Category: Band

I don’t think that people necessarily would say this out loud, but I do believe that we certainly think it. The situation goes something like this:

• I made a sacrifice for God.

• I go to the church / mosque / temple every day / week / month / year.

• I read the Bible every day.

• I pray regularly.

• I fast and abstain from food / water / sex.

• I gave money to the church. I gave money to poor people. I’ve done good works to help others.

• I followed all of the rules…most of the time!

And so, therefore, God owes me. He owes me to get into heaven…right? Wasn’t that the deal? God gives me these rules, and I need to live like a good religious person, and then I get to go to heaven someday when I die.

Right?

God owes me.

Wrong. Not true. Incorrect.

Today, I read in Timothy 4 where Paul says this to Timothy:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.

1 Timothy 4:1-3

In chapter 3, Paul explains again to Timothy that there is one God and one Mediator, Jesus Christ. And it is through Jesus that we are given grace and mercy.

But instead of receiving grace and mercy from God, we frequently choose to believe the lie that is taught by demons, that if we just follow some rules, or if we are just religious enough, or if we are a good person, then God will owe you.

Some people believe that he owes you some type of ease in this life. They read that God is going to bless his people and they interpret it as God owing them money…meanwhile conveniently skipping over the fact that Jesus says that we should expect hardship and persecution.

Or other people believe that God owes you heaven, that because you have been a good person, or even if not a good person, a religious person, then God owes them eternal life.

But what are they really doing? By buying into this idea of following the rules and being, in some way the one who controls their destiny, they are simply considering themselves to be like God. This is the original lie that Satan told to Eve in the Garden of Eden, that by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that their eyes would be opened and they would be like God.

But that is not at all the reality, and is certainly not the story that the scriptures tell. Instead, as those that have been created and who have rebelled against God, we deserve nothing more than punishment and death, but God gave himself as a sacrifice for each of us by sending Jesus Christ to receive the punishment of our sins. Therefore, we have before us an incredible gift of grace and mercy, and only through faith in this gift can we be saved.

God doesn’t owe me anything, but out of his love for me and for each of us, he has given me everything.

Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:14-15

Paul has been writing to Timothy to keep he and the church on track as he is leading the church in Ephesus. In the previous chapter, Paul spoke about how the times of prayer and worship should be conducted as well as the roles for men and women.

Now in this chapter, Paul is speaking about the appointment of elders and deacons and how the church is to be led and governed, and through these things, we can see that there is a way in which the church is ordered and managed, a proper way in which it is to be led.

Paul is continuing to charge Timothy with his duties as Timothy continues his work in Ephesus. He reminds Timothy of the great truth about God’s desire to bring all people back to himself:

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

1 Timothy 2:3-6

Frequently, I hear a refrain from my Muslim friends as they try to proactively convince me that everything is OK, that the values that they had in their home country were the best. They say things like these:

• Christians and Muslims…we are the same. We serve the same God!

• You know… where I come from, the Muslims and the Christians are all together. When the Christians celebrate Christmas, the Muslims are there with them. When the Muslims celebrate Eid, the Christians are there too.

• Yeah, the Christians have Jesus, and the Muslims have Mohammad, but we are all the same.

On the one hand, they have a point. I might typically respond that I do believe that we are all of the same as we stand before God. We are all people that are in need of God.

But that is, of course, very different from understanding who God says that he is and the truth that he is telling us about himself.

Yesterday, I was speaking with a man who was saying these things above, but I explained that Jesus said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father except through him. Jesus is therefore specifically not saying that you can come to God in one way or another. He is saying that there is one way, and if we do not know that way – a very real risk if we maintain the attitude that everyone is just OK as they are – then we cannot come to the Father, and we would be lost and destined for punishment forever.

Paul is emphasizing this once again to Timothy. There is one God and there is one Mediator, who is Jesus. And this Jesus gave himself as a ransom, a payment, to receive back the people that have been lost into the kingdom of darkness. He ransoms them away, paying for God’s wrath as he took it upon himself.

Paul is writing to Timothy, the first leader that he ever began to develop as part of his traveling apostolic team from the churches that he planted. It seems that his intent is to remind Timothy of the work that Paul has sent him to do, but in starting his reminder of the work, Paul starts with a reminder of who he is and where he has come from:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Timothy 1:15-17

Paul knows who he is. In the paragraph before this, in verse 13, Paul said that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. Today, we might even say that he was a terrorist. He was someone that killed others for their religious beliefs.

It is from this place that Jesus called Paul to serve him. Paul was a terrible person, maybe even the type of person that Jesus had chided previously while he was on the earth, and yet, now, he is calling Paul because he wants him to devote his life to serve God in the way that is truly God’s plan, through Christ, giving his life completely to him.

Paul was the worst of sinners, but God showed incredible patience with him. Not only that Paul would be saved but that many others would be saved as well and receive eternal life.

Most importantly, though, is that through all of this work of God, he is the one that receives the glory. Paul calls Jesus the King eternal and that he is the one who should receive the glory for all that he has done in Paul’s life. Paul’s salvation and work has nothing to do with what Paul has done, but everything to do with what God has done in and through Paul’s life.

As Paul is wrapping up his letter to the Colossians, in the last chapter, he asks the Corinthians:

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

Colossians 4:3

Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles, the one who is leading the way for the Gospel to enter into Galatia, Macedonia, Greece and Achaia, and in the province of Asia. He is a great evangelist, makes disciples wherever he goes, and has leaders that are being sent here and there, proclaiming the Gospel everywhere that he goes.

But here, he asks that the Colossians would pray for an open door for his message. Paul, even after all that he had accomplished in his Gospel work, needed God to open the door for him. Paul was not doing his work under his own power. He was, instead, moving and working under God’s authority and power. And only in this way could his message of the Gospel of Jesus go forth. Only if God sovereignly moved upon people, opening a door and making a way for his message to go forward could he share in an effective way.

This is a reminder for each of us as well. As we are sharing the Gospel and looking for inroads into communities, God himself must open the door. He is the one who must make the way. As Christ’s ambassadors, we are the ones to deliver the message, but God must take the first step to open the door and make the way.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-4

As followers of Jesus, our life, our priorities, and all that we have and do have changed meaning. Paul says that because we have been raised with Jesus, we should set our hearts on the things above.

What does it mean that we are raised with Jesus? By committing ourselves to him, we have committed our lives to the one who purchased us, and saved us, from God’s wrath for the sin that we have committed. Therefore, since we have been purchased, we are no longer our own. We no longer should concern ourselves with the things of this life. Instead, we have died to the concerns of this life. We left those things behind when we committed ourselves to Christ.

Instead, we have been given a new life. We have died to the old life and we have been born again, resurrected into a new life with Christ Jesus. This means that we no longer need to worry about the things of this life. Instead, we need to look forward to concerns that are much greater, and of much more significance.

What will I eat? What will I wear? Jesus said that God will take care of these things for us.

This also reminds me of the parable that Jesus told about the treasure hidden in the field and the precious pearl. I wrote about it recently, which you can see more here, but as we remove our gaze and the time that we spend worrying about the things of this life, we prove what Jesus has said about the preciousness of the Kingdom of God.

In the parable, Jesus said that the Kingdom is like a treasure or a precious pearl, and when someone finds those things, they sell everything that they own to buy the treasure or to buy the pearl. That is because they recognize the value of what they have seen. In the same way, we must recognize the value of the Kingdom of God.

As we recognize the value of the Kingdom, we should fix our minds on those things. We must concern ourselves with the things that our King has in mind for us, no longer looking back to the old things, the old ways of life, the things of this world. We must continue to look forward, fixing our eyes and training our hearts and minds on the important things of heaven.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Colossians 2:9-12

The first statement, in verse 9, is pretty amazing, if you really consider what it is saying. As Paul writes to the Colossians, he says that God himself is present in Jesus. That means that we have had God himself walking around on the earth. God comes and speaks with people. The disciples and the people of that time walked with God. They spoke with God, face to face. We even have the words of Jesus written in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, meaning that we have the words of God himself as he spoke to the people.

From there, Paul says that we have been circumcised by Christ. This isn’t a circumcision performed by human hands, but a circumcision that is done by Christ, throwing off the old flesh, which is buried as we are baptized and instead giving us a new life as we are resurrected, just as Jesus was raised from the dead.

I noticed something new as I was reading through Mark 6 today, something that I hadn’t seen before.

In the early part of the chapter, in verses 7 through 13, Jesus had sent out the 12 disciples 2 by 2 to various villages around to preach and drive out evil spirits. They went out and did as Jesus told them to do and then came back to Jesus.

There is an interlude from verse 14 to 29 as Mark tells the story of how John the Baptist was imprisoned and eventually killed, but then he picks the story back up in verse 30 where it says that Jesus and the disciples didn’t even have a chance to eat because there were so many people coming and going from where they were staying. As a result, Jesus decides that, given that the disciples had just come back from their journey and that they weren’t able to eat or rest, they need to take some time away.

But it doesn’t work out. They get into a boat and leave, headed off to another place, remote location. But the people watch them from the land and run along the shore to where they end up landing.

When they land, the people are there and Mark says that Jesus had compassion on them. But I can imagine that the disciples might have been a little frustrated at that point. They were trying to get away to even be able to eat and rest after their journey, at Jesus’s direction no less, and yet all of the people keep crowding them and they aren’t able to do what they were hoping to do.

So now, there are thousands of people that have come to this remote location and it is getting late in the evening. The disciples come to Jesus to see if they can finally rest, saying that they want to send the crowd away so that they can go to eat, and Jesus says to them:

“You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

Mark 6:37

I feel like I can hear the frustration in the disciples’ voices, the weariness from their trip and the crowds, and now it seems to me that they are frustrated by Jesus’s insistence that they solve the problem of feeding thousands of people with really nothing in their hands.

I’ve heard people say many times that Jesus was testing the faith of the disciples, and ultimately showing them his power because they later picked up 12 baskets full of bread and fish, one for each disciple. And I think that is correct. But I think that, given the situation, Jesus might be doing something even more here.

Often, when we are at our greatest level of stress, feeling challenged on every side, feeling tired and not able to move forward well, we can truly see what is inside of us. Our social filters are worn down and we can frequently see more easily what is truly in our hearts.

In the case of the disciples, we do see that their priorities are different than that of Jesus. Jesus has compassion upon the people, but the disciples are ready to send them home. Jesus tells his disciples to feed the people, obviously knowing that they didn’t have food for thousands of people because they had just traveled to that remote area in a boat, but without thinking about what Jesus might be doing or teaching them, they immediately react indignantly.

So, I think that this situation was tailor-made, at least in part, to mold and shape the disciples. Jesus kept them on the move, teaching them through the situations to grow and become more like him.

How often does he do the same with us? How often does Jesus put us, his disciples of today, into challenging situations, to allow us to see what is truly inside of us and show us how he wants us to grow?

We have all had something happen that we were amazed by and told other people many times what had happened in that situation. But soon, we’ve told the people around us, and maybe, if we’re forgetful, we’ve even told the story several times to the same people who have either been patient with us or have told us that they have already heard this story one or more times previously.

In Mark 5, there are three stories that are truly amazing that, if someone told us today that they saw them happen, depending on how we react, we would either not believe them, or we would want to go see for ourselves!

Jesus drives a “legion” of demons out a notoriously well-known man in the region of Gerasenes, then he heals a woman who had been constantly bleeding for twelve years, and finally, he raises a little girl, the daughter of a synagogue leader, from the dead.

So we see three different types of healing: spiritual, as he drives out evil spirits; physical, as he heals the woman; and finally death, the most final of all sicknesses, as Jesus even overcomes the physical death of this little girl.

And so it is for this reason that, in this chapter of Mark 5, we see this type of statement two times:

Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.

Mark 5:42

In truth, the miracles that Jesus is doing are amazing. No one has ever done anything like this, let alone in such rapid succession, moving from one person to the next, performing one miracle after another. And yet today, we can often say… Oh, yeah, hang on… I’ve heard that one before.

We’ve forgotten the fact that we are reading about God himself walking on the earth, offering healing from physical and spiritual ailments, but even overcoming death itself. We are so wrapped up in our own lives, in looking at all of the things that we are worried about, in our ability to get ahead, in our own issues and emotions, that we’ve forgotten that there is a God in heaven who came to earth in the form of Jesus to offer us hope. He gives us hope for healing in our physical bodies, in our emotional lives, and in our spiritual being, both now and forever. Jesus calls us into his Kingdom where we can live with him, our Creator, forever.

So let’s be amazed that these stories, while true for people more than 2000 years ago, can also be true for us today. They act as a promise for the hope and life that Jesus also offers to us – so be amazed!

Mark 4 is a significant chapter in the work that I do these days. I am frequently meeting with believing Christians, trying to help them see that God designed their lives to be used for God, not for them.

For example, if we look in verses 1-20, Jesus talks about the four different soils and how the good soil is the only one that produces a crop. Not just growth and life, but a crop is produced from one seed. That one seed was used to bring in many plants to glorify God. I wrote more about this last year in this post: Am I Good Soil?

Later, in verses 26-29, Jesus talks about how the farmer scatters the seed, waits for it to grow, and then harvests a crop. We frequently talk about how this is a parable that speaks to how the Kingdom of God works, that God wants each of us to be like the farmer and harvest a crop to bring him glory. You can see more about this in the post and video on the Search Party website: The Four Fields

I think this chapter shows how Jesus is preparing his disciples to begin to do the work that he is doing. He is teaching them how the Kingdom works prior to taking them and showing them, which he will begin to do at the end of the chapter as they set off in the boat to reach the “other side” of the Sea of Galilee, the Gentile side.

In the midst of this chapter, Jesus explains to his disciples that they are like a light. Here is what he says:

He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Mark 4:21-23

Jesus’s disciples are in the same situation that we are in. In the midst of our societies, in the midst of our communities, it is not popular to follow Jesus. People will accuse us of many things – leaving our community’s traditions, acting morally superior to others, betraying our families, and so on – and so we feel that we want to hide, that we want to be tucked away without being noticed.

And then further, we listen to people who talk about how they were “called” by God to speak to others about Jesus and we assume that this means that, because we feel afraid or that we want to be hidden, that these other people must be the ones who really are “called” to be a light in the open, to speak to others. And so therefore, we end up reverting to ideas like, “Well, if I just live like a Christian, people will know. That is my way of sharing my light.“

But that isn’t what Jesus says here. He explains that you cannot put your light under a bowl or under your bed. It isn’t meant for that. You aren’t meant to be hidden. You are meant to shine and to bring light to others. You are meant to be disclosed and to bring glory to God. This is the call of God, that all are called to live the life that God has made within them, in public. Yes, in deed, but most certainly also, in word.