Exterminate!

Posted on by korgrocker

“When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.”
John 12:9-11 NLT

Jesus and Lazarus had become famous in that part of the world and the Jerusalem grapevine was working overtime. There was no social media in those days but the news of Jesus’ arrival soon got around. And John recorded that the people flocked to see them. Other Bible versions talk about a “great many” of the Jews, or a “large crowd”, and the reason that they went to see Jesus was because they believed in Him. 

Sadly, the religious leaders were so riven with jealousy that they had decided to restore their standing in the community by eliminating who they perceived as being their opponents. Lazarus wouldn’t have been quietly getting on with his life – he would have been quite vociferous in proclaiming what Jesus had done for him. He was a living, breathing miracle and the Pharisees and their cohorts could find no way to refute what had happened. Their stance was no different to that of totalitarian regimes around the world today, where opponents of the leadership are eliminated, either clandestinely, or by conviction following trumped up and false charges. We see it happening in Russia, Iran, North Korea, China and other countries, countries that have become an axis of devil-inspired evil. The devil’s ploys are well known and have been around since the snake slithered around the Garden, deceiving Adam and Eve in the process. 

The Jewish leaders should have know better because they had access to the writings and laws of Moses and the other prophets, but their twisted logic and scriptural misinterpretation had convinced them that Jesus was not who He said He was, in spite of the amazing miracles that He had performed. How did they think that bringing a man back to life, a man who had been dead and buried for four days, would be possible without the power of God behind it. So they decided that the Source of their concerns must be exterminated, and, for good measure, they would attempt to kill Lazarus as well. 

John the Baptist appeared out of the desert dressed and behaving like an Old Testament prophet, and the people flocked to him, responding to his message of repentance. We read in Luke 3:3, “Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptised to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.” John widely trailed the coming of Jesus and the Pharisees had plenty of notice about Who was coming. “Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptise with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.’ I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God”” (John 1:32-34). Initially, the people thought that John was the coming Messiah, but in John 3:27-28, 30, we read, “John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ … He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” 

But the religious leaders wanted to do away with Jesus because they refused to accept the evidence before them. There was John’s testimony about Jesus. There was the evidence of the miracles. But they rejected it all because to accept that Jesus was indeed the Son of God meant change, so perhaps they thought that if they killed Jesus and Lazarus then the threat against their cosy world would disappear. Little did they know that it was all part of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind.

Dear God. You had a master plan ready ever since the Fall in the Garden. And aren’t we pilgrims glad You did! We praise and worship You today. Amen.

“What Shall We Do?”

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.””
John 11:47-48 NKJV

Rightly or wrongly, the Pharisees brought stability to the Jewish nation of Israel and they were genuinely concerned that if they lost their authority to do that, then the Romans would once again come in to suppress what the occupying forces perceived as an uprising or rebellion. But there was also a personal fear amongst them if they lost their religious place in their society because they were a proud and arrogant bunch. What would happen to them if the people shifted their allegiance to Jesus way from them? Not all Pharisees were bad of course (remember Nicodemus?) but the majority seemed to be locked into rigid religious behaviour, riddled with pride and arrogance. Jesus had little good to say about the Pharisees. He said, “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27-28). 

We worship a God who desires the best for His creation and for us human beings. He loves us all, regardless of how we see or relate to Him. A person who denies the existence of God is loved just as much as one who embraces Him wholeheartedly. In fact, “ … God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). But God also created mankind with free will, enabling people to make choices. So how people respond to God is up to them. Jesus demonstrated the love of God every moment that He was here on Planet Earth. He healed the sick and fed large numbers of people. As we have seen He even raised a dead man from the grave. But the main thrust of Jesus’ ministry was to bring joy and glory to God by granting eternal life to all those who chose to believe in Him.

But even today, God takes a personal interest in His children. The invitation to believe in Jesus is still there, waiting for people to respond. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees were locked into a religious system based on their interpretation of the Law of Moses, a belief system that had no room for change. They thought that Jesus’ offer of eternal life was irrelevant for them because they were convinced that they would inherit eternal life anyway through their obedience to the Law. So they could not see any solution to their dilemma over Jesus. The Jewish people were abandoning them in droves and following Jesus, who they therefore considered to be in danger of being seen as a revolutionary by the Romans, particularly if that was how they presented Him, with devastating consequences. But they lacked understanding about Jesus’ mission because they refused to accept that He was the Son of God, their long-awaited Messiah. Jesus said, “ … for I have come to save the world and not to judge it” (John 12:47b). Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost”. Jesus was no revolutionary seeking to overthrow the Roman occupation. That was to come soon enough through a zealot-driven Jewish rebellion in AD70, just a few years later. 

What do we pilgrims do today, when God brings a revival, a new move of God, to our spiritual shores? I was fortunate enough to be in a church that experienced the move of the Holy Spirit that started in Toronto in the 1990’s. But it wasn’t welcomed by every church fellowship, and many looked on from the outside, despising the excesses and in the process missing out on a tremendous blessing of God. God is always willing to bless His people, as we can see from many revivals that have taken place over the years. We must always seek God for His will and purposes for us. We must always ask Him what He wants to do through us every day. He delights in answering that question. 

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 85 said, “Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6). We pilgrims have the opportunity of being revived every day, as we read in John 7:37b-38, “ … Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’”. 

The answer to the Pharisees’ dilemma was staring them right in their faces, but they chose to reject, rather than accept, Jesus. They could not accept a new move of God. But we must always be on the look out for what God is doing in our day, in case He is doing something new. God said to the Jewish people, “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19). So we pilgrims must look up, always attentive to our Heavenly Father’s next move.

Dear Father God. We don’t want to miss what You are doing in our time here on Planet Earth. Please give us ears to hear and eyes to see Your wonderful ways. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

God Is Always Ready to Hear

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.” “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.””
John 9:28-33 NLT

Mr Blind-no-more wasn’t afraid to stand up to the Pharisees, unlike his parents. The Pharisees argued that because they didn’t know where Jesus had come from, then His miraculous act of healing lacked validity. They maintained that it couldn’t have been God, or anyone representing Him, who performed the miracle, because whoever did it should have first checked things out with them and obtained their seal of approval. The Pharisees’ view of God was boxed in by their interpretation of the Law of Moses. But Mr Blind-no-more had a different logic. He said that regardless of the Pharisees’ opinion, which was, “If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” He went further by turning the Pharisees’ logic around and said that regardless of where Jesus had come from, He must have come from God to perform such a miraculous healing. 

In the middle of the exchange, Mr Blind-no-more said that “God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will”. Such a view was commonplace in the legalistic environment of those days, that God listened to those who were for Him, and He didn’t listen to those who were against Him. So according to the Pharisees, if Jesus was a sinner, the miracle, if it happened, couldn’t have been from God. 

Does God only listen to the prayers of a righteous person? If we believe that then we are doing what the Pharisees did – we have put God in a box. God is compassionate, loving, and gracious, and He will do what He considers to be right. And if He answers the prayers of someone who doesn’t believe in Him, then that is His prerogative. Quite why such a person would pray to Him is perhaps academic, because there are unbelievers’ prayers heard by God in the Old Testament. In Genesis 21 we can read the story of Hagar and her son Ishmael. Or the people of Nineveh in Jonah 3. In times past, desperate people have cried out to God for relief from their situation. Sometimes He answered. In. 1 John 5:14, we read, “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.” Perhaps that verse also applies to anyone, believers or not, who pray in accordance with His will. 

Sadly today we in the UK are living in an increasingly secular society. And the names of God and His Son are only used in expletive phrases. People fail to believe that he exists, their minds blinded by the enemy and his servants who come up with all sorts of theories (for example, evolution?) that try and explain the world around us. And instead of turning to God when circumstances dictate, they even turn their back on Him and some even go to occultism for a remedy. It must break God’s heart to see such happenings, as it did in Genesis 6:6, “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart”. But there will come a day when God will be universally acknowledged. Philippians 2:9-11, “Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.

We pilgrims love the Lord. We are His children and we know that He listens to our prayers. Of course, every cry for help will not always be answered in the way we desire, because we live in a fallen and sinful world, but God is always there for us in our times of trouble. And by faith in Him, we are overcomers, rising above our circumstances. 

Dear God. We thank You that You always hear our prayers. And whatever our circumstances we acknowledge that You have our interests at heart. We praise You today. Amen.

“Didn’t You Listen”

Posted on by korgrocker

“So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.” “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!” “But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?” “Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?””
John 9:24-27 NLT

What made the Pharisees think that Jesus was a sinner? After all, how could the Son of God ever be accused of such a thing? The reason was that the Pharisees had their own definition about sin, and for them it was founded on the Law of Moses and their many Rabbinic rules and regulations, correct or otherwise, that they had derived from it. They didn’t like Jesus’ claim that He was the Son of God and therefore they accused Him of the sin of blasphemy. The problem for them, however, was His miraculous signs and wonders, and that His teaching that the only way to eternal life was through Him and not just by observing their laws. The last thing the Pharisees wanted was to lose their religious control over the people.

Mr Blind-no-more quite correctly pointed out to the Pharisees that their accusation of sin against Jesus was irrelevant. They had been told that the man was born blind, but could now see, and it was all because Jesus put mud on his eyes. The side issue of accusations of sin didn’t change the facts, although this introduced another problem for the Pharisees – how could someone who claimed to be God’s Son, and the Messiah who they had been waiting for, be a sinner? 

In desperation, the Pharisees asked Mr Blind-no-more a second time about what happened, just in case they found a new snippet of information that resolved their dilemma. But this time they received a tetchy response. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen?”.Unfortunately for them, the man then put his finger on the issue staring them in the face – if this healing happened as they had been told then they had no choice other than to acknowledge Jesus’ claim for who He was, and become His disciples. No human being could ever have healed a man born blind unless God was behind it. 

We pilgrims have seen the risen Lord, and believe in Him. We are His disciples but we remember the life-changing moment when we made that decision for Christ.  We weren’t anyone special. We weren’t religious leaders like the Pharisees. But regardless of the consequences, we took that step into the Kingdom of God, a place that, for many, is fraught with danger and difficulties. A new believer would perhaps be marginalised in their workplaces. Or in danger of attack from their neighbours who follow a different faith. A child of God pursues a path towards holiness and turns his or her back on the pleasures of sin. For many though, taking that leap of faith is too much and, like the rich man in the parable of the Rich Young Ruler, they walk away. It is their choice but God will never give up on loving people. His grace is available right up until the moment when they take their last breath. 

We don’t know if the Pharisees in our account of the blind man and his healing ever became believers in Jesus. We know of course about Nicodemus, from an earlier chapter in John’s Gospel. But neither do we know about those people today who stubbornly all their life have refused to accept Jesus’ gracious invitation to believe in Him. We don’t know what happened in those last moments of their life. I am always touched and greatly encouraged about the last moments of the thief on the cross. We read in Luke 23:40-43, “But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.”” We pilgrims must never give up on our friends and family. We don’t know what will happen in their last moments of life, and we pray for them in faith that God will answer our prayers.

Dear Father God. You are so patient and kind, loving us graciously as we thrash about ignoring or avoiding Your gaze. Please forgive us, we pray. Amen.

“Blind-No-More”

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him. The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.” Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.”
John 9:13-16 NLT

We don’t know how many Pharisees were present when the man who had been blind was brought before them. We don’t know his name and for centuries he has only been identified by his healing, not by who he really was. In Old Testament times names were often granted to children to mark an occasion or message appropriate to what was happening at the time. In Hosea 1 we read of children being born to Gomer being assigned names as part of Hosea’s prophetic message to his fellow people. Names such as “Not-loved” and “Not-my-people”. In times nearer our own we have seen names granted for a profession, such as “Lamb” for a butcher or “Gardener” for someone who has that job. So perhaps the new name for the man at the centre of this account should be “Blind-no-more”. But whatever we call him, the people, his friends and neighbours, were so confused that they took him to the Pharisees, especially because they were very sensitive to anything that might be construed as working on the Sabbath day. That spitting on the ground and making a little mud ointment should be classed as “work” is perhaps an indication of the hold the Pharisees had over the general population. 

Mr “Blind-no-more” must have been getting fed up with repeatedly having to tell people what had happened to him, even those who had previously heard his account. This act of healing by a Man who preached a message counter to that of the Pharisees had introduced so much confusion amongst them that we are told there was “a deep division of opinion”. 

We pilgrims have read this account of the miraculous healing so many times that we are in danger of becoming desensitised to the wonder of it. This was really a big deal, because someone who was born blind not only lacked functioning eyes but also they lacked that part of the brain that processes the visual images into a form where they could be understood. At an early age a child starts to see the world around him and their brain develops with the need to interpret what they see. And then think about the connection between different parts of the brain – consider what is involved in seeing a ball coming towards us and having the eye/hand co-ordination to catch it. Perhaps healing the blind man’s eyes was only a part of the miracle that happened to him that day. And so we stand in Mr Blind-no-more’s shoes and try and imagine how he felt. John’s account was a dispassionate précis of what had happened, factually correct, but I imagine Mr Blind-no-more was euphoric, excited and rushing around telling everyone what had happened to him. He wasn’t concerned that this had happened on the Sabbath day. Neither was he concerned about what other people were saying about it. As far as he was concerned, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!” And so we take a step back, looking on at the scene that was unfolding before us, marvelling at God’s power, grace, compassion and love.

Dear Lord Jesus. We read that this miraculous healing took place so that the power of God could be seen in the blind man. And we indeed give God all the glory for this, and the many other occasions when You Brough healing to a lost and hopeless people. Thank You for Your love and compassion. Amen.

Knowing God

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus answered, “If I want glory for myself, it doesn’t count. But it is my Father who will glorify me. You say, ‘He is our God,’ but you don’t even know him. I know him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But I do know him and obey him. Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.””
John 8:54-56 NLT

Jesus told the Pharisees and other religious leaders in the crowd listening to Him that they don’t even know God. The religious people in Jesus’ day probably knew a lot about God but had never come to know Him personally. They had this sense of pride in their knowledge of their Bible. They could recite huge tracts of Scripture. They knew all the rules and regulations, and the Laws of Moses, like the backs of their hands. They lived their lives in a way that was, to them, above reproach. God to them was measurable and containable, kept in a box bounded by their knowledge. And the other less tangible parts of a relationship with God were rationalised within the limits of their knowledge about Him. 

But when it comes to knowing God, the same accusation could be levelled at many religious people today. They think that they are “good” people because they keep the laws of the land, give money to charities, go to church on a Sunday every now and then, and don’t curse and drink to excess. They don’t beat and abuse their spouses and work hard at their professions. “Surely God likes me and would never reject me when it comes to matters of eternal life”, or so they think. 

But Jesus was very clear during His time here on earth, that there was only one way to please Father God, and that was by believing in Him. We of course know John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Later Jesus said to Thomas, one of His disciples, “ … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7). 

But believing in Jesus does not mean believing the facts about Jesus. It is believing that He came to this world to die for sinners, past, present and future, in His death taking on the punishment for our sin, and instead giving us His righteousness. In the process we come to love Him personally because the enormity of what He did for us at Calvary sinks deep within our souls. The understanding that Jesus, the Son of God, loved me so much that He was willing to die in my place, and that through Him I will receive the gift of eternal life, has turned my life around from being a detached and uninvolved “believer” into someone who knows God as a loving Father. My life is now not about being a “good” person, but about living a life pleasing to the One who loves me. Yes, the fruit of that will be goodness, but that comes from, not for, a relationship with God.

The Pharisees knew much about God. But they were unable to do what Paul did. About the Pharisaical obedience to the Law, he wrote in Philippians 3:7-9, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith”. The Pharisees before Jesus that day in the Temple had an opportunity to believe in Him, but missed it. We must make sure that we don’t miss it either, by taking subtle steps towards replacing our relationship with God with a liturgy that takes less effort.

Dear Father God. We love You because You first loved us. We worship at Your feet today. Amen.

Time to Go

Posted on by korgrocker

“Jesus knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.”
John 4:1-3 NLT

‭Jesus had become aware that He had appeared on the Pharisee’s radar. This formidable group of Jewish leaders were very influential in Jesus’ day and they seemed to be quite popular with the people, though why this should be is unclear. The Pharisees promoted strict adherence to the Jewish Law – all 600 laws as recorded in the Torah – but they also followed the Jewish oral traditions that they believed had originated in the time of Moses. It must have been hard to be a Pharisee, but they were a self-righteous bunch and believed that if they kept all these laws and traditions then God would be pleased with them. Jesus had little time for them, as on several occasions he called them hypocrites, and we read what He said about them in Matthew 23:2-4, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden”. Jesus respected them to the extent of their knowledge of the Jewish Law, but He saw right through them into what was in their hearts. 

So why did Jesus want to leave a successful disciple-making venture in Judea and return to Galilee? Perhaps He didn’t want to confront and alienate the Pharisees just yet, as He was only at the start of His ministry. Or perhaps His Father communicated other plans. Or perhaps He knew that through His cousin John the Baptist, the baptismal ministry was in good and safe hands, and He was needed elsewhere.

It is human nature that should a person become successful at something, then they want to stay in that zone for as long as possible. This can particularly apply to people in an up-front church ministry, someone such as a worship leader or pastor. They feel that success gives them a right to continue even though God might be saying something else. It is very rare to find a leader with John the Baptist’s humility, as we read in John 3:29-30, “It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom’s friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less“. Paul the Apostle also taught humility, as we read in Philippians 2:3-4, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too”.

Very perceptively, John the Baptist said, “ … No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven” (John 3:27). Those in an upfront church ministry are anointed by God for their role but sometimes their conduct will bar them from continuing, as certain televangelists have found. In the Bible too we find the example of Saul who, through his disobedience, lost his anointing as king of Israel. 1 Samuel 15:22-23, “But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”” 

The lesson to us pilgrims is that we must always be in a position where we are totally reliant on God and obedient to what He wants us to do. There is no other way.

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Your guidance, keeping us on the path to eternal life. While we are here on earth please lead us in Your ways. In Jesus’ name. Amen.