Jesus According to Matthew

I have been a Christian most of my life, and like many Christians, I was raised to diligently read my Bible and pray. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to two challenges. First, I often am so familiar with a passage that I start to day-dream while reading it. Second, I usually use some kind of Bible-reading program which chops books up into pieces. Having a disciplined approach to reading the Bible can be a very good thing, but sometimes it causes us to miss the forest for the trees.

So to combat this tendency, I decided to read through the gospels as if they were stories – no chapters or verses or study Bible footnotes. In fact, some publishers are producing entire Bibles formatted this way (see here for an example)!

I started reading Matthew, and was completely surprised! Matthew begins by explaining the backstory – the genealogy of Jesus, John the Baptist, the calling of the 12 apostles – and then immediately launches into the sermon on the mount. The first real picture Matthew gives of Jesus is about his teaching – and it is the longest unbroken teaching of Jesus on record.

What makes this even more impactful is the content of Jesus sermon. It is all about the Hebrew law, and how it just isn’t sufficient to establish righteousness. In fact, he completely contradicts the Mosaic law, by which his audience thought they could be right with God! The law establishes lex talionis – the idea that a punishment should be commensurate with a crime. If someone assaults you and puts out your eye, their eye should be put out in punishment. But Jesus says, no, instead you should suffer harm without returning evil. These are hard sayings! Jesus even says that we are supposed to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect! Obviously we aren’t perfect, but thanks be to God that we have Christ’s perfection. When God looks at us, he doesn’t see our sin, he sees the righteousness of Jesus. That, my friends, is good news.


~John

Persecuted; Not Abandoned

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. – 2 Cor. 4:7-9 NIV 

Paul is probably known as the greatest missionary ever. He was a stalwart preacher of the good news of God’s grace, and even though he faced worse trials than we are likely to, he persevered. And when talking about his own ministry, he points out that the power of the gospel is supernatural – its success certainly did not come from Paul’s own physical prowess! Unlike the Roman emperors of the time, Paul did not spread his proclamation at the point of a sword.

But we might think that this is a fool’s errand. After all, force is the one thing this world understands. Even the government uses force to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. When your kid is being picked on by a bully, you tell your kid to stand up to the bully; not to be a victim. But what happens to the person who refuses to use coercion or force? They get beat up.

But here is the amazing thing – Paul didn’t mind being persecuted! By the power of God’s Holy Spirit, he was able to endure and even overcome these persecutions. He writes, “We are hard-pressed, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; beaten, but not destroyed.”

This is the comfort that God gives us – the promised Comforter who holds us up even through the toughest trials. The world is an unforgiving place, but the mercy and hope of God have overcome the world. So let us rejoice together, that God holds us up even through the darkest times.


~John

OUR GOD IS AWESOME!

OUR GOD IS AWESOME! OUR GOD IS REAL! OUR GOD PROVIDES! WE ARE COMING TO AMERICA! GOD IS AMAZING!
~Mike

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

The gospels are full of these kinds of stories – people asking Jesus for help, and Jesus responding to their faith. In fact, sometimes we almost look at these stories like magic formulae for tapping into cosmic power. Because Jesus healed people based on their faith, if we just have enough faith, He will heal us too! Maybe. But have you ever thought about the people that Jesus healed who didn’t have faith? In this story, Jesus says that he hasn’t seen faith as great as the centurions in all Israel – but we know Jesus was healing all over Israel. We also have the story of the servant in Gethsemane – when Peter cut off his ear, Jesus healed him, even though the servant didn’t ask for help and likely was trying to arrest Jesus or kill Peter. But Jesus healed him anyway. You see, we sometimes forget that Jesus loves us – all of us – unconditionally. Jesus wants to heal people, because he loves them and cares for them. This is one reason we can be sure that any suffering we experience is for our own good. Jesus is in the habit of relieving suffering, and if he delays it is not because he hates us, but rather that he loves us enough to let us grow! So don’t worry about how much faith you have; instead look to Jesus, and rest in the fact that you are loved by Him.

More Than Meets The Eye!

The other day I was watching the Transformers Movie, and I remembered back to the days when I had watched the Transformers cartoon show. And I kept remembering the famous line, “More than meets the eye.” This was said because the robots were first seen as different types of cars, trucks, planes, or vehicles in general, and then they would change or “transform” into these autonomous, intelligent, humanoid-like, robots.

1 John 4:4 “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.”

Have you ever considered the wonder and the awesomeness of this truth? God is with us! We belong to God! He is not only with us, He is also IN us! There are a lot of times that I forget this truth!

There are many times when I feel like a failure as a husband, father, teacher, and pastor. There are even times I feel like I can’t overcome the sins I wrestle with. And every time I fail, I hear the devil laughing at me, saying that I am not worth it, and that I will never be able to do anything for the Lord. BUT……

This is not what GOD says –I believe that God’s Word is God Breathed - IT IS God’s promise! And TRUTH! Take heart today fellow believers! We are not our sins, we are not our failures, we are not what other people say we are, WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, WHO BELONG TO GOD, AND GOD ABIDES IN US!

So remember, THERE IS “MORE TO US THAN MEETS THE EYE!”


-Mike

Happy Fathers Day!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ~ 2 Cor. 1:3-4

Happy Fathers Day! We spend this day celebrating fathers, and giving thanks for the gift of fatherhood. Unfortunately, not all of us had a father. Some of us had bad fathers. But we all have a Father who loves us completely and unconditionally; a Father in heaven who will never leave us nor forsake us. 

Notice how Paul describes our Father: he is the Father of compassion; the Father of all comfort. All comfort! God is not a harsh father, but a God who draws close, who draws us close, and comforts us in all our troubles. No matter what kind of earthly father you have - or didn't have - we can all rejoice that we are loved dearly by our heavenly Father, who gave his own son that we might be close to him.

The Red Sea Saw Them Coming and Ran!

So these past several weeks I have been struggling with a desire of returning to the states in July to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Liberty Church. There are many reason for this - from wanting to build relationships with the members of the various campuses in our Liberty Church Family, to getting to further prepare for all the in and outs of planting a church in Japan. I want to see and spend quality time with my parents, and present about our work in Japan to the members of the Church Foundational Network. I want my children to play with their cousins, and learn to read English. I want to buy some much-needed clothes, and see some of my oldest friends that I have not seen in years. I want to eat American food, and take my kids to Chucky Cheese. I want to do all of this and so much more, and yet, we have been going through a time of financial testing, where we have seen God perform amazing miracles of provision, but still no definitive provision for the month of July. Everyday this past month has been like this, and God has always graciously provided our food and bills, and yet I find I have this uncontrollable urge and desire to be in the States for the month of July. I feel that so much could be accomplished, and yet I am struggling with knowing whether or not it is God’s Will or my own desires. So all of this has been building up in me and then the Lord brought me to Psalm 114 where it says this:

“1 When the Israelites escaped from Egypt— when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—
2 the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary,
and Israel became his kingdom.
3 The Red Sea[a] saw them coming and hurried out of their way! The water of the Jordan River turned away.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs!
5 What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you hurry out of their way?
What happened, Jordan River, that you turned away?
6 Why, mountains, did you skip like rams?
Why, hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.
8 He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock.”

I had been worried that if I didn’t go back to the States this July that that was it! My thinking is that I wouldn’t get the training or support needed, people would lose interest in our work here, I would never see my parents again, my kids would never learn to read English, and I would cease to have clothes to wear.

But after the Lord brought me to this passage I saw several things – First the world trembled when God named His people, and in Psalm 114:3 It literally says that the Red Sea saw them (the people of God, the people whom God had chosen, the people who were being led by God) coming and hurried (aka RAN) to get out of their way! Why? Because they were worthy? Because they were special? No! Because God had chosen them to declare His glory to the world, as He has all who bear His name. So who are us? Us is all who have bowed our knees to Christ and have declared Him King. Now we are seen as Children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, and as such God has promised us that His presence will always be with us! And this is Good News because the Earth literally trembles at the presence of God.

I realized that there are different seasons in all of our lives, and as Paul said there are seasons of want and plenty, and seasons of ease and hardship, but God’s presence never leaves us, and as it says in Psalm 114:8 God can do the miraculous in any situation, from making a rock produce fresh water enough for a nation of a million people to drink from, or from turning water into wine for a small wedding party. Christ is sufficient in all circumstances, and His help and provision and ministry is not limited by our perceptions of reality, because the ministry is not about us but rather about Him. Take Heart!

So will I go back to the states in July? Who knows? Stay tuned – If not I am looking forward to the miracles that God will perform regardless! Our God is Amazing!


~Mike