Monday, July 30, 2012

Monday, July 30th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Isaiah 54-58
Today's scripture focus is Matthew 8:14-22


14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
16 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“He took up our infirmities
    and carried our diseases.”

The Cost of Following Jesus

18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”


After Jesus healed the leper and the Gentile, really slapping them in the face with His stunning comment that Gentiles would inherit the kingdom and that the "sons of the kingdom" would be shut out of it, He reassures them that He is still here for the Jews.  Yes, He has turned to the Gentiles and healed them and redeemed them, but He will heal and redeem the Jews too.  However, He healed a woman which was another on the list of "things" you wouldn't want to be, so it was still an indictment against the super-pious Pharisees.

Check out v16 though - Jesus healed all the sick.  ALL the sick.  Can you imagine?  Several times throughout the gospels this is mentioned - when the multitudes came, Jesus healed them all.  He almost wiped out disease from Palestine.  Not necessarily because of their faith (though there were some who believed in faith that Jesus would/could heal), but for a few other reasons.  First (and always) for His glory.  Second as proof of His Messiah-ship.  And third, to fulfill prophecy.

At the cross Jesus defeated sin, death and sickness.  The truth is, sickness and death are a result of sin.  That doesn't mean that every cold you get is a result of a particular sin you committed.  But sickness and death did not exist before the fall, and is a direct consequence of it.  You can only eliminate sickness and death entirely when sin is eliminated entirely.  They are inextricably connected.  And though Jesus conquered sin, death and sickness on the cross, the total fulfillment of that will only come with His Second Coming.

And again we see that becoming a Christian is not the easy way out.  It comes at a cost.  Some want to become Christians because of the perceived benefits (miracles, healings, etc), but Jesus roots superficiality out by quickly reminding us that following Him does not guarantee personal comforts.  Jesus Himself had no home.

The second man wanted personal riches.  The phrase "first let me go and bury my father" is a common one that actually simply means that he wanted to wait for his father to die so he could collect his inheritance.  And Jesus replied "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead".

In his sermon, What Keeps Men from Christ?, MacArthur says....

At first it seems non-sensical. How can dead people bury dead people? Obviously dead people can't bury dead people unless the first kind are spiritually dead, and that's what he's saying. It's a proverb. Let the dead bury their dead. Let the spiritually dead bury their physical dead and then Luke adds in the parallel passage, "Go thou and preach the kingdom of God." What he's saying is look, this is a proverb again just like the one about the foxes and birds. The first one meant look I don't have any personal comforts. This one means let spiritually dead people bury their dead. Let the secular world take care of its own issues. You have been called to the kingdom of God. See the difference? What he's saying is you are functioning on the wrong level.
In other words let the system take care of itself. He's not saying Christians are forbidden to go to funerals. He's not saying if you're a Christian you're not supposed to make sure your father or mother get buried. It's a proverb and what he means is the world's passing affairs, the coming and going of people, the passing of fortunes from one to another is all part of a dead system. You are called to a living kingdom, go and preach the kingdom. You see the man's priorities are fouled up. Secular matters belong to the people who are secular. The human system takes care of itself, but this man what does it say he did? It's not there either. He left somewhere between verse 22 and 23. He disappeared. Why? Personal possessions were the big thing to him. He had waited a long time for his piece of the action. He wasn't bailing out now. Hey, he liked the thrill and the charisma and the wonder and the miracles and this was fabulous stuff and he wanted to get on the bandwagon, but there was no commitment there. He wanted his money...
Personal relations, personal riches, personal comfort, all stand in the way....If that holds you back from full commitment, you are not fit to enter the kingdom of God. This is not talking about Christian service, people; this is talking about salvation. You can't get saved with those kind of strings. You're not fit to enter My kingdom. Half a heart is no heart...They weren't willing to make the full commitment, and He turned them down.  "Him that commeth unto Me I will in no wise cast out," if he comes on My terms, full surrender, with a beatitude attitude, a beggar in his spirit, mourning over his sin, meek before God, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, crying for mercy, and willing to be persecuted, hated, and reviled for my sake....
You see the Lord may not want to take away your personal comforts. He may not want to take away your personal possessions. He may not want to take away your personal relationships, but you have to be willing to let him if He wanted to, you see. That's the affirmation of His Lordship in your life. 

Are we coming to Him in full surrender, with a beatitude attitude, a beggar in spirit, mourning over our sin, meek before God, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, crying out for mercy, willing to be persecuted, hated and reviled for His sake, willing to surrender our personal comforts, personal relations, personal comfort?

Are we willing to give Him everything in order to follow Him?  

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 8:23-34
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Isaiah 59-63

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