Study from God’s Word… [Jesus moves from Ephraim, through Jericho and Bethany, on to Jerusalem and the trek to Calvary] Matt 19: 3-9 [Mk 10: 2-9]; Mt 19: 10-12 and Mk 10: 10-12; Mk 19: 13-16 [Mt 19: 13-15 & Lk 18: 15-17]; Mk 10: 17-22 [Mt 19: 16-22 & Lk 18: 18-23]; Mk 10: 23-27 [Mt 19: 23-26 & Lk 18: 24-27]; Mk 10: 32-24 & Lk 18: 31-14 [Mt 20: 17-19]; Mt 20: 20-23 & Mk 10: 35-40]; Mk 10: 41-45 [Mt 20: 24-28]; Lk 19: 1-10; Mk 10: 46-52 & Lk 18: 25-43 [Mt 20: 29-34]; Lk 19: 11-27; Lk 19: 25; Lk 11: 55-57; Mt 26: 6-13 & Mk 14: 3-9 & Jn :12: 1-8; Jn 12: 9-11 … Passage for Reflection: Matthew 19: 12 … NIV [Jesus] “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
My Journal for Today: Today’s text is taken from the context of Jesus discussing God’s position on divorce and remarriage; and we certainly know that the Lord took a hard line on this issue, which is pressing even more now in the Church than in the 1st century. So, what, in the midst of a discussion of the divorce issue with Jesus’ Disciples does the Lord bring up the subject of eunuchs?
Well, eunuchs (i.e., those who are rendered impotent physiologically at birth or surgically later in life), were generally not living that way in Jesus’ day because they wanted to be eunuchs. Hence, Jesus was using this example to illustrate that there are people who are involved in such life situations, such as divorce. Some were involved in divorce – and may be today- because of past sin or from a past marriage which was not covered by Jesus’ reflection on Moses’ teaching on divorce. In other words, in those days (and most certainly now) there are those who are divorced and would desire to be remarried (and some do) but should not be remarried because it would be consciously sinful and, according to Christ, tantamount to adultery. Tough stuff, isn’t it?
What Jesus was saying to His Disciples by using the example of eunuchs was summarized by Dr. LaGard Smith in his devotional entry for today; and let me quote what he said …
>>> Dr. LaGard Smith from The Daily Bible Devotional for November 9: “… Jesus insists that there are hard choices to be made for the sake of the kingdom. Maybe it has to do with not remarrying in the wake of (a biblically) unauthorized divorce. Maybe it has to do with not entering into (biblically) forbidden sexual relationships despite urges to do so, or turning down that lucrative job requiring a compromise of integrity. Whatever great personal price one has to pay to maintain kingdom values, God never promised us a spiritual rose garden.”
And Dr. Smith’s hard question for today, at the end of his devotional entry is this: ”What difficult choices am I willing to make FOR THE SAKE OF GOD’S KINGDOM.”
And I don’t know about you; but there are choices I must make – sometimes daily - in light of my personal and sinful desires and my default sin nature that I need to make to be able to do what Christ exhorted His disciples in Matt. 5: 16 … to shine HIS LIGHT for all to see my good works in order to glorify my Heavenly Father and to show off His Kingdom values. You’ll have to deal with this hard word and Dr. Smith’s question above on your own; but we all need to do this kind of value inventory … and in a sense become “eunuchs” for Christ in this world.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, I need Your strength to be Your “eunuch” as I choose to shine Your light in this ever darkening world. Amen
Showing posts with label good works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good works. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
2010 – Feb. 17 – Treating Cause and Effect with Caution
Study from Deuteronomy 9 – 11; Passage for Reflection: Deut. 9: 6 … NIV Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
My Journal for Today: I hope you’ve read through Deuteronomy, Chapters 9 – 11, or you know its contents well; because when you read/meditate on the instructions that Moses is giving to God’s “stiff-necked,” fickle, and often foolish people, the Israelites (especially knowing, from God’s word, where they are going mess-up over and over again), one has to feel like poor Moses, as a leader of God’s people, has been given a poor cohort of followers to let Joshua lead them across the Jordan and to take possession of that “Promised Land,” to which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their progeny. But in what Moses is saying to the Jewish nation, we have some principles which we need to understand and to apply in our lives.
The first is that God is a merciful God, slow to anger and completely bound to His covenant promises. So, if God has promised something to us as believers today, we can expect that He will carry out His part of that covenant. And the biggest of those promises is wrapped up in the promise of eternal salvation for anyone who believes in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and is willing to surrender his/her life to the Lordship of The Christ. If you have done that, God, as He has promised by His word, will deliver; and by His grace, He will give you eternal life [and you know of that from John 3: 16 and Romans 10: 9 – 13].
With that said, then, like with the “stiff-necked” Jewish people, we must realize that nothing we can, or will do, can earn anything more than what God has promised. So, if we do a lot of good stuff, as born-again Christians, we cannot expect God to “pay off” with anything more than He has already delivered on the cross by Christ’s blood sacrifice. So, all I need to know is that God’s grace is sufficient for my life (see 2nd Cor. 12: 9); and that what I do in this life is merely preparation for my life in heaven. Yes, I should be seeking to glorify my Lord with my good works; but I’m not doing that to earn a bunch of good things in this life. What I do – i.e., good works in His Name – are simply a reflection of God’s grace working itself out in my life (see Eph. 2: 10 as a result of Eph. 2: 8 – 9). And by my works, may He be glorified.
We need to remember that we’re never as good as we think we are; and God is always better than we can imagine Him to be. As Moses warned God’s children, those warnings apply to you and me as well; and if we have some foolish notion that we can – in these New Covenant times – ignore the realities of our obedience to the Law, we are no better … and probably a lot worse … than the “stiff-necked” Jews to whom Moses was addressing for God in today’s readings.
I pray that we all can keep our works in perspective and in the context of God’s grace through the completed sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You did it all for me on the cross. May I do it all for You in this life as I prepare for the next. Amen
My Journal for Today: I hope you’ve read through Deuteronomy, Chapters 9 – 11, or you know its contents well; because when you read/meditate on the instructions that Moses is giving to God’s “stiff-necked,” fickle, and often foolish people, the Israelites (especially knowing, from God’s word, where they are going mess-up over and over again), one has to feel like poor Moses, as a leader of God’s people, has been given a poor cohort of followers to let Joshua lead them across the Jordan and to take possession of that “Promised Land,” to which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their progeny. But in what Moses is saying to the Jewish nation, we have some principles which we need to understand and to apply in our lives.
The first is that God is a merciful God, slow to anger and completely bound to His covenant promises. So, if God has promised something to us as believers today, we can expect that He will carry out His part of that covenant. And the biggest of those promises is wrapped up in the promise of eternal salvation for anyone who believes in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and is willing to surrender his/her life to the Lordship of The Christ. If you have done that, God, as He has promised by His word, will deliver; and by His grace, He will give you eternal life [and you know of that from John 3: 16 and Romans 10: 9 – 13].
With that said, then, like with the “stiff-necked” Jewish people, we must realize that nothing we can, or will do, can earn anything more than what God has promised. So, if we do a lot of good stuff, as born-again Christians, we cannot expect God to “pay off” with anything more than He has already delivered on the cross by Christ’s blood sacrifice. So, all I need to know is that God’s grace is sufficient for my life (see 2nd Cor. 12: 9); and that what I do in this life is merely preparation for my life in heaven. Yes, I should be seeking to glorify my Lord with my good works; but I’m not doing that to earn a bunch of good things in this life. What I do – i.e., good works in His Name – are simply a reflection of God’s grace working itself out in my life (see Eph. 2: 10 as a result of Eph. 2: 8 – 9). And by my works, may He be glorified.
We need to remember that we’re never as good as we think we are; and God is always better than we can imagine Him to be. As Moses warned God’s children, those warnings apply to you and me as well; and if we have some foolish notion that we can – in these New Covenant times – ignore the realities of our obedience to the Law, we are no better … and probably a lot worse … than the “stiff-necked” Jews to whom Moses was addressing for God in today’s readings.
I pray that we all can keep our works in perspective and in the context of God’s grace through the completed sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, You did it all for me on the cross. May I do it all for You in this life as I prepare for the next. Amen
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