A bowl... a towel

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.
John 13:14-15

Jesus came with a bowl of water
kneeling down, setting the example,
He served and washed calloused feet, calloused hearts
and in so doing set humility apart
as the service example
for all His disciples.

He wiped the wet feet with a towel
leaving with His men the teaching
that servanthood is the principle
creating ministry hearts, a service example
truly caring and always reaching
to the needs of all the world.

After the advance of two millennia
I need these words with challenge
knowing I live a self-driven lifestyle...
it crashes down with a bowl and a towel
in this call to action, simple service message
is for me, the disciple.

A bowl and a towel equip me
going into all I do in a life of ministry
Feet may not be my first call exactly
but humble service is always before me
Taking no credit, but kneeling humbly
all things to all men that some may be saved.

Crying out the claim

And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me."
John 12:44-45

Jesus made it clear that He had a unique relationship with the Father. He said that seeing Him was the same thing as seeing the Father. This was certainly a claim to deity that Jesus did not make in secret. The text says that He cried it out. This claim was public knowledge and became more and more an issue during the Passion Week leading to His crucifixion.

John 12 makes it clear that the religious authorities recognized what Jesus was claiming. They were losing coverts to His teaching. They were moving to deal with these claims and silence Him. If He were just another rabbi, there would have been room for Him in the system. There was no room for Him to claim to be God.

And I can see Jesus as nothing less than God, even as He is fully human. That is why as I read the gospels, I must be very attentive. I am looking at the life of my God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He claimed it and proved it in all that He did. I believe it. That is the best fact of my life.


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Two reasons why death & resurrection are a big deal

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
John 11:25-26

Every time that I read this account and get to these words of Jesus to Martha I get a chill of compelling excitement that runs up and down my spine. I can't help it. This is Jesus Himself dealing without he most personal and devastating of human tragedies. This is what He came to do about death. And it is moving beyond my ability to describe.

I feel strong emotion here because everybody has been a Martha, and everybody will be a Lazarus. The tears come because I have stood in Martha's place before Jesus myself. I have lost someone (actually several someones) that I love and have felt helpless as I have seen death claim a family member. And everything that Jesus did set up this conversation. He knew Lazarus was sick, yet tarried in coming to visit His friend. He did not even make the burial. But here Jesus is compelling the family that He is "the resurrection and the life", asking them to believe in the hardest of moments.

I am also moved because I stand in Lazarus' position (at least partially). I will die one day. The older I get, the closer that day comes. We all will die some day. And what I do with this question Jesus posed to Martha is key. Do I really believe that my faith in Jesus as the resurrection and the life will give me eternal life? Absolutely! It is what all my life and what all my life rests on more and more every day. It is really hope based on a knowledge of my Savior and His great love.


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Testing out blogging mobility from an iPad

Call me whatever you want, but I just ditched my laptop for this with a keyboard dock. For the kind of computing I now do, it makes sense. SO anyway, anybody want to buy a used Toshiba P100 17 inch HD screen laptop? I custom built it back in the day. I will sell it, a nice backpack, Windows 7 ultimate and Office 2007 for a grand total of $400.00.

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Location:Shawnee, KS

Jesus… on following Jesus

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

John 10:27-29

 

These are comforting and encouraging words for one who has chosen to follow Jesus. But what is remarkable is the context and the audience to which Jesus spoke them. The context was one of confrontation by the enemies of the Lord. And Jesus spoke these words, not to His disciples, but rather to His distracters. These people were actively opposing Him… the text says they did not believe (John 1:25-26). So I gather that these comforting words were actually meant to convict and discomfort those who do not believe in Jesus.

 

Why do I want to invest the earliest moments of my day in hearing from Jesus? It is because of the promises of these words in John 10. I want to hear His voice… and I do when I read His Word. I have never had the mystical need for anything else because I have found so much “mystery” and “clarity” in the pages of scripture, particularly in passages like this one where Jesus says stuff like this!

 

And the security of being one of HIS sheep is superb. Nothing can take me from Him. Nothing can steal me away from the grasp of my God and Savior! I listen to God, I know Him and I follow Him. He gives me eternal life and nothing can separate me from that, or from Him!

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Discipleship,Religion

Salvation & Judgment

Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind."

John 9:39

 

I am trying to understand this statement in the light of an earlier statement that Jesus made to Nicodemus. He has said that the Son came into the world NOT to condemn it, but to save it (John 3:17). How does that square with this statement? I believe the answer is found in the audience of each statement.

 

In John 3, Jesus is dealing with an inquisitive seeker who has come to Him to find questions answered about eternal life. And the salvific purposes of God for the world flow from that conversation. The world has the potential for salvation by Jesus. Generally, God’s grace is offered freely to the entire world. But some will receive it while many will reject Jesus.

 

The John 9 conversation (at least at the end of the chapter) is directed to those who have see Jesus testify to His deity. They have seen a man born blind testify to His deity. They have seen a man born blind testify to Jesus’ work and power. And they continued in blind unbelief because to change would destroy their incorrect theology. That is why judgment would come. They refused to accept their sinful beliefs. Even in this statement, Jesus makes it clear that blind people (those lost and spiritually dead who believed Him) would see, and those who thought they saw (spiritually self-righteous who refuse to repent) would be blinded by Him. That is the difference between John 3 and John 9.

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Discipleship,Religion

The Deity of Christ is essential to Christianity.

Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

John 8:58

 

This is an undiminished claim by Jesus to be God. He was appealing to the oldest roots of Judaism in this claim. He used the covenant name of God as revealed to Moses (“I am”) and He claimed to exist before Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. It is very clear that the authorities understood what Jesus was claiming because they take immediate steps to stone Him for His blasphemy (John 8:59).

 

This is the part of Jesus that people still want to resist. It is OK to keep Him as a moral leader, as a great human or an enlightened teacher. But to ascribe to Him the authority and reality of God (which He claimed and demonstrated) is not what post-modern inclusivism wants to do. Instead, the system attacks the gospels as a trustworthy account of His life and teaching (leaving us with nothing by which to know Jesus) and blames His followers for deifying Him.

 

But Jesus clearly changed lives, backing up this claim. And those who saw Him and say and do what only God can do chose instead to hate Him. Why should it be different today? Accepting Christ as God and Savior has always been a personal commitment that is ridiculed by the world. But His is my salvation and life, and I know this!

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Discipleship,Religion