This morning my focus rested on Proverbs 2. Wisdom is speaking and she says that if I would lean into her wisdom and let her words direct my heart closely to understanding I’ll be able to reach for it when needed and it will be found like hidden treasure. This is such a refreshing thought because it’s so much better to know you have that treasure already found and discovered at your fingertips than to find yourself in a position to need to find it when you are in a pickle. This morning I need the wisdom that God has provided to take one step. I’m currently in recovery from COVID and my breathing is extremely stressed and I’m on oxygen at home. Wisdom tells me to lay aside absolutely every other concern and worry and allow God to direct my every move today no matter how limited that movement is. Wisdom today means for me that I will lay in the postural positions I have been directed by doctors to follow so that my body can process and saturate the levels I need for my brain and heart to function properly. For me this is the simplicity of wisdom that I need to follow today. It doesn’t match the capacity of what I am used to living in a day and I need to accept where I am at so that God can heal me right where I am moment by moment and hour by hour today. Today this is wisdom that I will follow close to my heart and trust God to do the rest.
Message/Application: In Acts 22 Paul had been viciously taken by the Jews who fully intended to kill him but now found himself answering to the Romans who just wanted to know why the Jews wanted him so badly. They were about to lift their own hands against Paul when he challenged their right to do so by bringing up his Roman citizenship and stopping them dead in their tracks in fear. These men had purchased their citizenships, but Paul was a natural born Roman citizen and he knew exactly what that meant and so did these men. This obviously got Paul out of a beating, but it opened up something more important. It opened up an opportunity to share his story. As he began speaking to them he related that he had been every bit a part of what the Jews were currently doing to him (and even worse because he was running around as an enforcer) until Jesus stopped him dead in his tracks and “blinded him by the light.” This is the part of the story that stopped me in my own tracks this morning. As Paul described being “blinded by the light” and a voice speaking to him, it specifically says that those who were with him could see the light but they could not hear the voice that was speaking to Paul in that moment. I read and reread that one line over and over again, and I thought about the experiences we are all having in the presence of those who are around us. Those who work with us, serve under or over us, or serve for us, and labor with us. No matter what that may look like there are people walking along side us with a front row view of what is taking place in us. Like those who assisted Paul, they could see the light of what was happening to Paul but they were unable to hear the voice that was speaking to him. They had to assist him to safety in his blinded state and tend to him but they had no idea what kind of words were being exchanged to Paul by Jesus. We know the rest of the story includes God sending Barnabas to come and heal his eyes and minister to Paul but we don’t really hear what happened with Paul’s traveling partners who had been with him to assist him in his dirty work and had witnessed this miraculous encounter that changed the man they knew as Saul into this other man we all love as the Apostle Paul. As I think about this it draws my attention to those who are casually in my life right now watching my process from an outside view. They can clearly see things happening but I pray that what they see will have a lasting encounter marked by God. That what they see happening to me in an open view would point to Jesus as he brings change to my life in front of an audience maybe of just one person. Paul talks about being the worst one -the chief of sinners but that’s not really the point I’m getting to here. My point is that our process has an audience and I pray that those who are impacted by the view would be forever changed. Not because of me, but because of what they see God do to me and through me in my process.
In Acts 21 all the things that Paul had been warned about were starting to go down. As soon as Paul showed up in Jerusalem the Jews were all fired up against him making their accusations that Paul was coming against the teachings of Moses. The church came up with plan for Paul and four other men to go through the ceremony purification process together to prove that Paul wasn’t there under any destructive purposes, but days into it all the Jews unraveled from there with all kinds of speculation. They had “previously seen” Trophimus, the Ephesian in the city with Paul and they “supposed” that Paul had brought him into the temple complex. They used this tiny piece of speculation as fuel for the fury and they seized Paul, dragged him out of the temple complex, shut the gates and attempted to kill him. Word came to the commander of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in chaos. They got there in time to stop the beating of Paul and took into custody really for his own protection. Today as I read through this is was reading about the speculation that went on that really left me triggered. The Jews had a narrative already built concerning the motives of Paul. They weren’t at all interested to know what he was or wasn’t trying to do. They picked up a shred of speculation and used it as ammo to unleash against Paul. Thinking about this kind of thing gets my blood boiling in so many ways. We have people around us in all directions that are using little pieces of speculation as ammo for a narrative that is already built inside their own ideas and agendas. If we are interested in truth, we will seek after God for truth. Otherwise, we will be like everyone else, biting onto the speculative pieces that are thrown out with the purpose of division and distraction from our actual purpose. I don’t want to be tethered to any of these biases and my challenge as I read and write this is to set aside every speculative idea and ask God to shed the light of truth on any and all situations regardless of how affirmed or confirmed they may be appear to be.
Message/Application: As I read through both Acts 20 this morning as well as Proverbs 29 I was caught by a few important things. In Acts 20, Paul had been teaching, leading and discipling these people for all of this time and really truly thought this was going to be the end for him so he was saying his goodbyes and preparing the people that they would “never see his face again”. He really believed that the warnings he was hearing from the Holy Spirit about his suffering was going to point to his death so he was making all of this preparations and tying all of the loose ends. He even warned the people that there would be those among them that would try to destroy the foundation of what he had built in the church. As I carried this thought over into Proverbs 29: 20 (Do you see a man who speaks too soon? There is more hope for a fool than him.” And in verse 22 it says that an angry man stirs up conflict and a hot-tempered man increases rebellion. I was thinking about all of the things that Paul was trying to impart to his people before he thought he was leaving. He wasn’t trying to be culturally relevant. He wasn’t trying to insert his own bend or ideas. He was making sure that the truth of the gospel was crystal clear. This is ALL I am responsible for. As I read the word more and more every day it becomes more and more clear to me that I can’t speak to the millions of views and topics that are out there begging for our attention. There are entirely too many layers and If I don’t stick with the heart of the matter of the gospel I am way too likely to allow one of these topics to skew the truth into something else. When I am focused on the truth of the gospel first, it filters everything else appropriately from there.
Message/Application: This is a short little devotion but I didn’t see a point in fluffing it up with words.In Proverbs 14 I was reading through the contrasts between wisdom and foolishness, honesty and dishonesty. In the middle of it all was verse 23 that says: “There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty”. As I read this, I thought about all of the things I have had on my forever to-do list. I have a list full of goals, dreams and good ideas. There are things on this mental list that I talk about (some of it I talk about only to myself) but intention alone doesn’t get things done. I have watched others complete some of the goals I have had in my own life, and though I have a pretty jam-packed schedule, I can’t truly and honestly say I use all of my time wisely. This scripture convicted my heart to write these things down, make up a plan and start taking steps to get these things done.
Message/Application: Proverbs 9 gives a comparative picture of wisdom and foolishness. Wisdom is prepared and has built a house with 7 pillars. I’m pretty sure those 7 pillars have significant meaning and represent the strength of her character, but the scripture doesn’t go into that specifically. The pillars represent the strength of the house wisdom has built. She has prepared meat, mixed wine and set her table. She has sent out her servants to call out from the highest points of the city and bring in anyone who is lacking wisdom and experience to come and sit at the banquet she has prepared and eat what she has prepared. She cautions them to “leave inexperience behind” and turn from it. She also cautions those who teach not to try to teach or correct a mocker because they will not receive it, but to teach those who are teachable because they will become wiser for it. On the contrary side, Proverbs 9 also depicts “Folly” who is loud and arrogantly seats herself on a seat in the highest point of the city and calls out to those who are going straight ahead on their paths. She calls out the same words that wisdom calls out “whoever is inexperienced or lacks sense, enter here”. But Folly has not prepared anything. She has no prepared banquet and nothing of substance to offer. Instead, she calls out “stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten secretly is tasty.” This is a trap that leads to death. To me this is a reminder of the importance of spending the time preparing my heart in the word of God. We can’t ever stop learning and growing and a banquet prepared today will not continue to feed ourselves or others in the days ahead. When we stop preparing but continue to try to teach others we become just like the woman called “folly” who is trying to entice people to learn from her, but her words are a trap leading to death because they are our own.
Message: The power of the Holy Spirit is for every believer, but it’s purpose is not to make us look good, or spiritual or powerful. It’s to glorify God and draw people to HIM. Simon, the former sorcerer became a believer in Jesus and was walking out his process, but he didn’t yet understand the heart behind it all. He had used sorcery for so long to draw attention to himself and use that power to impress others, that he thought that the Holy Spirit could be obtained and used this way as well. Phillip told him to repent and that because his heart was full of evil (all about himself) that he would have no part in it.
Command: Don’t make it about myself!
Promise: The power of the Holy Spirit is a gift and a promise to all believers to accomplish the will of God everywhere we go and draw people to Jesus.
Warning: This gift is for us, but it’s not about us. If there is anything inside us that desires this gift for any other purpose than to glorify God, then our motives are out of place. It’s an easy thing to justify within ourselves and bad motives can creep in any time, so we have to check ourselves.
Application: It’s easy to read this and justify myself since I haven’t tried to buy the Holy Spirit with money, but I think this is much deeper than that. Simon struggled to understand the heart behind the gift because he had previously misused power for selfish gain, and it was the wrong kind of power entirely. After he believed in Jesus he may have naturally gravitated toward a desire for the Holy Spirit thinking the exchange for laying down sorcery for the power of the Holy Spirit made it righteous. He hadn’t yet dealt with the heart issue behind it all. As I read this I thought about musicians and worshippers because this is an area of my gifting. While being a performer is not necessarily selfish, the motives can become of self-serving and easily feed an ego if that is not kept in check. This is no different when musicians find Jesus and use their abilities to worship God. There is an obvious demand for excellence in all that we do, so musicians should not lose the drive to use their gifts with that excellence, but it’s also very easy to fall into the trap of making that excellence about ourselves. This is literally where the devil fell from Heaven as Lucifer, the worship leader to become Satan, the deceiver. There should always be a heart check so that we serve with excellence, but starve our egos. In this story, Phillip called out the heart motive in Simon and called him to repent. Simon responded by asking Phillip to pray for him so that the things he spoke wouldn’t “happen to him”. This isn’t quite repentance yet, because his motive was still about him, and I find it interesting that this is the last we heard of this man. It doesn’t have to be this way with us. God has given us his power, his authority and his gifts but they aren’t about us. We can self-justify so easily by outwardly saying that we are humble, and that our gifts are for God but we really have to pay attention to what is really going on inside our hearts. We have to allow God to identify the things in our hearts that have become about us and be quick to repent.
Message/Application: In John 21 the disciples had seen Jesus a few times since his resurrection. They had been interrupted by Jesus during their grief as they hid from the Jews in fear of what might be done to them. They had been known and recognized as Jesus followers and they had seen what was done to Jesus. But now they had seen Jesus in a resurrected state. He had come and shown them the wound scars in his hands and his side, but he was gone again. The disciples no longer had their teacher to follow around, so it seems they returned to what they knew-fishing. This was the very thing they had abandoned in order to follow Jesus. They were no longer hiding from the Jews. They were back to business as usual, but it wasn’t working out for them. They caught no fish, and a strange man was on the shore asking them about their catch and advising them to put their nets on the other side. For some reason they listened to the unknown person and when they did, they caught an abundance of fish and immediately recognized that the stranger was Jesus. The irony of it all is that this is exactly what happened the last time they had been fishing and this was the exact scene that they abandoned to go follow Jesus. In this seemingly déjà vu moment, Peter couldn’t get to the shore fast enough, but Jesus must have still been physically unrecognizable up close because verse 12 tells us that when Jesus told them to come and have breakfast, none of them questioned by asking who he was. They knew it was Jesus because they recognized his ways, not his physical appearance. This always fascinates me. Why was Jesus incognito? A little further in Jesus begins to press Peter asking him if he loved him and giving him instructions. He warned Peter about the persecution he would face and ultimately his death. Peter couldn’t help but look right at John and say “but what about him?”. To this Jesus told him that what happened to John was no concern of his. In other words, “worry about yourself Peter”. This is something we say to toddlers and kids but if we’re honest, we all struggle with this. Why do I have this suffering when I see others seemingly cruising through calm waters? The funny part about this story is that Jesus basically told Peter ‘what is it to you if my plan for John is a long happy life?’ “YOU follow me”. He emphasized this so strongly that they continued to rumor that this is what Jesus promised for John. We all are tempted to compare but just like Jesus showed up unrecognizable to his disciples, he shows up in our lives this way. We recognize him by his ways and we really can’t see what he’s doing in the lives of others but we need to worry about ourselves. What he has for me is different than what he has for anyone else. Worry about yourself!
Message/Application: In John 20 I was reading about all of the grief going on with the disciples and followers of Jesus. They thought it was the end and not only were they grieving, but they were terrified of the Jews after they saw what happened with Jesus. Mary Magdalene was grieving outwardly at the site of the tomb, but the disciples were grieving secretly behind locked doors. Jesus interrupted them all in the middle of their grief and he literally met them where they were. For Mary it was at the site of the tomb when things didn’t look as they should have. She was there to anoint his body but it was missing. Jesus showed up and interrupted her grief by revealing himself. He did the same to the disciples who were locked in a room hiding and fearing for their lives. Jesus met them there also and literally interrupted their grief by walking into their personal prison and revealing himself there. Often times I find myself quietly grieving circumstances and I want to sit alone in my grief. I prayed even this morning as I tried to process through the quiet place I was drawn to stay in. Jesus interrupted my quiet grief and challenged me out of it. I’m so thankful that Jesus interrupts my grief and disappointment and meets me literally where I am at.
Message/Application: Reading John 17 I saw Jesus praying for his disciples as a spiritual covering a protector of those he was leading. He was praying for his 12 specifically and I saw a picture of what he was modeling to them. They were in the infancy stage of their faith walking with Jesus with their questions and a lack of understanding, but they would become not only strong men, but founding apostles who would lead churches all over. Jesus prayed for them with a tender heart and the deep conviction that not one of them would be lost or overcome except the one that would be the betrayer. As I read this I also thought about when Jesus told Peter that Satan had asked to sift him like wheat, but he had prayed for him. Peter still messed up, but he was far from being sifted. I’m encouraged as I read this, not only for what I can become because of the prayers of others, but for the people that are walking alongside me that I am praying for. Many of them are in the infancy stage of their faith but they will become powerhouses that will lead others. Jesus saw this in his 12 when they seemed more like children, and he sees this in me too.
Message/Application: In John 19 I was reading about the interaction between Pontius Pilate and Jesus. I had always read this with the impression that Pilate believed his innocence and was trying to do Jesus a favor, but today I saw something very different. Not only was Pilate aware of his innocence, but this scared him, and he wanted no part of his death. He tried to wash his hands of it and convince the Jews that since he declared him innocent that they should too but they weren’t having it. In verse 7 Pilate made this last attempt and the Jews replied with something that terrified him. They told Pilate that they had a law that anyone who claimed to be a king would be put to death. This was some sort of twist on blasphemy and not so much a direct law. They used that statement and then threw on another threat by saying “if you release this man you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” This took the accusation from just a problem with the Jews to absolute trouble for Pilate. This threat was the equivalent of treason in our context of understanding. The Jews were blackmailing him into turning Jesus over for crucifixion. This changes everything when you realize the manipulative power involved that these religious men were able to successfully threaten and blackmail these high-ranking government officials to do their business. The irony is that they were all suffering under the tyranny of their crooked government, yet somehow they were able to maneuver that master plan successfully? The truth is that God had this plan in place all along and even as clever as they were, Jesus was not killed by their master plan. He had a master plan of his own and they played right into it to accomplish the plan for our redemption. As much as it feels like we are being set up, we are losing, or people are against us, we need to remember that God has a bigger plan and he will allow people to use their evil intents to play out something we could never come up with on our own.
Message/Application: In John 12 the miracle of Lazarus raised from the dead was the most powerful miracle they had seen yet (although there was another one more powerful to come). This was an undeniable miracle, and it drew many people to believe, for a while anyway. The crowd that witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead was the same crowd that waved palm branches in His honor one day, and called for his death the next. This wishy-washy crowd abandoned the Jews to follow Jesus after the resurrection of Lazarus. In their jealousy, the Jews plotted to kill Lazarus. This seems almost humorous to me given the fact that they already knew Jesus raised him once. Did they believe he couldn’t do it again? The next sign was when Jesus prayed about his troubled soul and God answered Him audibly for all to hear. The crowd called it “thunder” and a little further on the prophecies of Isaiah were quoted about the blinding of their eyes, hardening of their hearts, and their lack of understanding. This scripture terrifies me because the realization that they are spiritually blind is completely beyond them. They were the most educated in the scriptures of anyone there. They held the honor and respect of all the Jews, yet they were so concerned with their position and their privileges that their focus was not on understanding the truth. It was completely on themselves. This was the cause of their blindness. My takeaway from this is that if we are self-focused, we will miss the signs and movements of God around us, but if we are looking for truth, we will find it.
Message/Application: In John 11 I really related to the grief in Mary & Martha when they felt like Jesus had let them down. They had all the faith in the world that Jesus could and would do a miracle, but the limitations came when it came to death. Once Lazarus was dead, they felt like it was completely over, but this is where the miracle began. Even knowing the end of the story, I still find it hard to read the words when Jesus told them that he was glad he wasn’t there for their own sake. It seems like such a hard thing to say, yet we know he was filled with so much compassion that he wept with them before he raised Lazarus from the dead. Reading this entire process from the moment Jesus was alerted that Lazarus was dying, and intentionally stayed back for 2 more days and all the way through to the resurrection reminds me that Jesus isn’t behind the game, or asleep or unaware of the things in my life that feel emergent and like a permanent loss. He loves me so much that he will grieve with me through the hurt and console me through the death of my very last hope before he shows me that the miracle that he intended all along would look much differently than I had expected. I’m not saying that every situation will be revived and restored like Lazarus. In fact, this morning after I read this, I heard someone talking about being shattered and broken and believing that God would put her “back together” again. I literally saw a visual of millions of tiny pieces and I envisioned them all miraculously being picked up and put back into place like watching a rewind button reverse the damage. The only problem with this, is that if our pieces are put back to where they were, there is still the inevitable breaking once you play it forward again. The miracle of this story was not that Lazarus was brought back to his former state. The miracle was that he was dead, and all hope was gone, but Jesus restored his life.
Message/Application: In John 8 the very first story is about the adulteress woman who was “caught in the act.” Jesus was in the temple complex teaching when the scribes and Pharisees brought the woman to him to make their accusations. I have heard and read this story more times than I can count, and I have heard this story interpreted and presented from all kinds of angles. What struck me really hard today was that the whole thing really didn’t have much to do with the woman or her sin at all. She was used as a pawn to entrap Jesus in the hopes of discrediting him. I don’t believe they cared at all about what she was doing. These religious leaders were using her at a worse level than the man she was caught in adultery with. They humiliated her by dragging her to the temple, bringing their accusations and their threats to stone her to death, but what they were really after was Jesus’s response. They hoped and thought they could get Jesus to feel trapped between contradicting Moses or contradicting himself, so this was their goal, and the woman was the collateral damage. They weren’t counting on the response Jesus gave them though. Instead of forcing Jesus to choose one of their responses, he chose his own response by humiliating them and exposing their own hearts. Backfire! This is exactly what the enemy of our soul does. He uses our sin issues to accuse us and humiliate us, but like the woman, we have been forgiven and released by Jesus!
Message/Application: In John 7 the crowds and many disciples were turning on Jesus and the Jews were trying to kill him. His brothers didn’t believe or understand his purpose, so they tried to advise him by saying “no one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition. If you do these things show them to the world.” Although this this idea is essentially true (in a negative application) the advice they gave him was completely contrary to the heart and mission of Jesus. The heart and mission of Jesus was to do the will of the father. He was not seeking public recognition. In fact, he was avoiding public recognition. Not because he was shy, but because he was doing something way more important and the general public didn’t understand the value because they had their own agenda for Jesus. This is not to say he wouldn’t later become publicly known. It just wasn’t his mission. He spent all of his time teaching and preparing his disciples in private knowing that what he taught in secret would change their lives, and they would ultimately change the world in the same way. The truth is, whether good or bad, the things we do in secret become known publicly because they reveal our heart motives. The brothers of Jesus had this backwards because they had the priority backwards. They would later come to understand who Jesus was and what he came to do because what Jesus did in secret was later revealed publicly. Oh the irony!
Message/Application: In John 5 miraculous things were happening but the Jews were so offended by Jesus that they were overlooking the miracles and accusing him by the standards of their own traditions and interpretations of the law. When Jesus healed the man by the pool of Bethesda he told him to pick up his mat and walk. It boggles my mind that when they saw a man whom they knew was sick and unable to walk for 38 years they had absolutely no response to the miracle. They were completely fixated on the fact that Jesus told the man to pick up his mat on the Sabbath. They considered this a violation of the Sabbath rule of “not to work.” I can’t help but wonder if they internalized the miracle in their hearts but simply chose not to respond to it, or whether they were really that unmoved by it. As the chapter continued on, Jesus was acknowledging their rejection of him and he told them that he couldn’t testify to himself but others could. He pointed out the fact that the Scriptures that they held with so much honor testified of Him. Again, they were blind to this. He reminded them that John the Baptist, whom they respected was testifying to Jesus, but they didn’t see that either. God the Father and even Moses all testified of Him but they were completely blind to this. Spiritual blindness is a dangerous thing and as I wondered how this happens, it occurred to me that seemed to begin with that religious attitude that elevated a tradition of man in place of the law. Because they missed the heart behind the law, they were unable to see the heart in anything else. Including in Jesus.
Message/Application: In John 4 when the woman at the well encountered Jesus I couldn’t help but notice how quickly she responded to him without explanation. She came to the well to a fulfill a physical and legitimate need. She needed water and she even acknowledged the significance of the water source. The well belonged to Jacob, her ancestor and she expressed her respect and gratefulness for him as that source. When Jesus challenged her with his living water she even called to question whether Jesus was greater than Jacob because in the moment she didn’t know who she was speaking with. She was thirsty enough to press in deeper so he quickly showed her the spiritual thirst she was trying to quench by exposing her physical pattern with men. She fully embraced the exposure, and immediately recognized that this was a spiritual matter and Jesus as a spiritual authority by calling him a prophet. She didn’t stop there though. As Jesus led her even deeper into understanding she expressed her desire for more understanding that she knew would come from the Messiah so in that moment Jesus revealed himself fully to her as the Messiah by saying “I am He”. This is HUGE because not only was she seen as an “unworthy” Samaritan, but this was also a woman and it wasn’t right for a Jewish man to even be talking to her. Jesus had not revealed himself this way to even his own disciples until Peter (who was inspired by God) recognized him as the Messiah on the mount of transfiguration. What this woman thirsted for, discerned and understood in just one short conversation took a long time with his disciples. When the woman took hold of this understanding, she literally abandoned her water jar (a very important necessity for her physical survival) but also a very significant symbolization of her understanding of Jesus as her spiritual source. Her understanding drove an urgency to share this with anyone in the town that would listen. The irony of it all is that once his disciples showed up with the food they went to buy, Jesus told them he had “other food” that they didn’t know about. They were confused and wondering if someone else had given him something to eat, but he was referring to the spiritual substance and his satisfaction of doing the work of the ministry. He had just satisfied the spiritual thirst of this woman and it satisfied the spiritual hunger of his soul. As I pondered this I realized that like this woman, we try to quench our spiritual thirst with physical things. Once we recognize our spiritual source is in Jesus we are willing to abandon the physical things that we are using in his place.
Message/Application: In John 3, a man named Nicodemus was approaching Jesus with questions. He heard Jesus talking about being born again so he raised the question that sounds so naïve (and somewhat sarcastic) to us in our Bible educated understanding, but this was so new. He wanted to know how a grown man could possibly be born again so he asked whether a grown man would climb back into the womb of his mother. He didn’t understand that this was a spiritual rebirth and not a physical one. Jesus was used to fielding questions from other leaders and teachers, but he must have discerned the genuineness of his heart because his response to Nicodemus, who was also a teacher of the law, was different from the rest. Jesus answered his questions and Nicodemus continued coming to Jesus at night to ask his questions. What I really pulled from this was that the humility of Nicodemus to ask questions in spite of the expectation that as a teacher, he should have answers is what changed everything. This is a perfect example that we learn by continuing to ask questions and our status should never change this. We should always continue to learn and grow so we should never outgrow asking questions.
Message\Application: In John 2 I took a few steps back to observe some details in an otherwise, very familiar story so I’m just going to throw them out there for observation. My first observation was when his mother came to him with the problem of the wine running out at the wedding. Although this was his mother, he addressed her with formality and appeared to be setting a boundary by asking her “what does this have to do with me?” and informing her that it was ‘not his time yet’. In spite of this, Mary didn’t argue or plead with him. She looked at the servants and told them to do whatever he told them to do. When the miracle was performed it was not known publicly. The servants (and Mary) knew so I always assumed that the sign was for the servants, but verse 11 tells us that “Jesus displayed his glory and his disciples believed in Him.” This tells me that the boundary Jesus appeared to be setting was to make it clear that his priority was making himself known to his disciples. It had always confused me when Jesus performed huge miracles and then told them not to tell anyone. He wasn’t there to wow the crowd or become famous. He came to make a life changing impression on the 12 men he chose to be his disciples so that they would revolutionize the world. Jesus was personal then and still is today. The next observation I made was when Jesus went into the temple and was enraged by the misuse of it’s purpose the focus always appeared to be on the leaders and the people in the temple. What captured my attention this time was that as his disciples watched him fashion that whip and passionately clear the temple complex of all of that commerce scene, his disciples were making some observation of their own. They remembered past scripture that said “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Not only did they draw from the past in that moment as they recognized the significance, but Jesus also planted a new seed for his disciples to come back on in the future when he told the Jewish leaders “destroy that sanctuary and I will rebuild it in three days.” They had NO idea what he was talking about and Jesus didn’t explain. He just left things there to be thought back on later on. As I read the New Testament I find tons of these “easter egg” items where Jesus left seemingly confusing statements with no explanation on purpose because he knew that his disciples (and anyone else with a genuine heart) to find it in the future. The Old Testament is full of monuments where God constantly told them to make landmarks, take memorial objects and observe feasts and festivals to pass down to their children and grandchildren. He taught them to look back to these events, but also to create new ones for the future. My third observation was similar to the first. Jesus was not interested in convincing anyone of anything. He was after those who had clean motives and a heart for truth. His priority was his disciples but he dealt with everyone else based upon their motives. He knew the motives of those asking questions with a motive to discredit, and he knew the motives of those with a true desire to learn. He answered people according to their motive and not necessarily their words. I wrote a little bit about motives yesterday and I feel like God is not done talking to me about this. He isn’t looking for textbook perfection or behavior modification. He is looking for a heart that has pure motives. When we are working out the issues of our heart in private honesty with God, the behaviors will follow for all to see. We all stumble in our mistakes as we work this out, but the point is and has always been about what is going on in our hearts. We can easily fake it with people, but we can’t fake it with God. He sees everything in our hearts and that’s what he’s after.
Application: Proverbs 16 contrasts the differences between the thoughts, motives and plans of man compared to God. The very first verse acknowledges that reflections of the heart belong to man but then verse 2 tells us that a man’s ways seem right to him but the Lord evaluates the motives. This is tricky because even when we try to evaluate our own motives we are so prone to justifying ourselves. We lie to ourselves more than anyone else in the world lies to us. Even when we want to be honest we struggle to face hard truth because it’s painful. Lying to ourselves eases the pain of looking at the truth. I don’t believe we should live in paranoia, but we should live in the tension of knowing that our thoughts and motives lean toward selfishness and deceit. What I got out of this chapter was the importance of submitting every thought to God. The bible tells us to take every thought captive and test it. Even (and especially the positive ones!
