On This Day: Influencers and Their Influencees

   And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. (Mark 15:1-5)

   We all could tell stories of how people have influenced us for good or ill. We also have testimonies of how we have helped or hindered others. And there is even more influencing going on than we could ever identify! 

   Today’s point is Jesus’ example of steadfast devotion to the divine will. Part of us growing to be like our Savior is learning to be more attached to him than anyone or anything else. 

   One thing that has helped me over the years has been learning to be honest about self-protection. Whatever we learned to do in our younger years to protect ourselves from being hurt (as much as we were capable of doing so) was customized by whoever was influencing us. The influences were real, and the Influencers were far too effective. 

   However, where each of us is today is now ours to influence. All of us are invited to bring our sins, our wounds, our brokenness to God who “heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds”. It doesn’t matter how much hurt anyone has caused us, or how much regret we feel about how we have handled life as a result, today we can come to God in full submission. We don’t even need to know all the details of what is messed up inside us to come to Jesus and rely on him as our ultimate Influencer. 

   I have noticed over the years that the world loves its heroes who know what they are doing and don’t care what anyone else thinks. These characters all seem to have glaring character flaws, but they are adored for always knowing what they are doing and doing what they know with unshakable confidence.

   That kind of confidence has eluded me most of my life because my self-protection revolved around people-pleasing. Play it safe. Figure out what people want and set the stage for success. And that kind of constantly reading the crowd, so to speak, means that the strongest Influencers are the ones who can hurt us the most.

   And then I see Jesus in the midst of crowds that are intent on doing him harm and he can’t be influenced. He can be hurt, but not dissuaded in any way from doing his Father’s will. He can be betrayed, disowned, and denied without ever questioning what he was doing and why people were treating him so unlovingly. 

   Today I am welcoming the influence of Jesus’ example. But more than that, I am welcoming the influence of his presence. He is with me in his Holy Spirit. He has a will about everything in my life. His will is going to clash with the will of the world, the flesh, and the devil. 

   But here’s the thing: because Jesus did the will of the Father even when no one was with him in that will, and so many were directly opposing him, we now have the salvation that brings me more under Jesus’ influence than anything ever could. And I know that he will be influencing me in every encounter, every opportunity, every thought and feeling, so that I can walk in “the obedience of faith” no matter what anyone else chooses to do. 

   And I am assured that this will have a good influence on everyone I meet whether anyone sees it or not.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Arrest that Leads to the Rest

   And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man. Seize him and lead him away under guard.” And when he came, he went up to him at once and said, “Rabbi!” And he kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the Scriptures be fulfilled.” And they all left him and fled. (Mark 14:43-50)

   Because I love to encourage a love of the Bible as God’s word, seeing how often Jesus himself refers to the Scriptures as the word of God is always of special interest. Added to this is the time I spent this year testing a book that claimed the scriptures weren’t Christlike enough. To see Jesus constantly and only affirm scripture without once correcting anything that was written puts those false teachers to shame for placing their words above his. 

   When we keep these two things together, that Jesus IS the Word, and he always treated Scripture as the word of God, we can look at the way he said things, view them through the words breathed out by God into Scripture’s record about him, and let ourselves feel the childlike wonder of the Master’s revelation of truth in love. 

   In this case, Jesus spoke what he wanted in everyone’s minds. Their evil deed would fulfill the Scriptures and lead to our salvation, but identifying their cowardice in coming for him at night, and away from the people, must be in their minds for down the road.

   One Scripture I see fulfilled so many times in God’s word is this: “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). This is often fulfilled in seeing the way God expresses his kindness to lead people to repentance. However, it is also seen in the way people presume on this work of God thinking that his kindness means he is okay with their sin! 

   Now, how does the very next line express both sides of this? Consider, “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5). 

   This expresses God’s kindness aiming to bring people to repentance by telling them the truth in love about what is happening when we presume on God’s kindness and keep sinning. It isn’t a message that God’s kindness means he is okay with our sin. It’s a message that when we respond to God’s kindness with self-justification instead of repentance we are storing up judgment against ourselves. God’s kindness is telling us this because he wants us to repent so he can forgive us. 

   This also shows the truth about what is going on when people presume on God’s kindness. It describes God’s view of the people who came to arrest Jesus, but with Jesus detailing their sin so that after his death and resurrection some of these men would realize what they had done and benefit from what Jesus did for them through his death on the cross.

   My main point is to put the spotlight on the way Jesus put the spotlight on Scripture. If anyone will receive his will that we live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God”, we will “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly” so we know how to live out our place in the body of Christ for God’s glory and the good of everyone in our lives. 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Rest of Doing What We Can

   And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (Mark 14:3-9)

   I often find myself feeling the need to clarify. A big reason for this is that misunderstandings are the biggest problem in communication! 

   An example of good clarifying is when Paul was teaching that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. He immediately interjected a potential misuse of this teaching, the claim that we should sin more to get more grace. His response was, “By no means!” (Romans 6:2), and then he explained the extreme to avoid to stay true to the plumbline.

   As I was processing my own thoughts for today’s post, I kept hearing ways that people could misuse this beautiful picture of the woman’s worship of Jesus. Someone could say that, if Jesus approves of us doing what we can, I will decide what I can do and nothing more. 

   Someone else might interject that this woman’s expression of worship was so unique that no one else even recognized it, so we are free to express our worship no matter how uniquely we desire, and no one needs to agree with what we’re doing.

   The fact is that these two extremes are a huge hindrance to what Jesus called worshiping God “in spirit and in truth”. People who contain their worship in a box of preferences that even God can’t question are just self-centered. People who promote the anything-goes expressions of worship are… well… just self-centered! 

   We don’t know how this woman was moved to pour her perfume on Jesus. We only know that it was hers to use for God’s glory, she felt led to pour it on Jesus in worship, her focus was him and not anyone else, she was not doing anything out of character with Jesus or his word, and she knew him well enough to feel confident to worship him in that way. 

   It is interesting to me that it was the Samaritan woman of John 4 who gave us the encounter with Jesus where he taught about worshiping God in spirit and in truth, and it was this woman in Mark 14 who showed us what that looked like for her on the night before Jesus’ death. 

   And the fact that his disciples on both occasions had no clue what was going on is a good reprimand to humble ourselves and make sure we have the mind of Christ when we look at what others feel led to do in worship, and in serving the body of Christ in love. 

   No, I don’t expect to set everyone straight on what pure worship looks like. After all, it is in spirit, so I can’t assess whether someone is or is not attaching to God spiritually when they worship. And it is in truth, but part of that truth is that each of us is gifted differently, so how can I know that someone isn’t truly worshiping just because it’s different from me? Plus, Jesus promised there would be all kinds of false teachers, false signs and wonders, false disciples, false everything, so how could we possibly think we will stop deception from happening?!

   Instead, I share what is mine to share in the hope that someone will hear what they need to hear so that the “few” will be encouraged to bless others with whatever is ours to do. 

   Ultimately, we will give account to Jesus, so it’s up to us to be sure we are living “in the obedience of faith”, especially in what we claim to be doing to Jesus and his body, the church.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: A Bad Day to Stay Awake

   “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” (Mark 13:32-37)

   If we get nothing else from Jesus’ words, it should be that we strive to stay awake even if we aren’t positive what he meant. We must stay awake to him and his words to learn to stay awake in these evil days.

   A parallel picture to staying awake is to stay attached. Falling asleep is to be distracted, even deceived. Staying awake is to “remain” or “abide” in Jesus as branches of the vine. 

   In other words, staying awake is relational. Instead of following people who would lead us astray, we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow him where he leads.

   One aspect of this is to focus on him and what he is teaching us each day. It stands out to me that Jesus would often respond to disciples and critics alike by taking challenges and questions in directions the presenter could not have expected. When we demand that the Holy Spirit answer our questions the way we ask them, we are detaching from the true relational dynamic of the kingdom, that it is Jesus who is head of his church, and when he heads off into some teaching we hadn’t even thought of (from his word, that is), he is doing exactly what needs to be done.

   For a few decades, I have summarized spending time with God using three questions:

1. What is God saying to me in his word this morning?
2. What work is God doing in me or around me?
3. What must I do to join God in his work by putting his word into practice?

While some of this unfolds as the day or days progress, it is a way to maintain attachment to God with living faith in God’s “living and active” word. 

   Since finding ourselves in home church ministry more than two decades ago, I have had opportunity over the years to recognize a pattern. When people have their daily time with God in his word and prayer, identifying what God is saying to them with the intention of putting it into practice, they have a way of life I would call “staying awake”. When the same people hit something in their inner selves they do not want to bring to God, they stop listening to his word and get lulled back into the fast-asleep experience of me-centered churchianity. 

   We can only stay awake by listening to what the Spirit is saying to the churches every day and putting it into practice in “the obedience of faith”. Jesus makes clear what kinds of things we should not focus on because they don’t fit his work. He also shows the kinds of things we ought to be doing to serve him until his return. We may have good days and bad days of putting his word, will, and work into practice, but we must “stay awake” in the Spirit no matter what. 

   Oh, and that does include getting a good night’s sleep (if possible) and taking naps as required (even Jesus did that!). 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Jesus Leaves the Temple

   And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44)

   It is one of the worst things ever when God leaves people who don’t want him. They become quite boisterous in their celebration that they have conquered him when the fact is that he just left. He’s not even in the room. 

   Today was another “big picture” day as I saw the scene that was Jesus’ last expression of public ministry. The concluding display of his teaching work was to shame all the religious elite who tried to expose him as a false Messiah. Instead, he exposed them as false teachers and hypocritical leaders. 

   The whole experience concludes with, “And as he came out of the temple…” (Mark 13:1) leading to Jesus pronouncing judgment on Jerusalem and its temple worship. 

   One thing that stood out as I travelled through this account was Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman sometime earlier, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (John 4:23). Jesus exposing the religious elite and then commending the poor widow certainly showed his knowledge of who was worshiping from hypocrisy, and who was worshiping from the heart.

   In what appears to be a Western mindset about sharing the gospel, the focus tends to be isolated to the individual. What is usually shared goes no further than enticing a lost person to see the personal relationship they could have with God through faith in Jesus Christ. 

   However, what is so often missing is telling people that when we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we become one of his people. God has “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). This is possible because Jesus experienced the cross shortly after his last visit to the temple.

   But what so many church folk don’t seem to realize is that the church is now God’s temple. Some are familiar with “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (I Corinthians 6:19-20), but don’t realize that there is another temple reality that applies to us corporately, or together with the rest of Jesus’ brothers. Paul explains it like this, 

   So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

   Jesus walked out of the temple in Jerusalem one day and has never been back. Instead, he has made us who have received him “INTO a holy temple” in himself. And from there, he still knows who are the true worshipers who are worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

#JesusChrist #God #Bible #homechurch #temple #Jerusalem #hypocrites #Passover #Israel

On This Day: Smiling Thoughts of Jesus’ Two Comings

   And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9-10)

   There was so much in my time with God this morning that made me smile. Some of it came from his word, and some came from me as I interacted with his word in a real and personal way.

   The central focus of my smile was the realization that there were two groups of people who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem on the day we refer to as “Palm Sunday” and there will be two groups of people involved in welcoming Jesus in his return, what we speak of as his “second coming”. 

   Jesus spoke of these two groups when he was preparing Martha for the miracle of raising her brother from the dead. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

   Jesus indicated that there will be some disciples who will die before he returns but because they believe in him, “yet shall he live”. But there will also be the disciples “who live and believe” in Jesus, and these ones “shall never die” because they will go from this earthly life to their new-earthly life without passing through death.

   The apostle Paul referred to these two groups as he comforted believers in their concern about their believing loved ones who had passed away and Jesus had not yet returned. He wrote,

   For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 4:16-18)

   One group is “the dead in Christ” who “will rise first”, the ones Jesus said would live even though they die. The other group is those “who are alive, who are left”. These “will be caught up together with them”. The “these” are the ones who are alive at Jesus’ return, and the “them” is those who had died but were raised from the dead at Jesus’ second coming.

   When Jesus returns, we will witness the most remarkable gathering of people. There will be those whose souls are united with their glorified bodies and are rising up to meet Jesus while those who are still alive are gathered to join them in meeting the Lord. We then will be the crowd that surrounds Jesus as he continues his coming to the earth to judge the nations.

   John had a glimpse into these two groups when they will be gathered as one.

   After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10). 

   I know for sure I will be in that larger group in the new heavens and the new earth. I just don’t yet know which of the two previous groups I will be part of when Jesus returns. Will I be one who had died and is raised from the dead? Or will I be one who is still alive and will be caught up with the others? 

   For me, it doesn’t much matter which group I will be in because I know I will “always be with the Lord”. But do you know you will be in one of these groups that welcomes Jesus at his return? Or will you be in the group that fulfills, “and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30)?

    The one thing that would most increase my smile is hearing that you have returned to Jesus Christ today so you know you will be with him when he returns to judge the earth and gather his people to himself forever.

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Pendulum and the Plumbline on Prayer

   And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” (Mark 10:35-37)

   But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45)

   It really stood out to me today how comfortable Jesus’ disciples were with him. For James and John to be able to ask such a self-centered request not only exposed their immaturity, but it also demonstrated something of what it was like to spend so much time with our Savior. They felt safe to ask him such a thing even though they had no clue what they needed to learn.

   Because this is the most “real and personal” picture of prayer (talking to Jesus in person), it calls us to clarify the difference between pendulum prayers that swing from one extreme to another and plumbline prayers that are always expressing “truth in love” from the heart of “spirit and truth” worshipers. 

   The way Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane is the most amazing demonstration of how we can pray earnestly about personal experiences we are going through while also submitting our thoughts and feelings to God’s will. 

   In fact, what hit me the most in James and John’s request was that it had the sense of a teenager who imagines they know better than their parents what they need and so they are quite adamant that it needs to be done their way (it also sounds like toddlers who think everything is about them, but I’m giving the brothers the benefit of the doubt).

   I have found the Psalms to be a very good source of prayer-examples about how to pour out our hearts to God about everything we are going through, telling him everything we need to get out about what we think and feel, but then submitting it all to the will of God and praising him for whatever he chooses to do with us. 

    In Psalm 73, Asaph gives his testimony of how close he came to stumbling because he fell into the trap of envying the wicked for how much better their lives seem to go than for those who pursue righteousness. He even admitted that “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you” (Psalm 73:21-22). 

   But after pouring out his heart in “the sanctuary of God” (vs 17), Asaph remembered what was ahead for the wicked and reminded himself what was ahead for him on the path of truth and righteousness. And so he praised God, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (vss 25-26).

   Today’s word from God is to bring all our requests to him, not in a “would you do things my way” kind of praying, but in a humble expression of our needs with humble submission to his will. 

   After all, Father knows best, and we can only be like our Savior if we want “not my will, but yours be done”. 

   

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)