JESUS SPEAKING

                Then he said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted within his own country.  But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zaraphath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”  So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city; and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built that they might throw him down over the cliff.  Then passing through the midst of them he went his way (Luke 4: 24-30.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

                Jesus was speaking to a town full of people who had seen him grow from a boy into a man. Before all of his miracles he probably worked as a carpenter.  Those people knew of him, and knew his family quite well.  In Mathew 13: 55-56, the towns people say, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?  Is not his mother called Mary?  And his brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?  And his sisters, are they not all with us?”  Jesus was a real live person, with brothers and sisters; he interacted with others; he didn’t live in a monastery; he ate, slept, went to the bathroom, worked, played, laughed, and cried; he attended the festivals and wore the robes (but never once did he sin; never once was he displeasing to God.  (In fact, we read in other scriptures that his brothers disliked him; living beside Jesus was probably a very humbling experience for them.)  Jesus addressed two prophets in this scripture who had been rejected by their own countrymen.  Elijah and Elisha were explosive characters in the Old Testament who performed all sorts of miracles.  Elijah caused a drought to last for three years in Israel because of the wickedness of King Ahab.  During that time, he went to a foreign land and stayed with a widow who was near to starvation; God provided them with enough food to survive the three years while all Israel went hungry.  Elisha was Elijah’s protégé who took over after Elijah was taken up in to heaven.  Naaman was a commander in the Syrian army; an army that was continually at war with the nation of Israel.  He so desperately wanted to be healed that he reached out to the enemy’s prophet for help.  God used Elisha to heal Naaman, an adversary of his people, and not one leprous Israelite was healed by Elisha during this time.

                I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere?  I moved away and found California more interesting than Michigan; it was new, and fun.  The place where I grew up was something I had taken for granted; I was so familiar with it, I had a hard time seeing its beauty and majesty.  These men and woman Jesus was speaking too had grown up with him; they had known him from his childhood, but they made the mistake of believing he was less worthy of being praised because of it.  God and human beings are not equal; God is in heaven, and human beings are beneath Him; God is all powerful, and human beings are weak.  God is pure and holy, and human beings are impure and unholy.  The Jewish people had been taught to reverence God, which was a good thing; many had gone too far, and saw very little of God in humanity; yet God had made human beings in his likeness and image; so man is shaped like God; man feels similar emotions to God; man thinks similar thoughts (this is why people desire to design and build things; God is a designer and builder; this is why human beings desire to master their environment; because God is the master over the entire universe.) So, because they saw God as distant and unfamiliar; they felt anger toward a man claiming to be God because they were familiar with him.  The concept challenged everything that they had wrongly come to believe.  Had they known nothing about Jesus; if he was from a distant country or foreign land, they would have been more open to receiving the message; instead they allowed their knowledge of him to blind them from seeing his true identity.  In the nation of Israel today there are very few Jews who profess a faith in Jesus Christ, or a faith in God period (There are many messianic Jews around the world who have accepted Christ and call him ‘Teacher,’ and ‘Master,’ but not in Israel.)  The people of God have been blinded.  Jesus delivered a message to them, and because of their disbelief, the message went out from Jerusalem to a world full of strangers and foreigners.  Non-Jews have been healed by the millions and whole countries have converted to Christianity. 

Often we share the message we have received with those we expect will be most receptive to it; our family, and friends, co-workers and acquaintances.  We will often find the opposition from these individuals is great.  Many times the person you’d least expect to receive the message will be the one who receives it.  When others have rejected the message, move forward; God wants you to bring his love to any who will listen (this does not mean you stop loving everyone; it means you are called to produce fruit, and when a certain person isn’t fruitful you focus on someone who will be.)  Reach out to the strangers, to the foreigners, to those you’ve never met, and God will show you a harvest you could never have imagined.

                “Lord Heavenly Father, we ask that You guide us in spreading the gospel to whomever You desire.  Help us Lord to let go of ministering to those who are not going to receive You, that we might go on to reach those who will.  Give us courage and boldness to stretch out to those we don’t know; to those who are strangers and foreigners.  Guide us by the power of Your Holy Spirit to be Your messengers.  We love You Father, we praise You, and we thank You, and we ask and pray all of these things, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you.

JESUS SPEAKING

                At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.  Even so, Father, for it seemed good in Your sight.  All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the son, and the one to whom the son wills to reveal him” (Mathew 11: 25-27.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

                Jesus thanked God the Father for hiding the truth from the wise and prudent.  Instead, it pleased God to make the truth known to the simple minded.  The hidden truth was the identity of Jesus, and his relationship to God.  All that God had made and all that existed had been given to Jesus.  Youth was something that the Jews equated with stupidity and weakness.  In fact, in a group of Jewish men, they often spoke in order of age; the oldest spoke first and the youngest spoke last.  The very old were held up as more honorable than the youth.  Here Jesus was flipping Jewish culture on its head.  They believed that with age came wisdom; wisdom was seen as something that could be attained, discovered, sought after and grasped.  Jesus made it clear that true wisdom could not be attained, but rather, it could only be received from God.  God was truth; a person’s closeness to God indicated how much truth they had attained.  The only one who had ever truly known God was him, and so, the knowledge of God could only be revealed to others through Him.  Sin separated a person from the knowledge of God, because God’s spirit did not fellowship with evil; Jesus, being sinless and the son of God had perfect knowledge of his Father, and he delighted in revealing that knowledge to those who were simple.  The truth was given to the ignorant and unintelligent.

                Young children are often better at recognizing evil than are adults.  As a child, we once had a teen age baby sitter come over to watch my sister and brother and I.  He got in to the liquor cabinet.  He began to drink; I was curious and so he handed me a shot glass full of liquor.  As soon as I tasted it, I spit it out.  The liquor tasted so horrible, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would drink it.  Children are often far better at discovering who a person is by what they do, not by what they say.  Adults are often blinded enough to trust a person’s words without seeing congruent actions.  [Words turn in to lies when they don’t match up with actions; actions are always the true, and kids know it.]  Children can often identify the sin in other people’s lives without needing to see it, or understand its nature; they intuitively know things, because God’s spirit is a voice they hear from within.  Growing up there was a local child molester that made my friends and I uncomfortable; each of us intuitively new that there was something strange about him, and later our suspicions were confirmed; yet the adults in the community were more than happy to trust him with their children; after all, he was a lawyer and a prominent citizen.  As many children grow, they stop hearing that voice.  When a person receives the Holy Spirit, that internal voice returns; they again become able to sense good and evil with ever greater accuracy.  I believe this was what Jesus was talking about when he said, ‘You must become as a little child.’  Physical age is no longer the indicator of purity, goodness, and an understanding of God’s simple truths; a 50 year old can again be as a little child, on the inside.  God’s truth returns, and the simple are restored [but immediately God’s truth is at war with the intelligence of this world.]  Intellectualism is man’s attempt to master knowledge without God.  Intellectuals look down upon those who believe God is the answer for ‘how’ and ‘why’ instead of their beliefs in ‘time’ and ‘chance.’  They laugh when a person without a high school diploma seeks to tell them about the truth.  They live in their minds and their hearts are completely empty.  They search the stars for an answer they cannot know with their minds, but must comprehend in the deepest parts of themselves.  They look under every rock for an understanding that doesn’t include God, and when they observe something new, they believe they are getting closer to an answer; but they have only discovered new questions [They never arrive at any true meaning or purpose.]  Those who have found Jesus Christ don’t need to search any longer; those who have looked to him, now know the truth; they have received the truth from God, and have come to understand that no one can ever discover the answer unless God himself gives it to them.

                Today, intellectualism, and rationalism are duking it out with ‘faithfulism.’  Our truth comes from God, and apart from Him, understanding is dark and deceitful.  When we read an author, we have to ask ourselves the question, “Are they a believer?”  If they are not, then we must read carefully and critically [the same is true of television programs.]  We must begin our day upon the unchanging truth we have in Jesus Christ, and if, in order to learn something new we need to depart from the teachings of the Lord, it isn’t worth learning.  The truth is not in some text-book, it isn’t expressed in an equation, but it resides in our hearts, as God himself lives within the believer.  This knowledge cannot be acquired or attained; you cannot earn a PHD in truth; it comes from a growing relationship with God.  As you move closer to Him, your vision will become clearer, and clearer.  Reading the bible is a very good way to continue your journey with God.  Prayer is another way; pray for wisdom and knowledge specifically.  Most importantly, doing what God has asked you to do, will bring you closer to Him.  Lastly, you never have to be afraid of the truth; never be embarrassed that you believe in something the intellectuals of the world thinks is archaic and narrow minded, but rather rejoice, knowing that you have truly found the answer that has, and will continually allude them unless they give themselves over to the creator of all things.  If you don’t know the truth, ask God to give you the truth; ask him for his Holy Spirit in prayer in His Son’s name, and you will receive what you ask for.

                “Lord Heavenly Father, we come before You and we ask and pray that You would give us more of Your truth, and more of Your goodness, and help us desire to be simple and reliant upon Your word.  We pray for those who are lost, those who are intelligent in their own thinking, and those who trust in the achievements of men.  Help us to be as little children, to look to You in all that we do, and to desire the knowledge of Your Holy Spirit.  We love You Father, we thank You, we praise You, and we love You, and we ask and pray all of these things, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you. 

 JESUS SPEAKING

                “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’  But I say to you do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.  Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.  But let your ‘Yes,’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’  For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Mathew 5: 33-37.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

                There are two types of oaths; a person can testify about the past, or they can testify about the future.  One is a testimony, the other is a prophecy of sorts.  In this scripture Jesus is referring to testimonies about the future.  God’s truth is revealed when what he has said comes to pass.  In a more limited way, God’s children make future plans, and fulfill them, and to do anything less would be lying.  In order to make an oath more permanent, and of greater importance, often times a person would invoke the name of God, and still others would swear by some other honorable thing.  For instance, sometimes when a person wants to affirm that they are telling the truth they might say, “I swear to God.”  They may also say, “I swear on my mother’s grave.”  Others might say, “If I’m lying then may lightning strike me dead,” in which case they would be using their lives as collateral to bolster their believability.

                Jesus was doing something in this scripture that sent shockwaves through the Jewish communities.  God had said that a person should ‘perform their oaths to the Lord.’  Jesus made his own words equal to God’s words, saying, “But I say to you do not swear at all.”  There was no disagreement between what Jesus was saying and what God had said.  He agreed with God that oaths made to the LORD were binding.  He knew how serious an offense it was to break such an oath; in turn, he urged his listeners to refrain from even make such an oath to begin with.  He went on to denounce four things that were commonly sworn by.  Swearing by heaven was to desecrate the Holy dwelling place of God.  Swearing by the earth was outlawed as well.  To swear by Jerusalem wasn’t right either, because it was the city in which Jesus was going to be king, and in which God Himself dwelled.  Lastly, Jesus forbade swearing by one’s own life.  In reference to using our own lives as collateral, Jesus made it clear that no one knew the time or hour that God had appointed for them to die.  How then could a person who didn’t know if they would be alive the next day make an oath to fulfill an obligation a month from then?  Oaths to God were eternal, and binding.  Since God required them to abide by their oaths there were very few instances when oaths were appropriate [It was better to not swear at all.] (Marriage may have been an exception, as it was an eternal covenant between a man and his wife before God.)  Anyone who needed to use God or some other Holy thing in an oath lacked integrity.  Many who have had trouble keeping their word have used God as a tool; something to motivate themselves to keep their word.  Making oaths can indicate that a person isn’t truly submitted to God.  Today, Jesus requires that when we say we are going to do something we do it.  When we say, “Yes,” God requires us to do what we have agreed to do.

                In our culture, tattoos are on the rise.  People have found them to be somewhat permanent modes of expression.  Recently I spoke with a girl who had numerous scriptures tattooed on her body.  She had been struggling to stay on task and live a life that was pleasing to God.  At some point, she felt the need to get His words put on her body.  When an eternal relationship with God isn’t present (or is weak) inside of a person, they make external reminders for themselves of something that is missing inside of them (this is not always the case.)  The same thing is true of those who say they are going to do something and don’t do it.  Many times, they feel that making an oath to the Lord will ‘seal the deal,’ but it very rarely changes anything.  The person is trying to exploit God for their own purposes, and this is why Jesus says that making oaths to the Lord is from the evil one.  God is not a thing to be used selfishly.  Instead, we are to simply keep our own word, and by doing so, God is pleased.

                Today, many have difficulties keeping their word.  If we are fickle, if we are given to saying one thing, and doing another, we are not followers of Jesus Christ.  There are cases where we may be sick, or an emergency arises, but aside from situations such as these, there is no excuse for missing appointments, letting others down, or cancelling at the last minute.  The Lord will not tolerate this type of behavior; it is lying in advance.  If a person who is not a Christian can be counted on to do what they say more than you or I, then we are not Christians.  Don’t make plans you can’t keep; in fact, the bible tells us that it is often better to replace ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with, “God willing, I will be there.”  As much as is possible, focus on the things you can accomplish today.  Don’t be a people pleaser, taking on more than you can possibly do because you want the approval of others; this will lead to broken promises; it’s okay to tell others no; it’s not okay to tell others yes, and then no.  When someone asks you for a favor, and you don’t have time, lovingly tell them no.  Don’t say yes and then not show up because you’re overwhelmed.  Be on time for things you’ve agreed to be on time for, and if you are going to be late, then call ahead to let them know.  [P.S.  The enemy will very often throw obstacles in your way that will test you…Perhaps that person you really wanted to go out with calls you last minute, and your group function interferes with a possible date.  Do you cancel on your group, thinking, “I’m sure they won’t mind?”  No; it is not pleasing to God to forgo your commitment to indulge in some selfish pursuit?  What you have agreed too, complete.]

                “Lord Heavenly Father, we come before You now, and we ask and pray that You would give us the strength to complete everything that we commit ourselves too; we desire to be like You, and bring glory to You.  Lord, help us to be men and women of integrity; people who don’t need oaths, since our words can be trusted, because You are living in us.  Give us the conviction to complete whatever we have committed too.  We love You Father, we praise You, and we thank You, and we ask and pray all of these things, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you.