GRACE PAYED THE BILL

I want to thank Anonymous for asking the question last week, "Is there enough Grace for me?" It is a good question, and one all of us have asked at times. It has made me think and reflect on just what Jesus has done for us at Calvary, and the power of His resurrection.

This will be my last comment about this, but I wanted to think about who we are really are in Christ. The Bible talks about followers of Jesus being crucified with Christ, dead to sin, raised with Christ, being a new Creation. That is crucifixion/resurrection talk--not about Christ, but us. We are crucified and raised with Christ. And when God looks at us, He doesn't see us, He sees Christ.

He doesn't see the sin we once had. All of that was placed on the cross and has been forgiven and redeemed!!! PRAISE GOD!!!! What he sees is the blood of Christ that has covered us, cleansed us and made us a new person.

He doesn't see our bad habits, the drugs, alcohol, eating disorders. He doesn't see the soiled and shamed body. He doesn't see the filthy mouth, the lying tongue, the lustful eyes. He doesn't see the hidden sins that all of us have. When He looks at us, He sees the pure, unblemished Lamb of God who has taken our sin away. And God is daily remaking all of us to be the person He originally intended us to be. It is His strength, not ours; His power, not ours that is daily transforming us.

Now the question is this, Do we really believe it, and are we living our lives in this truth???

I am going to quote Rob Bell from his book, VELVET ELVIS.
"God is retelling each of our stories in Jesus. All of the bad parts and the ugly parts and the parts we want to pretend never happened are redeemed. They seemed pointless and they were painful at the time, but God retells our story and they become the moments when God's grace is most on display. We find ourselves asking, am I really forgiven of that? The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true. Our choice becomes this: We can trust His retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of our story. It is a choice we make every day about the reality we are going to live in.

When we choose God's vision of who we are, we are living as God made us to live. All we have to do is trust. Trust that God is already putting us back together.

Trust that through dying to the old, the new can give birth.

Trust that Jesus can repair the scarred and broken image.

It is trusting that we are loved, always have been, always will be.

Trust that we don't owe anything.

Trust that GRACE PAYS THE BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

We have been in this series, "This is My Story" the past few weeks. Well, folks, this is our story, and God is doing the telling. AMEN!! -jl

HIS GRACE IS ENOUGH

For any other rabbi, the actions of the disciples of Jesus would have ended their positions as followers. They had totally failed their Master Teacher. Maybe they thought it was all over because John 21 tell us that the disciples had decided to go back to fishing. That was their occupation before Jesus called them out to follow Him.

But Jesus wasn't like other Rabbis. Instead of rebuke, He reinstated them. He encouraged them, and then He commissioned them. WHY?

GRACE--HIS GRACE

They certainly didn't deserve it. There was not one thing they could do to earn the favor of their teacher, and they knew it. So they did the only thing they knew to do, they went back to their old life. But Jesus had no intention of letting them go back to their old lifestyle, and He has no intention of letting us return to our old life either.

Why would He reinstate them? Because Jesus had faith in His disciples. He knew what they were capable of doing. When we see in the text Jesus becoming frustrated with the disciples, it isn't because of their failure, it is because of their greatness. They just didn't realize how capable they are. (Rob Bell)

Then He commissioned them to go and make disciples themselves. WHOA!!! Jesus wants this bunch of rejects to go out and find someone like them and make disciples of them? Yes!! Yes!!! (Do you realize that the future of the Church and the spread of the Gospel was in the hands of the 11 "not-good enoughs"?) But Jesus had done His work well. They would indeed become like their Rabbi, and in turn, would make disciples who would would be like them and in turn, like Jesus. And they did.

We don't have a record in the Bible of the 40 days between the resurrection and the day Jesus ascended, and oh, I wish we did!!! I would imagine those guys absorbed every word Jesus spoke. But before He left them, He told them to go into the world, to preach and make more disciples. And with the power of the Holy Sprit, they did, and the world hasn't been the same since. They turned this world upside down.

Because of their obedience, we are here today, 2000 years later. And the same commission is for us. We are to become like Jesus, and teach others to do the same.

Here is our problem. Just like the disciples, we have sinned--over and over. We have failed Him so many times, we think there is no way Jesus would ever want to use us. But He does. The same grace that extended to the disciples, is extended to us today. He has a plan for our lives, and it isn't to go back to the old way of life. He wants to restore us, and make us whole.

Here is what I want us to think about. If grace costs us nothing, and it doesn't, what is keeping us from accepting it? It really isn't an issue of enough or not enough grace. The Bible says that His grace is sufficient. It just requires the loving gift of our Heavenly Father who willingly gave it to us the day he gave His Son on the Cross. He gave it to everyone who would accept it. The issue is, do we believe this?

Our Rabbi thinks we can be like Him. (Do you realize that the future of the Church and the spread of the Gospel depends on us, the "not-good-enoughs"?) What is stopping us??????
-jl

IS THERE ENOUGH GRACE

Matthew 28:8 "So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. 'Greetings,' He said. They came to Him, clasped His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

I have been thinking about something.

We have tried to re-live every moment with Jesus His last week before the crucifixion through the eyes of His disciples. I can understand their frustration, their fear, and even their denial. Unfortunately, I understand all too well the denial part. How many times have I too denied Him. I can even understand their disbelief after hearing the news of His resurrection.

But the thing that I have been pondering is, what were they thinking when they heard the news that he had indeed risen and wanted to meet with them? They were going to have to come face to face with the one they had betrayed and denied. They were going to have to look into the eyes of their teacher, their Rabbi.

To really understand this, we need to know the teacher/disciple relationship at the time of Christ. At the age of 6, young Jewish boys would begin learning the Torah (first five books of the Bible), and as they grew, they would memorize it. By the age of 14 or 15, the best of the best students would continue studying. Most students would leave the school, and learn the family business. (That would be most of the disciples of Jesus). Those remaining in school would seek a well known rabbi to become one of his disciples. The goal of the disciple wasn't just to know what the rabbi knew, but to be just like his rabbi. If the rabbi didn't think the student could make it, he would send him home to work with his parents. (Where did Jesus find His disciples? Working with their parents. That meant they had been rejected by other rabbis.)

But if the rabbi believed that a student had what it took to become like him, he would say, "Come, follow me." (When Jesus chose His disciples, what did he say? Matthew 4:18-22) The student would probably leave his father and mother, leave his village and his friends, and devote his life to learning how to do what the rabbi did. He would follow the rabbi everywhere. He gave up his whole life to be just like his rabbi. (Luke 5:11)

This kind of devotion is what it meant to be a disciple.

So, after following Jesus for three years, listening to His teaching, seeing His miracles, watching Him heal the sick, even raising Lazarus from the dead, the ones He chose to follow Him have failed Him miserably. They were NOTHING like their Rabbi. And now, they have to come face to face with Him.

What were they thinking--and more importantly--what was Jesus thinking?? How would He respond to their failure?

The thing that burdens me is, I too have failed to become like my Rabbi. I know how I feel. But what does Jesus think about me?

Why did He chose those guys to be His disciples? Why did He chose me?

One of the comments this past week on this blog was, "Will there ever be enough Grace for me?"

Was there enough Grace to cover the failure of His disciples? Had Jesus wasted three years of God's divine plan for mankind on a bunch of failures!!

Does He have enough Grace to cover me?

And if the answer is NO, I have another question. Was Calvary necessary??

THINK ON THESE THINGS!!!!!!

We will study more this week. -jl

The Folded Napkin - from Thw Daily Encourager

THE FOLDED NAPKIN
John 20:1-10

Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection?
The Gospel of John tells us that the napkin, which was placed over
the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.
The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was
neatly folded and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.

"And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen
clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. The Bible takes
an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded and was
placed at the head of that stony coffin." (John 20:7)

Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came
to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the
entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the
one whom Jesus loved. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out
of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!'

Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other
disciple out ran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in
and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon
Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings
lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded
up and lying to the side.

Is that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you
have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day.

The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every
Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner
table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the
master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the
servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished
eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table until the
master was finished.

Now if the master was done eating, he would rise from the table wipe
his fingers and mouth with that napkin and toss it on to the table.
The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days,
the wadded napkin meant, 'I'm done.' But if the master got up from
the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the
servant knew that the folded napkin meant, 'I'm not finished yet.'

The folded napkin meant, 'I'm coming back!'

Are you ready???