Tag: Jesus Christ

Correction for Christ Followers

“For the Lord corrects those he loves,
just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.”  

Prov. 3:12, NLT

Interesting.  Some people get a double-dip.  If you are a loved son/daughter you have the tremendous honor of being loved and also of being disciplined.  My own son is disciplined because I love him so much.  He’s my boy and I love him even more than my own life.  When I do need to correct him, it is that love that makes it possible.  If I didn’t really love him, I would let him do his thing without any discipline at all. It would be easier.

To be left alone, with no correction or discipline is to be in a difficult place.  It smacks of abandonment.  Or of being cast-off or sent away.  It can be worse then abuse.

And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said,

   “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline,
      and don’t give up when he corrects you.
  For the Lord disciplines those he loves,
      and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”

Heb. 12:5-6

The connection between a loving and caring Father, and you will require you to cooperate with His correction.  The writer of Hebrews knew the frail nature of people.  The writer knew that people would be tempted to quit– it is so hard.  “Don’t give up” in verse 5.  That means we will be tempted do so, to walk away and quit.  People do it all the time. It is easy.

“As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? 8 If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. 9 Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever?”

Heb. 12:7-9

God loves you.  God loves you so much that He wants to change you.  Understanding that you are a son or a daughter in His family makes life worth living.

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ybic, Bryan

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A Fatal Disease Called Sin

“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Hebrews 7:25

This defies reason.  No matter how diseased your spirit, or black and vile your sin, Jesus reaches you.  He takes extreme cases, and loves each person who comes.  Mercy is the real currency of the Kingdom of God.

“Our Saviour kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, ‘I can clean that if you want.’ And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin.”

Max Lucado 

The Kingdom is thriving.  “Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.”  The behavior of our Lord is astonishing.  He cleanses us daily from the sin and darkness we commit.  He stands in a place of intense intervention for us.  He is a gifted intercessor and prays consistently and efficiently. 

Dialysis is a medical procedure that works to cleanse and purify a person’s blood. Those with sick kidneys can hook up to a device that filters out toxins and wastes out. It is an intervention that exists until a healthy kidney can be found. Often, in times of prayer and worship, I picture my own heart being cleansed from sin. People sometimes miss their dialysis– this can lead to confusion and mental impairment. You might say that Jesus is God’s mechanism for healing my soul.

Being touched by Him is the only reason we live.  We have no reason and there is no relevance without being with Him.  Our issues (which some call weaknesses) are His way of blessing us.  “In our weaknesses, we become strong”.

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ybic, Bryan

 

 

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Just Like Jesus

“I am not praying just for these followers. I am also praying for everyone else who will have faith because of what my followers will say about me.” 

John 17:2o

Here is where we watch Jesus weave an intercessory web of prayer for His followers.  This is significant in three ways.

First, He bestows on intercessory prayer its breadth and width.  What Jesus is doing is showing us the perimeters of prayer, revealing to us what it can do.  The scope is pretty much everyone, in every generation, and nation.  The last few months I’ve been praying for the Ukraine.  I don’t know why, I have no contacts there.  But I believe I have been recruited to pray.  And it has been good for me to do this.

Secondly, Jesus displays His confidence that His message will work in the hearts of people.  His followers will be ultimately effective with the Gospel.  He is making spiritual provision for them, helping them, if you will, all the way down the corridors of time.  Reaching each one, each believer.

What if you knew Jesus was praying for you?  That you could hear Him in the next room, praying for you by name?  That would be totally awesome!  But He is praying, and has prayed for you. (That should pump you up!)

Thirdly, Jesus reveals His love.  He is mere hours from a torturous death.  He will be beaten severely, scorned and mocked.  Yet Jesus is still “on-duty” as the Good Shepherd.  He is thinking about us, and remembering our needs.  You know, I’m not like Jesus at all.  I think of myself, my needs, my situation all the time.  But Jesus is teaching me to love, just like He does. He is teaching me JOY.

J– Jesus

O– Others

Y– You

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ybic, Bryan

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The Transfiguration, (Or “Let’s Get It Right, This Time”)

“Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” 

Matt. 17:1-2

We observe that Jesus ‘picked and choosed’ three men to go with Him to this incredible place.  Nothing is fabricated, nothing is manipulated.  The three are given a backstage pass into the supernatural, where things are more real than they seem, not less so.

They were led with the pretext of loneliness and separation.  It was critical that they step into this quiet place, with no distraction or disturbance.  The entire situation was based exclusively on the person of Jesus.  He would be the ‘canvas’ on which everything would happen.  Jesus would display and exhibit the spiritual reality of what was about to happen.

All the men could do is observe, and from our text this was their fundamental purpose.  They watched, and Jesus did not disappoint them.  He commenced to radiate from within, an intense light.  It says, ‘He was transformed’.  We don’t have the freedom to make any conjecture of what this entailed.  We can only understand that what was happening was purely and entirely supernatural.

I think that we often we get a little confused about the transforming presence of Jesus in our own lives.  It seems that it happens apart from His presence.  We somehow get changed apart from the direct intervention of Him.  We inexplicably think that this is the way it works, that somehow I will start radiating peace, wisdom and godliness on my own.  Kind of a ‘self -glowing in the dark’ Christian.

But Jesus Christ is the exclusive initiator and upholder of the Christian life.  Jesus is not a by-product, but the entire ‘kit and kaboodle’.  He is at the center of our salvation, both the justifier and sancifier of our being.  We cannot trust Him to justify us, unless we believe that He will also make us holy people.  He takes it all. And all that He takes He will transform.

I guess I’m advocating the return of Jesus to His walk of transfiguration in our lives.  We make Him the center, and let Him shine.  This is not heretical; it is fundamental.  It is also critical.  Only when we arrive at this point can we say “Jesus, why, He is my Lord and King!  He is the Center of the entire universe, and He is my all, in all.”

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ybic, Bryan

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