Tag: Jesus

Posted on

Surrendering to God

grayscale of photo of man

Jesus said to his disciples very plainly, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). He continued, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (vs. 25-26).

Obviously Jesus is asking rhetorical questions so that his disciples really understand that we can’t sell out our souls. Put another way, “why sell your soul to the devil?” Your soul is worth so much more than earthly riches. If anyone really wants to be a disciple of Jesus, he must deny himself, take up his cross (be willing to suffer) and follow Christ. This is the true definition of surrender.

Yet millions of people struggle with surrendering to God. People usually don’t admit it, but they surrender every day to lots of other worldly things. They surrender their time to vanity, chasing after nicer things, and workaholism to pay for those things. Jesus gives us a better way. In fact, he is the way, the truth and the life. There is no other path to salvation. There are no other doors. If we miss the Jesus boat, we miss it altogether. There are no second chances once we die. We must surrender to God.

Posted on

The baby who leaped for joy

smiling baby lying on bed in room

When Mary visited her relative Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, the baby leaped for joy: “For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44). Joy surrounded the birth of Jesus. When the shepherds were in the field in the middle of the night, an angel appeared. The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. The angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people” (Luke 2:10).

As the wise men saw the star that went before them and came to rest over the place where the baby Jesus was, “they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10). In John 15:11, Jesus says plainly, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jesus said this in the context of him being the vine and us being the branches. He says that if we abide in him and bear much fruit, we glorify the Father. Jesus concludes by saying, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10).

All throughout the scriptures, joy is a theme that is directly tied to Jesus. And this combination of love and joy is powerful. By keeping Jesus’ commandments, we abide in his love! In other words, we are controlled by his love and we can see people the way Jesus saw them. We instinctively know how to treat others because of the love of Christ that guides us. God’s love for us begins and ends with joy.

Posted on

Out of Egypt I Called My Son

Jesus

The parallels between the Exodus story and Jesus’s birth and first years are not accidental. Throughout the Bible, and because of God’s throne of righteousness and justice, God cares for what philosopher and theologian Nicolas Wolterstorff dubs “the quartet of vulnerable.” Those include widows, orphans, aliens, and the impoverished. It’s no accident that Jesus was born extremely poor to an unmarried Jewish couple. They were outcasts and had to flee to Egypt to escape death.

King Herod wanted to see Jesus, under the pretense of worshiping him but presumably to kill him. The wise men tricked Herod and an angel warned Joseph to take the child and flee to Egypt. Matthew records: “And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son'” (Matthew 2:14-15 ESV).

This evoked the whole Egypt experience. Israel was living under oppression with a Pharaoh who wouldn’t let the Israelites go. The last plague required a sacrifice, a slain lambs’ blood to be painted over the door frame. Then God miraculously led the Israelites out of the foreign land of oppression into the Promised Land. God doesn’t just parallel these stories, Christ reenacts the whole Egypt experience.

People waited for the Messiah with anticipation. They longed to be healed. They longed to be freed. The vulnerable quartet of widows, orphans, aliens, and impoverished finally had a redeemer and protector-one who not only could save them, but one who also would.

Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash