Holy presence

Jesus Culture – Holy

It is my birthday today and even though it is just a day, I looked at my reading today with a different eye and attitude than maybe how I would look at it in any other day.

They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain – Exodus 19:2 ESV

Here at this mountain Israel decided to back away from God – they thought they would die in the holy presence of God. What they did not realise was that, like Moses, it would not have been a physical death, more like a transforming death. Moses died at the burning bush too, he was transformed in his heart, became a servant of God and a vessel of His Spirit. Israel was invited to experience the same. The Fire would have melted them into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. It would have purified them. Israel however decided to back up and turned away.

“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Macmillan, 1963, p. 99.

How do I respond? Jesus gave me a new covenant. I shared some of this as a guest writer for Sixty-six books in a year.

So when times get tough, and they will, what does that look like? Do I go out and buy swords as Jesus encouraged the disciples to do? I like Matthew Henry’s perspective:

This is intended only to show that the times would be very perilous, so that no man would think himself safe if he had not a sword by his side. But the sword of the Spirit is the sword which the disciples of Christ must furnish themselves with.

May I understand that the holy presence of God’s Spirit is more than an emotion or feeling or experience, it is the power of God in me to do what He has asked me to do – follow Him.

Exodus 19-21; Luke 22

Lack of faith

I know not what awaits me

One thing that perturbs me the most is the seemingly lack of faith the Israelites had when crossing the desert. Miracle after miracle took place and yet it would seem in just a few days they were all forgotten. It is only a matter of minutes that I realise my own pride and wishful thinking of my own actions and how little I remember the hand of God in my life.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. – Exodus 16:4 ESV

The one miracle that sticks in my mind is the miracle of bread from heaven. Jesus used this analogy to describe Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread. I must accept the same challenge in my life, I must accept Jesus in as my Bread each day, I must know what it is to feed on the Bread of Life before I begin any day.

And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them. – Luke 21:8 ESV

The only time that I can be led astray is when I do not meet with Jesus everyday. I know that when times are bad, it is easier for me to accept ready solutions to my problems. I believe more in the promises of those solutions – they basically mean good times – and how unfortunate for me that those words replace – good news.

The Israelites ate the Bread from heaven and still died. Jesus is offering me Himself, the Bread of heaven, the Bread of Life, in Him there is life. My choice is Life.

Passover

Passover is of interest to me as a follower of Christ because it played a big part of the background for the Last Supper Jesus had with His disciples on the night He was betrayed.

I read the story today (Exodus 12:1-14) knowing that it is still a core festival for the Jewish people and at the same time could not help how significant the meaning is to me as it sets up the Christian practice of Holy Communion. Just as the Passover was to be remembered and retold, so did Jesus leave instruction to remember Him every time we celebrated with communion. Both themes observe the story of death and resurrection. Both ritual and narrative work together as mutually interpretive.

I am called to remember Jesus as the lamb of God who is without blemish and remember His sacrifice on the cross from where He delivered me from sin and death. I remember the love that God has for me, and my identity as a redeemed and liberated person. I also remember my past but not in a bad way, only to remember that I am not going to make a mistake and return to being bonded by sin and death.

In remembering, I am motivated and empowered to continue to renew my relationship with Jesus. I am committed to being a lifelong follower and learner who wants to serve and influence others to serve. I remember to serve, I remember God’s love and I love those who have chosen to follow God.

So while Jesus was in fact celebrating the Passover meal, He was beginning a memorial supper celebrating God’s new covenant with me.

Through all of this storytelling a key verse struck me this morning out of Exodus chapter 12:

All the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. – Exodus 12:50 ESV

Not only today am I challenged to appreciate, and to continue to remember what God has done in the Passover and the Last Supper, I am called to challenge myself with these questions:

Why is obedience so important to my deliverance?
Is there any discipleship without obedience?
Does someone who says they believe in Jesus but do not obey Him have real faith?

Lost in tradition

What takes over when knowledge disappears is tradition. We put our traditions in place of the commandments of God. If God’s commandments are deemed as to not constitute knowledge, why not put something else in their place? So be it, tradition is created.

He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”^[a] he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word^[b] of God. – Matthew 15:3-6 ESV

If I am to be a follower of Jesus, His disciple, I must take all that I learn from Him and determine what God’s will is. No teaching or tradition can be allowed to replace the clearly stated will of God. I get it though – our little rules and traditions can make us feel smug and saved.

Jesus points out to me that there are matters that are more important. He points out that my attention to inward purity are one of those important matters. Symbolic acts are okay for illustrative purposes, but they cannot supersede the spiritual view that creates inward holiness.

I think if I was a pretender, I would prefer the superstitious practices as they would cover up the positive duties I have been given as a disciple of Jesus.

There is a need to keep looking at my traditions in my own life to ensure they have not begun to contradict God’s Word.

If I get angry at how easily my traditions are outside God’s Word it is because I too have found too much comfort in them. Truth messes up my comfort zones. Comfort zones do not bring me into relationship with Jesus, God’s Word does. I end up losing my traditions.

Knowing God

Ready, Set, Go!

It seems pretty easy to understand but it hit me today – eternal life, what I have heard talked about my entire Christian life and know is a promised gift of life from God – does not come by just accepting the cross, the blood and the resurrection – it comes because I know God. That is life, eternal life.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. – John 17:3 ESV

While the cross, the blood and the resurrection may very well be doctrinal knowledge, life is a living interaction with the Father, His Son and His Spirit. It is walking in the trinitarian presence, in fellowship with one another, that is eternal life. This is the kingdom of God on earth and I can make my life a part of God’s life. What was Jesus’ gospel – the availability of life in the kingdom of God, now.

John 17 is a prayer, a family prayer one might say as His disciples were His family. Whenever I read this chapter, I come away with a sense of awe and reverence. It reveals the basic relationship He had with His Father and it reveals that this is the relationship I can have with God too. There is a sense that this is the prayer I can pray.

Let me leave you with this quote that speaks directly to what I have taken away from my devotions today about knowing God:

Two points must be kept in view while we endeavour to understand the words:—(1) The force of ‘that;’ this word sets before us the ‘knowing’ as a goal towards which we are to strain our efforts. (2) That the word ‘know’ does not mean to know fully or to recognise, but to learn to know: it expresses not perfect, but inceptive and ever – growing knowledge. Those, then, who receive ‘eternal life’ enter into a condition in which they learn to know the Father and the Son as They really are,—learn to know Them in Their love and saving mercy,—and are thus enabled to ‘glorify’ Them. The knowledge of the Father and the Son is neither the condition of the ‘life,’ nor the same thing as the ‘life.’ It is rather that far-off goal which is constantly before us, and to which we come ever nearer, in proportion as we enter more deeply into the life which Christ bestows. The ‘life,’ on the other hand, is that state in which we are introduced to the knowledge of the Father and the Son, the state in which we learn to know Them with constantly-increasing clearness and fullness, and finally the state in which, when life is perfected in us, we come to know Them as They are, to ‘see’ Them, and to ‘be like’ Them (comp. 1 John 3:2). Strictly speaking, the knowledge is thus dependent on the life, rather than the life on the knowledge. But, in truth, the interdependence is mutual; neither can exist without the other; there is no life which does not lead to knowledge; there is no knowledge without life. The ‘eternal life’ is thus also a present thing, stretching indeed into the endless future, but begun now. – Schaff’s Popular Commentary on the New Testament