Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Forgiveness

Just got home a little while ago, from spending time at His Mansion in Deering, NH.  This was a trip planned by the Calvary Cruisers as an opportunity to minister through service.  We went over on Friday night.  Unfortunately we didn't ride motorcycles for several reasons:
  • the weather the past several days has been on and off thunderstorms
  • Got home from work too late to avoid riding at night
  • Plus I don't have a motorcycle (that makes it tough).  Actually have put down a deposit and am picking up a new one Tuesday night.
 Anyways back to our trip to His Mansion.  After breakfast on Saturday morning we were taken to the mission field in order to save the cucumber plants from weeds.   This might at first not seem like a bold service for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  However His Mansion is an incredible ministry that provides long term Christian residential care for young adults struggling with addictions and abuse.  So any work that they needed done is a ministry and on the day we were there they needed weeds pulled.

Not only did we have an opportunity for service we were able to share several meals with the staff and residents. As is always the case when you go somewhere to provide encouragement and support, you end up being blessed and in turn more encouraged by God's grace than before.

In this post I would like to continue with a look at Luke 5:17- 26.  As I mentioned several posting ago I wanted to look at this passage from several perspectives.
  • The challenge of the Scribes and Pharisees
  • The faith of the friends
  • The priority and power to forgive sins
  • The healing
We have already looked at the first 2 in the previous posting.  This time I would like to discuss the priority and the power to forgive sins.    I have included here again to refresh you memory.

Luke 5:17 Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. 18 Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. 19 And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.
20 When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
25 Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. 26 And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!”


The man mentioned in this story is paralyzed in such a way that he is unable to walk.   His friends go to extraordinary steps to bring him before Jesus.  The hope is that Jesus would heal him and the man would be able to walk.  However the scribes and pharisees are present and looking to charge Jesus to expose Him as a fraud.   He was treading on thier turf.  So what does Jesus do, He looks at the man and says "...your sins are forgiven you.".  We have already discussed the reaction of the scribes and pharisees, so lets look at our reaction.


We might be surprised that Jesus didn't heal the man right away.   Why did he forgive his sins.  How did Jesus know that the man needed his sins forgiven?  In reality this is exactly what is needed by everyone.  I will only include 2 more verses.

1 Kings 8:46 "When they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to his own land, far away or near; 47 and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their conquerors and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly';

Rom 3:22b For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 Everyone has sinned.  Everyone has a broken relationship with God.  We have all put ourselves first.  We rebel against the authority of God.   And we all feel that emptiness.  We fill that emptiness with pleasure, abuse, selfish pursuits, vanity and so forth.  But none of these bring satisfaction.   We go around hurting, seeking healing.  So the man that came to Jesus also had that hurt.   The priority is the forgiveness of his sins.  A restoration of his relationship with God. 

The Pharisees made a good point, only God can forgive sins.  When Jesus healed the man and demostrated His power.  It signified He was God.   He had the authority and power to forgive sins, heal the broken spirit and the broken body.

If you do not know Jesus as Savior, than you are in worse shape than the man who was paralyzed.  You are walking around with a broken relationship with God.   You have not experienced the incredible healing of His forgiveness. 

To find out more on how you can know God's forgiveness and receive eternal life check out "The Bridge to Eternal Life".



Sunday, June 21, 2009

Friends

You noticed I didn't get to fancy with the title of this post.  It just seemed right to me to highlight the idea of friends as a simple concept with profound meaning to our lives.

Beside from our relationship to God as being the primary purpose in our lives, there is also a very real and important message conveyed in God's Word about our relationship with each other.  The aesthetics (monks) who sequestered themselves away from other people in order to draw closer to God and lead a holy life, were pursuing a goal that is unobtainable.  How can we possibly have a close relationship with God and ignore others?

Mt 22:35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’


We are to love our neighbors, not shut them out.  I could write pages on the trends in our society that break down relationships and are destroying communities.  Instead though I would like to focus on the passage we looked at last time where one of the major themes was the faith of the paralytics friends.

I am not going to include the quote from Luke 5:17-26 in this posting.  If you do not have a Bible handy you can refer pack to my posting on May 24th. In my last posting I mentioned 4 major themes from this passage.

  • The challenge of the Scribes and Pharisees
  • The faith of the friends
  • The priority and power to forgive sins
  • The healing
In the last posting we talked about the challenge of the Scribes and Pharisees.  We saw that they had a heart attitude that put them in opposition to Jesus.

Moving onto the second theme, what do we know about the paralytics friends?
  • They were helpful.  They were willing to carry their friend. What a great picture.  Friendship here isn't about sports, hanging out, watching a movie or going out drinking.   Friendship is about helping.  Here we see a picture of friends literally carrying the burden of their friend to Jesus.
  • They were willing to persevere for thier friend.  When the going got tough because of the crowds, they climbed on the roof of the house Jesus was teaching in.  The opened up the roof and lowered their friend in front of Jesus.  Their was a physical obstacle to overcome, getting to Jesus.  And a social obstacle.  I am sure some of the crowd were not happy with their bold move to get to the front of the line.
  • They were faithful.  I think they demonstrate faithfulness in two ways.  First they were faithful in bringing their friend to Jesus no matter what the obstacles.   The paralytic had friends that he could trust to standby him and help him.   I also believe they demonstrated faith in Jesus, trusting that Jesus would take care of their friends needs.  Jesus acknowledged their faithfulness in believing that Jesus could heal.
 Some of you reading this post are my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I urge you at every opportunity to bring your friends to Jesus.   Your faith in Jesus to heal their broken souls will be acknowledged by Him.

Maybe you are my friends and family who do not know Jesus or you are a friend of someone who has forwarded this posting.   I would urge you to follow the link below and read how you can know the salvation message.

Bridge to Eternal Life