God to proclaim that the long awaited Messiah was on His way. People went out to the wilderness to find the Good News and to be saved.  Where ever you are, in what ever emotional state you find yourself in, God is there and He seeks to carry your cares and anxieties (1 Peter 5:7).  He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) - in your spiritual wilderness, a place of seeming desolation, God saves.

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, Jesus, You are an awesome God that saw me as lost in my wilderness and inclined my ear and softened my heart to hear the Good News, confess my sins, and asked to be saved - and You responded saving me!  Thank You Jesus.  I am not deserving of how You saved me and continue to pour out mercies every morning that never cease, revealing Yourself to me in the Word, and through the sanctification process.  Thank You but again I am not deserving.  Please forgive me for my sin and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.   

...[H]is name shall be called Wonderful...[.]

Isaiah 9:6

...[H]is name shall be called Wonderful...[.] Isaiah 9:6

This morning, I wrap my study of The Character of Jesus, focusing on chapter 26 (last chapter): The Greatness of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "He never wore a crown or held a scepter or threw round his shoulders a purple robe. He never held an office either in church or state. He did absolutely nothing in art, literature, science, philosophy, invention, statesmanship or war, the seven kingdoms in which the world's great men have won their crowns. And yet everybody calls Jesus great."
• "No informed man in any part of the world would to-day deny him that exalting adjective. Not only is he counted great, but in a large part of the world he is counted greatest — so great that no one else can be compared with him."
• "His greatness lies in the realm of personality, in the kingdom of character. His achievement was not wrought with paint or with chisel or with sword or with pen, but by the heavenly magic of a victorious will. There is nothing of him but his manhood." 
• "Jesus was great in his soul. The dimensions of his mind and his heart were colossal. His spirit was regal, august, sublime. How he looms above the heads of his contemporaries ! There were men of distinction in Palestine nineteen centuries ago. Jesus measured his strength with the greatest men of his land and generation. But how lacking these men were in insight the Gospels everywhere disclose. They fumbled cardinal questions and stumbled at points which were critical. They lost themselves in the mazes of problems which they could not see through or master. Jesus had eyes which saw to the core of every problem and to the center of every situation. He never missed the essential point or was misled by a subordinate issue. He stripped off the accidental from the soul of the essential, and no matter how tangled or complicated a matter was he seized the dominant principle and made all things plain."
• "Insight is a trait of greatness. Only great men see deep into things. It was his insight which made him formidable to the men who tried to trip and trap him with their questions. Again and again they tried it, but they never succeeded. He always outwitted their subtlety, and always discomfited them at their favorite game. Whenever they dashed at him with a question intended to roll him in the dust, he seized it, turned its point upon the man who asked it, and went on his way triumphant. Never did they get the advantage of him in a discussion or an argument. No more clever man ever lived. He beat his assailants into silence every time they attacked him."
• "His greatness comes out in his fellowship with his disciples. They were strong and able men, all of them, able later on to turn the world upside down; but they cut a sorry figure in the presence of the man they acknowledge to be their master. They are pitifully and incorrigibly stupid. They cannot understand some of the simplest things the Master says. He is so high above them that they cannot climb to where he is."
• "How great Jesus is can be told by the length and width and depth of his achievement. Greatness is measured by the effect which it produces."
• "If Jesus is to be judged by the effects which he produced and still produces, then his name is indeed Wonderful."
• "He has indeed something extraordinary within him who can so work upon the minds and hearts of men as to make them glad to give up their lives for him. There is only one greater thing than dying for another and that is living for another, living a life of obloquy and persecution, suffering all things for his sake. Here is the climax of power. Jesus changed men. He changed their habits and opinions and ambitions, he changed their tempers and dispositions and natures. He changed their hearts. They were never the same after they gave themselves up to him. God and man, the world and duty, were different to them after they had looked steadily into his face. Wherever he went he transformed human lives. He transfigured human faces by cleansing the fountains of the heart. This is greatness indeed."
• "More lives of Jesus have been written within the last fifty years than of any other historic character. More pages are printed about him every week than about any hundred of the world's greatest men. He exerts a power which is so phenomenal that many feel he must be more than man, linked in some way or other with the Eternal."
• "His greatness is full-orbed. He was complete, and in his completeness we find an explanation of his beauty. Men who stood nearest to him were charmed and swayed by his loveliness. He was full of grace and truth. He had a charm about him which wooed and fascinated. Children liked him, boys sang for him, publicans hung upon him. He had the heart of a child, the tenderness of a woman, the strength of a man. The three dimensions of his life were complete. He had eyes which looked along extended lines running into eternity; he had sympathies wide enough to cover humanity to its outermost edge; he had a purpose which included all lands and ages, his kingdom is to be universal and it shall have no end. He is at every point complete. His virtues are all full-statured, his graces are all in fullest bloom. You can no more add anything to him than you can add something to the sky. He pushed every good trait of human character to its utmost limit. His forgiveness was unbounded, his generosity was untiring, his patience was inexhaustible, his mercy was immeasurable, his courage was illimitable, his wisdom was unfathomable, his kindness was interminable, his faith removed mountains, his hope had no shadow in it, his love was infinite. And so it is impossible to go beyond him. We can never outgrow him. He will be always ahead of us." 

While I agree with the author's assessment that Jesus is great - this is a broad view.  I also - as do all believers - have a narrow view, and this is a personal view in the context of what Jesus has done for me, continues to do for me, and will do for me.  I was an enemy of Him, and He loved me first, inclining my ear and softening my heart to see Him as my Savior.  He then never wavered in His promise to do a work in me, to transform my heart and life, and to make me more like Him, even though there have been periods of willful disobedience.  On His mercies that are new and that He pours out every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23) and that never cease, Jesus demonstrates patience - for me on this count alone He is great.  Of all the things He is and does, He is great because He saves.  All stems from this.  

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God and You are great in all things at all times.  Thank You for my salvation, that You loved me first while an enemy of You, and for the mercies that never cease and that are new every morning.  Thank You for Your patience and grace, and that You are with me always and You will never leave or forsake me.  I am not deserving of these blessings.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day. 

Which one of you convicts me of sin?

John 8:46

Which one of you convicts me of sin? John 8:46

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 25 (second to last chapter): The Holiness of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "There is but one name in human history with which we can link that glorious name. What do we mean by holiness? We mean wholeness, full-orbed perfection. A holy man is a man without a fleck or flaw, a character without a blemish or a stain."
•  "[S]o far as we can discover there is nothing in Jesus' consciousness which indicates that he was guilty of any sin. There is no trace anywhere of regret, no indication anywhere of remorse. From first to last he is serene, jubilant, confident, free, so far as we can see, from that shadow which the consciousness of sin always casts."
• "There is no [sinless] exception in the whole list from Abraham down to the latest of the apostles. Every heart cries out in the language of the Psalmist: 'Have mercy upon me, O God, and blot out my transgressions,' 'Wash me from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for my sin is ever before me.'"
• "Other men, even the strongest, have asked others to pray for them — he never asked prayers of any man."
• "Not only did he hold himself immeasurably above the heads of all other men, but he forgave sins, he spoke as one having authority. No other man had ever exercised such a prerogative. Even the worst sinners when penitent at his feet received from him authoritative assurance of forgiveness. Moreover he was a man without a human ideal."
• "All good men have looked up to some man better than themselves; Jesus looked up to no man. He placed himself above Moses. He said, 'A greater than Solomon is here.' He said to men, 'Follow me, I am the ideal.' And at the same time he said, 'Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.'"
• "There was a reason why the baptism should be performed,—there was another element in baptism besides confession of sin. John was the beloved disciple, coming the nearest to the Master's heart. In the third chapter of his first letter he says this, 'He was manifested to take away our sin, and in him is no sin.' That was the impression which the Lord made upon him."
• "In the second chapter of [Peter's] first letter he says, 'He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Now [the Apostles] were with Jesus. They ate with him, drank with him, slept with him, they saw him in all conditions and in all moods, and under varying circumstances. They saw him hungry, angry, stem, surprised, disappointed, amazed, yet they believed that in him there was no sin. The writer to the Hebrews in the fourth chapter reminds his readers that while Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, yet he was without sin."
• "Here, then, we have reached the crowning characteristic of Jesus. It is this which differentiates him from all other men who have ever lived. Every other man has known the pang of remorse, every other man has cried for pardon."
• "It is this sinlessness which gives Jesus his power. You cannot understand the New Testament unless you acknowledge that he was holy. His life was one of suffering, persecution, ending in a horrible death, but yet the New Testament is a joyous book. There is no gloom in it because there was no gloom in him. His soul was radiant. Nothing creates gloom in this world but sin."
• "All the things which we count terrible are insignificant and have no power to cast a shadow. There is only one thing which makes the spirit droop, and that is sin. His sinlessness explains his joyfulness."
• "The reason we are drawn to him is not because of his courage, his sympathy, his patience, or his brotherliness; it is because we feel instinctively that he is far above us, a man without a sin. It is this which gives the Christian church its power. The Christian church has but one perfect possession, that is Jesus."
• "Some of you are not interested in him; it is because he is so far above you. Some of you have no sympathy with him; it is because you are not at all like him. Some of you do not understand his words; that is because you are disobedient. Some of you have no disposition to do his will; it is because you are the prisoners of sin. But the sinless Christ does not turn away from us, no matter how sinful we are. He says: 'Come unto me. He that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.'"

Believers see Jesus as holy - the perfect spotless Lamb of God.  We are also called to be like Him - to be holy (see also 1 Peter 1:15-16).  How is this possible?  Jesus is the King of Kings.  First, we are all made in His image - see Genesis 9:6.  Since the Fall (Genesis 3), sin separates us from God. In the Old Testament, the ceremonial rituals of sacrifice were required to atone for sin.  Yet, over time, Israel largely performed this ritual as rote, devoid of a truly repentant heart - they could claim obedience to following God's commands for atonement but God wants our heart (to love Him first, then others - the two greatest commandments - see Matthew 22:34-40), not rote sacrifice.  With Jesus, we see the end of the OT sacrificial system and those who believe in Jesus are reconciled to God, and become a new creation with the Holy Spirit in their hearts.  As we read and study the Word and see Jesus in the Word, we know more about Him and love Him more with each passing day.  It is not us, but God working in us to bring about obedience and sanctification - we become more like Him through Him.  As I approach the last chapter of this book by Charles Jefferson, I return to the beginning with a reminder of why I read this book - quoting from the Introduction: "to be a Christian is to admire Jesus so sincerely and so fervently that the whole life goes out to him in an aspiration to be like him."

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Jesus, You are an awesome God who loves me and who is Holy, and the sinless, perfect Lamb of God who calls me to be holy and equips me with the Holy Spirit and Your Word to help me become more like You.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of how You save nor how You bless in these ways and so much more.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.    

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Matthew 6:9

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Matthew 6:9

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 24: The Reverence of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "No analysis of the character of Jesus would be complete which failed to recognize his reverence."
• "We know what reverence is, and yet we stumble in trying to define it. It is respect, regard, esteem, and honor; yes, and it is more than these....The basis of reverence is respect or honor, but it is respect or honor working with unwonted energy. It is a deep movement of the soul. It is respect or honor squared and cubed. And then again there is an elevation in the word "reverence" which respect and esteem do not have. Reverence is respect and esteem moving at high altitudes. It is one of the loftiest of all the emotions of the soul, and that is why it eludes us when we try to capture it in the meshes of a definition. What is it ? It is homage and obeisance and devotion, yes, and something more. It is awe and fear and adoration; yes, but even these do not tell the full-rounded story. The fact is, reverence is a complex emotion, made up of mingled feelings of the soul. There is in it respect and also affection and also fear, and along with these an abiding consciousness of dependence."
• "The wise men of Israel were convinced that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Their effort was to make men conscious of the existence of a God of infinite power and wisdom and goodness. He was the High and Holy One who inhabits eternity, and is therefore not to be approached carelessly or thought of lightly."
• "God is majestic and holy and can be approached only by a humble and prostrate heart."
• "This fear of the Lord was mighty in Jesus. God was continually before his eyes. His soul was pervaded with the sense of His presence, and all that he said and did was bathed in an atmosphere created by this consciousness of the fellowship and favor of the Eternal. To illustrate this is not easy. Jesus' entire life is an illustration of it."
• "No matter what Jesus is saying or doing, we feel we are in the presence of a reverential man. Would you see illustrations of his reverence, read the Gospels! The earnestness with which he was always pleading for reverence in others is proof that in him reverence was a divine and indispensable possession."
• "Probably no other words in the Lord's prayer have been so frequently slurred and overlooked as "hallowed be thy name."
• "Jesus is careful to place this petition at the very forefront of all our praying. Unless this desire is uppermost in our heart we are not in the mood of prayer. If our first thought is of ourselves and not of God, then we are not praying after the fashion of Jesus. When he tells us to put this petition first it is because he always put it first himself. Any low or unworthy thought of God was to Jesus' mind abhorrent and degrading. Living always with an eye single to the glory of God, he urged men everywhere so to speak and act and live that others seeing their good works might glorify their Father in heaven."
• "His respect for men was due not to what men were in themselves but to what they were in the eyes of God. They were God's children and therefore no matter how poor or degraded, they were worthy of respect and honor. Any cruelty in word or inhumanity in action toward a human being caused the heart of Jesus to flash fire, because such treatment of God's children was in his mind an insult to God Himself."
• "His reverence for his Father made the whole world holy, and because of his adoration for the Creator he could not turn his back upon any created being. "Honor all men" was one of the earliest exhortations of the apostles. It had its roots running down into Jesus' immeasurable reverence for God."
• "[The temple] was the house of God. It was erected for God's worship. It was a shrine for the adoring heart. It was intended to be a solace for men's woes and troubles, the very gate of Heaven....Jesus believed in the worship of God....So long as the spirit of reverence lives the worship is meaningful and beautiful; but when the spirit disappears, then the worship becomes demoralizing and corrupting. The worship of the Pharisees had lost out of it the spirit of adoration. It was cut and dried, dead, mechanical, without a heart and without a soul, and therefore odious to God and all right-thinking men."
• "Reverence is beautiful and renders beautiful whatever form it chooses in which to express itself; but when reverence dies, then the forms of reverence become corpse-like and contaminate all who handle them."
• "The soul of Jesus was reverent. He found it easy to bend the knee. It was natural for him to look up. He looked into his Father's face, saying at every step, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God!" Here, then, we have a virtue upon whose beauty we should often fix our eyes. We do not have as much reverence as we ought to have. We are not by nature or by training a reverent people. There are those who say we become less reverent as the years go on."
• "One finds this lack of reverence even in the church. In every community there are those who treat the house of God as they treat a street-car, entering it and leaving it when they please. Even habitual church attendants often surprise and shock one by their irreverent behavior in the house of prayer. Those persons are not ignoramuses or barbarians; they are simply undeveloped in the virtue of reverence."
• "Fear is one of the elements in reverence, and there is a popular impression that all fear is degrading. Fear is of two kinds, — there is a godly fear and a fear which is ungodly. The latter has terror in it and throws a shadow and brings a chill. But there is a fear which all unspoiled spirits feel in the presence of the high and holy."
• "If mortal man, stained and marred by sin, is not awed by the thought of a Holy God, it is because he has lost the power of feeling. If there is a fear which degrades and paralyzes, there is also a fear which cleanses and exalts. The fear of the Lord is not only a virtue to be coveted by men, it is a grace lacking which angels and archangels would be incomplete."
• "Reverence is the atmosphere of heaven. Let us come often then to the reverent Man of Nazareth who by his awe-struck obeisance to his Heavenly Father shames us out of our irreverence and makes it easier for the heart to kneel."

Indeed, the more one takes the time to read and earnestly study the Bible - not for academic purposes - but to search for Him and to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6), there is no doubt that reverence for Him is the result.  The weeping prophet Jeremiah - speaking to disillusioned Israel in exile - delivers God's message sharing in Jeremiah 29:13 that "[y]ou will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." When you find God, You will inevitably drop to Your knees in worship in awe of Your creator, provider, and Savior.  Seek God.

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are King of Kings and You do not need me.  Yet You loved me while still sinning and an enemy of You and You pulled me out of the pit, saving me from eternal damnation.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of my salvation nor any blessing You pour out for me.  My sin is great and it continues...every day.  Please forgive me.  Help me turn from, overcome, and turn towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me. Help me live in reverent fear and awe of who You are.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.   

[H]e looked around at them with anger[.]

Mark 3:5 

[H]e looked around at them with anger[.] Mark 3:5a

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 23: The Indignation of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "It has not escaped us that when men and women are angry they usually make fools of themselves. This fact has made a deep impression on us. Most of the indignation which we have known has been so childish or so brutish, so full of fury and of bitterness, that we find it hard to give it place in the experience of a strong and holy man."
• "It was thus that the Stoics taught, contending that ever to be moved by anger is a sign of weakness and unworthy of a full-grown man. The philosophy of the Stoics is not consciously accepted by us, but the considerations which led them to their estimate of anger are still operative in us all."
• "It is not easy to free one's self from the feeling that anger has something sinful in it, or that if anger is not actually sinful, it is at any rate unlovely, a defect or flaw in conduct, a deformity in character from which the lovers of the beautiful and good may wisely pray to be delivered. It is because of this assumption that anger is in its essence sinful that many persons find it impossible to think of Jesus in an angry mood."
•  ..."[I]t was inhumanity and insincerity which always kindled [Jesus'] heart to furnace heat. When he saw men — ordained religious leaders of the people — more interested in their petty regulations than in the welfare of their fellow-men, his eyes burned with holy fire. Those who were present never forgot the flash of his eye 'as he slowly looked round upon the pedants whose hardness of heart he held in abhorrence."
• "He was angered by the desecration of the Temple. The sordid wretches who cared nothing for anthems and prayers and everything for money, kindled a fire in him which well-nigh consumed him. The miscreants who fled before him had never seen such a flame as darted from his eyes. That a building erected for the purpose of adorning the name of God should be converted into a market was so abhorrent to his great soul that he was swept onward into action which astounded his disciples and which has been to many a scandal ever since."
• "One of the purposes of the New Testament is to give us a new revelation of anger. Take away Jesus' capacity for indignation and you destroy the Jesus of the Gospels. His anger was one of the powers by which he did his work. His blazing wrath is one of the most glorious features of his character."
• "Had he been less emotional, he would not have stirred men as he did. Had his passion been less intense, the world would never have called him " Master." Here, then, we have in Jesus what seems to some a contradiction. He is a Lamb and at the same time he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He caresses like a mother and he also strikes like a thunderbolt. He is tender but he is also terrible; he is loving but he also smites with a blow which crushes."
• "How can we reconcile the indignation of Jesus with his love? Nothing is easier. His indignation is the creation of his love. His wrath proceeds from his holiness. His mercy would have no meaning were it not for his immeasurable capacity for anger. Take away his indignation and you destroy the basis of his holiness, his righteousness, his mercy, and his love. Love and indignation are not antagonists or rivals. They ever go together, each one unable to live without the other."
• "In Jesus, then, we see what a normal man is and feels. He is full-orbed, complete. He gives sweep to every passion of the soul. He will not admit that in the garden of the heart there are any plants which the Heavenly Father has planted which ought to be rooted up. All the impulses, desires, and passions with which the Almighty has endowed us have a mission to perform, and life's task is not to strangle them but to train them for their work."
• "Jesus was angry but he did not sin. Anger because of its heat readily passes beyond its appointed limits. Like all kinds of fire, it is dangerous and difficult to control. But Jesus controlled it."
• "Our anger is frequently a manifestation of our selfishness. We become indignant over trifles. The street-car does not stop, or somebody carelessly knocks off our hat, or a servant disappoints us, and we are all aflame. Our comfort has been molested, our rights have been entrenched upon, our dignity has been affronted, and we are downright mad."
• "Our indignation then is quite different from that of Jesus. His anger never had its roots in selfishness. When men abused him, he was unruffled. When they lied about him, his pulse beat was not quickened. When they nailed his hands to the cross, no trace of anger darkened his face. His calm lips kept on praying, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." It was when he saw his brother men abused that his great soul rose in wrath. The more helpless the person who was mistreated, the hotter was the fire of his indignation."
• "It was when he saw cruelty perpetrated on the defenseless that his indignation rose to the fury of a tempest. The thought of bad men leading innocent souls to sin, converted him into a furnace of fire." 
• "If hearts do not burn with holy fire against wicked men and their wicked deeds, it is because the heart is too undeveloped to feel what manly hearts were meant to feel, or because the core of the heart has been eaten out by the base practices of a godless life. It is one of the lamentable signs of our times — our incapacity for anger. Many of us are lukewarm in the presence of evils which are colossal. Some of us are indifferent. Indifference to wrong-doing is always a sign of moral deterioration."
• "Society would be cleansed of much of its pollution if we had more men and women capable of becoming genuinely angry. Let us pray then every day that a new indignation may sweep through the world."
• "The New Testament is a glorious book. Its lines are straight, its discrimination is fine, it rings true. It is absolutely free from sentimentalism. It has no sickly fondness for bad people. It does not deal in excuses and in extenuations. It has no abnormal tenderness. The world is full of sentimentalists, — men and women who gush of love, and who do not know what love is.  After listening to their flimsy talk it is refreshing to get into a book where every bad deed is held up to scorn and every bad man, if unrepentant, is overwhelmed with shame. Nowhere in the Gospels is there a soft or flabby thought, a doughy or mushy feeling. All is high and straight and fine and firm and true."
• "One feels sure that God is in His heaven, and that though wickedness may flourish for a season, God's heart bums with quenchless fire against it, and that at the end of the days every impure man, and every cruel man, and every man who loves and makes a lie, will find himself outside the city whose streets are gold and whose gates are pearl." 

Many who don't (and perhaps some who do) believe in God cannot fathom why anyone would worship a God who wiped out all of humanity except Noah and his family (see Genesis 6-9) or who condemns people to eternal damnation.  Such actions are indeed harsh.  But we must remember that all of humanity is God's creation and humanity exists for His glory and not for its own glory.  As such God's anger is righteous - not a selfish anger.  When people reject God, intentionally mock or blaspheme His name, or willfully continue in sin without repentance, God had cause for anger.  But God is just, as all will be held accountable for all of their deeds and those whose name is written in the Book of Life (believers) will be saved - while everyone else who has not repented of their sin and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior will suffer eternal damnation.  At the same time, God is also merciful and patient as He seeks for all to repent and be saved.  For example, the thief next to Jesus upon the cross who is saved.  For us, in this life, We must remember that just because God has righteous anger, that we as believers do not have free license to be angry.  God calls us to be slow to anger and quick to listen - see James 1:19.  Our ability is be slow to anger is driven by the sanctification process as we become more like Him - see scripture for how God is slow to anger. 

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You an awesome God who is just, patient and merciful - full of love to see all people saved. You are slow to anger, abounding in love - and it is this love with animates anger towards those who are not loving like You are.  Thank You for the love, patience, and mercy You show for me - I am not deserving.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day. 

Fear not[.]

Luke 12:5 

Fear not[.] Luke 12:5a

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 22: The Courage of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "Jesus of Nazareth we find bravery at its best, courage at its loftiest, heroism at its climax."
• "There are different kinds of courage. There is a courage which we may call physical. It runs in the blood, it is a kind of instinct. This sort of courage is not peculiar to man, it is possessed also by the brutes. The bulldog has it and so also has the weasel. It is possessed by man in all the stages of his development. It is an indifference to danger, a contempt for suffering and for death. But the courage of Jesus was not this. His was a higher and nobler possession. His was the courage of the mind, the heroism of the heart. It was a sober and reasoned thing. He deliberately counted the cost and paid it. Nor was his courage military. Military courage is the most common of all forms of courage in the world, and one of the earliest developed. Military courage is the courage which the soldier has in the time of battle. The courage of our Lord was not military, it was the courage which manifested itself in isolation. There was nobody to march with him. He marched alone. Palestine was filled with evils, he alone was brave enough to strike them. Injustice lifted its hideous head, and he alone resisted it. Hypocrisy made a mockery of religion, and he alone stabbed it. He trod the wine press alone. Even the men whom he succeeded in attracting to him left him and fled at the final hour. But even then he did not wince or falter, saying, 'I am alone and yet not alone, for the Father is with me.'"
• "[Jesus' revealed His courage] on that day on which for the first time he announced his mission to the men and women who had known him from boyhood. It was necessary for him to say things which would offend, and he said them. He was to preach the truth, but he could not preach the truth without cutting across the grain of the prejudices of these people. He went calmly onward, however, and preached the truth."
• "To estrange the hearts of those who have known and esteemed us for many years, to cut one's self off from the respect and sympathy and love of those in whose friendship we have found solace and delight — that is hard indeed. And that is what Jesus did on that awful day in Nazareth. By the simple speaking of the truth he alienated from him the minds and hearts of the people in whose midst he had grown to manhood and whose high regard had been one of the most valuable of all his earthly treasures."
• "He was a courageous man that day, and equally courageous was he in the streets of Capernaum when he talked to that crowd of five thousand men whom he had fed a little while before in the desert beyond the Sea of Galilee. He came into the world to bear witness to the truth, but men were not willing to receive it."
• "It is not an easy thing to offend society and to offend it in such a way as to lose caste and standing. The people in Jesus' day were great sticklers for forms of fasting. Jesus minimized the value of them. They were exceedingly scrupulous in regard to sabbatical laws. Jesus could not keep them, he did not believe in keeping them. They were punctilious in regard to the number of times they washed their hands before they sat down to eat. Jesus had no time for such elaborate foolery. The best people of his day divided things into clean and unclean, people into clean and unclean — Jesus could pay no attention to these distinctions. All men were his brethren, and so he associated with people who had lost caste. By so doing he lost his own reputation. Has any one courage enough here to do that? He went contrary to the established usages of the best society of his day; he trampled on conventionalities which were counted sacred as the law of the Eternal. And the result was he was suspected, shunned, and abhorred. But he did even more than this: he surrendered the good opinion which many of the people had formed of him."
• "But he did a braver thing even than this: he gave up the good opinion of the best people of his day. He was reverent, religious, sensitive, but there were certain things it was necessary for him to say because they were true things, and he said them. By saying them he exposed himself to the charge of being a blasphemer, but he said them. He was willing to do his duty even though by the doing of it he won for himself the ignominy of being counted a blasphemer, a lunatic, and a traitor. Only the very loftiest heroism can meet such a test as that. But we have not yet reached the climax. If it is difficult for a man to withstand his enemies, much more difficult is it for him to withstand his friends. There are many men who can resist the people who are opposed to them who cannot withstand the opinions and wishes of their friends. Many of us can pour denunciation on the men who hate us, but we succumb at once to the gracious words of those who wish us well. Peter was Jesus' dearest friend; but when Peter on a certain occasion says to him, " Far be it from thee, Lord, this shall never happen unto thee," quick as a flash the reply comes, "Get thee behind me, Satan." James and John present what seems to them a most reasonable request — Jesus says, "I cannot grant this." Judas was one of the most trusted of the apostolic company — so trusted that he was made the treasurer of the band; but Jesus by the simple telling of the truth and the living of a perfect life estranged the affections of this man until at last he became his betrayer."
• "The story of Jesus' life is the most heroic record ever written, and any man who wishes to increase the bravery of his heart must read this book day and night. See him as he sets his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, where he knows they are going to scourge him and spit upon him and kill him. His friends endeavor to dissuade him, they strive to hold him back. He keeps steadily on, knowing that at Jerusalem he will give his life a ransom for many."
• "Only cowards surrender, only cowards get tired and sick. Jesus steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and never turned back until he reached the cross. See him as he goes onward, trampling on all the precious things of earth, putting under his feet the ambitions by which the hearts of other men are fired, trampling into the dust the prizes and the joys of life. Make out a list of the things which you count most valuable and worth while, and you will see that Jesus placed every one of them beneath his feet."
• "When the soldiers buffeted him and cuffed him, cursed him and spat upon him, he never said a word. He was so courageous that he dared to be silent. As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. When he comes at last to stand before Pontius Pilate, he stands so erect that Pilate is afraid of him, and the heart of the Roman prosecutor flutters when Jesus says to him, " For this cause was I born, unto this end came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth." And when at last they nail him to the cross the only thing he will say is, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"

Believers are called to proclaim the Gospel in their every day life and to all corners of the earth - just as Jesus came to bear witness to the truth - both in words and in actions. We are also told that we will face tribulation - see John 16:33 and James 1:2-3. Both of these verses exhort us to press on - John 16:33 shares that just as Jesus overcame the world, we too will overcome the world and what challenges it throws at us; James 1 shares how trials and testing "produces steadfastness."  This may seem difficult but we can take heart by understanding how God equips us to do so.  Jesus tells us that He will never leave or forsake us (Matthew 28:20 and Deuteronomy 31:8) and that He provides the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts so that we can feel His presence.  God equips us also through the sanctification process where we are transformed by the renewing of our minds - as our thoughts become more like His (Romans 12:2).  Jesus is courage and it is through His courage that we also can be courageous.

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God and You are the portrait of courage.  Through Your courage, I have salvation and the all the rich blessings of being part of Your kingdom - eternally.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of how Your courage saved me.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.         

[A] bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench[.]

Matthew 12:20

[A] bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench[.] Matthew 12:20

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 21: The Patience of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "[Patience is] calmly waiting for something hoped for...[and] the uncomplaining endurance of tribulation."
• "But would you see patience in both its forms raised to its highest power without a defect and without a flaw, you will find it in Jesus of Nazareth."
• "Think of what delay must have meant to Jesus. How his blood must have boiled in little sleepy Nazareth as he dreamed of the mighty things which ought to be done and which he felt he could do in the great arena. As man after man brushed by him on his way to success and renown his soul must have been agitated, he too must have felt the fever to hasten on. Think of what his dream was and you will understand how it must have tugged at him and made the years seem interminable in drowsy, prosaic Nazareth. But he waited.  At twenty-one he said, Not yet. At twenty-five, Not yet. At twenty-eight, Not yet. It is in the twenties that the blood is hottest and the soul is most eager to get on. Through all the blazing years of youth Jesus waited in Nazareth. It was not until he was in his thirtieth year that he said to himself, The time has come."
• "A man at thirty is more than one-third of the way through life, and since Jesus has so much to do, certainly now that he has been baptized he will plunge into his work with alacrity, and push his projects with a vigor which will startle his contemporaries. Not so. He will calmly meditate on the best ways of helping his day and generation. The leaders of the people were looking for a man who would imitate the methods of the men who had hitherto proved themselves masters of the destinies of nations. In imagination he saw himself on the top of a lofty mountain with the kingdoms of the world lying stretched out below him. He saw how he might gain possession of them by adopting methods employed by those who had lived before his day. But having considered the whole situation he said, "No, I will not do what others have done, I will choose the slow and toilsome way; I will not cut the knot, I will untie it; I will not push the world, I will draw it; I will not subdue the world by military methods, I will heal it by the sympathy of human hearts." With this conviction firmly established in his soul he began his ministry in Galilee."
• "But when [His disciples] urged him to hurry, his reply was, " Are there not twelve hours in the day?" or, "My hour is not yet come." And instead of setting all the land afire he tried, so it seemed, to suppress himself, to hold his disciples back, to keep his name from becoming glorious. When he healed sick men he said to them, 'Tell no man." When his disciples saw him all radiant on the mountain he cautioned them to keep still. The result was that at the end of his life he had made only one hundred and twenty disciples. What a pitiful outcome of a life so arduous, of work so strenuous and so unceasing! But the sight of a hundred and twenty men did not daunt him, he died with contentment in his heart. 'Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.'  When? Not then, not a hundred years after his death, nor a thousand years, nor ten thousand years after. Nevertheless he has the tone of victory in his voice, knowing that in spite of all the obstacles, delays, and retrogressions, the outcome is absolutely certain."
• "Wherever he went he was pursued by men who were his enemies. They watched him in order that they might trip him. They questioned him in order that they might get him into a trap. How difficult it is to speak if one is speaking in the presence of people who are watching each sentence, determined if possible to catch the speaker in an error. Wherever he went his conduct was scrutinized by eyes that were green with envy. Everything he did was criticized, every action called forth a storm of fresh abuse. His enemies gathered around him like a swarm of mosquitoes biting him, like a swarm of hornets stinging him — but he never complained. They nagged at him, pelted him with abusive epithets, sowed the land with lies about him, but he never grew bitter."
• "The disciples to whom he gave himself with a devotion that has never been equaled were constantly failing to catch the import of the things he told them. They were slow and stupid, petty and selfish, unable to take in the great things he had to say — but he was patient with them."
•  "To every follower of Jesus the Almighty is a long-suffering God. He has vast plans running through the ages, and He is willing to wait for their fulfillment."

Frustration results when we believe that something should have happened did not.  We want things to go our way.  This is certainly true for myself - a sinful posture indeed.  I need Jesus to continue a work in me in patience - as a parent, including for a special needs child, God has equipped me with greater patience.  Yet I need to see things as Jesus does, that there is a plan for me and for the details of my life and I need to slow down and see what God is doing because He is in control (Colossians 1:15-17).  It is with this perspective where I can become content and thankful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God that has demonstrated immense patience with me - never giving up on me even when I fall down in the mission You give to me.  Thank You for the mercies that are new every morning and that never cease.  I am not deserving of my salvation, nor any of the blessings You pour out for me.  My sin continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin. Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.      

I am gentle and lowly in heart[.]

Matthew 11:29

I am gentle and lowly in heart[.] Matthew 11:29b

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 20: The Humility of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "[Matthew 11:29] is unique in the Gospel.  There is nothing else at all like it....here for the first time [Jesus] calls attention to one of his characteristics....[and he uses this moment] to teach [his followers] humility."
•  "Possibly no other virtue in the catalogue of Christian virtues is so misunderstood as this one. No other one has been so often erroneously defined, no other grace has been so persistently counterfeited and caricatured. What do we mean by humility?...We know that Jesus was humble, we know also that he demands humility of us, we know that he took the ancient word and cleansed it and made it a lovely word, and yet when asked to define the meaning of it, how difficult it is to do."
• "Jesus gave his disciples three great lessons on the subject of humility" [from] Matthew 18:1-5, Matthew 20:25-28, and John 13:4-17.
• In Matthew 18:1-5, Jesus exhorts the disciples to become like little children.  "It is teachableness, docility, willingness to learn. A child is eager for knowledge, he is everlastingly asking questions, he is always bent on investigation, he pries into everything. He wants to go to the roots of everything....Not only is he free from self-sufficiency, but he is free from vanity. A little child is not vain of the belongings of its parents. It cares nothing for diamonds or silks, brown stone, or carriages. It plays with perfect contentment with a child in the street whose parents have [nothing]."
• "It was because the Pharisees did not have it that he criticized them and condemned them. They were not teachable, they knew everything. Nobody could tell them anything. They were vain, they blew trumpets and called attention to their decorations. They loved salutations. They were ambitious, they were always pushing themselves forward, taking the chief places at the feasts."
• "We get just a glimpse of him at the age of twelve, so hungry for knowledge that he will not go home, but lingers behind to ask the big teachers in the Temple just one more question. Always was he teachable. There is no trace of arrogance in him, no spirit of assumption. He is constantly talking to God, asking him questions, praying for new light. He cannot live without prayer. Prayer is the language of humility. Only the docile in heart ever pray. When we say that Jesus was a man of prayer, we say he was meek and lowly in heart."
• In Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus shares with His disciples that "humility is...a willingness to serve.  A humble man is a man who is ready to make himself useful....He did not underestimate his powers, or make himself small, or feel himself to be unworthy; he simply came down to where men were in order to do them good. That is Christian humility."
• In John 13:4-17 Jesus washes His disciples feet. "Knowing their dullness of understanding he goes on to explain the meaning of his action, telling them, just as he has been willing to do the work of a slave in order to serve them, so they also must be willing to serve one another. Here, again, we see what humility really is. It is laying aside one's dignity, it is making one's self of no reputation, it is a willingness to come down, it is a delight in rendering service...[I]t was because [Jesus] knew his divine origin and his divine destiny, and was conscious of his lofty position that he was willing to take the basin and the towel and do the work of a slave. This is the secret of humility everywhere and always."
• "It is because we do not know that we have come from God, and forget that we are going back to Him that we make such an ado about our dignity, and prize so highly our reputation, and are so lordly and so lofty minded, and take such delight in putting on airs. Only he who is sure of God possesses the secret of humility."
• "The humility which Jesus wants, and which he exemplified in his life, is a form of strength. Only the strong man can be really humble. It is willingness to lay aside one's rights, it is a refusal to use one's power, it is a readiness to come down and to make one's self of no reputation. Jesus was always giving up his rights, he was always refusing to use his power. Repeatedly he had the opportunity to wreak vengeance on his enemies, but he would not do it because he was so humble."
• "Notwithstanding his exalted position, Paul reminds his Philippian converts that Jesus "made himself of no reputation and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And therefore hath 'God highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord indeed.'"

Great words from Charles Jefferson indeed.  The author's words and the Holy Spirit this morning remind me of words from John 3:30 where John the Baptist shares that he must decrease and Jesus must increase.  It is humanity's nature to find worth, value, and significance from the world - of course this hinders an expression of humility defined in scripture.  Yet believers must recognize that our identity, worth, value and significance comes from Jesus - who sees us as worthy of salvation and justified (free from the charge of condemnation as a result of our sin).  Once we recognize our identity as a new creation in Christ, where we see our worth, value, and significance in Jesus, it becomes increasingly clear that we exist not to bring glory to ourselves but instead to glorify God.  It is from our strong conviction of who we are and to whom we belong where we become humble in God's eyes. 

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God that sees me as worthy of salvation and I am justified in Your eyes.  And You continue to pour out mercies that are new every morning that never cease.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of such blessings.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day. 

Rejoice and be glad[.]

Matthew 5:12

Rejoice and be glad[.] Matthew 5:12

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 19: The Gladness of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "Jesus says that he is a bridegroom. He seized upon a word that is the symbol of human joy. If ever a man is happy in this world, it is on his wedding day. Jesus says that he lives in an atmosphere of wedding joy, and so also do his disciples."
• "He told the men who criticized him that his life was different from the life of John the Baptist and also from the life of the Pharisees. You cannot mix the two kinds of piety, the two forms of life will not mingle. Let me give you an illustration or two, he said: 'A man does not put a new patch on an old garment, because the new patch will tear out and the rent will be still worse. Neither can you put my form of life on to the old form of piety, the two will not hold together, the strength that is in my form of life will simply tear the old form of life to pieces. Or, to give you another illustration, men do not put new wine into old wine skins, for there is too much life and movement and sparkle in new wine for the old skins. If you attempt to put the new wine into the old skins, the old skins will burst and the wine will be lost. So do not think that you can put the new life which I live and which I want all my followers to live into old forms of pharisaic piety, for this cannot be done. I am living a new kind of life, and I want a new kind of man, a new spirit, a new form of religion.'"
• "It would seem, then, that Jesus was a man abounding in joy. Gladness was one of the notes of his character. Listen to him as he teaches, and again and again you catch the notes of happiness. He was all the time saying, "Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God" — and what was it in the little child that attracted him? One thing which attracted him was the child's sunny heart. What would we do in this world without the children laughing away the cares and sighs?"
• "Or listen again to what he says about worry. He defines it as one of the deadliest of all sins. We are not to worry about the present, about the necessities of existence, about to-morrow, about what we ought to do or say in the great crises which lie ahead of us. It is not right, he says; it is contrary to the law of God.  Listen to him again as he says to the great crowds, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." A glum-faced prophet could never speak so. He was glad even to the end. Even in the upper chamber, with death only a few hours away, he goes right on speaking of the joy that is bubbling up in his own heart and he prays that the same joy may abound in the hearts of those that love him. He tells his disciples that all of his teaching has been granted unto them because of his desire that his joy might remain in them and that their joy might be full. There was no shadow on his face that night in the upper chamber. The cross is near, but it casts no shadow."
• "The very finest apples, you know, in the earlier stages of their growth are sour and green. It is not until the sun has done his perfect work that they are golden and luscious. Just so it is with souls in the earlier stages of development — they are often green and sour, crabbed, and full of acid. But if they will only subject themselves to the shining of the sun, the great joyous, exuberant, laughing sun, all the juices of their nature will grow sweet and mellow, and they will find themselves at last in the kingdom of peace and joy."
• "It is the tragedy of this world that there are so many people in it who find it impossible to rejoice. What is the matter with you that you are not happier than you are ? Certainly there is something wrong! What a pity it is to live in a world like this and not enjoy living! It is amazing that any one should live in a universe so glorious, and not feel like shouting! If you are lachrymose and drooping it is because there is something wrong. You are not well in body or in mind, or it may be you are sick in both. You have not yet learned the high art of living, you have not yet come to Jesus. Why not come and sit at his feet? Why not take his yoke upon you and learn of him, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light."

For believers, salvation alone is worthy of living joyfully every day.  Yet for many believers this may not be enough.  If this is you, I would encourage you to press on in your faith and lean into Jesus.  One of the great promises in scripture is Matthew 5:6 where early in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus shares: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."  Another word for satisfaction is contentment - and when one becomes content there is joy.  Joy in God. As believers mature and come to know God more intimately, it becomes abundantly clear that God is treasure enough - above anything else the world can offer.  John Piper refers to this as Christian Hedonism - "God is most glorified in us, or Christ is most magnified in us, when we are most satisfied him."

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are so great that You provide Your Son and so much more so that we can enjoy all the rich blessings of faith.  Thank You for my salvation, for the mercies that You provide every morning that never cease, for Your Word, the Holy Spirit, the church, etc. I am not deserving - my sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.  

"I came to cast fire on the earth[.]"

Luke 12:49

"I came to cast fire on the earth[.]" Luke 12:49

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 18: The Enthusiasm of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "In the speech of to-day, enthusiasm is a noble word. It is fervor of mind, ardency of spirit, exaltation of soul. It is passion, heat, fire. Though the word is absent, the thing itself is present. Jesus bums with fervent heat. His very words are sparks which kindle conflagrations."
• "When a boy he visited Jerusalem with his parents, and slipping one day into the Temple to hear the 229 scholars discussing the great problems of religion, he lost himself. He forgot what day of the week it was, and what hour of the day it was. His father and mother and brothers and sisters and friends all passed completely from his mind. He plunged headlong into the discussion of the doctors, gave himself up completely to the subject of the hour, allowed himself to be swept along on the tide of thought and discussion, until all at once his mother's face appeared at the door and he was reminded of the place he had left vacant in the caravan which had started toward Galilee. In this temple experience we see a nature sensitive and impressionable, capable of being heated to high temperatures."
• "Jesus is so full of feeling after the experience which came to him in his baptism that he cannot linger near the homes of men, but must at once rush away into infrequent and dessert places where he can meditate upon the strange thing that has happened to him, and ponder the steps which he must next take. From this time on we have a man before us who is being driven. Even when a boy he used a word which expressed the intensity of his feeling, " Do you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" He never ceased to use that word 'must.'"
• "He felt that his life would be short and so he kept saying, "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work." How intense his life was we can see in what is told us of his habit of praying. He was always praying. He arose early in the morning in order to find more time to pray, he stayed up late at night in order to increase the hours in which he might speak to God."
• "Men were astounded by the magnitude of his labors. Sometimes he did not take time to eat. Even when he went away for a season of relaxation he gave himself up to the crowds which pursued him. His words have in them an energy which burns. Again and again we catch expressions in which we can feel his great heart beating:"I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," "O woman, great is thy faith!" "I thank thee, O Father!" "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often!" All these are out of the throat of an enthusiast, a man surcharged with feeling. At the distance of nineteen hundred years from the day on which they were spoken our heart leaps when we listen to them. The rains of the centuries have not put out their fire."
• "He stirred men up wherever he went. They crowded him off the land upon the water. They pushed him off the plain up the hillside. They crowded the houses in which he tarried, they pressed round him as he walked through the streets. Again and again the excitement rose to fever heat, and Jesus slipped away and hid himself. Near the close of his career the crowds went wild in their tumultuous joy, shouting, singing, casting their clothing in the dust that the animal which Jesus rode might have a carpet for its hoofs like unto that furnished for triumphal processions of kings. No man can set a crowd blazing unless his own soul is ablaze."
• "A still finer evidence of this is found in the character of the men whom Jesus attracted to him as his intimate friends. The apostles were all men of fire. Do not believe the pictures when they paint the twelve as limp and pallid men. They were full-blooded, virile, mighty men, full of fire and passion, drawn to Jesus because in him they saw a man who satisfied them.  Peter had a seething soul, his words roll out of him like molten lava. John and James were called Sons of Thunder. The disciple whom Jesus loved was so passionate that he wanted to burn up a whole town which had insulted his Master....They loved Jesus with such an intensity of devotion, such a passionate self-abandon, that they were ready at any moment to lay down their lives for him. No man can win and hold the ardent devotion of strong men unless he has a soul which is hot. Jesus from first to last was surrounded by enthusiasts because he himself was enthusiastic."
•  "If you ask for the cause of this enthusiasm, you will find that it has three roots.  Put these three things together — a sensitive and inflammable nature, a clear and glorious vision, and a fiery and indomitable purpose —and you have the ingredients which go to produce the divine flame which is known as enthusiasm."
• "Higher than all enthusiasms is the fire that burns in souls in love with God. To know Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him, this is the highest ambition of which the soul is capable, and the soul when possessed with this ambition burns with a fire that cannot be quenched. This was the enthusiasm of Jesus." 

Believers of course are called to share in and demonstrate this enthusiasm.  In response to those seeking to trap Him with the question what is the most important commandment (see Matthew 22:34-40), Jesus answers: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment."  For believers who have earnestly taken the time to get to know God, this is the natural response to who Jesus is and what He has done for us.  Peter's response on his arrest after Pentecost (Acts 4:20) demonstrates such enthusiasm when in his defense he states: "we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard."  It is this enthusiasm that should motivate us to do what He seeks for us to do - with one example being the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). 

Comment and discuss this post.

My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God who loves me and whose enthusiasm I now have inside inside of me via the Holy Spirit.  Thank You God for giving me an intense desire to love, please and find joy and satisfaction in You above all else.  I am not deserving of how You do this.  My desire for You is sometimes weak and this of course breaks the most important commandment.  So I know there is more work for You to do in me and through me.  Please forgive me for my sin and help me overcome and turn from such sin and turn towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength. Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others. Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.  

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

John 14:1-2

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? John 14:1-2

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 17: The Candor of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "[Candor] is a rare virtue, one of the most winsome of all the virtues. Many a man does not possess it. He is taciturn, reserved, secretive. He keeps the door of his heart shut. When he says a thing you cannot tell how much he means, for you do not know the extent of his reservations.  When he does a thing you cannot tell what he is going to do next, because you do not know how fully his act has embodied all which exists in his heart. He gives himself fully to no one. He is the man with the barred lips and the bolted heart. Such a man may be respected and even admired, but he cannot be loved."
• "One reason [why Jesus was loved] was that he was a man with his heart open."
• "One obtains a hint of a man's disposition by noting the men whom he admires and praises. The trait which one sincerely likes to see in others is likely to be a feature of his own character. John in his Gospel tells us of a eulogy which Jesus passed one day upon a man named Nathaniel. Nathaniel was a citizen of a small Galilean village, Cana, situated not far from Nazareth. As soon as Philip had gotten a little acquainted with Jesus he was desirous of bringing Jesus and his friend Nathaniel together. Seeking Nathaniel he said enthusiastically, "We have found him!" to which came back the frigid answer, 'Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?'....As soon as Jesus sees Nathaniel coming toward him Nathaniel exclaims in a tone musical with praise, "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." This was the sort of man which won at once the heart of Jesus. There was no craft nor cunning in him, no duplicity nor deceit; he was a man of frank sincerity, and Jesus' heart immediately goes out to him, assuring him that over his open soul there is going to be an open heaven. Outspoken and frank himself, Jesus was en rapport with souls which were free from guile."
• "And here we find one of the reasons why Jesus always extolled the disposition of a child. Without the child heart no man can enter heaven. And why? Because the child heart is always the open heart. Where can you find such candor, such beautiful frankness, such surprising and sometimes discomfiting outspokenness as in a little child? He will tell you just what he thinks, all he thinks, nothing will he hold back....One of the reasons why Jesus set a child in the midst of the disciples, saying, 'This is what you ought to be,' is because a little child is the embodiment and personification of candor."
• "A man reveals himself in his dislikes as truly as in his prepossessions and praises. Whom did Jesus most dislike? The Pharisees. They were hypocrites. A hypocrite was an actor, a man who wore a mask, the mask representing a personality other than the one inside of it. 'Do not be like the actors,' this was his constant exhortation, and he never lost an opportunity of holding up the hypocrites to contempt and scorn. On one occasion he faced them in Jerusalem, calling them to their face 'vipers.' It was a harsh word, and yet it expressed the inmost spirit of the men to whom it was applied."
• "[Jesus] never held back the truth when it was time that the truth should be spoken. His loving heart told him when the hour had come."
• Jesus often corrected those who thought they knew the law and scripture. "[Such correction] was a needed...for people who know little and think they know much are sometimes helped by having their attention called to the limitations of their knowledge; but to give such reprimand is not an easy thing to do. It was by his outspokenness that Jesus attempted to cure some of the infirmities of men."
• "His love of fairness comes out clearly in his warnings both to the twelve and to all who wanted to be numbered among his followers. He will hold back nothing. The whole terrible truth must be told. No man shall ever follow him without first knowing what risks and dangers discipleship involves....When men came rushing to him saying, 'Master, I will follow you,' he flashed on them the gloom of a dark sentence, unwilling to accept the allegiance of any one, even in times when he most needed support, without having first revealed to the volunteer the full significance of a place in his ranks. Men's heads were filled with dreams of supremacy and sovereignty and glory, and more than one heart was chilled by the searching question, 'Are you able to drink the cup?' His candor reduced the number of his followers, but it was just like him to hold back nothing which men had a right to know."
• "But it is in his confessions that his candor reaches its climax....He admits without hesitation that there was a limitation of his authority....When two of his disciples asked for the chief places in the new kingdom, he frankly told them that he did not have the power to select his own prime ministers, because all such matters were hidden in the deep counsels of God." 
• "More surprising was his confession of ignorance....Jesus frankly admitted that there were things which he did not know. For instance, one day he was talking in graphic phrase about the end of the world. He spoke of it so definitely and positively that it was a natural inference that he knew just when it would take place. To the amazement of his hearers he said, 'Of that day and that ho in: knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.'"
• "If a man is frank and open in nine points, we may safely trust him in the tenth. Jesus makes his candor a reason why his disciples ought to trust him in those realms of thought and life which lie beyond their sight. "In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you." Of course he would. It was his nature to tell men everything."
• "The best reason we have for believing in the sinlessness of Jesus is the fact that he allowed his dearest friends to think that he was. There is in all his talk no trace of regret or hint of compunction, or suggestion of sorrow for shortcoming or slightest vestige of remorse. He taught other men to think of themselves as sinners, he asserted plainly that the human heart is evil, he told his disciples that every time they prayed they were to pray to be forgiven, but he never speaks or acts as though he himself has the faintest consciousness of having ever done anything other than what was pleasing to God. This is remarkable, unparalleled."
• "Jesus never by word or by act indicates that he is conscious of falling short of the wishes of God. If he had been, would he not have said so? His was the open heart. Would he deceive men on a matter of such cardinal moment?"
• "On his candor, then, we have a right to build both for time and eternity. When he says that if we do not repent we shall perish, and that only those who are born from above enter the kingdom of light, we have every reason for believing that these statements are true. And when he says that his disciples are going to do greater things than were ever done in Palestine, and that he will be with us always even unto the end of the world, why should we not believe him?"
• "And since he is so frank and open with us why should not we be open-hearted and frank with him ? If he tells us truly the things in his heart, why should we not tell him truly the things which are in our hearts? He has given himself to us: why do we not give ourselves to him?"     

Believers know that Jesus is the "Way, Truth, and Life" (John 14:6).  Non-believers may see in Jesus the attribute of truth and candor but they still lack faith.  An important distinction between believers and non-believers here is that only the faithful believe that (1) all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8), and (2) because the wage of sin is death (Romans 6:23), therefore we all need a Savior.  Jesus is that Savior.  This is perhaps the greatest truth of all time and one that binds all of humanity throughout all of redemptive history - past, present, and future.  If you believe that you are a good person, that you lack sin, and that you don't need saving, that is a dangerous place.  Yet scripture tells us to "have mercy on those who doubt, save others by snatching them from the fire" (Jude 22:23).  Hence, it is not for me to judge, but God alone.  It is however, my job as a believer to stand on Truth and to proclaim it to all those who listen.        

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My Prayer: Father God You are an awesome God who is "The Way, Truth and the Life."  There is no other Truth except You and what comes from You.  Thank You Jesus for Your candor and for saving me.  I am not deserving of Your mercy and my salvation.  My sin is great and it continues....daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day. 

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

Acts 20:35

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Acts 20:35

I continue my study of The Character of Jesus.  For this morning, I focus on chapter 16: The Generosity of Jesus where I highlighted in my Kindle version the following excerpts:

• "If one were asked to mention a half dozen keywords of Christian duty, he would be sure to place the word "give" high in the list. One cannot read the New Testament without being halted by that word, for it occurs repeatedly, and always with an emphasis which arrests the heart."
• "Mortals are urged to give as God gives, and God's giving is always fashioned and conditioned by his love. He does not give to every man the precise thing which the man asks for. He says to all of us not once but many times, "No," "no," "no!" Love can never give where giving would work hurt."
• "A man who does not skimp or dole out with a [skimpy] hand is, says Jesus, a man whom the universe likes and blesses. He will lose nothing by his liberality, for the world is constructed on a generous principle, and by surrendering himself to the divine spirit of giving he will be in tune with the Infinite, and shall by no means lose his reward. He need not be anxious about the precise time when such action shall bring its recompense....That blessing may not come in all its fullness in the world that now is, but there will be a complete recompense at the resurrection of the just."
• "Where in the New Testament will you find more exuberant praise than that which he lavishes upon the woman who poured four hundred dollars' worth of perfume on his head and feet?  Miserly souls near him were offended by such extravagance, but he liked it. He appreciated the lavish expenditures of love. When he sees a poor widow throwing her two bits of copper into the treasury in the temple, all the money she had in the world, he does not criticize her for doing a foolish thing as most of us would have done.  But he cries out in a shout which has in it the music of a hallelujah, "She has given more than they all." In a world so filled with grudging and close-fisted men, it cheered his great heart to see now and then a person who had mastered the divine art of giving. He liked givers because he himself was always giving."
• "When he said it is more blessed to give than to receive he was speaking from personal experience. He had not read that in a book. He had found it out in life. When he urged men to give freely, abundantly, lavishly, gladly, continually, he was only preaching what he himself practiced. He had no money to give, but he gave without stint what he had. He had time and he gave it. The golden hours were his and he gave them. He gave them all."
• "When on the last day of his life they laid a beam of timber upon his shoulder he staggered under it and then fell, so completely had he been exhausted by the arduous labors of the preceding months and years. He saved others but himself he did not know how to save. He had thought and he gave it. He had ideas and he scattered them. He had truth and he shared it with men."
• "Many a teacher has saved his best ideas for a chosen few. Jesus scattered his broadcast. He had often ignorant and prejudiced and unresponsive hearers, but he threw his pearls by the handful wherever he went. What glorious ideas he scattered over the crowds of Galilean farmers, what heavenly truths he unfolded to men and women of whom the world took no notice!"
• "His sympathy covered all classes, and no individual, however low and despised, ever appealed to him in vain. Blind men on hearing of his approach lined themselves along the road crying as he passed, "Have mercy also on us." Lepers who were counted unclean and treated worse than dogs ventured to push their way into his presence and ask for a healing touch. Samaritans, the very offscourings of the world in the estimation of the orthodox Jew, knew that in this new rabbi they had a benefactor and friend. When he drove the traders out of the Temple it was the blind and the lame who came to him, knowing that they would not be cast away. Sympathy eats up the blood of the nerves, and he who sympathizes draws heavily on the fountains of energy. This Jesus always did."
• "[H]is love went out also to those who hated him and schemed to bring about his death. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," it is in such a prayer that the loving heart of Jesus is clearly revealed. He poured out his love with a generosity which reminded men of the generosity of God."
• "He gave his life consciously and deliberately. It was not snatched from him by accident or fate, but freely surrendered by a heart willing to pay the great price."
• "The God of Nature has always been known as a generous God. The days and nights, the sky and sea and land, the changing seasons, all bear witness to His amazing generosity. He is prodigal in all His doings. He is lavish in all His benefactions. He scatters good things with the bountiful munificence of a King. He scatters the stars not in paltry thousands but in countless millions.  He creates flowers not in numbers which we can count, but in a profusion which confuses and confounds the imagination. He always gives more than can be accepted. He throws sunsets away on eyes which do not care for them. He gives fruit trees more blossoms than the trees can use. At every feast which He spreads there are fragments remaining filling twelve baskets. He is a munificent, free-handed, bountiful, and extravagant God." 
• "He makes our cup run over. There are a thousand toothsome things to eat, and a thousand lovely things to see, and a thousand exquisite pleasures to experience, and a thousand sublime truths to learn, and a thousand good opportunities to seize — more than we can ever make use of in the short span of life allowed us."
• "If you ask why was Jesus generous, the answer is, God is love. When was love anything but liberal?"
• "When Peter suggested a certain number as being enough to indicate the limits of forgiveness, Jesus told him not to count at all. Love never counts." 

Humanity's nature is to seek one's own interest above all others.  While only God can know the true motives of one's heart, it is a certainty that many who serve others do so with some ulterior motive in which they seek and achieve something for themselves.  This is not for me, nor for any other to judge - again God alone knows hearts.  At the same time, it is a certainty that all sin (Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8) and are in need of a Savior.  Jesus willingly laid down his life so that sinners such as myself could be saved.  Jesus led a perfect and sinless life and He became the Spotless Lamb of God - the perfect final sacrifice that ended the Old Testament sacrificial system.  This needed to be done and Jesus, while undeserving of such a fate, did so willingly.  There is no better example of generosity.  We are called to be last and for Jesus to be first - He gets all the glory, honor and praise.  That is why we exist - not for ourselves, but for Him.  

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My Prayer: Father God, You are an awesome God who loves and who is full of grace, mercy and generosity for me - You never stop giving for me.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of how You give.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from such sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.