Remonstrance

Snapshots from the betrayal of Jesus by Judas…

When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. John 13:27

No demon possession here, but empowerment and guidance.

So Judas left at once, going out into the night. John 13:30

Swallowed in darkness, his fate now in the hands of the Prince of Darkness, what a picture John paints of leaving the fellowship of Jesus!

And Jesus said to him, "Friend, do what you have come for." Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. Matthew 26:50

How can Jesus still feel mercy, compassion and friendship towards Judas? This certainly puts into perspective our petty griefs and complaints against lesser violators.

"I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to that yourself!" Matthew 27:4

Amazing how seared the conscience can be! The spiritual leaders of the day care little about right / wrong / innocence / guilt. Their concern is with self, as with the Kosmos at large: "What is that to us?"

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Tags: betrayal, discipleship

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? John 10:34

Jesus threw this amazing quote into the face of the Pharisees who were trying to accuse him of blasphemy. Interestingly, he’s twisting the scriptures slightly - more accurately, he feeds their twisted view of reality with some scripture, and leaving them befuddled. It is the secret of men’s hearts, widely-held, timeless and still popular today: "I am god!" To say, "the center of truth lies with me" is to say, "I am god!"

Did you know this verse lies at the heart of Mormon doctrine? The ambition of a good Mormon lifestyle is to achieve deity status, as Jesus achieved, through good works. Thus, the appeal of Mormonism world-wide, despite its harsh requirements: it appeals to that

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Tags: mormonism, pride

A newspaper printed the obituary of Alfred Nobel, and it said that he got rich from the death of others. He was the inventor of dynamite. Fortunately, Nobel wasn’t actually dead, and when he read the newspaper’s obituary, he was horrified!

Nobel got a chance to do something few of us can do: he watched his life from the viewpoint of death. It rattled him, and he didn’t like what he saw. So he took his fortune and set it aside into the Nobel Prize foundation, and today "Nobel" is famously associated with excellence in the arts and sciences. People are surprised to discover that Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite.

How would they write your obituary? What we do with our money speaks tellingly what we did with our lives. Money is "compressed life". When we give it to God’s purpose, we’re saying, "Here is my life, my time, my effort, my life’s blood!"

God offers us a glimpse of our obituary, if we are but only willing:

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

This immediately follows the famous passage, "For by grace you have been saved…" Do we make the same connection in our lives? We’ve been saved by God’s grace in order that our lives might be transformed from meaningless wandering and self-indulgence into a life of testimony to the glory and beauty of the Lord.

Filed under: worthy Purpose by kmcc
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Tags: history

This comes from our Cell Wednesday night 1/18, Joe’s Teaching from “More Than a Carpenter,” chapter 1.

Why must postmodernists be so dogmatic and judgemental? It is an amazing and glaring hypocrisy which somehow escapes the enlightened scrutiny of the postmodern world. (The most difficult weakness to see is personal weakness, no matter how glaring.)

Joe found a blog where some postmodernist was raging with the usual pretense of great enlightened inclusiveness, and Joe asked the guy for one simple clarification (a fair question) about the guy’s postmodern dogma, and behold! What a stream of vindictive rhetoric he drew! All the marvels of enlightened inclusiveness is so very fragile and skin-deep, if anyone scratches the surface what bloody wrath suddenly gushes out! Postmodernism reminds me of early Nazism which engulfed the most educated nation of its day, with all its sloganeering and intolerance–aimed now at Christians, not Jews.

Jesus is sometimes tauted as the prototypical postmodernist because he taught on love and acceptance. But to actually talk about Jesus will get a postmodernist pretty heated. Why? Even a scant look at the historical record quickly torpedoes the fantasy-Jesus endeared by postmodernists. Consider these:

“I and the Father are one.”
The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.
Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?”
The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” John 10:30-33

And then:

The high priest stood up and came forward and questioned Jesus, saying, “Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?”
But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”
And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.”
Tearing his clothes, the high priest said*, “What further need do we have of witnesses?
“You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you?” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. Mark 14:60-64

Why get so caught-up in such rage? It happened then, and still today, despite our many millenia of enlightened thought. If Jesus is a fraud, so what? Why fear such a fool? Does Jesus take any money or expect anything in return? No, in fact it is His clear and simple message:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45

Now what is so threatening about that?

Andy teaches next Cell Group.

Everybody needs to know about the Cell Group retreat in one week from Saturday night. It begins at 4 pm.

Filed under: truth by kmcc
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Tags: apologetics, persecution, postmodernism