God had annointed him to share the Good News of salvation with the poor. Those who are poor because they lacked resources. And to those who are poor because they lack the truth. They lack meaning in their lives.
God sent Jesus to set the prisoners free!
We were all slaves to sin.
We were all stuck in the bondage of hopelessnes and darkness.
Until Jesus came.
Until he opened our blind eyes.
Until he lifted the oppression of sin from us, delivering us and giving us a life filled with love and grace.
Jesus was just getting ready to start his ministry.
He hadn’t done any miracles yet.
He hadn’t talked about what he was going to do on earth.
He hadn’t shared any good news of love and forgiveness yet.
That didn’t matter.
When John baptized Jeus, the heaven opened up and God’s voice from heaven said, “This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” ( Matthew 3:17)
Jesus was God’s son and God was pleased with him!
Jesus hadn’t ‘done’ anything yet.
He was God’s son and God was pleased with him.
Let’s rest on that fact for a moment…..
take a deep breath……
and feel the love of God pouring over us……..
hear the voice of God in our souls saying, “This is my child whom I love. In them, I am well pleased.”
It’s not about what we’re doing for God.
Its about his love for us.
When we accept the salvation offered by Jesus, we are adopted by God.
He loves us not because of what we do for him. He loves us in spite of our sin and rebellion and disobedience.
It still amazes me how God helps us memorize big sections of his scripture when we do our part! Here’s where we are in Proverbs 3:
“My child, do not forget my teachings but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the site of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will makeyour paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.
Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruit of all your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. My child, do not despise the Lords discipline and do no resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father, the daughter he delights in.”
Thank you, God, for helping us to memorize all of this! Here are the next verses:
‘Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, who gains understanding. For she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. ‘
God’s ways are definitely not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. In the world we live in, it looks like success = a lot of money.
Not so – says God. Having Godly wisdom and understanding is much more profitable. It will yield better returns in our lives than gold.
In theory, this makes sense to us. Living it out is not as easy.
This is one of the reasons why I am loving this process of memorizing whole chunks of God’s word. God is using his scripture to transform some of these deep-bedded ideas and thoughts in my mind. He is replacing that wrong-thinking with his truth as I repeat his words out loud and in my head over and over and over each day.
Which is why he commands us to memorize his word. 🙂
Just when we think we’ve ‘heard it all’, another atrocity comes to light.
It’s nothing new.
The darkness has been a part of this life on earth ever since sin entered the garden.
But the darkness appears to be growing….
Is that because we are so ‘in touch’ that we know all of the bad things going on in the world? And the media is always looking for something shocking and riveting to talk about so we hear the horrible details over and over?
Thank you, Abba Father, that we know the one who is the Light that shines in this darkness.
And the darkness will not overcome it.
We are witnesses to that Light.
We believe in the Light.
We have experienced the Light that has come into our lives. Into our hearts.
Because of the love and grace of Jesus Christ, we have the Light.
We humans don’t know how to really love each other. We love each other if the other person is being lovable. We love each other when the other person looks right, acts right and smells good. Our love quickly fades – proven by our divorce rates. Our love quickly gives up when the going gets tough – proven by the number of one-parent families in our culture.
It’s too little, too late, too conditional.
Even at the best of times, our love is just a tiny drop of moisture compared to the ocean of love that God has for us.
We can never understand the depth and the width and the height of God’s love.
But we can believe.
And when we believe, we find the most important love relationship of our lives.
Here is an excerpt from the Experiencing God bible study that I’m going through with my small group right now. Understanding and believing this truth forever changed how I look at God’s commands. How I read his Word to me. It blew up my previous perception of God’s love and changed how I lived my life from that day on:
“God loves you deeply and profoundly. Because he loves you, He has given you guidelines for living so you will not miss the full dimensions of the love relationship. Life also has some land mines that can destroy you or harm your life. God does not want to see you miss His best, and He does not want your life destroyed by foolish choices.
Suppose you had to cross a field full of land mines and a personwho knew exactly where each one was buried offered to take you through it. Would you say to him, “I don’t want you to tell me what to do. I have free will! I don’t want you to impose your ways on me”?
I don’t know about you, but I would stay as close to that person as I could. I certainly would not wander off. His directions to me would preserve my life. He would say, ‘Don’t go that way, because that way will kill you. Go this way, and you will live.’
That is the purpose of God’s commands. He wants you to receive life and have it abundantly. When the Lord gives you a command, He is trying to protect and preserve the best He has for you. He does not want you to lose it. When God gives a command, He is not restricting you. He is freeing you.”
Great job! We are memorizing Proverbs 3 together and we’re seeing God’s faithfulness as he writes his words on our hearts and minds.”
My child, do not forget my teachings but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.
Let love and faithfulness never leave you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all of your might and lean not on your own undertanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil.”
Here are the next couple of verses:
“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruit of all of your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
God has an abundance of blessings waiting for us when we are wise with our wealth.
We just read in Malachi God’s epic promise to open the floodgates of heaven’s blessings when we bring our entire tithe into his house.
What does it look like when our barns are filled to overflowing? Have you been there? Do you want to be there? I’m there and it’s worth the struggle and adjustements and recommittments.
What does it feel like to have our vats brim over with new wine? I have to smile at this one because I love a good glass of wine :). And I know how it feels to have my life overflowing with new blessings from God. I’ve been there….I’m not always there.
Please guide us to this place where you are overflowing our lives, Abba Father.
The Old Testament ended on a high point of the Israelites turning back to God, listening to his Word and trying to obey.
Then came a 400-year break in God’s Word to us.
We know the Israelites continued on with their lives during that time.
They were waiting….
expecting the Messiah to show up.
How long were they going to have to wait?
The historical record of the Old Testament ends but there are many other historical documents written during these 400 years. Several of these have been grouped together in the Apocrypha. I’m especially interested in the book of Judith ( I wonder why?). It reads a lot like the book of Esther without the awesome “for such a time as this” part.
400 years of waiting.
That’s a long time.
A very long time of anticipating the coming of the Messiah who will save them from their enemies.
