SCRIPTURE: Luke 20:41-47 Jesus, grilled by the religious leaders, turns the tables on them, and challenges their spiritual authority. Quoting from Psalm 110, He shows them that the Messiah is supposed to be even greater than David. Not just the son of David, but the ‘Lord’ of David. The problem is that we need a Leader (Messiah)…
With Jesus on judgement day!
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 98 Will there be a day of final reckoning? Will every person stand before God one day to give an account of their life? I believe YES, one day God will judge our hearts and lives, our attitudes and actions. That which is good will be honoured as good; that which is evil will…
The Lord challenges the church (and me)!
SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 14-20 The Old Testament Church (Israel) had become really corrupt, cruel, immoral, wicked, greedy, selfish… God challenges them through Jeremiah, and warns them that the day of punishment is coming. Jeremiah is the bearer of these bad tidings, and he is attacked because of them. In these chapters, Jeremiah brings God’s message, but also…
How little we know!
SCRIPTURE: Luke 20:27-40 “They can no longer die… they are children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36) God designed humans for living, not dying. Death is such a ‘normal’ part of life for us, we cannot imagine no death. We know what we know (including how we understand marriage, and death, for example). But the life that follows…
Overcoming evil with good!
SCRIPTURE: Luke 20:20-26 “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Luke 20:25) Jesus did not advocate rebellion. His way of bringing in God’s kingdom was not violent revolution. Even though the Caesars were not morally good leaders, they were God-appointed. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is…
He looks directly at me too
SCRIPTURE: Luke 20:9-19 “Jesus looked directly at them and asked…” (Luke 20:17). Yesterday we saw how Jesus answered the religious leaders with a question, and silenced them. Here Jesus takes charge of the conversation, and the religious leaders feel the edge of His words. “They knew He had spoken this parable against them.” (Luke 20:19) The sense of…
The real reason we question God
SCRIPTURE: Luke 20:1-8 Sometimes when people question God, their motives are impure. Like when we shout to God ‘what are You doing about evil in the world?’, to which God replies ‘what are you doing?’ Jesus sees through the religious leaders – they are not genuinely looking to hear from God. They dismissed John the Baptist,…
The fullness of God in Jesus!
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 97 “Clouds and thick darkness surround him.” (Psalm 97:2) God is a mystery and will always be one. When we use words to describe God, or our God-experiences, the words fall far short. No matter what we say about God, it will always be a cosmic understatement. The Psalmist tries to describe God – the…
God’s frustration
SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 7-13 We have to imagine the situation behind these words to appreciate them. God is not losing His cool or bullying innocent people. Things were really bad… REALLY bad; we have no idea. Child sacrifice (Jeremiah 7:30-31) was one extreme, but the crimes of these days would make our world look like a school of…
A den of robbers?
SCRIPTURE: Luke 19:45-48 Ouch, Jesus burns the religious leaders for turning God’s house of prayer into a den or robbers. Sometimes I wonder whether He would say the same about what we have done with the church. Yesterday someone commented to me about the vast church wealth in its buildings alone, and compared that to the…