The Two Births

In Luke's gospel we find the account of two births.

Two godly women.
One angel.
Two promised births.
Two very different fulfillments.

Zechariah was a good man who did his best to keep the Law.
His wife, Elizabeth, however was barren and unable to conceive.
Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and promised them a son they were to name John.

This was the one we know as John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus.

But here's the deal.
Zechariah and Elizabeth still had some work to do, if you know what I mean.

The promise was only going to be fulfilled if they did their part in the promise.
The miracle here was that in her advanced years Elizabeth's womb would be opened.
The seed still needed to be planted.

Apparently ol' Zechariah did his part because 6 months into Elizabeth's pregnancy Gabriel makes a visit to another godly woman. Mary.

Elizabeth was old.
But Mary was young, very young.
Unmarried, but engaged to be married.
A virgin.

Mary even said so when Gabriel made the promise of child to her.

Listen.
She's not going to fudge this whole virgin bit, not to an angel.
And not to God.
He knew whom He was choosing.

This promise of a child, however, was going to be fulfilled very, very differently.
This fulfillment marked a new way God was going to bring life to mankind.

Previously, God breathed into man and he became a living soul.
But all generations following Adam depended on man's own ability to reproduce.
God's intervention was only opening a barren womb.

A new day was dawning beginning with Mary.
A new generation of children were going to be made possible.

This time by God, not man.

Life was going to happen by God's efforts.
Not man's efforts.

This time God was going to do all the work.
And this new way was was going to be the only way.

Mary HAD to be a virgin.
Only God could be the Father.
There could be no human effort in this conception.

Jesus referred to this new way in his talk with Nicodemus.

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. John 3:6 NLT

This conception is radically different because God did it. 

Jesus said "It is finished!" and then He sat down at the Father's right hand signaling rest and completed work.

We have been made alive by God's work and not our own. 
Not our own.

A dead man can't bring himself back to life.
Neither can a spiritually dead man.

Both can only be brought back to life by a source outside themselves

It is the Spirit who has brought us from death to life.
The same Spirit in Genesis one.
The same Spirit that overshadowed Mary.
The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.

It is by grace we have been saved through faith, it is not of ourselves it is a gift from God so that no one can boast about himself. Ephesians 2:8-9

God does the saving by His own power through the Spirit and the Son. 
All we can do is say "yes", just like Mary did.

Thank you Lord for saving my soul.
Thank you Lord for making me whole.
Thank you Lord for giving to me.
Thy great salvation so full and free.

Amen.

RP

A Tent Becomes a Tabernacle

“Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Moses could no longer enter the Tabernacle because the cloud had settled down over it, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.” Exodus 40:34-35 NLT

I love how the Bible records the unfolding of this event. “…and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.” 

So much incredibly hard work had gone into the preparation for this moment. 

Bezalel, Oholiab and the other craftsmen had worked so hard. 

So meticulous in every detail. 

Making everything in for the Tabernacle just as the Lord commanded.

Every thread.
Every stitch.
Every color was so carefully woven together.

Then Moses came through for a final inspection. 

Satisfied that everything was done according to God’s direction.

Moses deemed the Tabernacle complete and ready for the presence of the Lord. 

The Lord too was satisfied with the building of the Tabernacle.

His glory filled the Tabernacle.

“Now whenever the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out on their journey, following it. But if the cloud did not rise, they remained where they were until it lifted. The cloud of the Lord hovered over the Tabernacle during the day, and at night fire glowed inside the cloud so the whole family of Israel could see it. This continued throughout all their journeys.” Exodus 40:36-38 NLT

Imagine that spectacle for just a moment. 

YHWH God who had delivered the people from Egypt by the parting of the Red Sea.

YHWH God who had provided water from a rock.

YHWH God who provided manna and quail, was now dwelling in a Tabernacle where everyone could see. 

Talk about a body guard! 

Imagine the security and comfort they must have felt knowing no power on earth could bring them harm. 

They could visibly see their Protector in a cloud by day and fire by night. 

This presence of the Lord was called ‘shekinah’ by the Hebrews.

It literally meant dwelling or resident. 

The Lord inhabited a tent made in the same fashion as all tents, with thread, needles and clasps. 

But this tent was made in accordance with Lord’s specifications: 

Every dimension.

Every color.

Every material.

Every detail. 

The Lord was now dwelling, residing among His people and He was pleased to do so.

The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews that the former covenant (Old Testament) was a foreshadow of things to come. 

This Tabernacle and the Lord taking up residence among His people, was a foreshadow of a future day when the Lord was going to once again take up residence with His people.

 ^“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 NKJV

This foreshadow was Jesus. 

Jesus was fashioned like other humans except designed by the Father to His specifications. 

He was born of a virgin.

Conceived by the Holy Spirit. 

He was the Lord taking up residence and making his dwelling with us. 

‘Emmanuel’; God with us. 

God in the flesh, looking like us yet very different than us. 

Kind of like the Tabernacle. 

It was a tent made like other tents. 

It looked like a tent.

Smelled like a tent.

Made like a tent.

But very different from any tent ever made before or since. 

Why? 

Because God took up residence in it.

Jesus looked, smelled, walked, ate, and drank like us. 

Yet He was unlike any human who ever lived before or since. 

He was God taking up residence with us. 

This ‘shekinah glory’ was not lost on John or any other Jew. 

When John penned verse 14 every Jew knew exactly what he was saying. 

The Jewish Messiah had been prophesied to live among them.

“The Lord says, “Shout and rejoice, O beautiful Jerusalem, for I am coming to live among you.” Zachariah 2:10 NLT

Listen. 

But it gets even better. 

The Lord has taken up residence yet again among His people. 

The Lord took up residence through Jesus and dwelt among His people. 

The Lord takes up residence in us today through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the exact representation of the Father (Hebrews 1:3) 

The Holy Spirit is the exact representation of Jesus (John 14:26).  

“Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,  for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT

Yes believer, the Lord is dwelling in you. 

And it is just as glorious as it has ever been. 

Can you see Him?

RP

God's Great Strength Shows Up in His Grace

⁴⁰ A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.

⁴¹ Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” ⁴² Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed. Mark 1:40-42 NLT

Johnnie Moore in his book 'Dirty God' writes a powerful narrative taken from the perspective of the leper;

Jesus stopped and looked in my direction as did dozens of others.

A flood of fear swept across the faces…children ducked behind their parents.

“Unclean” someone shouted.

Again, I don’t blame them. I was a huddled mass of death.

But I scarcely heard them.

I scarcely saw them.

Their panic I had seen a thousand times.

His compassion, however, I’d never beheld.

Everyone stepped back except Him. He stepped toward me.

Toward me!

Five years ago, my wife stepped toward me.

She was the last one to do so.

Now, He did.

I did not move.

I just spoke.

“Lord, you can heal me if you will.”

Had He healed me with a word I would have been thrilled.

Had He cured me with a prayer I would have rejoiced.

But He wasn’t satisfied with speaking to me.

He drew near to me. He touched me.

Five years ago wife had touched me.

No one had touched me since…until today.

Johnnie Continues...

Grace and God’s power are friends with one another. It is not a weak God who associates with weak people, it is a strong God attracted to the opportunity to be powerful in their weakness.

Grace does not show God’s weakness, but His incredible strength.

Amen

RP

The Hope of the Resurrection

We hear a lot about hope these days.
It really became popular as a campaign slogan a few years ago.

But what exactly is hope?
As English speaking people with a Greco-Roman mindset and philosophy, hope has a very abstract meaning for us.

For example, "You gonna make it to the game tonight?" "Hope so."

Hope so? What does that mean?
It's very abstract. It doesn't really mean anything.

So what then does hope really mean?

I try to spend a couple hours each week looking into Ancient Hebrew.
Why?
Because all my heros like Abraham, Joseph, David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, John and most importantly Jesus had one thing in common; they were all Jews.

They all had something else in common, they spoke Hebrew.
Not one word of English ever came from their lips.

So if I wish to understand what they understood, I must step out of my English mindset and step into the Hebrew mindset.

We think abstractly, they thought concretely.
We love adjectives, they love verbs.

We say "Wow, what a gorgeous day."
Too abstract.
They say instead, "I feel the sun shining on my face."

See the difference?

So when it comes to hope, we think of hope as something to be attained.
They see hope as attained.

The Hebrew definition of hope in terms we can best understand is a rope.
To be securely attached.

Hope to them meant security.
To be tighty held to something.

So that brings real clarity to a famous scripture I'll get to in a sec.

We come to Jesus by faith.
And because of our faith we then have hope.
But this is not future hope, it is hope for today.

Because of our faith in Christ, we are securely attached to God.

So then who is doing the holding, the attaching?
God is.

Aren't you glad?

Which is better?
You holding onto to Christ or Christ holding onto you?

Which strength is more trustworthy?
My strength to hold onto God or His strength to hold onto me?

I've tried my own strength.
It is hopeless.

I trust instead in His strength to hold me.

And that my friends is why our hope is secure.
Faith brings us, hope attaches us, love keeps us.

Now to the verse...

³¹ What shall we say about such wonderful things as these?

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”^) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Doesn't that make more sense now?
This is the hope of the resurrection...
because Christ has risen, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.

He not only has the power to save, He has the strength to keep...forever!

RP

Faith That Works

In Luke, the Apostles ask Jesus to “increase their faith.” This question is only asked because they have seen first-hand the power of faith in action.

By this time in Jesus ministry they had seen all the miracles that faith can bring. They had also seen Jesus turn His back on His own home-town because of the lack of faith.

And also by this time in their walk as Jesus’ disciples, they had heard on many occasions “your faith has healed you.” So the favor they were asking was a very legitimate one. They could see the benefits of increased faith.

They rightly concluded from all they had observed that more faith would yield more results. More faith seemed like a very logical course of action.

But you can also kind of see a hitch in their request. It was self-serving. It looks as though they are asking for more faith for what they can get out of it rather than for the glory of God.

Jesus, fully aware of mankind’s bent toward ‘what’s in it for me’, gives a very keen reply to their request for what seems to be a very honorable favor.

 

He first responds with the famous ‘faith of a mustard seed’ and secondly with a parable about obedience. Let’s look at these two responses and apply them to us so we too can ‘increase our faith’.

First, the mustard seed.

 

As most of you know, if you have spent any amount of time in church or Sunday school, someone has informed you of just how small the mustard seed is.

 

It is about the size of a grain of sand. This is actually quite significant because it says much more about the one you have the faith in than it does about the amount of faith in the believer.

 

Jesus is making a very salient point here. Increasing our faith is not as important as whom the faith is in.

 

The amount of faith needed is small because the power of the one believed in is great. A mustard seed sized faith can uproot a tree with an extensive root system and toss itself into the sea.

Notice it isn’t you doing the digging and the uprooting and the throwing, it is your faith in the One who can do the digging, the uprooting and the throwing.

 

So therein lays the key to God honored faith; less belief in you and more belief in Him. Pride is such a stumbling block to faith. Pride in self takes away reliance on God.  

 

The extreme size of the universe points us to the realization of the limitlessness of God. And yet, we give him so little. I’m afraid we often don’t even have the size of faith of a mustard seed. And that’s pretty small indeed.

So part two of the response to ‘increase our faith’ was a parable.

 

This parable was about obedience.

So here’s the gist of the parable.

 

When a servant comes in from working in the fields does his master say “Come eat with me?”

No, the master makes the servant serve him and when the master is finished eating the servant can then sit down and eat as well.

 

And does the master thank the servant for doing what he is told?

No, the servant simply did what was expected of him.

 

Jesus concludes the parable with this, “In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ‘We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.’”

So what is Jesus telling us? Faith requires obedience. When we realize that God can do the impossible, obedience to what He wants is how we act out our belief in Him. Since we are in desperate need of what He has to offer, it only makes sense to be completely obedient to what he is asking. No exceptions.

 
Let’s go to Abraham.

The Bible tells us that Abraham’s faith in God was unwavering. He believed God’s promise of a son through his wife Sarah.

He got off track a bit with the whole Hagar and Ishmael thing, but Abraham believed God was going to bless the world through a son that had not yet been born.

And this belief was not deterred even though he was almost 100 years of age and his wife was 90.
So what does this kind of faith mean exactly?

It means that Abraham continued to act on his faith.

In other words, he did not believe Sarah was going to have a miraculous conception. It means he continued to do the things that bring about conception even though it seemed like God was taking His dear sweet time.

Faith always requires obedience.

If Abraham had not followed up his faith with the action of intimacy with his wife, the story would have turned out much differently.

But it didn’t because Abraham followed up his faith with action.

That’s a pretty good deal for ‘ol Abe. “You know Sarah, God said we were going to have a son, and tonight could be the night.”
 

So now Abraham has another great test to his faith. The test was measured not by his belief but by his action as a result of his faith.

In Genesis 22, Abraham is asked by God to take his son, his one and only son to Moriah where He is to offer his beloved son as a burnt offering on a mountain that God would show him. Abraham’s faith required action.

 

An action so significant that few people who have ever lived would do what he was about to do.

So Abraham took his son, his one and only son, whom he loved and waited on for so long and was prepared to offer him as a sacrifice.

 

So intent was Abraham in doing exacting what was asked of him God stepped in and not a moment too soon.

 

When God intervened, He told Abraham “Now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your one and only son.”

Friends how do you know God loved you? Because He has not even withheld His Son, His one and only Son. God in His love for us has withheld nothing.

 

If He did not withhold His Son from you (us) is there anything He would withhold?

 

But there remains yet a larger question. What are you withholding from Him? What are you not trusting Him with?

 

Faith is letting go and letting God...

 

RP......;HeH