When God’s Name is Unpalatable

While all this was going on, Peter was down in the courtyard. One of the Chief Priest's servant girls came in and, seeing Peter warming himself there, looked hard at him and said, "You were with the Nazarene, Jesus." He denied it: "I don't know what you're talking about." He went out on the porch. A rooster crowed. The girl spotted him and began telling the people standing around, "He's one of them." He denied it again. After a little while, the bystanders brought it up again. "You've got to be one of them. You've got 'Galilean' written all over you." Now Peter got really nervous and swore, "I never laid eyes on this man you're talking about." Just then the rooster crowed a second time. Peter remembered how Jesus had said, "Before a rooster crows twice, you'll deny me three times." He collapsed in tears. Mark 14:66-72(MSG)

It is no coincident or surprise that sometimes we do not find it palatable to identify with Jesus. The natural man cannot but repel any affiliation with a holy God because such will confront and seek to dethrone the authority is has always enjoyed. Anytime an enclosure with the natural man seems comfortable, the name of Jesus often tastes bland. We all know those times when the object of our lust seem to present an occasion for us to take a bite, those times when licking the honey that was forbidden seem to have the greatest attraction for us, those times when our company looks so impeccable that the mention of the name of Jesus could seem to tarnish our personality, those times when a little lie to strike the next deal stands between us and the profession of our faith, those times when the sweetest note in seraphs song appear to be a out of tune in our melodies. At such times, God’s name is unpalatable.

 Peter came to this same point and did what many of us have done, is doing and will do. He denied his Master. How do you think it's that simple to identify with the man who everyone is set to crucify? How many people will stand at such times? Really, there are times when the name of Jesus tastes unpalatable. What is the way out at this crossroad? Maybe, he shouldn't have been there in the first place after all he couldn't have preached to anyone at such environment and he was not ready to die with the Master. These are times when our feet surreptitiously drag us to our death. Peter's presumptuousness gagged his testimony. It will always pay to give up on self and follow Divine wisdom. Jesus went to eat with sinners when He had time to be their physician and not when they sought to take His life before the appointed time, though He is the Son of God. Wisdom is profitable to direct. It is more profitable to avoid these near-death scenarios than to fall headlong especially when we know the possible outcome. It takes a Daniel to fall into the lions’ den and not eaten up as well as it takes the three Hebrew boys to go into the furnace and not burnt. They were moments of Divine manifestation and a season of national revival. Unless, we are bidden for such end, it will be very foolish to enter the enemy's courtyard and expect to profess the name of God freely. While you still have time, retrieve your feet from the atmosphere that makes the name of Jesus taste unpalatable, that company where you cannot boldly declare that you belong to Jesus. When Peter became a victim, he collapsed in tears. I guess not before the people he had denied Jesus. Should you not as well leave that environment now and go cry bitterly for mercy? Even when we are faithless (and treated His name as soured), God remains faithful. Welcome home.

After three days

    [Saying], Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be turned over to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn and sentence Him to death and turn Him over to the Gentiles.And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and whip Him and put Him to death; but after three days He will rise again [from death].Mark 10:33-34(AMP)

    

     It sounds totally absurd and perhaps even ironical that the Son of Man will be turned over to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn and sentence Him to death.....what an abnormality! However, the fact that the statement is coming from the Master, Himself calls for a rethink. In our self exalted position of our base nature, we often think it out of context to imagine a sour situation trailing our paths. We normally assume that the vicissitudes of life are the bane of the unrefined, uncultured and down-trodden. It will be alright if the publicly acclaimed ‘nobodies’ suffer, but for us, it can only be an attack of the devil and his cohorts and so must go back to the sender. How then is the Son of Man announcing His own death at the peak of His fame? No wonder Peter had to take Him aside to caution Him (Mark 8: 32). Oh! the depravity of our vision.

     They will mock and spit on Him and whip Him and put Him to death; but after three days He will rise again (from death).It is interesting to note here that He did not only announce His death, but also his resurrection, after three days. We cannot put up a proper attitude for the death we must die if we cannot see the glorious end. The fact remains that we cannot escape this humiliation and death on the path to glory on our sojourn here on earth. We must pass through the waters and fires of delays, losses, betrayals, etc that lies on our path. Prayer cannot avert it, the best it can do is to supply the necessary grace to pass through it. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Cor 12: 8-9.Paul's attitude changed when he understood the divine locus on his seeming death situation. There is a circle you must complete for your resurrection to come. Don't be too eager to extricate yourself from the scourge, because you did not put yourself there in the first place so you don't even know how to come out. Just wait for the three days. Jonah did not stay beyond three days in the belly of the fish neither did the Son of Man stay beyond three days in the belly of the earth and so yours cannot but last for just three days. It cannot be before, but after three days, you will rise again from the death. Remember, how you'll rise is not certain. Jonah rose to go to Nineveh while the Son of Man rose to glory. It doesn't matter what you will rise into, but one thing is sure, that after three days, you will not remain the same. Your life will have taken the right course to the fulfillment of destiny. Wait till after three days.

He Speaketh

Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.

Put them in fear [make them realize their frail nature], O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]! -Psalm 9:19-20(AMP)

Up, GOD! Aren't you fed up with their empty strutting? Expose these grand pretensions!

Shake them up, GOD! Show them how silly they look-Psalm 9:19-20(MSG).

     The different renditions of this verse from these two versions of the bible shades more light to the meaning. Sometimes, we need certain experiences to show us our true nature. What we think about ourselves can only be born out of pride in our paraphernalia. But that doesn't define who we are. Sometimes also, the glory of these things makes us to consider ourselves gods of a sort, fit to be worshiped by others. With this attitude, we position ourselves to be opposed by God, because "God opposes the proud". No matter how great we become in life, we must not forget that ".......by strength shall no man prevail-1 Sam. 2:9.

     God did not design us to live outside His help and anytime we tend to do that, God will arise, for He "will let not man prevail". Man here is our sinful nature and tendencies that opposes the will of God in our lives. Just like it happened to Nebuchadnezzar, God will always make us realize our frail nature, that we may know ourselves to be men. All our facades are “grand pretensions”. What God resists is who we are by nature that tends to oppose Him and take His Glory. Therefore whenever, we are shaken by God or face situations that puts us in fear, God only uses them to humble us. It is not a time to fret, fight or prove smartness. It is a time of deep contrition and repentance. When we recognize that we are men, limited in all ramifications, we should let God be God. God cannot help but continually shake us till we know that it is hard for us to kick against the pricks and seek for His guidance.

     Check the events surrounding your life and recognize if it is not God trying to bring you to His Lordship. Don't wait to be transformed into an animal and sent to the forest to eat grass before you confess like Nebuchadnezzar said " And at the end of the days [seven years], I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my understanding and the right use of my mind returned to me; and I blessed the Most High [God] and I praised and honored and glorified Him Who lives forever, Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion; and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say to Him, What are You doing............. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, Whose works are all faithful and right and Whose ways are just. And those who walk in pride He is able to abase and humble-Dan. 4:34-35,37

God bless you.

                                                                                                                                          

Fit to Worship

And he went on to say, "It is what comes out of you that makes you unclean.

For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly- Mark 7: 20-22 (GNB)

All of these come from your heart, and they are what make you unfit to worship God-Mark 7: 23 (CEV)

   

     The controversy that led to this teaching by the Lord is from the law concerning outward cleansing which the Pharisees pointed out that His disciples did not obey before eating. Hence, claiming that the food will make them unclean before God. A closer look will quickly decipher that a constant to all mankind is the desire to be clean before God. Man will do everything he can, to be clean before God. It is a quiet cry of every heart to be at peace with the Maker, though many, unfortunately, deny this fact. Man believes that his physical activities can make him stand clean before a Holy God, what a deception! We often presume that our tact, panache and rituals can guarantee us a clean standing in His Presence. That is to say cleanliness from outside to inside. This can at best make us to “honor Him with our words, while  our hearts are really far away from Him”-Mark 7: 6 (paraphrased).Unfortunately, this trend has continued even to our days. In response to this, Jesus said, "it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean. For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil desires.......".Our heart is the center of our personality, whatever we project on the outside is a reflection of what we have first become on the inside. Our inside controls our outside, not the other way round. God is a Spirit and cannot be deceived by our rituals. He judges us from who we are on the inside rather than who we are on the outside. Jesus said in essence that every negative attitude we exhibit is first of all an evil idea which comes from the heart. This is an excellent diagnosis that cannot be faulted. Ideas are mental images of what we expect. Therefore, when we are busy painting the image in our hearts, God already knows and that makes us unfit to worship Him. The problem is that many are busy hacking at the branches of the real problem of man, while a few are the ones striking at the root. We cannot assume to be fit just by mere physical man-made rituals when we all know about the riots going on in our hearts. We all know about the carefulness we take to appear impeccable even after perpetrating the worst of all crimes. The only person we can deceive is man, not God. Already, we stand disqualified by mere trying to appear clean when we should be crying out for mercy, no wonder many of us come to God's presence and go back without His loving touch.(Luk 18: 9-14).God wants to reach our hearts and change it, for until we are changed from the inside we can never experience the freedom we so much long for. Only a change, not amendment, of heart can suffice for this malady. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

     That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God-Ezek. 11: 19-20(KJV).God's prescription for our woe is a change of heart. It is the only panacea to be fit to worship Him. However, because of the strongholds already existing in our hearts, it is often difficult to subscribe for this divine surgery. But how long can we hold up if we really want to be fit for this worship? It doesn't matter how long or how much we put in our rituals, it can never make us clean before Him, because "....we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags;..."(Isa 64:6).God's verdict cannot be changed, it is us that must be changed. Until our hearts are changed by the Lord, the best we can do is but a lip service. Men can applaud us but, heaven does not recognize such worship.

I pray that the Lord will give you this change as you give up your heart for His surgery. God bless you.

 

The Murderer in your Closet

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah-Ps. 9:15-16

It is quite surprising how we live in self made prisons. No matter how we look at it, what we get entangled with in life is usually our own making, whether good or bad. Think of it this way, our choice to learn or do any course that eventually becomes our vocation of which sometimes we use clichés like, "this work is my life", is solely our making. As we gobble that chunk, let us quickly look at it from the point where we need to take utmost precaution. “The heathen are sunk in the pit that they made”, how can one be making a pit just to get sunk in it; “in the net which they hid is their own foot taken”, that sounds to me like bad habits we unconsciously form which eventually enslaves and compels us. Just like Tyron Edwards wrote “Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. At first it may be as a spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted, it soon binds us with chains of steel.”

 If the heathen had known that the pit they were making will be their undoing, they would have done that with much sympathy or not even try it at all. If they had known that the net they were hiding from the glare of others will eventually claim their feet, they may have withdrawn from the machination. The summary of it all becomes that "the wicked is ensnared in the work of his own hand". Both the “pit” and the “net” are their own making. In life nobody has much power to afflict you more than you have the power to afflict yourself. What other people do can be stopped by your decision, but the very thing which you do to yourself, by yourself and which you consider perfect, if not excellent, will never occur to you as something you need to desist from, because they seem harmless. These pits and nets could look like smartness and ingenuity, they could be fun and trendy, but may actually be your death-trap. How limited we are in our thoughts and imaginations that we announce our obituary without knowing. It cuts across virtually everything we do; feeding, attitude to life, choices we make, etc. How desperate we need a superior guide to guard our life. How apt it will be for us to understand that the life we are struggling to protect in our own way is not our making.

"Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture-Psalm 100:3.

How do we expect to lead this life without the owner’s manual and expect to get the best out of it? It is time to evaluate our works (choices we make and execute), to know what will become of them in nearest future. Or rather it is much better not to execute our decisions if they do not fit into the owner's manual or else we would be digging our pit, with our hands.

No matter how we look at it, life is bigger than us without the creator of life. The earlier we recognize and make him Lord, the better and sweeter our life will be in the future, both in this life and the life beyond. God bless you.

All we ever needed

But grow in grace (undeserved favor, spiritual strength) and recognition and knowledge and understanding of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (the Messiah).............2 Peter 3:18.

The conjunction that started this verse presupposes an avoidable danger before now. However, the object for the discourse is not the danger, because in life we face dire situations everyday that tends to make us slip. The object is the injunction "to grow in grace-undeserved favor, spiritual strength". If we can grow in grace that means grace are in proportions, and grace is defined here as undeserved favor and spiritual strength..Thus, even though we got saved by grace (undeserved favor),we can go beyond that level of grace. We can increase the proportion of grace we enjoy in God. We can get to have much favor than others and more spiritual strength. If there's anything we need as mortal beings, it an undeserved favor from the Living God and an inner strength to stand against the arrows of the enemy. The more favor we have the easier to access the treasures of the Kingdom and the more strength we have, the more firm and confident we can be in the profession of our faith, because every fall we experience is an indication of weakness in the spirit. Therefore, if what it takes to get our feet fixed before God to enjoy His favor and to live in extreme spiritual strength is to grow, then we should make every effort to do all it takes for us to grow.

Growth is a characteristic of living things and it's only possible to one who has a good nourishment. However, it takes one who is alive first in the spirit (born of the spirit and water) to be talking of growth. It is not for those who are still dead in sins, what they need first is the saving grace which is available as soon as they confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior. On the other hand, to get the nourishment to grow in grace we need to eat spiritual food which is gotten through the study of the word of God and prayer. The word of God supplies the ingredients while prayer does the exchange of our weakness for His strength.

Oh!, what a need we have to give our all in the pursuit of this one thing that guarantees our sustenance in this walk with God. It is by grace that we started and it is by grace and grace alone that we can finish. So let us give ourselves to earnest prayer and the intermeddling with the word of life in order to grow in grace.