(January 11, 2012)
Prayer House News!
Tonight is the big night! RPM begins at 6:30pm. It’s going to be a powerful prayer meeting. Come and seek God with us.
-------------------------------------------------
Awana’s starts at 6:15pm.
============================
Devotional!
I think Jesus was a little frustrated over the fact that it took a miracle for them to believe rather than just taking him at his word. He is the Word of God made flesh. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being. It is the word that will never fail or fade, everything else will.
Later in Chapter two we find Jesus entering the temple only to find it filled with money changers and thieves. So he turns over the tables and the seats of those selling doves and basically tells them to quit and get out. At that point his disciples recalled,
John 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Thy house will consume me." Ps 69:9 for zeal for your house consumes me.
I stopped there to pray a little. Zeal for the house of God consumed Jesus. I meditated on that. This is the son of God telling us that zeal for his house is a good thing. The church today is often criticized by the church that we are too into church. The “in” thing today is anything that does not look churchy. I don’t know if we can separate our relationship with Jesus from participating in what we call, “church.” Granted there might be some aspects of the modern day church that don’t line up with scriptures – but for the most part the problem is not within the church as it is with a current attitude – coming from Christians – that it’s not good to be churchy.
I was just talking with someone about this. There is a growing trend today among young people who are going back to those things that are stable in our society which includes the church. Whenever there is chaos the tendency is to look for stability. Isn’t it ironic that after the 9/11 attack on our nation by radical Muslims – the Islam faith began to grow in our nation while the Christian church declined. That just seemed so contrary to how things should be until you begin to think about it for a moment.
The Muslim faith laughs at the Christian church in America because we are convinced that the way to save the world is to look like the world. So we are offering anything but stability to them. When you offer them what they already have – they have no need for us. And now the complete opposite of what we wanted to happen is happening. Instead of drawing the world to us through our trendiness – we are drawing our church kids to the world. We are ending up with a bunch of worldly church kids while the Muslim faith makes their kids toe-the-line. It is filled with structure and adherence. Structure is always attractive in the midst of confusion.
Granted we don’t worship the church building. I don’t believe zeal for the house of God has as much to do with the physical aspects of the building as it does with the whole atmosphere of what we call church. I love church. I love it’s the family feel, its common bond salvation brings to us, and its discipleship. I love the fact that – as Christians – we should life a certain way because without that we have no real purpose. But above all those things we are to love the worship of God that the church affords us.
Jesus had great zeal for the pure worship of God. He was consumed with this, which means his entire attention and affections were given to this. This zeal surpassed all other feelings because he wanted God to be glorified. And when we gather together – what is our meeting based upon – the Word. We gather to hear the word, to study the word, to learn how to live out the word. Miracles, signs and wonders are frosting on the bread of life. They are the things that I believe should be a regular part of our life as Christians – but not necessarily the things we pursue. Miracles seem to happen when the presence of God is thick. If we should seek anything it should be His presence so that he might be glorified in our midst.
John 2:23-24 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. (24) But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,
This is quite remarkable. Jesus was developing a following because of his signs (and wonders) but he was not entrusting himself to them yet. He knows the heart of man and knew they were not really taken up with the Word as much as they were experience. Experience always seems to win out. Anything emotional takes precedence over the status quo. I sometimes wonder if the reason revivals eventually die out is because we get so taken up with the miracles and manifestations that we give the Word a secondary place in the midst of it. We come to the revival meeting and sort of put us with the Word so that we can get to the real stuff – the miracles. Even in Chapter four we see Jesus dealing with this problem of men wanting experience over the Word.
John 4:48 Jesus therefore said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe."
Being Pentecostal, I believe in signs and wonders. They are a big part of our history. I believe they still happen today. Jesus is obviously not opposed to them or he wouldn’t have performed them. The problem is not with signs and wonders – the problem is with our fickleness and our apparent need for Jesus to keep proving himself to us rather than us simply believing the word of God. People have lost their faith over the lack of getting God to do some kind of miracle for them, whether that meant a healing or some kind of material provision. It would seem that what Jesus is getting at in these first few chapters is that of simply believing the Word regardless of what we see.
I think there is a potentially huge problem with why we follow signs and it can relate to who or what it is we worship. Jesus was consumed with zeal for the house of God – or the pure worship of his Father. As I said earlier there is the possibility of supplanting Jesus with miracles. Jesus calls that adultery. Remember we are the bride of Christ and if we become completely taken up with something other than Him – that is equivalent to having another love.
I’m going to key off of this verse in John 4:48 where he criticized them for needing signs and wonders before they would believe to go over to the book of Matthew to a similar account in chapter 12 where he calls them adulterers because of that.
Matthew 12:38-39 "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." (39) But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
The relation of the Jews to God was often represented as a marriage contract-God as the husband, and the Jewish people as the wife, (Isaiah 57:3). Of course in the New Testament the church is referred to as the Bride of Christ in Ephesians 5 and Jesus is the husband.
Jesus refers to those who are taken up with signs as adulterous, but the only sign he will give them is the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah is “repent.” The adulterous generation does not see Jesus as their primary pursuit, that means they have another love subsequently they need to repent of that. Repentance is what’s being referred to as the sign of Jonah. Proof of that is found in the next couple of verses.
Matthew 12:41 "The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
These are the words of Christ. He’s saying, at the judgment, the men of Nineveh will rise up and point a finger at the adulterous generation and condemn them because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And then Jesus brings the focus back to Him when he says, “And someone greater than Jonah is here,” which is Jesus Christ. He was saying in essence, “The men of Nineveh repented when Jonah preached but you aren’t repenting at my preaching even though I’m much greater than Jonah.” So that’s the sign that will be given to the adulterous generation. Repent of your infatuation of miracles and go back to your first love of just Jesus.
There is nothing wrong with signs and wonders until they mean more to us than Christ himself.
===========================
Medication: A Merry Heart
Quote of the Day
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague
I'm not a complete idiot; some parts are missing.
Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?
I want to be very, very, very, very, very brief.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
If you're gonna look back one day and laugh, it's probably funny now.
I am a victim of my own apathy.
Why don't you ever see the headline, "Psychic Wins Lottery!"?
Do not follow the path. Go where there is no path and leave a trail.
Promise only what you can deliver, then deliver more than you have promised.
Prayer House News!
Tonight is the big night! RPM begins at 6:30pm. It’s going to be a powerful prayer meeting. Come and seek God with us.
-------------------------------------------------
Awana’s starts at 6:15pm.
============================
Devotional!
I think Jesus was a little frustrated over the fact that it took a miracle for them to believe rather than just taking him at his word. He is the Word of God made flesh. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being. It is the word that will never fail or fade, everything else will.
Later in Chapter two we find Jesus entering the temple only to find it filled with money changers and thieves. So he turns over the tables and the seats of those selling doves and basically tells them to quit and get out. At that point his disciples recalled,
John 2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Thy house will consume me." Ps 69:9 for zeal for your house consumes me.
I stopped there to pray a little. Zeal for the house of God consumed Jesus. I meditated on that. This is the son of God telling us that zeal for his house is a good thing. The church today is often criticized by the church that we are too into church. The “in” thing today is anything that does not look churchy. I don’t know if we can separate our relationship with Jesus from participating in what we call, “church.” Granted there might be some aspects of the modern day church that don’t line up with scriptures – but for the most part the problem is not within the church as it is with a current attitude – coming from Christians – that it’s not good to be churchy.
I was just talking with someone about this. There is a growing trend today among young people who are going back to those things that are stable in our society which includes the church. Whenever there is chaos the tendency is to look for stability. Isn’t it ironic that after the 9/11 attack on our nation by radical Muslims – the Islam faith began to grow in our nation while the Christian church declined. That just seemed so contrary to how things should be until you begin to think about it for a moment.
The Muslim faith laughs at the Christian church in America because we are convinced that the way to save the world is to look like the world. So we are offering anything but stability to them. When you offer them what they already have – they have no need for us. And now the complete opposite of what we wanted to happen is happening. Instead of drawing the world to us through our trendiness – we are drawing our church kids to the world. We are ending up with a bunch of worldly church kids while the Muslim faith makes their kids toe-the-line. It is filled with structure and adherence. Structure is always attractive in the midst of confusion.
Granted we don’t worship the church building. I don’t believe zeal for the house of God has as much to do with the physical aspects of the building as it does with the whole atmosphere of what we call church. I love church. I love it’s the family feel, its common bond salvation brings to us, and its discipleship. I love the fact that – as Christians – we should life a certain way because without that we have no real purpose. But above all those things we are to love the worship of God that the church affords us.
Jesus had great zeal for the pure worship of God. He was consumed with this, which means his entire attention and affections were given to this. This zeal surpassed all other feelings because he wanted God to be glorified. And when we gather together – what is our meeting based upon – the Word. We gather to hear the word, to study the word, to learn how to live out the word. Miracles, signs and wonders are frosting on the bread of life. They are the things that I believe should be a regular part of our life as Christians – but not necessarily the things we pursue. Miracles seem to happen when the presence of God is thick. If we should seek anything it should be His presence so that he might be glorified in our midst.
John 2:23-24 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. (24) But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,
This is quite remarkable. Jesus was developing a following because of his signs (and wonders) but he was not entrusting himself to them yet. He knows the heart of man and knew they were not really taken up with the Word as much as they were experience. Experience always seems to win out. Anything emotional takes precedence over the status quo. I sometimes wonder if the reason revivals eventually die out is because we get so taken up with the miracles and manifestations that we give the Word a secondary place in the midst of it. We come to the revival meeting and sort of put us with the Word so that we can get to the real stuff – the miracles. Even in Chapter four we see Jesus dealing with this problem of men wanting experience over the Word.
John 4:48 Jesus therefore said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe."
Being Pentecostal, I believe in signs and wonders. They are a big part of our history. I believe they still happen today. Jesus is obviously not opposed to them or he wouldn’t have performed them. The problem is not with signs and wonders – the problem is with our fickleness and our apparent need for Jesus to keep proving himself to us rather than us simply believing the word of God. People have lost their faith over the lack of getting God to do some kind of miracle for them, whether that meant a healing or some kind of material provision. It would seem that what Jesus is getting at in these first few chapters is that of simply believing the Word regardless of what we see.
I think there is a potentially huge problem with why we follow signs and it can relate to who or what it is we worship. Jesus was consumed with zeal for the house of God – or the pure worship of his Father. As I said earlier there is the possibility of supplanting Jesus with miracles. Jesus calls that adultery. Remember we are the bride of Christ and if we become completely taken up with something other than Him – that is equivalent to having another love.
I’m going to key off of this verse in John 4:48 where he criticized them for needing signs and wonders before they would believe to go over to the book of Matthew to a similar account in chapter 12 where he calls them adulterers because of that.
Matthew 12:38-39 "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." (39) But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
The relation of the Jews to God was often represented as a marriage contract-God as the husband, and the Jewish people as the wife, (Isaiah 57:3). Of course in the New Testament the church is referred to as the Bride of Christ in Ephesians 5 and Jesus is the husband.
Jesus refers to those who are taken up with signs as adulterous, but the only sign he will give them is the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah is “repent.” The adulterous generation does not see Jesus as their primary pursuit, that means they have another love subsequently they need to repent of that. Repentance is what’s being referred to as the sign of Jonah. Proof of that is found in the next couple of verses.
Matthew 12:41 "The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
These are the words of Christ. He’s saying, at the judgment, the men of Nineveh will rise up and point a finger at the adulterous generation and condemn them because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And then Jesus brings the focus back to Him when he says, “And someone greater than Jonah is here,” which is Jesus Christ. He was saying in essence, “The men of Nineveh repented when Jonah preached but you aren’t repenting at my preaching even though I’m much greater than Jonah.” So that’s the sign that will be given to the adulterous generation. Repent of your infatuation of miracles and go back to your first love of just Jesus.
There is nothing wrong with signs and wonders until they mean more to us than Christ himself.
===========================
Medication: A Merry Heart
Quote of the Day
If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague
I'm not a complete idiot; some parts are missing.
Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?
I want to be very, very, very, very, very brief.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
If you're gonna look back one day and laugh, it's probably funny now.
I am a victim of my own apathy.
Why don't you ever see the headline, "Psychic Wins Lottery!"?
Do not follow the path. Go where there is no path and leave a trail.
Promise only what you can deliver, then deliver more than you have promised.
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