How did Jesus respond when the religious leaders of his day questioned his authority to do the work His father had sent him to do? For context, one of the reasons they doubted his credentials as a Rabbi is because he had never been a disciple for anyone, so he’d rebelled against the status quo, no human had taught him to be just like them and commissioned him as a rabbi to teach others to be just like his own rabbi. So he didn’t meet the education requirements to preach the gospel and had no human certifications saying he was a licensed minister commissioned and under the authority of a particular rabbinical school of thought.

First, he didn’t become offended. He didn’t doubt himself and his ability and qualifications because the experts of the day doubted in him. He remembered what his Father had said about him, that he was the Son of God, and called not to teach disciples to be like a human rabbi, but to be like his Father. He also knew if he pulled out his credentials for the religious leaders, they would refuse to believe, accuse him of blasphemy, and kill him.

Since it wasn’t time yet, he refused not only to doubt in himself, but to prove himself to men, turning the tables on them, asking whether John was commissioned to baptize people by men or by God. The religious leaders were trapped–answering from God would be a winning point to the Lord in the debate, but the crowd would riot if they denied John’s authority, too. The leaders refused to answer, so they got no answer, but the crowd got one right there. Jesus addresses the issue in a parable about tenant farmers who kill the heir to the land hoping to keep what belongs to him for themselves, thus warning them without saying an arrestable word that the religious leaders of the day would be destroyed if they continued on the road to crucifying the Lord.

The leaders were smart enough to get the message and were furious, but he’d made his point to the huge crowd,  making the leaders also afraid to oppose him directly–so they turned to spies pretending to be on the Lord’s side and tried to trap him with their famous question about paying taxes and the Lord again saw through their deception and refused to be trapped into either speaking against paying taxes to Caesar and committing treason, or speaking in favor of Caesar and offending the crowd. So he gave his famous answer, that affirmed giving Caesar his coins per the letter of the law directly while stating indirectly that mankind should give ourselves, our whole lives and bodies, to God, as we bare the image of God and everything we have comes from him and is truly His.

If we disciples want to be more like our Rabbi, we should be more confident of our calling, not swayed by the voices and opinions of man, but aware of them and savvy in our responses, testifying to the truth, but being aware of the climate and what the people accept and reject and what is around us and using that in our Lord’s favor while seeking to avoid needless offenses that would get us arrested and harmed before it is His time. This passage also indicates there is a season to follow the legal/certification processes of the day and a time to reject them and confidently go out and do what our Father has told us to.

Lord, give us your wisdom and discernment! Help us to use what is available in the culture today to your glory and to advance your Kingdom in ways that uphold the truth. Give us confidence of your calling and open our ears to hear what the season is regarding following laws and the ignoring the “normal” established processes traditionally followed in our calling.

Psalm 118 falls right before Psalm 119′s sometimes unappreciated, lengthy serenade to the law’s beauty and virtues.  In 118, the psalmist urges his audience to give thanks to the Lord because he is good and his love is steadfast. To these reasons, the psalmist adds his personal testimony: he was either troubled internally by mental or physical pain or suffering or he was in an external state of danger or desperate need, per the meaning of distress. He prayed to God for help, God answered him by freeing him from whatever was causing his distress.

Here he turns from past tense to present tense: the Lord is on his side. He will not fear now what men can do to him, he knows God is in control. This switch is implying that the psalmist is one again in difficult times; he is confident because he has past experience with God. He remembers what God has done for him in the past and trusts God to do what he has always done before.

Faith and trust in God grow over time, with each blind leap and each instance of God doing what he promised in His word. If you are young in the Lord and have not many personal experiences,  you can still make that leap with confidence based upon His peoples testimonies, if you trust in the accuracy of the bible (there are ministries who can feed your intellect with proofs of this) and also through the testimonies of your living brothers and sisters in Christ today.

God is not a respecter of persons, beloved. He does not play favorites with his children.  If you are His, and you know for a fact what God has done for His people in your situation, he will do it for you, too. Maybe not the exact same way, or with the exact same timing, but if you draw near to him and place your life and your situation wholly into his hands, daring to trust him completely, taking refuge in Him and His work in your life, he will deliver you and bring you through this, if not out of it. Even if we do face the pain of death, if we continue on with God, even in death, he will set us free forever.

Lord, forgive us for the times we have forgotten what you have done. Strengthen us today, remind us of what you have done in our lives and in our brothers and sisters’ lives in similar situations. Increase our faith. May we trust in you and your declarations over us, not the threats of men. Give us thankful hearts that praise you for who you are and what you do. Deliver us from fear and all emotional distress this day. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

But His sheep know his voice, we know his character. We read his word, we know what his values are and how he says he designed us, what he says  he made us to be. Many of us have had false shepherds, people in our lives who devour their flocks and warp our minds, some even use scripture.

The good shepherd keeps his own in his hands.He lays his life down for the sheep. He will protect us from predators in sheep’s clothing and from the unseen predators in the shadows and he will heal the sickness of the flesh known as sin. Let us trustingly submit to the Good Shepherd’s care today. If he places his little lambs into our care, let us imitate our Good Shepherd in relation to them.

Lord, grant all of us reading this ears to hear your voice, and discerning hearts that know you and what is of you and what is not of you. Heal our  hearts and minds and spirits of the ravages of sin and wolves who seek to steal your sheep and devour us. Reveal your truth to us and strengthen us to walk in the light. In Jesus’ name we pray, Lord, amen.

Yes, I am thankful for a God who demands absolute loyalty and obedience from his servants and children, a God who is intolerant of anyone seeking to rival him in his glory, especially in terms of power over others, or even over ourselves.  I am thankful for a God who is a perfectionist in the extreme, allowing not the slightest spot, blemish, wrinkle, or stain into his spiritual presence in Heaven.

I am thankful for a God who has decreed a death penalty for any and all infractions of his law without exception, who cannot be moved to change his mind and change the rules based upon an emotional appeal to hard circumstances, but always carries out his decrees. I am thankful for an obstinate God who never changes his ways, never changes who he is and what he believes, never waivers on what he hates and what he loves, for any reason.

I am thankful because this God is just, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable, powerful enough and willing to protect us from harm and avenge us of wrongs.

I am also thankful this God looked down on a world that hates him for all of the above things that I would praise him for, saw that this world was full of everything that he hates, saw that we were hopelessly unable to ever measure up to his standards, all of us condemned to die and that our spirits, though designed to dwell in a body of flesh and to be in his presence, would be left disembodied and spiritually separated from his presence for all eternity.

I am thankful that this god so loathed by the world, so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son to pay the penalty of our sin and die in our place, so that we could be washed clean of our sin and purified in his blood. I am thankful he sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in us, so we can learn to walk in his way rather than continue to follow after the corruption of the mortal flesh we will trade one fine day for new, immortal, sinless and flawless bodies worthy to be with Him.

I am thankful that my God is both simultaneously a Just, Jealous, Holy, Unwavering, Unmovable, Unshakable, Authoritarian King of Kings and a Loving, Merciful, Good, Gracious, Patient, Gentle, Humble Savior and Redeemer.

I am thankful that the power of sin has already been defeated on the Cross and that it is only a matter of time before this long cosmic war is over and the last battle fought. I am thankful that, by grace, through faith alone,  I can stand with the Creator of the Universe in the battle against sin and overcome rather than rebel, wallow in sin, and find myself cast out with the Lawless One. I am thankful that God has begun a good work of eradicating sin and imperfection in me and that he will continue to carry out his work in me until the day of His Coming.

I am thankful even us rebels who have betrayed our Heavenly citizenship again and again, going the way of the enemy culture all around us, can always  humbly bow our knees to the King of Kings and be reconciled to him and forgiven.

Look at the machines we have made. What computer program would dare say to its coder, “You have coded me wrong. I will ignore your instructions and do what is right in my own eyes”? Would it not be contemptuous, self-righteous, and arrogant of that program? Would we not judge it as being buggy and broken and in need of either repair or to be thrown away and replaced?

Yet that is what we have done and said to our Father and maker.

Who among us would say to a woman being abused that she should change who she is, deny her character and alter her personality and what she believes and loathes to please the will of a controlling person who will not love her for who she is, only what he wants her to be? Yet that is how we treat God, expecting him to change who he is or we will reject him.

Do you ask, “when have I rejected God?” By rejecting how he designed us to operate, which is but an outgrowth of and reflection of his very nature.

?”But Christ told me that he values a relationship with me more than his rules and acknowledged to me that my way was better.” Little one, that was a demon who hates you and wants to destroy you and leave you eternally at odds with God. It is written clearly, “I the Lord do not change. My ways are higher than your ways,  and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Think, child, what created thing is more knowledgeable and knows better than its creator? God’s word is eternal, it never changes and it is never void (empty and unfulfilled.) Truth is not a relative, nebulous concept that changes with the times. Truth is a person, and one of his traits is being steadfast, stable, and sure. He never changes. Jesus Christ is the Truth and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Look again at your machines and how quickly you would cast judgment and either bend it to your will and or destroy it, but God has been slow to wrath and patient, giving you undeserved blessings and benefits, to show you he is worthy of the trusting obedience and faith that our computers mistakenly have in us. He even sent his own son to pay the penalty for our wrongdoing and enable us to be reconciled to him and function again as he designed us to. Unlike us with our creations, our creator gives us a choice between a system-wide restoration to our original manufacturing settings, or to continue to be good only for the trash.

Let us choose then this day to not be foolish and contend with our maker, but confess our sin, humbly ask his forgiveness and, being reconciled to the Lord our God and Father in spirit and in truth, acknowledge him in all of our ways and honor him as the righteous king over all the Earth.

This is one of my favorite passages. Often in this world we can start to feel unimportant, insignificant. We may think our petty problems are too small for God to be concerned about in a world full of grave evils. If we suffered the abuse of neglect as children, we may think our human fathers couldn’t be bothered and didn’t watch out for us, so God won’t care enough to be there, either.

This tells us it is a lie. God is not like us–he sees everything and everyone and he cares about and forgets none. Not even the most insignificant thing escapes his notice–not a sparrow dies, not a single strand of your hair comes off in your comb, without God noticing. He has all of us counted that exactly.  Those who see this and care about the sparrow also do well. Those who remember we are worth far more than the sparrow and refrain from  saving the animals while neglecting the humans’ lives and well being do even better.

We must not forget that. God cares about the sparrow, but you are worth far more. You’re the one created in his image, you’re the one Christ died for. Do not sell cheap the treasure that God spent all that he had to redeem.

Lord, forgive us when we sell our selves short, whether by surrendering to sin, or giving into satanic lies that demean humanity and worship the creation, or even that misuse your word to beat us to a pulp and make us feel worthless. Remind us of the value you freely gave us at Calvary and at the Creation. Show us how we can best live before you as your priceless treasure. May we value  you as much as you have valued us and hold nothing back from you. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

In verse one, we helpfully learn this prophecy came to Jeremiah when he was imprisoned/under arrest basically. This is the lead up to God announcing he’s fed up with the evil of the Chaldean oppressors and promises to destroy them (strike them down) and restore the fortunes of Judah and Israel (the kingdom being divided at this time.)

First let’s not read past what God asserts right off: he made, formed, and established, that is he’s responsible for the laws of physics and the physical properties and parameters of Earth, including its orbit and location in the universe, boundaries between the sea and the continents, everything is located right where he’s put it and moving according to the rules he established. The water cycle, the often delicate balance of ecosystems,  God designed all of it. None of it is a result of happenstance or a fluke. The fall introduced all of creation’s “groaning” and the “birth pangs” we’ve endured for two thousand years. The destructive forces of our fallen nature, which atheists and their dupes mistakenly credit with the creation, were introduced well after God set this place up and wrote all the natural laws science has and can actually test and prove.

This intelligent cosmic designer, this supreme king who reigns over the entire universe, declares his ears are always attuned to the cries of little old us. He is never too busy, too tired, or plain unconcerned.  No matter what major crisis is going on elsewhere in your world, God has time to answer your prayers and he will if we will stop and listen long enough to hear his voice in our hearts. God is pouring out his holy spirit on all believers today, not just the prophets.

What “great and hidden things” does he reveal? He shows us how to rightly divide his word, he reveals what our hearts hide from us, he reveals all we can be and become if we walk faithfully by his side, seeking to do his will. Even more than that, he will reveal himself to us and make us like him, rather than our flesh’s sinful tendency to remake God like us in our deceived minds.

Lord, open our eyes to the truth of your eyes–tear down the strongholds of our minds and false images of you and reveal your true self to us as your spirit opens up our eyes to the truths you revealed  to the saints gone before us in the never-changing message of scripture. Guard our hearts and minds from all lying spirits and false teachers who would appeal to the wicked inclinations of our flesh and turn us away from knowledge of you as you truly are. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.