After the healing...

February 12, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today:  Jewish leaders seek to destroy Jesus; Matthew 21:15-16; Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47-48

Luke 19:47-48 (New English Translation)
47 Jesus was teaching daily in the temple courts. The chief priests and the experts in the law and the prominent leaders among the people were seeking to assassinate him,
48 but they could not find a way to do it, for all the people hung on his words.

After the cleansing of the temple, after the healing of the people, now is the time to teach the people.  It does no good to clean out the bad, and then heal the problems if the learning does not follow it.  This applies to those around me but to myself as well.  Jesus said in a parable that if you do not clean the house and keep in clean, then you will have the spirits return with seven others.

So I must take time to be in the Word daily.  I must take time to go to church to learn from respected preachers.  If I do not, my temple will again decay.  My long absences from writing these, be them just for myself or so that others can read them is not good.  While I know God forgives me, I know I felt the temple being dirtied. When that happens it is time to start the process over I guess.


Read for next time: Jesus leaves Jerusalem; Matthew 21:17; Mark 11:19
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After I clean the temple?

February 10, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today:  Jesus heals many in the temple; Matthew 21:14

Matthew 21:14 (Montgomery New Testament)
14 Then the blind and the lame came to him in the Temple courts, and he healed them.

Yesterday I looked at Jesus clearing the temple and that I should be about the work of clearing my own temple.

As I see it today, cleaning the temple is the first step in being able to do things for other.

When Jesus had cleared the temple, He was able to then use it for good, healing the people that needed healing.  As I looked at the Greek used, healed in the verse can also mean waited on.  Jesus acted as a servant to these people, taking care of the needs that they had.  

When my own temple has been cleaned, I am no longer focused on me or my needs.  While I may occasionally slip, that is not the life I will lead.  Taking care of the needs of others, waiting on them, that is the life the Jesus lead, even when He knew His time was short.

Clean temple, help people, how simple can it be?

Read for next time: Jewish leaders seek to destroy Jesus; Matthew 21:15-16; Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47-48

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Cleaning the Temple

February 10, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today:  The 2nd temple cleansing; Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46

Luke 19:45-46 (English Standard Version)
45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold,
46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

Jesus cleared the temple. There is not much spin that someone can put on this.  It was an upending of what the religious leaders of the time expected.  It does not take place in our time.

My body is a temple of God.  Like those days, I put things into it that do not need to be there and do things with it that I should not.  I need to learn that it is wrong.  I need to have a purging like Jesus did to that temple. If not, will it be done for me?


Read for next time: Jesus heals many in the temple; Matthew 21:14

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Leaves or Fruit

February 8, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today:  Jesus curses a fig tree; Mark 11:12-14


Jubilee2000: Mark Chapter 11

[12] And the next day when they left Bethany, he was hungry,
[13] and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing upon her; but when he came to her, he found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not [yet].
[14] Then Jesus, answering, said to the fig tree, Never again shall anyone eat fruit of thee [hereafter] for ever. And his disciples heard [it].

Integrity, according to a saying that I try to live by, and often fail, is what you do when no one is looking.  When you do not get the reward, when you could cheat because no one would notice, and you do not, that is integrity.  

Jesus saw a tree with leaves.  Most of the trees that I see with leaves in them are at least in the baby stages of fruit making. Jesus saw this tree with leaves and wanted some fruit.  And He found none.

So I live my life as a good Christian, or at least try.  Jesus is a far off and seeing me.  Does He see leaves on me, my lifestyle and Christian walk.  I hope so.  When He gets close, what fruit does He see in me.


Read for next time: The 2nd temple cleansing; Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46
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Does God change His mind?

February 7, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today: Jesus enters Jerusalem then goes to Bethany; Mark 11:11

NET Mark 11:11.
Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. And after looking around at everything, he went out to Bethany with the twelve since it was already late.

Sometimes things can seem so frustrating.  It will seem like God is telling you to do something but then everything seems to want to stop you from doing it.  Other times you see things one way but when you go to execute it things happen differently.  Is God changing His mind in these things?

Many times in writing these devotionals I meditate on the scripture and think of what I want to type up.  Only when I sit down to prepare it things come out way different.  I wondered then if God was changing His mind.  I have come to the conclusion that yes, sometimes He does change His mind.  Here in Mark 11:11 it seems that Jesus walks in, looks around and says nothing going on, and moves out.  But I think He had a plan, and when He got there, for whatever reason, maybe the guy did not show up, He just moved on.  

In my own life I need to have that same flexibility.  I need to know that when I start something, that it may not wind up the way that I expected, and God is OK with that.  God does change His mind.  


Read for next time: Jesus curses a fig tree; Mark 11:12-14

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What makes you happy?

February 5, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today: Jesus weeps for Jerusalem; Luke 19:41-44

Luke 19:42 (Bible in Basic English)
Saying, If you, even you, had knowledge today, of the things which give peace! but you are not able to see them.

What an indictment on Jerusalem, and also on me.  On this day when we are going to get hit with Super Bowl mania, and millions are spent on commercials to tell us what well make us happy and give us peace, Jesus tells us what it will be that gives us peace.  

It is not the things that will give me peace.  I find it funny that I could not leave work last night till I finished up with a customer.  I started with him and his wife 20 minutes before I was to leave, and staid with him for a full hour afterwards. He could not decide which TV would give him the most pleasure in watching the game today and though his baby was getting fussy the husband and wife debated on.  What was sad about the whole thing was that he was going to be preaching at Children’s service at his church this morning because the regular minister was stuck out of town.  So at midnight, when he should have been resting and preparing, he was out in the middle of bad roads and snow, finding the TV that would make him happy.

I know I am not much different, I look for things to make me happy.  I need to focus more on Jesus.  


Read for next time: Jesus enters Jerusalem then goes to Bethany; Mark 11:11

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Dirty Work

February 5, 2011

The life of Jesus. Read Today: Pharisees reaction; Luke 19:39-40; John 12:19

ESV: Luke 19:39. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

Does anyone else besides me see something wrong here?  Why are the Pharisees telling Jesus to have the disciples keep quiet?  As the leaders they could have told them to be quiet. Jesus, though we know better, was just an traveling preacher to them.  

So now the question becomes why did they want Jesus to do it and not do it themselves.  

My only thought is that people always want to keep their hands clean.  They do not want to do the dirty work.  They wanted Jesus to quiet the people not because they were wrong but because He was more popular then they were.  If it was wrong, they should have killed it then and there.  

People are always going to want you to do their dirty work for them.  I need to learn to make sure that when people want me to do something that it lines up with the Word of God.

Read for next time: Jesus weeps for Jerusalem; Luke 19:41-44
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