Who Was Jesus Looking For?

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease among the people."  Matthew 4:23

As Jesus began His ministry, He walked the dusty shores of Galilee, calling fishermen like Peter, Andrew, James and John. He healed a leper who dared approach Him. He welcomed a paralytic who was lowered through a hole in the roof to see Him!

He even invited Matthew, a despised tax collector, to be His disciple. These were not random encounters -- they were intentional invitations, not to important scholars and leaders, but to the ordinary people, some who were often rejected and forgotten. Invisible.

How about you? Ever feel alone and alienated from "the important group"?

No one expected you to sit with the "cool kids" at lunch? That nobody ever saved you a seat for you? That you were never a part of the "in" group? Always "outside"?

Does it seem that Jesus usually chose those kinds of people to build His kingdom?

It does seem that way to me...and I am forever grateful.

When Jesus noticed people, when He called them, it seems He was not deterred by their weakness. Actually, it appears He was drawn to it! He doesn't wait for us to be strong and confident. He steps into our pain, heals and restores and then sends us out with a purpose. In a world where status determines influence, Jesus flipped the model. The broken became His messengers!

Jesus' actions remind us that ministry doesn't begin with perfection - it begins with surrender! We bring our imperfections to Him and He greets us with healing and restoration. If He can use fishermen, tax collectors, lepers and paralytics, He can use us, too!

He still walks into the lives of the outcasts and invisible and ordinary people today. He does it through us! Ask Him to open your eyes and show you someone who needs to see Him! And then show that person Jesus!

I Hardly Recognize the World

Father,

I hardly recognize this world anymore. I see so many heartless and hopeless people.

Everything seems so broken.

Was it always like this and I just didn't notice? Were there always
so many hurting people?

I must not have been paying enough attention...forgive me...please give me the gift and challenge of seeing people as You see them - people who need to know Your unconditional never-giving-up always-available love.

Please show me today how I can help be a part of the 
solution to the problems in this broken world.

Please let love and restoration start and blossom in my heart today.

Amen

Can I still say "God, I love you! "?

Sometimes things are just "Not OK".

                 And sometimes things are truly dreadful.

Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:19-20: "Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

He repeats this theme often in his letters to the early churches. 

And Jesus gave thanks, even when on His way to Gethsemane.

Praise God and thank Him for everything! we are told.

Job had more bad news than any of us could ever imagine. But, he says, "Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him" (Job 13:15).

Daniel's friends, when facing the fiery furnace, assured King Nebuchadnezzar, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (Daniel 3:17-18).

Even if He does not.....we will still worship Him only...

Habakkuk expressed it this way in his praise song: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

Even though....yet I will....

There's a story about  Arthur Blessitt that I love to recall.

Remember him? He is the Christian preacher who has carried a large heavy cross around the world --  literally,  he has taken the cross to every country and Guinness Book of World Records awards him with making the longest walk ever! 

Well, once he was in northern Israel at the beginning of the rainy season. It was cold. He was exhausted. There was no place to put his cross and he had no shelter or food or dry clothes. Finally he found an empty park bench at a bus stop. He lay down. Then it began to rain harder.

He looked at the rain and commanded, "Stop in the name of Jesus!"

What happened? A large flash of lightning and crashing thunder. The rain poured harder than ever!

And Arthur just looked up a the sky and proclaimed, "God, I love you!"

Sounds like Job and Daniel's friends, and Habakkuk.......

                    but does it sound like me?

PS Arthur Blessitt died about 6 months ago, January, 2025).

Feeling Outcast? Invisible?

 "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people."

                                                              Matthew 4:23

As Jesus began His ministry, He didn't start by going to schools and choosing scholars or to fine government buildings and asking for important dignitaries. 

Instead, He walked the dusty shores of Galilee, calling for fishermen like Peter, Andrew, James and John. He healed a leper who dared to approach Him. He welcomed a paralytic who was lowered through a hole in the roof so he could see Jesus. He even invited Matthew, a despised tax collector, to be His disciple.

These weren't just random encounters -- they were intentional invitations to the rejected and forgotten, to the invisible laborers supporting their families in Galilee.

It appears Jesus chose ordinary people to build His kingdom. People who were not well-known and not applauded by the people around them.

Ever feel like you didn't belong to the "important group"? Like you were so ordinary no one even noticed you? That you were practically invisible? No one expected you to have lunch with the "cool kids" at their table? No one saved you a seat. You just sort of "blended in."

Does it seem to you that these were the kind of people Jesus specifically wanted to use to build His kingdom? He sought these people out. It seems to me that that was who He was searching for. And I am forever grateful!

Each encounter shows us that Jesus isn't deterred by our weaknesses. He's drawn to them. He doesn't wait for us to be accomplished and confident -- He steps into our pain, heals and restores and then sends us forward with purpose and in His power.

In our world where status so often dictates influence, Jesus flipped the model. The broken and troubled became His messengers. (Actually, who better?)

Do you think your pain and past disqualifies you from serving Him? Maybe you should think again!

Ministry, to Jesus, does not begin with perfection -- it begins with surrender. When we bring our imperfections to Him, He greet us with healing and direction. If he could use lepers, paralytics, simple fishermen, and tax collectors - He can use us!

And remember, He still walks into the lives of outcasts today, only now, He does it through us! It is our body He is using for His ministry!

Look around you. Ask God to open your eyes - Who is invisible to the world? Who is weak and ordinary?  Search for them as Jesus did and then...show them Jesus!

God Is Our Refuge

 "The LORD is my rock, my fortress, my God is my Rock in whom I take refuge" (Psalm18).

A true story about a lumberman --

   A tender-hearted man who loved all God's creatures and had the job of cutting down trees and harvesting the lumber --

One day he began cutting down a tree. He saw a bird fly to the top of the tree with a sprig in her mouth. He worried because she was obviously building a nest. So he began pounding the side of the tree with the back of his axe. The tree trembled and the bird flew away. 

He was relieved until he saw her fly to the next tree. That was a tree he had to cut down, too. So he hammered it hard and she flew away with a sprig in her mouth! She flew to a third tree and he hammered at it till she flew away. This time she didn't fly to anther tree -- she flew to a great rock on a stoney cliff. She gently placed the sprig and flew away for another and began building her nest on the rock!

He was so relieved -- he stopped to pray,

thanking God for directing His special creature to the safety of the rock to build her nest!

Isn't that what God has done for us? He directs us to the stability of the Rock! On Christ the solid rock we stand... He is our fortress...our refuge!

We are always safe with Him!

Be Hatched or Go Bad - C S Lewis

We must be always changing, growing into what Christ intends us to be...

Christ never talked in vague terms. When He said, "Be perfect," He meant it. 

It is hard. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. 

We are like eggs at the present. And you cannot go on indefinitely just being an ordinary, decent egg. 

We must be hatched or go bad.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

What is more than eternal? John MacArthur

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.*

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 
(John 3:15-17)


Explanation from John MacArthur:

*This is the first of ten references to "eternal life" in John's gospel. The same Greek word is translated eight times as "everlasting life."

The two expressions appear in the New Testament nearly 50 times.

Eternal life refers not only to eternal quantity but also to divine quality of life.

It means literally "life of the age to come" and refers therefore to resurrection and heavenly existence in perfect glory and holiness.

This life for believers in the Lord Jesus is experienced before heaven is reached.

This "eternal life" is in essence nothing less than participation in the eternal life of the Living Word, Jesus Christ.

It is the life of God in every believer, yet not fully manifest until the resurrection.


[Note: This explanation by John MacArthur helps me understand Christ's words more fully when He said, at the Upper Room just before He was arrested:

Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

          -- John 17:1-3

And from 1 John, chapter 5:

     And this is the testimony: God has given us
     eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has
     the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of
     God does not have life...

     We know also that the Son of God has come and
     has given us understanding, so that we may know
     him who is true. And we are in him who is true--
     even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God
     and eternal life.


We are already in Him and so we are already participating in eternal life - it has already been given to us.]

Why All This Now? - C S Lewis

 

                                        Why All This Now?

Sometimes a Christian experiences life going along pretty well.

Then complications and troubles come along: illnesses, money problems, family crises, new kinds of temptations, etc. and he gets disappointed -- why all of this now? All at once?  he might ask. ...Just when things were going so good!

This is what C S Lewis says:

"Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving than he ever dreamed before.

It seems to us all unnecessary, but that is because we have not the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us. He wants to make us into 'Christians'-- that is, 'little Christs'!

Quoteworthy....Chesterton on Thankfulness

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world around me;
And with  tomorrow begins another
Why am I allowed two?
    --G. K. Chesterton


[Why am I allowed 2?  3? 
a whole string a days ....?
a week? a month?...even years..?]


Days of grace... Why were we allowed any at all?
with color? (He could have given us a black and white world) and joyful music? with friends and family? (He could have sentenced us to solitary confinement because our sins are so contagious) ! 

And that's not even looking at eternity in heaven with Him? all with God's eternal bounty?

It's all about gratitude....He loves gratitude...It's really not hard to please God! (See Colossians 3:15-17 and Romans 1:21-23)

[Someone should write a song about His amazing grace!]

The Joy of the Lord - Where does it come from?

                 A favorite verse - The Joy of the Lord is my Strength!

It's from Nehemiah,  chapter 8. It's a popular verse - and the context in which we find it is even more remarkable.

Here's the rest of the story....

The Hebrews who had returned to Jerusalem from  their Babylonian (and then Persian) captivity in the 6th century BC, began to rebuild their temple which lay in ruins. They started with the altar, but were distracted by other building projects and were challenged by local enemies.  

Ezra, a priest and a "scribe skilled in the law," heard of the problems being faced by his kinsmen and desired to see the matters corrected and the temple finished.

He set out with a large caravan of more returning exiles and arrived in Jerusalem to start the work again.The people were eager to obey God and resume His worship.
They asked Ezra to bring out his copy of the Law of Moses and read it to them. They built a high wooden platform for him to stand on while he read. 

"All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people sood up. Ezra praised the LORD, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded, 'Amen! Amen!' 

Then they bowed down and worshipped the LORD...the Levites instructed the people in the Law while they were standing there. They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so the people could understand what was being read.

Then Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites said to them all, 'This day is holy to the LORD our God. Do not mourn or weep' for all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.

Nehemiah said, 'Go and enjoy choice good and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength. They went away to eat and drink and celebrate with great joy, because now they understood the words that had been made known to them.'"

They had joy because they understood God's Word! Understanding God's Word give us joy and makes us strong!

Stop and read Nehemiah 8...and see how His Word does this for us!

 

Let's Get Over It - God Has!

 

                                    Let's Just Get Over It!

Most of us carry around a load of guilt. It is heavy and keeps us from running joyfully in our daily service for our Lord and Savior. It is a grievous burden.

So why do we call Him "Savior"? Didn't He die on that cross to 'save' us from sin and its guilt?

YES! Remember 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Has He ever lied to you? Me either! Psalm 103:12 reminds us that He has removed our sins from us "as far as the east is from the west" -  further than can even be measured.

Isaiah 38:11 says He has put our sins "behind His back" -- where He can't even see them anymore.

Other verses tell us He doesn't even remember our sins - they are all forgiven and He doesn't even keep a list of our wrong-doing!

Satan wants us to forget that. He encourages us to live in the past and dwell on our past guilt. Maybe we should should just tell him where to go - literally!

Let's get over the guilt thing - God has!