Category Archives: Lord Jesus

Overlooked scripture no. 5 “Who is my mother?”

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“One said to Him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with you.’  But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are my brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:47-50).

I’m so sorry, Catholic friends. But Scripture does not allow you to worship Mary.

There is no place for Mariolatry, as it is known, in the life of Jesus’ disciples.

We will give her the honor Scripture gives her. We have no trouble calling her blessed, for who would not be blessed by being chosen to bear God’s Son into the world. But no, she is not “the mother of God.”  Any way you slice it, the only way you can make Scripture justify worship of Mary is to ignore everything but a few selected verses.

A woman called out of the crowd to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you! And blessed are the breasts that nursed you!”  Jesus’ answer is significant.  “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28).

Jesus would not allow people to make of Mary more than she was.

And if I may say, I’m convinced Mary herself would be horrified to see the way people have taken honor from the Savior and handed it to her.

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Overlooked Scripture No. 2 “Why Jesus is the authority on Heaven”

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“No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).

Jesus knows about Heaven.

He should. He’s a native.

When He speaks of Heavenly things, everyone else on the field should retire and every mouth be closed.  No one else carries the credentials Jesus does regarding the divine.

I wonder if people have ever considered the width and breadth and depth of this statement (the text above), given by our Lord to Nicodemus.

John MacArthur said, This verse contradicts other religious systems’ claims to special revelation from God. Jesus insisted that no one has ascended to heaven in such a way as to return and talk about heavenly things (cf.2 Cor. 12:1-4). Only He had His permanent abode in heaven prior to His incarnation and therefore, only He has the true knowledge regarding heavenly wisdom (cf. Proverbs 30:4).

Question:  Didn’t other biblical characters go to heaven? Didn’t Enoch? And Elijah? And on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus met with Moses and Elijah, weren’t they from Heaven?  Aren’t the “dead in Christ” at home with the Lord?

Our answer:  Heaven seems to be a huge place.  (smile, please)  So, perhaps in saying no one had been there except the One who came from there, referring to Himself, Jesus meant no one had yet entered the Holy of Holies itself. The throne-room of the Godhead.  Only He.

Humans have known for centuries that the universe is huge.  But only in the last, say, 100 years have we learned just how big it is.

Mind-blowing big.

We do not have to use our imagination to think of Heaven as incredibly large.  We can see that by walking outside on a dark night and glancing upward.

Scripture speaks of heaven in at least three ways: the sky above us, the physical universe around us, and the remote and holy dwelling-place of the Lord and the host of heaven.

Even so, we would err, I imagine, in devoting too much time to reflecting on the various heavens or what portion of heaven Jesus meant. These are unknowable.  The point He was making to Nicodemus that day should take our attention:

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Pastor, those scars on your soul are blessed of God

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I bear in my body the brand-marks of Jesus.  Galatians 6:17.

We all do.

I suppose it’s a vocational hazard.

We preachers walk through the valley of the shadow with people in the church and out of it. We give them our best, weep with them, tell what we know, and offer all the encouragement we can. Then, we go on to the next thing. Someone else is needing us.

That family we ministered to, however, does not go on to anything. They are forever saddled with the loss of that child or parent. They still carry the hole in their heart and return to the empty house or sad playroom. However, there is one positive thing they will always carry with them.

They never forget how the pastor ministered to them.

He forgets.

Not because he meant to, but because after them, he was called to more hospital rooms, more funeral homes, and more counseling situations. He walked away from that family knowing he had a choice: he could leave a piece of himself with them–his heart, his soul, something–or he could close the door on that sad room in his inner sanctum in order to be able to give of himself to the next crisis.

If he leaves a piece of himself with every broken-hearted family he works with, pretty soon there’s nothing left.

So he turns it off when he walks away. He goes on to the next thing.

He hates doing that. But it’s a survival thing. It’s the only way to last in this kind of tear-your-heart-out-and-stomp-that-sucker ministry.

Case in point.

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Make Jesus proud of you

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When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8)

What Jesus was looking for — was when He walked the dusty roads of Galilee and still today — is faith. Nothing touches His heart like encountering someone who believes in Him and accepts that He is the Son of the living God. “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” we read in Hebrews 11:6.

That’s the point.

Four men heard Jesus was in the little house down the road and sprang into action. For days, they had been waiting on this moment. They hurried down to their friend’s house and loaded him onto a pallet. (I call it a pallet. It could have been something as simple as a quilt.) Each grabbed a corner and they hoisted up their paralyzed colleague and proceeded out the door and down the road. Today, their friend would meet Jesus the Healer.

Arriving at the house, they ran into a problem. The place was packed out. People were stuffed into the doorways and hanging out the windows. No one made any move toward opening a way into the house for them.

Okay.  They had to do something.  Waiting until the Lord ended His teaching inside was not an option.  Paralyzed people have needs.  And those caring for them need to act promptly.

The four men, still bearing their burden of love, walked around the side of the house and up the outside stairs to the roof. (Note: Some may need reminding that in that part of the world, homes were constructed with flat tops so that on hot nights, family could sleep outside for coolness and atop the house for safety. If they had guests, the roof functioned as an extra bedroom.)

They laid the man down and proceeded to tearing into the roof.

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How could you not feel special?

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He who did not spare His own Son–but delivered Him up for us all–how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?  (Romans 8:32)

Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God! And such we are!  (I John 3:1)

First story.

I was doing a revival in Jerry Clower’s church.

The year was 1990 and we were in East Fork Baptist Church between McComb and Liberty, Mississippi.  Anyone who has ever heard the inimitable Jerry Clower tell his stories will have heard of this church where he grew up.

That week I was staying in the Clower camphouse, a block through the woods from Jerry and Homerline’s mansion.  We had morning services each day that week at 10  and evening services.  The Clowers did not miss a service.

The organist was Clyde Whittington.

Mr. Clyde had one arm.  You read that right; the church organist was playing the hymns with one arm.

We were at lunch one day–Jerry, and Clyde and I—and Jerry said, “Clyde, I want you to tell Brother Joe how you lost that arm.”

He was baling hay, he said.  The baler was the same kind we had used on the Alabama farm where I grew up.  You pull the baler over to the pile of hay, then uncouple it and turn the tractor around and use a conveyor belt from the tractor to the baler to operate it.  (Sorry, that’s as good as I can describe the process.)  Usually, baling hay would require several people. Mr. Clyde was doing it alone.

You feed the hay into the baler, then get out of the way of the huge arm with a claw slams down upon the hay driving it into the bottom area, then packing it and sending it down the tube to be tied off into bales.  Mr. Clyde was doing it all himself.

And somehow–I’m unclear on this–the huge arm with a claw caught his arm and drove it down into the bottom area.  Breaking it badly.

Not only was his arm now crushed, Mr. Clyde was stuck.  He couldn’t extricate himself from the baler.

And he is alone.  A half mile from the house.

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We can love Him here and He feels it there

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If you love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15).  He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me (John 14:21).  If anyone loves me, he will keep my word (John 14:23).  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love (John 15:10).  You are my friends if you do whatever I command you (John 15:14).

Anyone see a trend in these verses? He wants us to love Him and tells us how: Obedience. 

With that in mind, the question before us is this: Is it possible to do something so loving, so affectionate, so Christ-honoring here on earth that Jesus will feel it in Heaven’s Throneroom?

Can I do something loving for Jesus here and have Him feel the love there?

Yes.  Absolutely.

We direct your attention to the woman of Luke 7:36ff.

 

Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil….

What courage it took for this fallen woman–known to be so–to enter a home where she was not welcome in order to see the Savior.  What depth of love drove her to His feet where she wept and worshiped.  Then, seeing what she had done and with nothing to dry the tears on His feet, she let down her hair and used it for a towel.  Then–in for a dime, in for a dollar–she broke open a flask of ointment and began to anoint His feet. The fragrance filled the house.  No one was unaware of her presence or of what she was doing.

A drama ensued. The Pharisee-host fumed inwardly, and our Lord turned it into one of Scripture’s greatest object lessons. We do love everything about this wonderful story.

It’s a lovely story.  We admire this woman.  And in some ways we envy her. We wish we had her courage, ignoring what people were thinking in order to do something that pleased Jesus.

What Christ-lover would not relish the opportunity to sit at the feel of our Lord and worship Him with our tears and our touch.

That day is coming, saints of the Lord.  Be faithful.

There is a sense, however, in which we can do that now.

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The one question we have for Jesus

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Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceedingly glad; for he had desired for a long time to see Him, because he had heard many things about Him…. And he questioned Him with many words…. (Luke 23:8-9).

Someone asked Larry King, the legendary television interviewer, if he could sit across the table and interview one person in all of history, who would it be.

“Jesus Christ,” answered this man who is Jewish.

“And what would you ask him?”

“I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born.  The answer to that question would define history for me.”

To be sure. That answer could change everything.  As it has for many a person.

So with the resurrection.  Answer that in the affirmative and everything else falls into place.

Many people asked questions of Jesus…

In the Gospels, we find people asking one question of the Lord Jesus, then going their way.  We have to wonder if through the years, as they reflected on their single moment with Destiny, this one touch with the Divine, they didn’t regret the shallowness or superficiality of their request.  Here are some…

–The disciples of John asked why they had to fast, but Jesus’ disciples were not required to.  Matthew 9:14.

–The tricksters asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” that they might accuse Him.  Matthew 12:10. It’s not a bad question, although they didn’t care for the Lord’s answer.

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Proof that we are lost without Jesus

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The overwhelming proof of the lostness of mankind is that people rarely look up from the humdrum existence of their daily lives to ask, “Where is all this headed? What is out there? Where are we going?”

In a 1965 sermon reprinted in the May 2010 issue of Decision magazine, Billy Graham tells of the time when Robert Ingersoll, well-known atheist of the 19th century, was addressing an audience in a small town in New York. The orator forcefully laid out his doubts concerning a future judgement and the reality of hell.

At the conclusion, a drunk stood up in the back of the room, and said through slurred speech, “I sure hope you’re right, Brother Bob. I’m counting on that!”

Billy Graham commented, “Modern man does not like to think of God in terms of wrath, anger and judgment. He likes to make God according to his own ideas and give God the characteristics he wants Him to possess. Man wants to remake God to conform to his own wishful thinking, so that he can make himself comfortable in his sins.”

That struck a note with me. I had just been reading where someone did just that.

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Why Christians make so much of Jesus

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Jesus Christ was the First. The Most. The Best. The Last. The Everything.

Scripture ransacks the human language looking for superlatives enough to give mankind some kind of idea who this Person was who was born of a virgin, lived without sin, taught us of Heaven, and died in our place.  His resurrection and ascension forever secured His place in the history and thought and conversation of this small planet.

Earth has never seen another like Him.  He is unique.

Christianity and the Christian life are all about Jesus.

Regardless of what they tell you, the Christian faith is not about love.

It’s not about morals and doing good.

The Christian faith is not about helping one another and be ye kind and see you in church.

Love and morals and doing good, helping one another and showing kindness and attending worship are the byproducts of the Christian faith when done right.

But the Christian faith itself is all about one Person and One Person Only:  The Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the only Savior. He is the only sin-offering. He is the one and only mediator between God and man. He alone reveals God the Father to us.  His is the only Name by which we must be saved.

Jesus.  It’s all about Jesus.

The disciples said to Jesus, “Show us the Father and that’ll be enough for us!”  He answered, “Have I been so long with you and you still don’t know who I am?”  He paused for effect and said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (That’s John 14:8-9.)

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Why we need to say “I love you.”

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“My little children, let us not love in word or tongue (only), but in deed and in truth”(I John 3:18).

In our effort to encourage people to “love one another,” we must not leave the impression that words do not count.  While deeds of love and other expressions are vital, a lot of people need to hear the actual words.

“I love you.”  “You have no idea how much you mean to me.” “Thank you for being such a precious friend.” “I treasure you.”

Speaking love is a good thing to do.

First, something inside me needs to speak words of love.  It’s good for me.

One day, my young grandson said, “Grandpa, why do you tell me you love me so much?”

How perceptive, I thought. And such a good question. Why do I do that?

I said, “Grant, the love inside me keeps building up and I have to let it out. And the only way to do that is to say the words.”  Otherwise, I seemed to feel, I would explode.

This satisfied him. And it expresses the truth as well as anything I know.

Speaking love to someone dear to us can be a kind of pressure relief value.  We will explode if we don’t tell that person of our love.

For this reason, writing a love letter to our sweetheart can be almost as good as receiving one from them.

It’s good for us to say “I love you.”

We have all heard stories of a husband saying, “Honey, I love you so much it’s all I can do to keep from telling you.”  We want to scream, “Tell her! Tell her!”

You’ve heard of the trucker whose rig went off a Colorado mountainside in a snowstorm. He was found several days later, buried in the snow, his truck a crumpled wreck.  During the hours before he died, the man had written a note to his wife. He told her how much she meant to him, and added, “I’m so sorry I never told you.”

That line is nearly as tragic as the wreck itself.

In Dan Fogelberg’s tribute to his father called The Leader of the Band, one memorable line stands out:  And Papa, I don’t think I said ‘I love you’ near enough.

Most of us do not say it nearly enough.

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