June 26, 2014 Mercy

Mercy

Matthew 9:18-26 While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. 20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” 22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment. 23 When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, 24 he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. 25 After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26 News of this spread through all that region.  

HERE is mercy—offering someone an undeserved favor. We are merciful, for example, to offer dinner to a constantly naughty child. Certainly the ruler who sought Jesus for his innocent daughter and the woman who touched Jesus for her healing were faithful people. But in the context of their human sin against Jesus’ holiness, they were unworthy of Jesus’ mercy to heal disease and destroy death.

     Those who mocked Jesus reflect our sin-laden heart. The human race is as a naughty child—consistently disobedient to our Father in Heaven. We silently mock Jesus when we hear his teachings, demanding our desires. Instead, we are to confess our need for mercy, and welcome Jesus into our home.

LIFE Link: The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. (Psalms 6:9)

June 25, 2014 Old Turns New

Old Turns New

Matthew 9:16-17 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

ONE of the challenges we face as we seek to live a Christ-centered life is to truly let go of our old habits to put on a completely new way of life. We understand God’s teachings to be clothed in Jesus-like ways of being. We know it is good to have every fabric of our life stitched in what God defines as good—righteous.

     But we have a difficult time putting on the new garment of righteousness completely, don’t we? We may love that person but not that one who really hurt us. Or we may find it good to be more intent on forgiveness, but certainly we have to be angry sometimes!

     Jesus is telling the Pharisees that this kind of “patch-work” faith doesn’t work. He calls us to live in a new life, not wearing Jesus on one sleeve and evil on the other, but being clothed completely in our Lord’s new life. Paul said it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

     Submit to Jesus and be totally new.

LIFE Link: Faith can grow one stitch at a time.   

june 24, 2014 The Groom

The Groom

Matthew 9:14-15 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

MARRIAGE is so holy to God, he creates marriage in the very beginning (Genesis 2), and it is a consistent picture of Jesus’ relationship to his church. He is the groom and the church is his bride. As his bride, we are to live with a joyous pleasure of honoring the groom.

     This celebratory relationship is the focus of Jesus’ conversation with John the Baptist’s disciples. Fasting was a God-ordained means of worship, sacrifice and humility. John’s disciples functioned appropriately to obey the spiritual discipline of fasting. But as they asked Jesus why his disciples didn’t fast, Jesus response was, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them?” In other words, Jesus reminded John’s disciples that no one fasts at the wedding feast. People celebrate the groom and rejoice in the marriage union.

     Jesus was always moving his people’s thinking toward the new covenant. It was incomprehensible to imagine being so intimately connected with the Lord God as a bride to her husband, but that is exactly what Jesus was teaching. He would later convey that relationship with the words of the new covenant, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22;20)

     This was a betrothal toast as a Jewish father of the groom sealed a covenant with the father of the bride. Marriage, indeed, is a holy relationship to be honored in the law and grace of God.  

LIFE Link: Jesus has betrothed himself to you.

June 23, 2014 Set Free

Set Free

Matthew 9:9-13 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

WHO do you see when your eyes are focused on someone in obvious sin? Do you see a “sinner”, or do you see one weighed down with the burden of sin? There is a huge difference between the two views. With the former, you are ready to judge, label and dismiss the person. The Pharisees and the average Jew regarded Matthew, the tax collector, as a “sinner”, and they judged him an unworthy citizen of Israel.

     Jesus, on the other hand, saw Matthew as a man weighed down in his sin. He understood there was an oppressed man within this “sinner” framework, and he spoke to release Matthew from that sin. “Follow me.” he says to Matthew. In the authority of the Word of God, Matthew went with the Master, and Jesus transformed his life.

     Matthew’s home quickly became a sanctuary for other “sinners”. While the Pharisees labeled, Jesus healed the men and women oppressed sin. He knows they are made in his image, so he speaks to set them free.

LIFE Link: Praise Jesus he has come “to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

June 22, 2014 God Says

God Says

Matthew 9:5-8 “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . .’ “Then he said to the paralytic, ‘“Get up, take your mat and go home.’” 7 And the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.

A phrase we often read in the Bible is, “the commands and decrees” of God. The question then arises, “What is the difference?” Essentially the difference is that a command demands obedience and a decree causes something to happen.

     Here is a human king’s decree in Luke 2:1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

     Augustus ruled the land, and he needed a census done. So he decreed it. It was easy for the Roman Emperor to speak it, and it was accomplished through his authority as emperor.

     The same thing happened in this “double healing”. Jesus decreed, “Your sins are forgiven. Get up and walk.” This was not a prayer from the Son of God to the Father; this was the voice of the Almighty God issuing a decree to this man to accomplish two things: forgiveness and healing.

     There is no answer to Jesus’ question, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” because both are equally easy for the King of Kings. “The One who heals by decree forgives by decree, and no one but God can do such things” (Spiros Zohiartes, Exegetical Commentary on Matthew)

      

LIFE Link: God invites you to pursue his healing, saving decrees.