The Glory of Spring

Since today is Saturday, I thought I’d just do a short post with a lot of pictures.  I went out the other day and took some pictures in the yard with spring raging all over and I’ll share some of them with you today… and then more will be in here as time goes forward.

The trees are going crazy, life is popping up… some of it is the kind that has to be pulled pretty quick, but all in all it’s a wonderful thing.

Brick sidewalks over a hundred years old can be a lot of work; they do look nice afterwards…

The house across the street where the famous gangster used to live (this is Illinois after all) is getting with the program too

… and of course my house, where another famous gangster used to live, is set off with new life.

Thank you, Lord for the glory of this spring.  It fills our hearts with joy and hope and it declares you to all Mankind.  We can see you at work all around us, we give you praise for your handiwork…

…and we thank you for your provision in every aspect of our lives.

Spring of Hope

The world around us that has for many months seemed to have died and gone away is coming back to life; hope is in the air!

God has re-awakened nature in all of its splendor, you can see it all around you. It reminds us of our hope that the day will come when we all rise up from death.

The day is coming when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ; the greatest of all days; it is a time of joy and glory! How can we not be joyous when we think of His resurrection?  How can we not be joyous when we recall that if Jesus rose bodily from the grave, we will too?

Yes, truly there is joy in the air in this season of the year!

Prayerful Contemplation

Quiet time: It is as important to the maintenance of life as food and water… maybe more so.  Of course food and water are essential for physical life, but physical life is not eternal; spiritual life is eternal.

“Today, if you hear his voice, 
   do not harden your hearts.

(Hebrews 4:7)

We are not likely to hear His voice if we don’t take some quiet time for contemplation and prayer, but even if we do we will be more likely to harden our hearts to it; we’re busy people running to and fro after all.  A time of quiet contemplation helps us to focus on what is really important, on what is eternal.

Yes, take some time for quiet and keep your heart open to His leading; everything else will start to clear up when you do, and your walk will be closer to our Lord.

We Bow Down

Abraham Lincoln one said that there are times when he found himself falling to his knees before God, for there was no other place for him to go during the darkest days of Civil War.  I think there are times like that for all of us.

We don’t even need to be enduring bad times to respond in this way, in fact there are times to jump for joy to the Lord, and there are times to fall on our knees in thanksgiving as well.

The most important thing, whether we are living in good times or bad, is to remember that we need to be near to God…

Come, let us bow down in worship, 
   let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; 
 for he is our God 
   and we are the people of his pasture, 
   the flock under his care.

(Psalm 95:6-7)

God is my joy and my sustenance; my happiness and my comfort.

God is my life and my strength; my creator and my redeemed.

Quote of the Week

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office”
– Aesop 

The Glory of God

Look around you, what do you see?  Do you see the grandeur of God’s creation?

Even if we live in the city, God’s greatness is all around, and in the springtime it is as grand as it ever can get.  How can we be so callused as not to notice; how can we be so blind as not to see?

Our hearts burst forth with joy; our souls with praise for the One who made us… the one who also saved us!

 For the LORD is the great God, 
   the great King above all gods. 
 In his hand are the depths of the earth, 
   and the mountain peaks belong to him. 
 The sea is his, for he made it, 
   and his hands formed the dry land.

(Psalm 95:3-5)

Those Who’ve Gone Before

It sure is easy to think that nobody has ever lived through the trials and tribulations that we go through, and yet many have done so.  Some times we might think that our modern age is so vastly different that we are breaking new ground every minute… but we aren’t really.

The modern life that we lead in the early 21st century is different in some ways though…  Well, we are using computers aren’t we?

The challenges of every day aren’t really much different from what they were in the 19th century, except maybe for the speed of things.  We worry about our families, making ends meet, keeping our jobs, educating our kids and keeping them out of trouble…  so did they.

We deal with a culture that sometimes acts as if Christians came down from Mars… so did they.

We sometimes wonder about where our lives are headed… so did they.

That’s an important thing to bear in mind; we really aren’t that much different from people of the past.  People in earlier times faced the challenges of their lives and times and came through it all.  They succeeded in one great, awesome and magnificent accomplishment: They passed the Gospel of Jesus Christ on to the next generation so that you and I could have its blessings in our lives today, and in this we own those who have gone before us a great debt of gratitude.

In this light, we must always remember that it is up to us, the Body of Christ in the second decade of the 21st century to ensure that we hand down to the next generation the love and sustenance of our relationships with Jesus Christ.

May we honor those who have gone on before as we lift up the Name that is above all names!

Sunday Class Notes: March 25

So Who is this Jesus?

 

Today’s Text: John 7:25-52

Introduction

 

This week we pick up John’s narrative of Jesus’ discourse at the Festival of Tabernacles that we began last week.  At verse 25, John shifts the narrative to focus on the “the people ofJerusalem” which are those in attendance who are “hometown” attendees.  It would seem that at least some of them are aware of the plot afoot to kill Jesus.

Points of Interest

 

7:25-32            Where the Messiah would come from is the subject of much discussion and speculation in this passage, and it is a very important question relating to the validation of Jesus in the eyes of many people.  Can a Messiah come fromGalilee?  Would a Messiah come from anywhere in particular?  Or must he come fromBethlehem?  After Jesus’ statement in 28-29, they want to seize Him, but are unable because His time had not yet come to die; the murmuring continues until the Chief Priest orders the temple guards to arrest Him.

7:33-36            The scene closes with Jesus’ remarks about where He will ultimately go; a place they will never be able to follow.  Again the speculation rages among the Jews; again they simply can’t seem to comprehend that He is talking about Heaven which is His ultimate destination.  Again, they are frustrated.

7:37-39            Jesus begins His discourse of the last day by telling the people about “living water” which John points out to us is a reference to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit beginning at Pentecost. This, however, is not the direction that the remaining text will take…

7:40-44            After Jesus spoke of living water, the text returns to the confusion amongst His hearers.  They can’t seem to figure out what He is telling them, rather they are more concerned about ancillary issues.

7:45-52            In this final passage, we come face-to-face with the overwhelming desire on the part of the priests and Pharisees to disbelieve Jesus.  It would appear that their only interest is in silencing Him…

For discussion:

 

1. This passage is all about who Jesus was, and the speculation of the people about the issue.  Can you identify any important piece of information that they have failed to take into account?

2. It would seem that the priests and Pharisees have decided that they won’t believe anything Jesus says.  Have you ever encountered this tendency today?

3. If Jesus was not the Messiah, and if they couldn’t catch Him speaking a falsehood, why do you think it was so important to the leaders to have Him killed?

4. What do you think God is trying to teach us about the Gospel in this passage?

5. What can we learn about Jesus from this passage?

6. What can we learn about our response to the Gospel message from this passage?

Living Water

There’s nothing worse than being thirsty, seriously thirsty!

Millions are slowly dying of thirst in our world, but theirs is a different kind of thirst.  Spiritual thirst is pandemic and has been all through the ages.  The symptoms are fairly easy to identify: people grabbing any anything and everything in a vain attempt to satisfy the longing, and never succeeding in quenching their need for more.

In many cases they find a substitute that can mask the symptoms for a time, but the crisis always returns…

Jesus Christ offered Mankind living water, a kind of water that could quench a spiritual thirst for all time.  He said that this would be like a spring of water within, welling up into eternal life.

Spiritual thirst can be quenched; all we need to do is take a big long pull from the right cup!

And the Guns Fell Silent at Last

From the earliest days of Mankind, we have been in rebellion against God.  When Eve and then Adam ate the fruit that was forbidden to them because they believed the lie that by doing so they would become just like God, there was no peace on earth.

God had not created Mankind to endure endless rebellion, so He instituted a Plan…

…And the culmination of that Plan happened when Jesus Christ died on the cross for the forgiveness of Man’s sin (rebellion).

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

The curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

(Mark 15:37-38)

When Jesus died, the curtain within the temple that for so long separated Man from God’s presence was torn open, for from that time to this the way to God for us is wide open; the Way is through the blood of Christ shed for us. For those who choose to accept this peace offering, peace is at hand and the guns of rebellion fall silent.  For those who choose not to accept peace, the rebellion continues on until its complete failure on the last day.

I don’t know many people who really and truly think that they can beat God, although I know some who think they can just ignore or deny Him.  But even they know deep down that they can’t hope to prevail and avoid their sad fate.  Isn’t the wise course of action just to accept peace and forgiveness?