Rebuke and Guide: Jesus on Disciples and Their Failures

"Jesus replied, 'You unbelieving and rebellious generation! How long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.' Then Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and from that moment the boy was healed.
Then the disciples approached Jesus privately and said, 'Why couldn’t we drive it out?'

'Because of your little faith,' He told them. 'For I assure you: If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'" -Matthew 17:17-20, HCSB

Have you ever just wanted to smack a friend? They continue doing something dumb, and can't seem to get it. Finally, they act a fool one last time, and you tell them (rather bluntly) how they are screwing up.

Jesus had one of those moments here. Over and over He calls His disciples out for their faith, and over and over again His disciples show how little their faith is. This time, however, He goes a bit deeper.

Jesus proceeds to explain how their failure at driving out a demon is due to how little their faith is, but if they were to have greater faith, they would be able to do great things. Notice how Jesus handled His disciples in this scenario, and let's see if we can glean some guidance for our own discipleship efforts.

1. He wasn't afraid to rebuke them. How often have we wanted to say how a fellow Christ follower is not walking on the right path, but then chickened out and didn't tell them? Me too, but Jesus didn't chicken out. He saw His disciples failing in their spiritual growth, and He called them on it. We must also be willing to do this. If we are never willing to correct our disciples, then how will they ever grow?

2. He guided them closer to God. Jesus didn't stop with a rebuke, though. He followed up with spiritual guidance and pushed them closer to God. He explained why things weren't working, and helped them see how to do better.

We must be willing to do both of these steps with our disciples. We mustn't be afraid to call people on their shortcomings, but if we aren't willing to lovingly and calmly come alongside and guide them to a new understanding, what good does that do? They'll never know how to correct their actions!

Let us be willing to rebuke, and let us be willing to guide. Our disciples look to us for spiritual leadership; we must act our part.

They Can Only Kill You

"Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." -Matthew 10:28, HCSB

Jesus didn't play games. This passage comes from a speech Jesus gave to His disciples as He commissioned them as apostles, as kind of a "hey, this is going to be your life" type of deal. As part of that speech, he starts talking about how people will want to kill them for following Him. They will be hated, mocked and eventually, possibly killed. No big deal.

Then He says "oh, by the way, the people that want to kill you ain't got a thing on God, who can destroy your soul and body forever." Um, intense.

Guess what, yo: this applies to people these days, too. There are brothers and sisters in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East dying on a daily basis, all for the Name of Christ. There are siblings murdered, daughters disowned, wives stoned and husbands abandoned for following Jesus. Churches in Nigeria are regularly burned and bombed, and pastors have been skinned in India. Many nations have banned the Word of God, the sharing of one's faith,

And we fret about being made fun of because we are a virgin or don't drink. Ha.

We have to keep this Christian walk in perspective, Western Church. There very well may be someone that reads this in a country where persecution is intense. I regularly have page views on this blog from China, India and parts of the Middle East. These brothers and sisters are being bold in their faith because it doesn't make sense to claim Christ in a lukewarm fashion. Christ equals punishment and death in some places in this world. Making disciples of all nations is not a program or good idea; it is either a command of Christ worth dying for, or a cue to abandon the faith in favor of living.

These are the costs of following Christ in other places, and it isn't getting better here. I hate to be a Johnny Raincloud, but America and the West isn't getting friendlier to the Way. Christ followers are not being welcomed in a greater fashion; we're being hated more and more. We ain't headed for a bright future; Europe has already worked hard at abandoning Christ and the United States is following their cues.

Following Christ in Western culture will continue to be harder as time continues one. Are we willing to take the heat for His Name? Others already are literally dying for His gospel; would we be willing to do the same?

Persecutors on earth have nothing on God, though. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is another human can kill you. God can destroy your body and soul. You tell me: which side is scarier?

We must all decide, at some point in our lives: are we going to fear people on earth, whether they kill us or simply make fun, or will we fear God, who will judge the entire universe. Let's think about this, and live out what should be the natural result of this truth.

Fearing God

"The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge."

-Proverbs 1:7, HCSB

This idea of "fearing God" is something I have just recently started pondering on. It is a foreign, understudied concept for many of us. I mean, doesn't Jesus want to be our Friend and Father? Why does the Bible encourage fear of God?

It all lies in our definition of fear. When Scripture talks about fearing God, there is more to it than the quaking, trembling sensation that we feel when a wolf is bearing down on us (what, that's never happened to you?). Instead, it is a far larger concept.

Robert Strimple described it as a "convergence of awe, reverence, adoration, honor, worship, confidence, thankfulness, love, and, yes, fear." C.S. Lewis described a person who fears the Lord like this: "...one filled with awe, in which you feel wonder and a certain shrinking or a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant of or prostration before it."

I have been reading R.C. Sproul's book The Holiness of God, and a large focus of this book is the fear of God. You see, God is holy, and holy is a big descriptor. Holy means more than just pure, although that is certainly part of it. Holy literally means "separate." God is separate from everything and everyone else. There is nothing like Him or even close to being Him. He is completely separate and set aside from the world, so there is no sin in Him. He is an entity that we cannot even fathom, and even to say this has really been a bit of a struggle for me. God's holiness isn't just hard to define, though; it is even harder to approach.

In Isaiah 6, we see the prophet Isaiah before the throne of the Lord. The angels and other beings are flying all about, praising God and His holiness. God is in His full glory, beaming in holiness on His throne. Isaiah, the prophet of God, responds to this immersion in holiness by dropping to the ground in worship, and yes, fear of the Lord.

Isaiah, when confronted by the holiness of God, didn't have any other response other than "woe is me!" He was overcome with everything Robert Strimple mentioned in his definition of fearing God: he was filled with awe, reverence, honor, fear and worship to start, and once he realized that God wasn't going to smite him on sight for his sin, he experienced adoration, confidence, thankfulness and love. Isaiah feared the Lord.

I've gone through all of this to get back to my focus verse for today, Proverbs 1:7. This verse is considered the theme verse for the book of Proverbs, and it is huge. If fearing God is the beginning of knowledge, then we need to fear God. We need Isaiah's approach to God. We need to look at God with awe, worship, adoration, confidence, love, honor, thankfulness and even an element of fear. He may be our Father and Friend, but He is also our Creator God.

Sovereign Lord.

King of Kings.

Ruler of Everything.

Punisher of Sin.

Holy, righteous, pure.

This is the God we serve, this is the God that has saved us from our sins. Let's look at Him through the lens of all that He is, not just a portion of it. He's a holy God; let's live lives that reflect a fear of the Lord. He commands no other response.

Our Silence Makes No Sense

"Then He touched their eyes, saying, 'Let it be done for you according to your faith!' And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus warned them sternly, 'Be sure that no one finds out!' But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout that whole area." -Matthew 9:29-31, HCSB

So, one day Jesus was walking around when a pair of blind guys walk up to Him, wanting to be healed. They had heard, no doubt, of His healing abilities. Perhaps they even heard that He had healed other blind people. Regardless, they walked up behind Him and yelled for Jesus to have mercy on them.

His response? "Do you believe that I can do this?"

Their answer: "yes."

A repeating theme in the Gospels is faith. Almost anytime that Jesus healed someone, it was a result of their having faith in Him to do what they believed He could do. And really, the same should be true for Christians.

We were once blind when Jesus, by grace through faith, opened our eyes to Him and our salvation in Him. When we are awakened from our sin-induced death and brought into the new birth in Christ, we are healed by Him, like the blind men here, "according to our faith." With that, our eyes are opened.

 For both us and the blind men, Jesus made a command and that command was/is disobeyed. And that's when the similarities disappear.

In the case of the blind men, Jesus told them not tell anyone of what He had done for them, as the time had not come for His awesomeness to be revealed. Yet, overcome with gratefulness and excitement, these men could not keep the news of their Healer to themselves. They felt an overpowering compulsion to share about Jesus with everyone that they came in contact with.

Inversely, Jesus has commanded us to "go, therefore, and make disciples," telling them all about Him and what He has done for us. Yet, we respond in the exact opposite fashion of the blind men. We hold in the news of Christ to ourselves.

Imagine if the blind men were healed, and then ran to an entire group of blind men and women. Upon their arrival at the group, they then proceed to act as though they are blind and refrain from telling anyone how they gained their sight. They have the same mannerisms, actions, words and everything that they had when they were blind. It wouldn't make sense!

And yet, this is us. We are healed of our spiritual blindness, and yet continue on in our lives as though we are still blind, keeping the news of our healing to ourselves.

It must not be this way. We must run to any and all the people that we know, proclaiming the name of Jesus! He has healed us; are we not filled with joy at this truth?! Are we content with our healing so much so that we ignore the blindness of others?!

We have had our eyes opened. It is now our job to do the same with our mouths.

Better Than A Pharisee?

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:20, HCSB

Yesterday I was in a discussion with a friend of mine about her weekend. She told me about how busy her weekend was, primarily because of church. Intrigued, I asked how it was that church had made her weekend so busy.

She went on to tell me how she was Catholic, and due to several factors she couldn't control, was late to mass on Saturday night. She told me that mass lasts for one hour, and after she missed the first thirty minutes, she felt like her attendance in mass "didn't count." Thus, she went again on Easter morning, to make sure that she was in a full mass service this weekend.

Now, I am not one to bash Catholics, but this conversation really got me thinking about one aspect of Catholicism that many Protestants deal with, as well: can we earn any good standing before God? This ranges from full-on works-based salvation to just improving how God sees us, based upon our actions. Is there any way to improve our standing before God on our own? Does God have a scoreboard, keeping track of our good deeds? Do we have to gauge whether or not our deeds count?

The answer is no. There is nothing we personally can do to improve our standing before God. We are all sinners, and according to the book of Isaiah, even our good deeds are merely dirty rags in the eyes of God (if you want Isaiah's version, look up the real meaning of Isaiah 64:6).

In the passage I included at the top of this post, Jesus is describing how He fulfills the law of the Old Testament. He describes how He is not the destroyer, but rather the completer of these writings, and how one must be more righteous than the Pharisees to get into heaven.

Now, let's review: the Pharisees were the group of people in New Testament Judea that held to God's law the closest. No one had all of the sacrifices and such down like these people. They gave, fasted and prayed according to the law. They practically lived in the temple.

And Jesus says we must be more righteous than that to enter heaven.

Can you see our dilemma? I don't know how righteous you think you are, but I know I have nothing on the Pharisees. When you've memorized the first five books of the Old Testament AND follow them to a T, lemme know. Until then, we're gunna operate under the assumption that the Pharisees have us beat on the righteousness scale. That is the level we must surpass to get to heaven. Seems impossible, right?

That, my friends, is Jesus' point. He knows that no one follows the law better than them. Jesus knew when He made that statement that all fall short of that level, much less surpass it. Thus, we must conclude that since no one is at a heaven-worthy level (not even the Pharisees are righteous enough), no one can get to heaven based upon their deeds. No one.

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23, HCSB

Jesus was preaching Romans before it was written. There isn't a person on Earth that can improve their standing before God with deeds, since we can't get to a level to save ourselves, and even our good deeds are dirty rags to God. This is why we depend upon Jesus alone for our salvation! He alone could be the one righteous enough to earn God's favor, since He was not polluted by sin. He alone could be the spotless Lamb, slaughtered for the salvation of the people of God. He alone could earn our salvation.

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—  not from works..." -Ephesians 2:8-9a, HCSB

We're saved by grace, not works. We have nothing to bring to God, but praise be to Jesus that He brings it all for us! We may rest in Him, knowing that He is the one responsible for our good standing before God, washed white with His blood before the throne of God!

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song!

Why is Good Friday Good?

"It is finished!" -John 19:30, HCSB

It is finished. Que se termine. 它完成. она будет закончена. Il est fini. Consummatum est. それが完了しました. يتم الانتهاء من ذلك. 그것은 완료. Está consumado.

One could say that these may be the most important words in the entire Bible. Out of everything that Jesus said in His ministry, these three words may just be the most impactful, the most loaded, the most beautiful words that came out of His mouth. This is the climax, the highest point, in the entire plot and story of the Bible.

As He hung on the cross, He was not only experiencing the physical side of the crucifixion. Yes, He was in physical pain, but the spiritual pain was much worse. As hung on the cross, He took the burden of the wrath of God on Himself.

I once heard Jesus' taking God's wrath like this explained like this: imagine that we are in a canyon. A small river is trickling through, the product of a dam upstream. That dam is holding back a massive river that would flood the canyon if the dam broke. Needless to say, we don't want to be here when it breaks. Regardless, we throw rocks at it. I mean, it's a huge dam. How could it break?

One rock we threw hit another rock in the wall of the canyon, which in turn caused a group of larger rocks to become unlodged and fall into the dam.

 A crack runs up the middle, splintering across the facade of the dam. Time has worn the dam thin, and it is breaking. Suddenly, the river behind blasts through the cracked dam. The pressure was too much, and the river busts through.

We have since walked a little way downstream from the dam. We hear a loud noise, and turn to see a wall of water headed toward us. This deadly, overwhelming flood will destroy us, and it is our fault that the flood is headed for us.

We start to run, but there really is only time to turn away from the water when we hear a massive roar. Afraid to turn, we run a bit, but then realize that we are not dead yet. We turn around and see that there is no more wall of water.

Instead, a massive hole has opened up in the ground, creating a waterfall. The ground took the death from us and absorbed it all.

This is our story. God's wrath was bearing down on us, punishment due us because of our provocation and rebellion toward Him. Yet, instead of the death we deserved, Jesus took the punishment. He took the full wrath of God: not just my punishment, but also the punishment for you, our families, our friends, the guy across the table from me at the library...everyone. He took it all. Sin and death were defeated forever, all because Christ took the punishment for them away from His people.

If you have believed in Christ and confessed in Him as Lord and Savior, it is finished. There is no more punishment due to you, and there is no more power that sin can hold over you. Jesus took care of that. It's over, it's through, it is finished.

If you have never put your faith in Him, do so today. Feel free to trust in Him as Savior. None of us deserved for Him to die, but out of grace, mercy and love, He did it anyways. He took the punishment. Now it is up to you to accept Him as Lord and Savior and follow Him.

They call today Good Friday, the day that Christ died. But why is today good? Because it is finished.

He Didn't Ask Anything He Wouldn't Do Himself

"...and He went out, bearing His own cross." -John 19:17, ESV

The Christian walk is hard. No one every said this was easy, and if they did, they lied to you. As with growing in any relationship, our relationship with God also takes quite a bit of effort. When Jesus commanded His followers to "deny himself and take up his cross and follow me," He wasn't insinuating that to be a walk in the park.

To deny yourself means to put aside your desires. To pick up your cross means you must give yourself up, even be willing to die. To follow Jesus logically means that you aren't following anything else.

Money. Sex. Drugs. Power. Popularity. Spouse. Relationship. Grades. Success. Gossip. Work.

None of it but Jesus.

But here's the thing: He's not asking you to do anything He wouldn't do Himself.

He denied Himself, as Lord of the Universe, Creator God of all and Ruler of everything, to come to earth as a man. Not even an attractive or cool man, but as a servant, an average-appearing man.

He followed God, doing not His will, but that of the Father (Mark 14:36). He served and did whatever the Father asked of Him, following whatever He said.

And then He took up His cross. Literally. The ultimate giving up of Himself occurred on Calvary. He gave it all. He bore the cross across His bleeding, scourged back and was nailed to it.

Jesus was our ultimate example. If we are to follow Jesus, if we are truly Christians, we will look to His example. We will deny our "rights" and desires, in order to adjust to His. We will follow what God is leading to do, regardless of the other places we could go. And we will pick up our crosses, taking whatever punishment is needed in order to keep Christ first in our lives.

Jesus was the ultimate example. Will we follow suit?