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Rick and I are continuing our study of the book of John, and the last few days, we’ve been studying John 2:13–22. Jesus had come to Jerusalem for the Passover, an important religious ceremony for the Jewish people. Passover was a very big deal for all Jews. Some traveled a long way to get to Jerusalem for the ceremony, from foreign countries like Egypt, Persia, and Asia Minor (modern Turkey). When Jesus got to the city, He went straight to the temple and what He saw there angered Him. Deeply angered Him. The temple courtyard was filled with people, which you would expect. But it was what they were doing that angered Jesus. They had turned the temple into a place of business. Here they were—in the temple!—sitting at tables, taking the foreign currency of the foreign Jews and exchanging it for Jewish coins. And, there were all these animals in there too…oxen, sheep, birds… because animals were necessary in order to observe Jewish laws regarding sacrifices. So there’s thousands of people buying and selling hundreds of animals….mooing, bleating, squawking, messy animals. It was a madhouse! Like some big, noisy bazaar. In the temple! The place for worshiping God had been turned into a business operation. And it was the leaders who set all this up! They were dishonoring God. They showed a total disrespect for God. The temple was no longer about worshiping God—it was about making money. No wonder Jesus was furious. What did Jesus do? He drove everyone out. Just like that. People. Animals. Everyone. And—amazing!—with no riot. No fighting back. Everyone just cleared out. I had never thought about this before: this was a miracle. The very fact that Jesus was able to clear the temple of all the people and all the animals AND without incident was an amazing miracle. It’s even more amazing when you understand that the Jews were pretty volatile people. They hated the Romans. They hated being under their rule, and the Jewish tendency was to riot first and ask questions later…always ready to fight. At this point in time, Jesus wasn’t well-known for His miracles. This was the very beginning of His ministry, and He had only performed one other miracle before this—and that was at a wedding. That miracle would have been seen only by those who were there—those few people who saw Jesus turn water into wine. But now, Jesus goes public with His miracle power. By His divine power, He cleared out this irreverent crowd single-handedly. You know, this miracle should have opened peoples’ eyes, just like His many other miracles. Many of His other miracles were healings. But they weren’t done only to heal or feed thousands. Yes, He absolutely did work miracles because of His kindness and compassion for people. But what He really wanted them to see from His miracles was who He is—the Son of God. Jesus is God in the flesh. And by understanding that He is the Son of God, that people would believe in Him. What’s tragic is that so many saw His miracles first-hand and thought nothing of it. They just wanted more—more healing, more food. They were blind to who Jesus is. I pray your eyes will be opened, that you won’t miss Jesus’s point: recognize who Jesus is. And believe in Him. If you need a Bible or prayer, call me.

We use the word “love” to mean lots of different things. Love for our spouses…love for our friends…love for our kids. Maybe you love pizza or the Packers. You see? That single word, “love,” can mean a lot of different things. A while ago I had a conversation with our daughter about Jesus and His love. Her perception is that Jesus was always loving, that He never offended anyone. But what does the love of Jesus actually mean? And was Jesus always loving? There are a number of stories in the Bible where Jesus doesn’t seem very loving at all. As a matter of fact, He sounds confrontational. For example, He pointed out that the Jewish leaders were teaching lies. In Matthew, there’s a sermon called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) where He says over and over, “you have heard it said…but I say to you...” and He went on to explain a whole bunch of things that the leaders had gotten wrong. Jesus also pointed out the leaders’ hypocrisy and pride. Yikes! That doesn’t sound loving. That sounds like Jesus was picking a fight. And there’s more. There were times when Jesus spoke directly to these leaders with really harsh words (Matthew 23:13-36). They were insulted. How dare Jesus speak to them like that? His miracles made them furious (Luke 6:11) and eventually, Jesus offended them so much they plotted to kill Him (Luke 22:2) It certainly doesn’t seem like Jesus was always loving. But think about this. Would it be loving and caring of your doctor to not tell you that you have cancer? If you don’t know about the cancer, you get no treatment. The doctor must speak truth to you, or the cancer could kill you. In the same way, Jesus was more concerned with telling the Jewish leaders and all the people the truth than He was about their hurt feelings and injured pride. If the leaders realized they were teaching the people lies, that they were hypocrites and full sin, they could do something about it, right? The love of Jesus means that truth must be spoken. He spoke truth, whether it made people mad or not because He loved them too much to let them die in their sin and go to hell. And Jesus was always loving because He always spoke the truth! He didn’t sugar-coat the truth by speaking soft words that made people feel good about themselves. Jesus gave them truth: they were sinners in need of forgiveness which comes only by believing in Him. It was a hard truth, but a truth grounded in His love for them. Jesus is still the same today, and the Bible teaches us the truth about Him. Sin is sin, and God (who came to earth in the flesh as Jesus Christ) hates sin (Psalm 5:5). He hates it! And every single person sins. Sin—any wrongdoing—always has a price. You may not like that truth, but it’s true. For those who believe in Him, Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross. Everyone will die one day and face God’s judgment. Jesus is the Savior and Lord who gave His life to take God’s judgment in your place, IF YOU BELIEVE IN JESUS. I pray that you will consider this wonderful truth, and give your life to the Lord Jesus. Let me know if you want to know more, need prayer, or would like a Bible.

What is salvation? God sent Jesus, His Son, into the world to bring salvation—to save people. Jesus spent just three years—only three years!—preaching before He died on a cross outside of Jerusalem. In that time, His sole focus was telling people to repent of sin. For the longest time, I thought that mainly meant I needed to stop doing bad things. And, that is true. If you are saved by Jesus, you do make every effort to stop doing bad things. But that’s not the big sin to repent of. The real sin to stop committing is rejecting Jesus. Jesus called people to stop rejecting Him as Lord and Savior and to believe in Him. Think about what you do when you believe in someone. When you believe another person, you accept that what they say is true. You also trust that person. If you trust someone, you know they have your best interests in mind. They want the best for you. Believing in someone has an impact your life. For starters, since what this person says is true, your thoughts and actions begin to line up with what they say. Simple example. If you believe what your mom said to you as a child—you’ll get hurt if you play in the street—then you don’t play in the street. What you did reflected that you believed your mom told you the truth. In the same way, if you trust someone, you follow their advice. You listen to them. Believing in someone shows up in how you live. You have become committed to that person. So, when Jesus called people to believe in Him, what He was telling them was that His words were true, that He was trustworthy, and they should commit themselves to Him. When Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), He was saying that He was God in the flesh. God walking among people in human form. Those who believed in Jesus, accepted His words as truth—that He was God in the flesh—and they followed Him. It effected their lives. Their belief in Jesus changed how they lived. Naturally, there were those who doubted. Some even said Jesus was demon-possessed and insane (John 10:20). Maybe they thought, “Nah, not possible. He’s just some guy. He’s out of his mind.” They rejected Jesus. This is the great sin. • How do you know if you truly believe? Your life is changed. Your mind is changed. Your heart is changed. Believing in Jesus transforms you. You and I can say all day long that we believe in Jesus—that we believe that He walked on the earth, that He died, that He rose again. Anyone can say they believe all these things. But if your heart, your mind, and your life is unchanged, you don’t truly believe in Jesus. You’re simply saying all the right stuff. I have to tell you, the apostle, John, was blunt. He said if you say you believe but continue in your old ways, you lie (1 John 1:6). In fact, you’re continuing to reject Jesus. Jesus came to save—to pay for our sin and give new life to those who follow Him. So what is salvation? Believing in Jesus and being transformed through repentance of rejecting Him as Lord and Savior. If you’d like to know more, call me. If you would like prayer or want to start reading the Bible but don’t have one, let me know.

Mercy and grace. These are such lovely words, aren’t they? I would like to be described like that: “Oh, she’s a merciful and gracious person.” In Exodus 34:6, God is speaking to Moses, and He tells Moses that He is a merciful and gracious God. What does that mean? Mercy and grace are kind of like opposite sides of the same coin. Let’s talk about mercy first. Let’s say you’ve done something wrong. There’s a punishment coming. If you receive mercy, whoever is handing out the punishment decides to forget about it. Let it go. Even though you deserve some kind of punishment, you don’t get it. The punishment just goes away, or is something less harsh than what you had coming. That’s mercy. When God is merciful, He’s not handing out the punishment that is deserved. Grace is kind of the opposite. It’s receiving something good, some benefit that you don’t have any right to receive. You’ve done nothing to receive this good thing, you don’t deserve it, and yet you get it anyway. When God is gracious, He’s giving a gift that hasn’t been earned and isn’t deserved. So…here’s how God is merciful and gracious. God made a perfect world a long time ago but sin messed it all up. Sin is committing wrongs against God, and He hates sin. Sin is like this giant barrier between God and man and it can’t be crossed. There’s no way around it, over it, or under it. There’s not a thing you can do to break it down, nothing I can do…PLUS there’s a price for all that wrongdoing against God. That price must be paid to make things right with God. So, because God is both merciful and gracious, He did something about both the barrier and the price. First, He made a way for the sin barrier to be broken down by providing a way for the punishment of sin to be paid. Jesus is how. You see, sin always has a price and someone has to take the punishment for sin. So, in dying on the cross, Jesus paid the price for sin for those who believe in Him. This is God’s mercy. You aren’t punished. If you put your faith in Jesus, God will not punish you for your sin as you should be—Jesus already did that for you. Next, there’s God’s grace. Do you deserve this great reprieve of your sin being paid for? No. You’ve done nothing to earn it, nothing to deserve it. It’s a gift. It’s a benefit that you don’t deserve. But you can receive it. This is God’s grace. What does it take to experience the mercy and grace of God? Faith in Jesus Christ. If you’d like to know more, let me know. If you need prayer or would like a Bible to start finding out about God and Jesus, let me know.

I’m reading the book of Mark. Here’s what Jesus was up to from Mark 1:21 – Mark 3:6: He cast out an unclean spirit from a man. This miracle made Jesus famous…people all over Galilee were talking about Him. Jesus healed a woman from a fever. He took her hand and healed her. Instantly. How do we know it was instant? Because this was Peter’s (one of Jesus’ disciples) mother-in-law and she started to serve them—it was her house and they were her guests. Later than same day, the whole village of Capernaum came to Jesus for healing. And He healed them. Jesus went out to the surrounding towns. Everywhere He went, He healed people including a man who had leprosy, a terrible, fatal disease. No drugs, no bed rest to fully recover. Jesus healed, leprosy gone. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, news traveled fast He was back in town. People jammed into the house where he was teaching. One group was so determined to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing that they went up on the roof, removed the roofing tiles, and lowered the mat that their paralyzed friend laid on down into the house, right in front of Jesus! Jesus healed him. There’s more! On another day, Jesus went to the synagogue. Another guy needed healing. (Frankly, I would think Capernaum would be running out of sick people by now.) This guy had some kind of hand deformity. Jesus told him to stretch out his hand, and He healed that man’s hand. Right there, fully and immediately, in front of everyone. That’s a whole bunch of miracles, all packed into the first 3 chapters of Mark. Plus, they are all happening in one little area – Jesus performed all of them in and around Capernaum. One small village…miracle after miracle, again and again and again. You’d think the whole place would’ve believed in Jesus. I mean, think about it. You had either been healed yourself, or you had a relative or friend who was healed, or you had seen someone healed with your own eyes, and at the very least, you had heard about all these healings and knew someone who knew someone who had been healed. As it turns out, this tiny village was one of the towns where Jesus did most of His miracles (Matthew 11:20). And they still rejected Jesus. They didn’t believe He was God in the flesh. No matter how remarkable they thought Jesus’s teaching and miracles were, they just kept on living life as usual and ignored His call to repent. The hardness of their hearts grieved Jesus (Mark 3:5). It was their complete indifference that grieved Him. His message of repentance and salvation just didn’t matter to them. This used to be my response to Jesus. Hope and salvation and eternal life wasn’t important to me. Work, family, having a busy life—that was important. All that Bible and Jesus stuff was for Sunday morning and that was enough. I was indifferent. I was just like the people of Capernaum. Praise Jesus, He didn’t give up on me. But you know what? He did give up on Capernaum. Read Matthew 11:20-24. I hope that you won’t continue in your indifference to Jesus. He’s still offering you hope and salvation. But He won’t offer that forever. Lord Jesus, may all who read this respond to You today, and receive Your forgiveness by Your mercy and grace. Amen. Let me know if you need prayers or a Bible.

Our daughter, Lindsay is with her husband and their sons in Niger, Africa. They are working as missionaries in a hospital. Sometimes people will come to their hospital desperately sick—if they had come sooner, they wouldn’t be so sick. Some even die because they wait, and then it’s too late. They waited too long. Jesus once said that it is not those who are well who need a doctor, it’s the sick who need doctoring. That’s easy to understand. When you’re healthy, you don’t go see a doctor. You just go about your life, doing what you normally do, feeling perfectly fine. On the other hand, when you’re sick, you hightail it to the doctor, right? It’s the doctor you want, the expert who hopefully can figure out what’s going on and get you on the road to recovery. You can’t do that for yourself, you need help. Back to Jesus. Here’s the setting: Jesus was eating with sinners, people who were considered outcasts, the scum of the earth. And there was this second group—the “righteous” group—who wondered why on earth Jesus would eat with sinners? This was His answer: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). What did Jesus mean? Well, here Jesus sits, in the company of people known far and wide as sinners. These sinners made no pretense of being righteous or holy or even good. They knew they were sinners. Everyone around them knew it, and they knew it themselves. But, when Jesus had preached and said, “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15), many heard, repented, and believed. So, now many of these sinners followed Jesus (Mark 2:15). The other group, the righteous bunch, found this absolutely shocking. That Jesus—someone who preached about God—would actually be seen with people like this, with sinners. Jesus eating with sinners horrified them! They wouldn’t be caught dead associating with such lowlifes, such sinners! This horrified group looked down their noses. They certainly were nothing like those dirty sinners. Quite the opposite: they saw no sin in themselves. They were righteous! They were just fine. They were healthy. They had no need of a doctor. They had no need for Jesus. You see, there were only two groups that Jesus encountered. The sinners and the “righteous.” And that’s still true. You and I are either in one group or the other. We are either sinners who know we are sick with sin or we see ourselves as “righteous” with no need for treatment. Are you one of the “righteous”? Do you reject the truth that you have a sin problem? Do you claim to believe, yet your life is unchanged? Or are you a sinner? Do you see your desperate condition? Have you come face-to-face with the truth that you can’t do a single thing about your sin? Jesus, the Great Physician, came into this world for sinners. His call is to sinners to put their faith in Him and be made well. Come to Jesus, while there is still time. Don’t wait until it’s too late. If you need prayer, or would like a Bible to be able to learn more, let me know.

What would it take to cause you to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? In my Bible study group, we are studying Acts, the book of the Bible that tells us how the church began. When the church started, it had only been about 5 weeks since Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead—not very long at all. Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, was now the leader. Once Peter and the rest of Jesus’s followers received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2-4), Peter’s heart  was transformed! He’s been filled with the Holy Spirit—and now he’s preaching so powerfully and with tremendous courage to the very same people that had screamed for Jesus to be killed a month earlier. And they had succeeded—these guys did get Jesus killed. Vicious, wicked men. Not the sort you’d want to mess with. But, Peter is fearless. And why not? He’s got the Holy Spirit! So, Peter and John were in Jerusalem and they went to the temple to pray. As they arrived, they saw a man near the entrance. This man had been crippled his whole life. The only way he survived was begging for money and this was the best spot. So, every day, the crippled man sat in the temple entrance. The point is this: everyone  knew who this beggar was. They had seen him a million times. Peter came up to him. He didn’t have money for the man, but he did have something much better—the message of salvation through Jesus. And then, in the name of Jesus, Peter healed that man! Healed  him. The crippled man’s feet and ankles were made strong and he leaped to his feet—he “began to walk…walking and leaping and praising God” (Acts 3:8). It was a miracle! Everyone around there saw what happened . You’d think people would run to Peter and John to hear more about Jesus. Nope. They didn’t have a chance because the leaders had Peter and John arrested. Why? Because they were preaching about Jesus. So, Peter and John were tried for their “crime” the very next day. Peter and John stood before the same guys who got them arrested—and remember, these same guys also saw the crippled man healed. And guess who was standing right beside Peter and John—the man who had been healed! Oh boy, these leaders were in a real pickle. They couldn’t deny the truth of the miracle because they had seen it and the guy was right there. But, they refused to admit it—because if they did, then they would have to admit that all Jesus had taught and all the miracles He performed could only mean one thing: that Jesus was God in the flesh. No way were they admitting that! Instead, though face-to-face with the truth, they refused to believe in Jesus. People are the same today. We see God’s miraculous work every day—this world, His creation…and most say “Oh no, it’s all random chance and evolution.” The plain miracle of God’s creative work is rejected. Why? Because of hard hearts. The truth of Jesus just bounces off of hard hearts. Maybe you have a hard heart. The good news is it’s a heart condition that can be healed. Jesus died for the sins of those who would believe in Him. He rose from the dead, giving hope of life beyond death to those who believe in Him. He will transform your hard heart—if you truly believe in Him as the Master of your life and your Savior. Let me know if I can pray for you, or, if you’d like to start reading the Bible to learn more, let me know…it would be my joy to help you get started.

Did you know there are two different kinds of addictions? One is what you would expect: being dependent either physically or psychologically on any habit-forming substance. The usual suspects are part of this definition…drugs, alcohol, pornography, tobacco, gambling, gluttony, etc. The second kind of addiction is “occupying oneself with or involve oneself in something habitually or compulsively.” In other words, it’s something you devote yourself to intensively, again and again. It could be sports,, or work (this was me at one time—my job totally consumed me, my time, my thoughts, my energy). It could be your kids. Maybe it’s your phone or social media. Maybe it’s stuff. It could be you…“self”—being focused on you—“I want…” “I need…” “I’m right.” “I’ve been wronged.” Whatever your addiction is, it takes priority. You can see what you’re devoted to by what you pour your time, energy, thoughts, and money into. The Bible is God’s way of communicating with us who He is, what He’s like, how we are to live—and His #1 command is to love Him. Now, when you love someone, how do you show that love? Do you fight with them, argue with them, call them liars? Or do you try to be in harmony with them by honoring what they ask of you? It’s the same with God. Obeying what God teaches us through His Word, the Bible, is how we demonstrate our love for Him. It’s how we honor Him. God said about Jesus, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to Him” (Luke 9:35). In other words, “Do what Jesus tells you to do…listen to Him, obey Him.” God is not offering a suggestion or gently nudging us along. He’s commanding us! And this is what Jesus taught…our number one priority is to “love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Notice He’s not saying some of your heart, soul, and mind, but all. When Jesus says we are to love God above all other things, we are to listen and obey. Addictions of any kind turn that upside down. Whatever our addictions are, they take priority in our lives. When we are controlled by addictions, regardless of what they are, we aren’t obeying God by loving Him more than anything else. Instead, our time is spent thinking about, planning for, spending on and engaging in our addictions, from drugs to self. This is not listening to Jesus. It is not obeying Jesus. Disobeying Jesus is called Sin. Sin comes with a price—a price that sinless Jesus paid for those who place their faith in Him. So. What are your priorities? God or a whole bunch of other things? I do not make light of addiction—I know some addictions are extremely hard to overcome. I get that. But they are not impossible to overcome, for nothing is impossible with God. If you need prayer, please let me know.

There are times when I feel overwhelmed by my sin. I know that what I’m thinking or saying or doing is sinful, but I do it anyway. Even more than that, I know that what I need to do is pray—to repent of my sin to God, pray for His forgiveness, thank Him for all that He has done for me…and I don’t. Because I don’t feel like it. “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19). YUK! This is how my week has been. At the same time (in total contrast, oddly enough) I’ve been thinking a lot about how God is holy. And, interestingly, I keep coming across  the word “holiness.” I just received a book called “The Holiness of God.” A sermon I’m in the middle of listening to is called “Born to Holiness.” I’ve been playing the piano some this week, and nearly every song I turn to has “holiness” in the title. So, instead of writing first thing this morning, I read the first couple chapters of my new book on God’s holiness. Right off the bat, the prophet, Isaiah is mentioned. Isaiah had a first-hand experience with God. He saw God with his own eyes. Isaiah came into the very presence of God!! From Scripture, it’s clear that Isaiah was a godly man before this face-to-face encounter with God, but still, when he faced the sheer and absolute holiness of God, it dropped Isaiah to his knees. He could see with painful clarity the how sinful he was. Instantly, he understood the extreme contrast of holy, holy, holy God and his own sinful self. Where Isaiah’s experience encouraged me this morning is when I reread what God did for Isaiah. God didn’t just leave the prophet laying there on the ground, crushed by the guilt and awfulness of his sinfulness. God didn’t say from His lofty throne, “See, I told you how full of sin you were, and now you finally know it too.” Instead, God cleansed Isaiah of his sin. Immediately. Not after a few weeks, or a few days, or some long conversation. The Bible says God cleansed Isaiah and right then, his “guilt was taken away” (Isaiah 6:7). Taken away. His guilt wasn’t set aside for future discussion or to be rehashed with God some time down the road. Isaiah’s sin and guilt was taken away, gone, meaning God saw it no more. It didn’t exist to God any longer. In recognizing his own sinfulness before God, Isaiah received the wonderful gift of God’s forgiveness. And this is what I forget sometimes. I wallow around in anger or irritation or self-pity…and I turn my back on God. But if I let go of my pride and go to God…if I confess the multitude of my sins, He will forgive me. God is full of mercy and grace for those who come to Him with a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). Just like Isaiah, I get to experience instant cleansing, knowing in my heart that through my faith in Jesus and His atoning death, God graciously forgives me. Sin carries with it a tremendous burden of guilt. You don’t have to haul that guilt around any longer. You too, can experience forgiveness for your sin when you put your faith in Jesus. You too can be cleansed. If you’d like prayer, have questions, or need a Bible, let me know.