Tag Archives: the Messiah

It’s Not What I Expected

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Luke 2

There is so much about the birth of Jesus that amazes me. For one, the number of prophecies fulfilled that day and the days surrounding that glorious event. Mary and Joseph understood the significance, of course – at least in part. The angels certainly got it. The shepherds and wisemen had special revelation and they worshiped the infant Christ.

But today, Luke’s account of Simeon and Anna concerning the eight-day-old Jesus spoke to me. They took one look at this tiny baby and recognized Him as the Messiah. They’d been waiting for the Savior their whole lives. But so had every other Jew at the time.

So why did these two old folks see Him when everyone else seems to have only seen the baby of a financially strapped couple? Why didn’t the whole temple erupt in praise to God for the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, God’s Son?

I think it was because Simeon and Anna had surrendered their own expectations and focused on God. It may have seemed strange to them that the Messiah didn’t just appear from heaven in battle armor, trained in the intricacies of war, ready to lead an army against Rome. That was most likely the common belief of the day. But those who held on to that belief missed the most incredible occurrence in history.

Simeon and Anna were ready for the unexpected blessing because they hadn’t put God in a box of what made sense, or what their short-sighted vision expected.

God will not be put in a box. He will not limit Himself to do only what we can imagine. God moves in unexpected, creative, and supernatural ways. How many times do we miss unexpected blessings because we are only looking at the situation and at the solution we want? How many times do we miss unexpected blessings because it’s not what we expected?

Don’t miss the hand of God today. It will move in ways you cannot imagine. Keep your eyes focused on Him, surrender your expectations, and then pay attention. The hand of God moving in your life will knock your socks off!

Expect it.

(Mark 11-13) Final Thoughts

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No, I’m not hanging up my blog right now. I’d like to talk about Jesus’ final thoughts shared with us by Mark concerning the Savior’s last week on Earth.

It must have been a busy week for Jesus. And I have to believe His parting words came from a heart fervently wanting His people to understand. These summed up His three years of ministry. So, what were some of the last lessons He taught?

  1. Bearing fruit is not an option for His children.
  2. Faith can move mountains of trouble when we pray from cleansed hearts.
  3. God’s kingdom is no longer Jewish.
  4. Christians ought to be good citizens of our governments, and of God’s Kingdom as well.
  5. Loving God is the most important decision we can make. Loving others flows from that love.
  6. Our world will get increasingly dangerous for believers. But Jesus will return to take us to be with Him.

And over it all is the reality that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And there is no power greater, no love purer, no grace sweeter than His.

(Matthew 1-4) It’s A Pleasure to Meet You

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Jesus! The Promised Messiah. The Savior of souls.

Jesus! The One of whom the Old Testament prophets spoke, the One whose life and purpose was demonstrated in the lives of the descendants of Abraham. The entire Old Testament is about Jesus.

And here in Matthew’s gospel we finally meet Him! The One who was promised from the Garden was born in Bethlehem just as God said He would. So many intricate details described in the Old Testament are fulfilled in the birth of Jesus alone.

Reading the Gospels helps me to know Jesus intimately, love Him fervently, and inspires me to obey Him faithfully.

Jesus! The Lover of my soul. It is truly a pleasure to meet You!

(Psalms 69-70) Jesus and the Psalms

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So many of the psalms speak of what Jesus would endure on the cross. Guiltless, yet condemned. Treated horribly, rejected, scorned, beaten, He suffered and bled and died. The fact that God gave us a glimpse of our Savior’s sacrifice thousands of years before He came just cements the fact that this Book I read is true, and the God it reveals is exactly who He says He is.

Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let those who love your salvation continually say, “God is great!” (70:4)

Let’s Do This (Luke 1; John 1:1-18)

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The man we know as John the Baptist had a purpose even before he was born; before he was even conceived. His whole life would be about pointing people to Jesus. He alerted his mother when he was still in her womb, and pointed her to Jesus. John was a faithful witness his whole life. I want to be that, too.

As I begin reading the New Testament through the rest of 2020, I will rejoice! The Old Testament, as rich and meaningful as it is, and as much as I love reading about the history of God in Israel, is about the Law. The Apostle John says:

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus. (John 1:17)

It’s like I’ve spent the past nine months with John the Baptist, getting ready to meet the Messiah. I’m excited. Are you ready to meet Jesus through the pages of Scripture written by people who actually walked with Him in the flesh?

Let’s do this!

November 13; On Every Page

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Acts 5:17-7:53

Many people find the Old Testament hard to read. It’s repetitive, long lists of hard to pronounce names, accounts of things that happened so long ago, who even cares?

Well, Stephen for one. His 53 verse sermon is an overview of Old Testament Scripture. He knew the Old Testament pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, and he wanted everyone to know it, too.

I hope you’ll read what Stephen had to say about the Old Testament, about how God worked in and through a nation of people to prepare the world for His Son. Then I hope you’ll turn to the pages of the Old Testament for yourself and read first hand what God wants you to know.

Don’t read it merely as a history book, but as God’s love letter to you. Get to know Him by reading about Abraham, Joseph, Job, David, Esther, Daniel… Put yourself in their stories and hear God tell you how much you are loved, how He longs to fellowship with you, and how He works in your life to bring about good. Understand that He is the same God today as He was back then, and He wants you to know Him.

And He wants you to see Jesus. The entire Old Testament is a beacon pointing the way to the Savior. I believe you, like Stephen, will see Jesus on every page.

October 18; It’s Pretty Clear

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Matthew 17:24-27, 18:10-35, 8:18-22, 11:20-24; Mark 9:38-50, 10:1; Luke 9:49-62, 10:1-20

Can a person believe in God and not believe in Jesus? Is it ok for a person to call God Allah, and his son Mohammed? Can a person be accepted by God on their own terms, without the cross?

Jesus said, as recorded in Luke 10:16, “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (emphasis mine)

So, no. If anyone rejects Jesus as God’s only Son who died on the cross, was buried, and rose again for the world’s sin debt, if anyone rejects Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the only way to the Father, they are not just rejecting a man who lived 2,000 years ago. They are rejecting God.

It’s pretty clear.

October 1; A Prayer God Loves To Answer

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Matthew 3:13-17, 4:1-11, 18-22; Mark 1:9-13, 16-20; Luke 3:21-22, 4:1-13,5:1-11; John 1:29-51

Did it take much convincing for you to believe Jesus is God, and that He speaks the Truth? Maybe you aren’t convinced yet.

Two disciples of John the Baptist heard him introduce Jesus as, “the Lamb of God.” That intrigued the men, so they spent the day with Jesus, probably asking questions and listening to His teaching. They wanted to know for themselves who Jesus was.

The first thing Andrew did after spending time with Jesus was to find his brother, Simon, to tell him he’d met the Messiah. Andrew brought Simon Peter to Jesus. So later, when Jesus asked the brothers to follow Him, they dropped everything and followed.

Some people who say they don’t believe in Jesus have never really spent time with Him. Oh, they might read a few verses, maybe read the Bible from cover to cover. But if their heart’s desire isn’t to get to know Jesus, they won’t find themselves any closer to the Truth than before.

If you aren’t sure Jesus is who He says He is, I hope you’ll read these Scriptures with us today. But before you do, pray. Ask God to reveal the Truth through His Words. Open your heart and mind to understanding. That’s a prayer I know God loves to answer.

 

June 30; Hear It

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Isaiah 7:1-10:4, 17:1-14

We’ve already established that Ahaz was an evil king. Yet in the chapters we read today, God inspired the prophet Isaiah to go to Ahaz and give him a word of encouragement. And, to prove God was true to His word, Isaiah told Ahaz he could ask for a sign – any sign – and God would do it.

Ahaz replied, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.”

Sounds rather pious, doesn’t it? Well, neither Isaiah nor God were impressed.

The truth is, God is always giving signs to prove His existence, His power, His Son. Some people flat out say, like Ahaz, “I don’t want to hear it.” Period.

I see this attitude in tons of literature written, and the multitude of “experts” on TV who attempt to disprove God, or to get around God, or to make ourselves God. I see it in the lives of people who live like there is no God. Yet God continues to reveal Himself day after day after day.

I bet the sun rose where you are this morning. I bet your heart is beating, that your lungs are filled with oxygen. I bet the tide came in sometime today, went out, and will come in again just like it did yesterday. And I bet, if you let yourself, every time you held a newborn baby, you recognized the amazing work of God with awe and wonder.

Did you know it was to Ahaz that God inspired Isaiah to pen the famous prophesy about the coming of Jesus?

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel… For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…

That was written about 500 years before Jesus’ birth. That and so many other prophesies written and fulfilled concerning the Messiah prove without a doubt God is who He says He is, and that Jesus is the Son. For those of us who know Him, we read these prophesies and our hearts soar, our love for Him overflows.

Please don’t be one who refuses to accept the signs, or who rejects His word. My prayer for all of us today is that we will not only WANT to hear it, we will look for it in nature, in the face of a loved one, in the peace that comes from His presence, and the overwhelming joy of sins forgiven through Jesus’ blood.

Oh, He’s out there. He’s throwing out sign after sign to get our attention. Don’t ignore it.

Hear it. Hear Him.

 

 

Mark 1-4; He’s Not That God

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The long-awaited Messiah had come! For centuries the Jewish people had looked forward with great anticipation to the day God would send a Savior. They were tired of being abused and looked down upon by the Romans, and every other pagan nation around them. They were God’s chosen people, for crying out loud! And they couldn’t wait until their oppressors got what was coming to them.

They fully expected their Messiah to come with a dramatic flair, crown on head, shiny sword drawn, and riding a white horse, with music blaring in the background, and fireworks exploding overhead. (or the first century equivalent)

But then here comes Jesus. Mark tells us the Messiah’s only herald was some weird looking guy named John who wore camel hair clothes and a leather belt, eating bugs and honey. John wasn’t leading a parade. He was baptizing people in the wilderness.

And Jesus? He wouldn’t even let the demons announce who He was. He surrounded Himself with regular people instead of warriors. He told them He was there to make them fishers of men instead of an army. How could He be their Messiah? He didn’t look like He could win a battle against a pre-school much less a Roman army.  Are you kidding me?

He wasn’t a warrior or a king. He was a preacher! And He didn’t even make sense half the time to the people He was preaching to.

Not my Messiah!

Let me ask you this: What does your perfect Messiah look like? What kind of God do you have pictured in your mind? A loving God? A God who ought to reward good behavior and punish bad? A God who doesn’t let children starve, or countries go to war? A God who lets people decide for themselves what “truth” is, or how they want to live their own lives? A God who accepts any form of worship, and doesn’t condemn anyone to hell? A God who does what you want him to, who bows to your every whim?

Well, guess what. He’s not that God! And that’s good news!

The God of the Bible is so much more loving and fair and generous and forgiving than you could ever conjure up in your mind. And the Messiah Jesus wasn’t just about rescuing a few people from Roman rule. He was and is about rescuing you from the penalty of sin!

I challenge you to read the book of Mark with me in the next few days, and get to know this Messiah, Jesus the Christ. Put aside what you think He should be like, and see Him for who He really is. Let Him reveal Himself to you through the words He Himself inspired Mark to write. This is what Jesus wants YOU to know about Himself.

I believe with all my heart that if you prayerfully read this book and ask God to show Himself – HE WILL. And when you compare His reality with the god you have created in your mind, you’ll be glad He’s not that god.