Jesus Keeps Pursuing, Even When We are Ignorant

Many people have interpreted Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well as a model for personal evangelism for Christians.  That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.  Perhaps more significantly, however, we can look at this episode to see how we are like the woman, and how Jesus is our great Pursuer.  This passage shows us our immense need to constantly come to the Fountain of life and drink.

In John 4:4, it says that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.”  He didn’t do this because it was the shortest route, but because he had an appointment.  He had an appointment with a woman who needed to be pursued — a woman who needed to be saved.

Notice the conversation in verses 7-25.  The woman is continually plagued by a lack of spiritual fiber in her bones.  She can’t handle spiritual realities.  She’s blind.  She’s ignorant.  She’s only able to think in terms of things she can see and touch:

• She thinks Jesus can’t give her water because he doesn’t have a bucket (v. 11).
• She thinks Jesus gives water so she won’t have to come to draw from this particular well anymore (v. 15).
• She avoids her sin by starting a debate about where people should worship (vv. 19-20).

If we are honest with ourselves, we are the woman.  Even the disciples didn’t always digest deep, spiritual realities (e.g. John 4:33).  We continually need the great, pursuing Savior to tear away the blinders of spiritual ignorance and give us knowledge of himself.

Where do you see yourself in this woman?  Where are you ignorant of Jesus’ pursuit of you?  How will you respond?

If Being a Real Man Means Watching UFC, Then I’m Out

If you are a Christian dude, you’ve probably talked about what being a “real man” means.  Other than the obvious (reading your Bible, praying, repenting of sin, etc.), here are some of the more curious things I’ve heard.  A real man: watches UFC, never wears bright colored shirts, does not listen to contemporary Christian music, smokes good cigars, owns a shotgun or rifle, and drives a Jeep or an F-250.  There are others, but you get the idea.

It seems that we encourage men at retreats and conferences to do these types of “dude things” so they can “live missionally” in the culture.  I’m not saying that these things are sins (though they may be).  I’m not saying never go to the bar to hang out with your non-Christian neighbor.  My point is that there are huge oversights in the male Christian community that would help young men grow in holiness and make some non-Christians scratch their heads.

I’m thinking about service and responsibility, particularly regarding how you live your life in your home.

Most of this list comes from what I’ve observed as I’ve lived with other men for the past seven years.  Basically, it comes down to common sense, courtesy, and responsibility.  Real men:

• Know how to wash the dishes and put them away.
• Sweep the floor when it’s dirty.
• Take off their wet shoes when they walk in a house.
• Do laundry instead of using Febreeze.
• Make the whole bed instead of just throwing the comforter over the messed-up sheets.
• Wash their facial hair down the drain after shaving.
• Keep their clothes in their closet, not on the arm of the couch.
• Take out the garbage (without being asked).
• Do not treat their vehicle like a garbage can.
• Offer to let someone else use the TV remote for a change.
• Do not insist on always seeing a shoot-em-up flick with their girlfriend/fiancee/wife.
• Vacuum and dust on a regular basis (not just before Mom and Dad come to visit).

If you are that guy who says, “This is chick stuff,” thank you.  You just proved my point.  I’m not talking about being a domesticated she-man who stays at home wearing an apron while his wife brings home the bacon.  Not at all.  But let me be honest: if you can’t do these things, you aren’t a man, and you aren’t ready to take care of a household, wife, and kids.

You don’t need to be Mr. Clean, but be quick to serve and regard others as more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3).  A true leader is a servant.  Are you the guy with two-week old pizza boxes on the carpet, playing Xbox in a t-shirt that hasn’t been washed since May?  There’s a remedy: get off this blog, go pick up a broom, and serve somebody.

Think about this: if you were to ask 100 Christian women if they’d prefer a man who could do a UFC move while smoking a cigar or one who knew how to keep an organized, tidy house, how do you think 100 of them would answer?

Preaching in Pretoria

Oh no. He’s refuting my sermon points before I even speak.  Jesus, there’s either going to be radical transformation today, or I’m going to be chased to my car.  I shouldn’t have worn flip-flops.

Those were my thoughts as the service began this morning at my friend Lordwick’s church here in a South African township, when John, the “emcee,” was up front.  He excitedly talked about enjoying a prosperous life as a Christian.   At one point he said, “If you are in trouble, if you are suffering, there is something wrong with you.  You need to get close to God.”

The demonic prosperity gospel has an enormous stronghold here in Africa. I wanted to confront it head-on.  I wanted God to do a mighty work and reveal the true nature of the gospel.  I knew that because of what I was going to say, suffering could come my way.

While I sat and listened to John’s pre-sermon ’sermon’ and the loud, keyboard-driven praise music, I prayed that God would come with power to preach boldly — even if the message would be unpopular.  I prayed for transformation.  And by God’s grace, I think we saw the beginning of transformation by the time we were done.

Let me be honest: after the service, I tried to avoid John.  But he found me (it wasn’t hard, there were only about 40 people, and more than half were children).  He grabbed me and shook my hand and said, “James, you have opened my eyes up to something I didn’t know about.  I thought when I have Jesus, the money should flow in.  But I realize that I wasn’t believing the real gospel.  Your message, it was the real gospel.”  I was floored.  All I could say to him was, “Praise God.”  I gave my manuscript to John, and over lunch, we talked about getting him more resources that will help him be shaped by the real gospel.

With this response, God answered my prayer.  All week I had been praying that God would open people’s eyes to see.  I can’t do that.  Yet, that is exactly what God told Paul to do in Acts 26:18, “I am sending you to open their eyes.”  How can we do this impossible thing? It is only by God’s grace that he works through us.  Anything is possible with him.  He is the one who says, “Let light shine!” (2 Cor. 4:6). And he did today.  In fact, he’s doing it everyday.

John was just one man, during one service, after one sermon, in one small, sweaty, school room in South Africa.  But it’s a testament to God’s grace and power.  It’s a testament to his kindness in answering prayer.  It’s a testament that he is the one who opens eyes, and that he uses nobodies like me to do it.

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Thanks to Rylan for the pictures!  Preaching with a translator is never easy (this was my second time).  It’s difficult to get in rhythm because I have to speak very simply (he’s not a professional translator) and sentence-by-sentence.  But by the end though, Lordwick and I started to feed off each other.  Listen to or read the message.

Did Jesus Heal One or Two Demon-Possessed Men in the Gadarenes?

What do we make of passages like Matthew 8:28-34, which says that Jesus healed two demon-possessed men in the country of the Gadarenes, while Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39 record Jesus healing one?  An agnostic, atheist, or even a Jew might cry, “CONTRADICTION!  The Bible is false!”  A closer look with some critical thinking, however,  will reveal otherwise.

There are at least three reasons why I don’t think these passages are contradictory:

1. In narrative accounts — even non-biblical ones — there are always different aspects of a story that authors choose to focus on. Mark and Luke focus on the man who desired to follow Jesus and the command given to him to be a missionary at home rather than a traveling one with Jesus (Mark 5:18-19; Luke 8:38-39).  Matthew focuses on the fact that Jews in the nearby town rejected him by begging him to leave their region (8:34).   This fits well into the context because Jesus had just said that “many will come from east and west [that is, Gentiles] and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom [that is, the Jews] will be thrown into the outer darkness” (8:11-12).  Remember that Matthew’s account is the most “Jewish,” in that its goal is to present and proclaim Jesus as Israel’s Messiah.
2. Mark and Luke never say that Jesus healed only one man. Both write that Jesus met “a man” who was possessed by demons.  By choosing to ignore the second man mentioned in Matthew they do not deny his existence in the story.  Rather, perhaps Mark and Luke focus their attention on the one because he was compelled to follow Jesus, unlike the other.
3. There seems to be a difference in the particular kind of demon-possession both men experienced. Mark 5:15 says, “And [the townspeople] came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.”  Why would Mark write “the one who had had the legion” if there was only one man healed?  Wouldn’t he have just written that they “saw the demon-possessed man,” and left it at that?  He would have — unless there were two men with different types of demon-possession.  Further, Luke 8:30 tells us that the name of the demon in this man was “Legion,” because “many demons had entered him.”  Perhaps the other man only had one or two and not a multitude.  It makes sense then that the man in Mark and Luke would be the one to follow Jesus.  For he loved much because he was forgiven much, “but he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke. 7:47).

The Incarnation Leads to Joy

If you had a chance to prove Jesus really lived on the earth, what evidence would you give?  A miracle?  A sign?  A revelation?  A dream?  Well, in 1 John 1:1-4, John gives us evidence that is much more concrete than that.  He writes:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us (vv. 1-2).

He doesn’t appeal to some kind of ecstatic vision or religious experience.  John is saying, “I saw Jesus with my own two eyes.  I touched him.  I talked to him.  I walked the hot desert roads of Israel with him.  I sat at the foot of his cross weeping with his mother while I watched him die.  And I saw the empty tomb before he appeared to me in the flesh.  This man is real and he is co-eternal with God the Father since eternity.  This man is God.”

John’s not playing games.  And he’s not writing this to be a fun-sucking, religious kill-joy who is ready to condemn sinners.  Instead, he writes to obtain the highest joy — the joy of having fellowship with God and his people: “We proclaim [this] also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.  And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (v. 3-4).

If Jesus had never come to Earth, complete joy and fellowship with God and others would not have been possible.  There would only have been dead religion and subjective experience.  John’s not interested in that, and neither am I.

Spurgeon on Praying in the Spirit

The seed of acceptable devotion must come from heaven’s storehouse.  Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God.

Spurgeon’s five aspects of praying in the Spirit:

1. Fervency: “Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all.”
2. Perseveringly: “The longer the gate is closed, the more vehemently does he uses the knocker.”
3. Humbly: “Out of hte depths must we cry, or we shall never behold glory in the highest.”
4. Loving: “Prayer should be perfumed with love, saturated with love — love to saints, and love to Christ.”
5. Faith: “A man prevails only as he believes.”

Most blessed Comforter, exert Thy mighty power within us, helping our infirmities in prayer!

Read the whole thing here.

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Related Posts:

• We Pray Because Only God Can Do It
• Persevering in Prayer
• Faith in Prayer

More Thoughts on Loving and Liking

I wanted to clarify a few things from my last post.  Here are four things that I do not mean when I say that loving and liking someone is the same thing:

• I don’t mean that you have to be buddy-buddy with every person.  There is a way to be gentle, respectful, kind, truthful, and interested in their well-being without being a “friend.”
• I don’t mean that you have to be “nice” at the expense of truth.  For more on this, read this post.
• I don’t mean that you have to agree with — or even be tolerant of — every opinion out there.
• I don’t mean that you have eliminate emotions and never get frustrated, angry, sad, etc.

As Christians, we are called to genuinely love every person since they are made in God’s image.  Romans 12:9, 10 says, “Let love be genuine…Outdo one another in showing honor.”  If you do not genuinely like someone, I’m willing to bet you won’t try very hard to love them, and you won’t go out of your way to show them honor.  Paul commands us in Galatians 6:10 to do good to everyone.  Doing good comes from a heart-level desire for the benefit of another’s well-being.  If you do not like someone, you will not be concerned for their well-being.

By God’s grace, let us pursue the great exhortation of Paul to the young Timothy: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5).

“I’m Called To Love Them, But I Don’t Have to Like Them!”

Have you ever heard a Christian say this?  I’ve not only heard it, but said it many times. Yesterday, talking about Barack Obama, a friend told me that they love Obama but don’t like him.  (By the way, this was right before he called Obama a “self aggrandizing, arrogant socialist…who is a piss-poor leader.”)

Sometimes I wonder if we say “I love him, but I just don’t like him,” so that we can justify our sinful and selfish attitude or behavior toward an individual who is hard to love.  We say we love them and that love is a matter of the will, not an emotion.  That is, we argue that love is a choice, not a feeling, as my friend did.

But don’t feelings necessarily arise from the choices of our will?  I think they do.

I don’t see a difference in the Scriptures between liking and loving.  I think that we say things like this simply because we don’t want to do the hard, messy work of actually loving.  Consider though how God has loved us — the untouchable, unlovable sinners that we are.  He never said, “Well, I quite dislike this group since they are a stench to me, but I guess I’ll send my Son to show them how much I love them.”  The call for us is to be like him: “You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

In an article from 1970, John Piper talks about how it is impossible to have the will to love someone if we dislike them:

If we dislike another person it will be impossible to consistently will the loving thing for that person. Sometimes we will simply forget to restrain our feelings and other times when we think we have willed the loving thing, our dislike will have sneaked in through a patronizing tone of voice or a depreciating glance. We cannot love consistently if we do not like (emphasis added).

Jesus said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven,” and also, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matt. 5:16; 44).  He did not say, “Love your enemies, but feel free to not like them if want.”  No one will glorify your Father in heaven for that.

What are your thoughts?

How Would Jesus Fare in a CNN Poll?

Jesus didn’t care much for public opinion.  Most people knew he didn’t give a rip about what others thought.  And for those who didn’t know, he made overwhelmingly clear when he talked to them.

Pharisees (un)Anonymous

Session 2:

Too often, I’m more concerned about the external tidiness my relationships, public ministry, and quiet times instead of being vulnerable, admitting that there’s a bigger mess underneath than I’d like to admit.