The Scourge of All Mankind

“Behold we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.” Matthew 20:18, 19 (New American Standard Bible)



In the story of Jesus’ passion He was whipped or ‘scouraged’ before He was nailed to a Roman cross. We mostly reason that it was just part of that ancient system of punishment and do not give it much thought outside of its brutality but it was a definite part of the redemptive plan. The Roman flagrum was a vicious multi-thonged whip that had pieces of bone, metal or glass embedded in its cords. The person being whipped was tied in such a way that their back was stretched allowing the whipping to inflict the greatest degree of pain and damage, the pieces on the cords tearing flesh and breaking bone. Mostly it was the Roman equivalent of the ‘third degree.’ As the person was whipped and they confessed their crime the one doing the whipping would go lighter on the force of the strokes. If the person would not confess then each stroke would become heavier and heavier until the person could stand it no longer and begin confessing. Many victims died from shock and loss of blood due to the whipping.

Jesus received such treatment before He was crucified. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the healing we receive by the stripes of God’s Chosen One (Isaiah 53:5). The usual interpretation is healing of a physical sort although the meaning in the context speaks of sin and spiritual healing. The beating Jesus took was intercessory. It could be considered the scourge of all mankind for it was because of our sins that that scourging ought to have been given to us. These stripes were part of the penalty for our rebellion against God, God taking the punishment on Himself in our place. Jesus Himself asked the two men on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26). No other story is so ideal in its fullness and nobility. The stripes taken upon the Son of God were completely satisfactory to God’s judgment on all sin because they were taken upon Him, the one and only pure sacrifice for sin. Those stripes were planned to be taken by Him before the foundation of the world. Before you and I were born the price for our sins was in God’s mind already paid.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

Seventy Bucks worth of Grace

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11 (New American Standard Bible)

It’s always interesting how the things we preach often wind up being the very things we have to practice. Such is the way of grace. I had a case in point just this past week. Some unscrupulous person put a virus on my computer. The thing popped up without warning and the estimate by my local computer store to remove it was seventy dollars, minimum.

As I was working to get my system back I sat drumming my fingers on my desk doing the slow burn. All the thoughts from “If these people would use their intelligence and talent for good” to “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest this guy’s armpits” ran through my mind. As I sat contemplating a good round of justice the thought suddenly came to mind, “Jesus died for this guy, too.” A lot of my steam vented at that instant as I thought of the things I’ve done in my life and to others that have brought grief and unhappiness. There is none righteous, no not one.

Fortunately my big brother is in town and he is a walking computer guru. With his help I got my machine back on track for just the hours involved. My “seventy bucks” didn’t go very far in delivering the grace that was merited toward this person. The person who was responsible for this transgression toward many computer users is still loved by Christ and His blood was shed for him too. In the case of grace given to you and me it didn’t cost God seventy dollars; it cost Him His Only Begotten Son. That grace is the gift that keeps on giving; wave upon wave upon wave of continuing favor. No recriminations and no fleas please. Granting grace mirrors the very nature of our Lord Jesus Christ and when it comes down to it there is no price one can put on that.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

The Lord's Prayer

“Oh righteous Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet I have known Thee; and these have known that Thou didst send Me, and I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:25, 26 (New American Standard Bible)


When people speak of the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ we generally think of “Our Father who art in heaven.” Those remarks in Matthew Chapter 6 were not so much a prayer as they were a guideline on how to pray. In reading through the gospels it seems that the real Lord’s Prayer makes up the entire 17th chapter of John. It is one of the most revealing insights into the who, what, why, when and where of God’s love for mankind.

In this prayer Christ reveals He has total authority (vs. 2). That He did not come to us through His own will but was sent by Jehovah God (vs. 3). He reveals He always existed with God sharing His glory in eternity before the earth was created (vs. 5). He was faithful to show Himself to the people God the Father gave to Him (vs.6). The words He spoke to them were not His but His Father’s (vs. 8). He goes on to speak of the care and protection He gave those His Father had placed in His hand and how He Himself guarded them so not one of them was lost (vs. 12). He prays they may be sanctified (vs. 17) and intercedes not only on their behalf but on behalf of those who will believe because of their testimony of Him (vs. 20). He finishes His petition with the request that those who do come to know Him as God’s Anointed One will be able to come to where He is and behold His glory (vs. 24).

This chapter seems the Crown Jewel of the gospels and the manifest “Mission Statement” of God’s plan for mankind. It is a prayer of disclosure, filial piety, petition, worship, authority, intercession, unity and prophetic insight. It is without doubt the most astounding prayer ever uttered in the history of mankind. The prayers of Christ are now for us an intercession. Robert Murray McCheyne wrote; “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”

Ken

http://www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com/

Seeing the Invisible

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20 (New American Standard Bible)

As I write this it is the middle of winter here in Arkansas. Recently as I was riding down the Interstate I noted a hawk hovering high above the leafless trees as it looked for its morning meal. I estimated the bird was around 90 feet above the ground and was astounded that being that high she could catch the movement of something as small as a mouse moving amidst the ground clutter below. Hawks, being believed to be among the smartest of birds, are also renowned for their visual acuity. A hawk’s eye has five times as many photoreceptors as that of humans with special nerves and muscles unknown to other animals. In addition they have an indented fovea (a small indentation on the retina at the back of the eye) which serves to magnify the center of their field of vision. The typical hawk has 20/2 vision as opposed to 20/20 of an average human. This means a hawk can see an object 20 feet away that a human could only see from a distance of 2 feet.*

I was suddenly struck with how amazing just this one facet of nature is and how something this intricate and complex cannot be a random thing formed out of a chaotic mass of chemical confusion. It screams of a Being capable of great power and One who creates with intelligent design. I thought of today’s verse and how, because of what nature testifies around us, at a future day there will be no excuse for people’s rejection of His existence, for nature itself testifies of the reality of God.

This is not only a testimony to those who do not believe but to those of us that do. In all things created there is great encouragement in God’s intelligent and loving design. Even though He is the invisible God the amazing world around us is a living and touchable testimony of Him and His reality among us. While the physical sight of a hawk is astounding there is a greater insight the human heart can attain that makes the sight of a hawk seem fuzzy in comparison. That is the second sight of the reality of God the Father. The evidence is all around us from the intricacy of the hawk’s eye to the rotation of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Even though the Creator is not seen with the physical eyes of man the evidence around us speaks of His reality. The eyesight of the hawk is clear and clean but spiritual eyesight can see the invisible every time.


(*Courtesy of Dr. Louis Lefebvre, Professor of Biology and Program Director, Minor in Science for Arts, McGill University).

Ken

In Praise of Women

And behold, there was a woman in the city who was a sinner and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet, and anointing them with perfume. Luke 7:37, 38 (New American Standard Bible)


The Jewish religious men of Christ’s day would never have allowed a woman known to be ‘unrighteous’ to touch them let alone anoint them with perfume as Jesus allowed. It was astounding to the Pharisee’s when Jesus would show the greatest compassion to the suffering sheep of Israel and especially to women. It seems that Simon, the host of Jesus’ meal in this case, was rather surprised that Jesus did not rebuke the woman for her act. Women had little rights and were considered below second class citizens.

We have much to be thankful to Jesus Christ for what He has done for the human race. One of the things I have been especially keen about is how highly He elevated the value of women. Even today as Orthodox Jewish males begin their day with ‘brochos’ or blessings, one of his prayers to God will be, "Blessed are You for not making me a Gentile, a woman (emphasis mine), or a slave." We can see the levels of disdain women are held in many cultures today. This mindset is society’s precept alone and has nothing to do with Christianity. Ladies, you can thank Jesus Christ for the value He has placed on you and to the great height and honor to which He has elevated you.

Even though there are those within our own society who still treat women with disregard they do so selfishly ignoring the example of Christ’s love. The good news is the worth of women is shown to be exceedingly precious in the eyes of God as evidenced by the example of Jesus Himself. This acceptance is just a little added sparkle to the magnificent gem that is the Christian faith. Christ has made us all heirs and joint-heirs with Him and has marked us for majesty for eons to come. But right now He has crowned women with some of the highest honor and dignity. God truly is the greatest expression of love and He plays no favorites for in Him there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3:28). Instead those of us who believe in Christ are all Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com

There Are No Words

Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things and because of Thy will they existed, and were created. Revelation 4:11 (New American Standard Bible)


Consider what the scene in heaven must have looked like as the resurrected Christ moved from earth and entered the Celestial City where He took His seat of honor at the right hand of His Father. There are approximately 989,000 words in the English language and not one adequately describes fully the majesty and glory of Christ at this moment in His resurrected and glorified Being. The astounding beauty and holiness of Jesus Christ are beyond any kind of noun or adjective in any language.

There have been many attempts to satisfactorily express what the heavenly scene must look like. It is hardly people floating on clouds plucking on their harps. The book of Revelation gives us tantalizing foretastes of both what heaven and the majesty and glory of God are like. But these are mere words almost akin to explaining the color red to a blind person. How can such a thing be described? John tried to relate it in his eyewitness account but he could only describe the infinite in finite terms. The glory he was witness to was beyond explanation yet it was as real as the ground you are standing on.

We may not be able to define exactly what the Throne of God looks like but we do know that the Lamb of God is fully worthy to be seated there. He was the King of Glory from eternity past, then as the God/Man He walked among us as complete Deity being called the Son of Man and the King of the Jews. After His resurrection He returned to His unveiled fullness with a splendor that outshines the sun holding power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor and glory. He is ultimate holiness with ultimate rule and authority in His hand now and forevermore. While words do not fully describe Him now when we see Him as He is in that future day a picture will be worth a million words. Suffice it to say what we can imagine now falls dreadfully short of the reality He is. Jude in his epistle summed it up in words that also fall short of the full grandeur and splendor of Christ the King but still ring true; “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”



Ken

Rocking the World

And when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she had been, in the midst. John 8:9 (New American Standard Bible)

Most of us are familiar with the story of the woman taken in adultery who was brought before Jesus. The grace Christ offered to this woman is a model of understanding and compassion that is so lacking in the average human including the majority of Christians. Jesus, as the Ultimate Man of Wisdom, knew exactly what to say and do in this situation.

In reading this account again I was taken with the grace Christ showed to the woman’s accusers as well. As God Incarnate consider what the Lord could have said to these men and He would have been totally justified. But Jesus in His grace and mercy simply wrote on the ground and then stood and shined the light of His righteousness on their hearts. Nothing else was said and these men were allowed to depart as they considered their deeds and the motives of their hearts. No lightning bolts or fire from heaven but on that day only the still small voice of God was heard. He surely is a just God but He’s also the God of second chances.

I believe that as those men walked away from their attempt to entrap Jesus and destroy this woman that Jesus was very grieved because of their spiritual blindness and judgmental attitudes. Jesus did not die just for ‘nice’ sinners. His example in this situation is a great model for me. When I see the uglier side of people often my first thought is to despise them the grace that the Great God of Eternity offers. When we say Jesus Christ died for the entire human race it doesn’t mean just for unbelievers with a good moral attitude but also for the scarred, the angry, the bitter and the vicious. At times like this God wants me to drop the stone which I ought not to have picked up in the first place and extend my hands and my heart in the beauty of true grace. When it comes to other people and who they are God doesn’t want me to rock anyone’s world.

Ken

www.devotionstoday.blogspot.com