Greater Works than These
February 12, 2009
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. – John 14:12
Many of us have heard this passage preached many times with various interpretations of the passage. While I do not want to try to evaluate what the proper interpretation of the passage is, I do want to propose that there is a nugget in this passage that could radically affect the culture of ministry that we operate in.
The Ministry Culture of Jesus
If you examine Jesus’ ministry, one thing that immediately stands out is how limited His sphere of ministry actually was. While His ministry was spectacular, it is also amazing how He limited Himself to a specific area, refused the promotion of men, devoted only 3 years of His life to public ministry, and poured Himself into His disciples. To understand why Jesus orchestrated His ministry in this way, it is critical that we examine how He launched the gospel through the disciples.
What is so amazing is that rather than seeking the largest public platform, Jesus poured Himself into the disciples. In some cases, His ministry was limited to the 12 and in other cases it was the 70, and at times it included some other followers. Regardless of the exact number, the point is that Jesus really only gave Himself to a small number of followers. He also freely shared His power with them even when they were immature. Not only did He send the disciples out with power, He even sent Judas out with supernatural power on him. That alone should astound most of us.
Have you considered that Jesus invested His life in this small group of people and then He entrusted them with the propagation of the gospel to the nations? If you think about it, it is almost inconceivable that Jesus would ascend just after His moment of triumph and leave the declaration of His victory to a handful of unstable followers. If we are honest, we have to admit that we would consider Jesus’ ministry strategy to be ridiculous.
How many of us would adopt that kind of strategy? How many of us would repel the crowds that were ready to exalt us and instead invest in a small group that were struggling with proper theology? How many of us would put power on a group of young men still struggling with their own egos? How many of us, at the very height of victory, would step aside from visible ministry and instead give our spirit to others that they might be empowered to take the gospel to world and do great exploits?
Now, understand the point here and don’t read too much theology into it, but if you judge Jesus purely by ministry output you will see that the apostles superseded Him in virtually every way. Most of them had much longer ministries, affected much wider areas, and produced more converts. What was so radically different about Jesus’ value system that caused Him to minister in this way? The answer has profound implications for just how deep our own ministry can go. Continue Reading Greater Works than These »
The Law – Part Five – Christ is Supreme
January 7, 2009
In the last post we attempted to put some definition around the New Testament law. We are now brought to the climax of the law, which is the person of Jesus Christ. As we have seen in these last installments, God’s requirement of mankind in the New Testament, far from being minimized, is actually filled up and maximized in the revelation of Jesus Christ. As God has now indwelt man, He now has every legal right to make inner requirements of man that far exceed the Law of Moses. We have seen how this dramatically affects our evangelism and our understanding of our own calling.
The Great Need of Mercy
You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – Matthew 5:48 (AMP)
As we consider the requirements of God’s morality upon the inner man, we see that absolute need of Christ. We see that there is no way any living human being will ever be able to assert any measure of morality against the standard of God, for we are all left completely helpless before His requirements. When we finish the words of the Sermon on the Mount, if we have truly understood it, our hearts cry out, “What shall we do?”
The requirement of God is so deep, so vast, and yet so just that you and are are left without excuse and without hope before the judgment bar of God. This is not without purpose however, for we are left in this great place that God may be all in all. God Himself, in His own perfect love for man in our predicament, brings salvation through His own right hand in the person of Jesus. By understanding the law, and its present application, we can understand more than ever the great need of the person of Jesus. Jesus said, “those who are forgiven much love much,” and as the law of God penetrates our heart, our inner man should sing the highest praises to the One who has made a way for us to be redeemed from the just and proper condemnation of God’s law.
Let us now see that great paradox that God uses our very violation of the law to bring us into the demonstration of its requirements. As the gospel is proclaimed in truth and power our hearts become heavy under the weight of condemnation and conviction. This condemnation is just and true for we can never fulfill God’s requirements on us. Many avoid this pressure point by lessening God’s requirements, but the solution is not to lessen God’s requirements, but to come into the reality of our spirit’s situation and then receive God’s solution.
While we struggle under the weight of our own condemnation and the black hell of hopelessness closes in on our hearts which have been awakened to God’s law, God comes in like a shaft of light and presents Himself as the ultimate sacrifice and rescue from our own black heart. We see Him in that instant as the liberator from all that we are and all that we have become. This experience is slow for some and quicker for others, but for all there is that moment when light dawns and we see that the very One who has condemned us by making just requirements of our heart, now offers Himself to us as the very redeemer for our blackness. At this moment, we are born again as we grab onto the glorious hope of God whose love is so vast that He is, in that moment, both the One who condemns and the One who rescues.
God’s plan is so glorious though, that it continues from there. Being liberated by His glorious love, the natural response of the human heart is then to love Him desperately, passionately, and completely for His act of redemption from our own condemnation. In the wisdom of God then, it is the pressure of our condemnation that forms in a heart a love for the God who rescues us and this love then naturally begins fulfilling the first great commandment of God’s law to love God with all our hearts.
You see, it is the knowledge of the depth of our depravity and condemnation that leads us to the heights of love. We become those with the capacity to fulfill the law only once we have been awakened to our birth position as those under the condemnation of the law. Only the wisdom of God could take the very thing that condemns us and sets us at odds with Him and use it as the seed of eternal love and holiness in His redeemed people. Once again, we find that God is all and all and that Jesus is worth of supreme adulation for His great redemption. He alone provides mercy for our sins as we stand helpless before the judgment bar of God. Let us love Him desperately for the mercy He provides and then vigorously share that mercy with others understanding that God uses the tool of condemnation as the key to open the door to divine mercy. Continue Reading The Law – Part Five – Christ is Supreme »
Are you Jealous?
September 5, 2008
I have been deeply moved the last few days over the issue of Jealousy for the Lord and for His name. Are we truly jealous for the name “Jesus” and the demonstration that are attributed to His name? As the world continues to use that precious name as nothing more than an expletive and ministers use it for their own purposes, I wonder if we are truly jealous for His name or if we have slowly become desensitized to it all. Recently I have watched some videos of various ministers and ministries that have simply made my heart sick. The antics on stage, if not blasphemy, were probably as close as you can get and yet the crowd loved it. In all of this I wondered, where are those that are jealous for the Lord and for His name? As I noticed the crowd laughing and taking it all in, I wondered where are those jealous for the bride? I mean this is Jesus’ wife we are talking about and these men are making a spectacle of the Lord before His own bride and she is drinking it all in. In a dream I had recently there was both a deep anger and a deep weeping over things.
Something within is burning and asking the deep question, are we not jealous for Him? I understand there are differences in ministry styles, personalities, and giftings and we have to give grace to different members of the body, but I was observing things that were clearly demeaning to the Lord and His people and they were being opening attributed to the Lord and His Spirit. They were allowing the Lord, His name, and His Spirit to be demeaned and mocked by men claiming to be ministers. Where are those who will stand and separate the holy from the profance? Where is the holy jealousy that caused Jesus to overturn money tables?
As I considered this issue of jealousy, I began considering what a pure and holy jealousy really is. After all, many are “jealous for the Lord,” but what they often mean is that they are jealous for their ministries, or their own perception of how things should be. Often “jealousy for the Lord” is really the desire to criticise and tear down those you do not agree with. Seeing then as jealousy for the Lord is an urgent need in our time and, at the same time, there is much jealousy that is not truly jealousy for the Lord, how are we to discern the difference? Continue Reading Are you Jealous? »