Following Jesus: Our purposes
Esther was a Jewish girl in the palace of the king of Persia in about 460 BC. When the lives of all the Jews in Persia were threatened, her cousin Mordecai told her that she alone could save all their lives if she spoke to the king. He said, “perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Est. 4:14NLT). What would she do? Bravely she spoke to the king and the Jews lives were saved. This is a great example of how God can give us a purpose in life. God used Esther to fulfill His purposes. She was in the right place at the right time. That’s an example of God’s providence (His wise and purposeful sovereignty); it wasn’t an accident. And she made the right decision. That’s an example of human responsibility.
As human beings we want our lives to be meaningful and significant. How can we make our life count? The Bible implies that God made us for a purpose. And as we live for that purpose, we will find fulfilment. (more…)
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Who are you following in 2018?
We can follow people on social media like Facebook. And we are influenced by the people we follow and listen to. For example, social media influences our relationships, shopping, and education.
Like most people living in the post Christian 21st Century Joe had heard of Jesus. But he didn’t know much about him. So, deciding to educate himself, he Googled some answers. Here’s what Joe said afterwards.
“He’s probably Scandinavian… from Norway or Denmark. You can tell by his pale skin, long blonde hair and blue eyes. But he’s definitely not a Viking. He’s more like a guru. In all the movies and old paintings he looks really chilled. In fact, ‘Chilled Nordic Jesus’ seems to be the most popular kind of Jesus.
“But there were others. I also found, ‘Religious Jesus’ or ‘Church Jesus’. He’s in paintings and stained glass windows everywhere. And he loves medieval Gothic churches. He’s closely related to, ‘Out of this world Jesus’ or ‘Ethereal Jesus’ who you can also find in churches – usually looking right past you. It’s hard to tell if he’s super focused or stoned or just not very interested.
“When I read articles I came across different reasons for why Jesus came. So, ‘Great moral teacher Jesus’ joins a succession of teachers down through the ages who taught us how to live better lives. On the other hand, ‘Killjoy Jesus’ is always watching and ready to condemn us when we stuff up. But ‘Genie Jesus’ is really great. He’s available for party tricks and special rescues – unfortunately only prayers from the super spiritual seem to work.
“The last Jesus I found was ‘Political Jesus’ – he was a bit of a failure. He wanted to cut a better deal for poor people with the Roman and Jewish leaders. But he didn’t succeed. Instead he was killed. There really does seem to be a lot of confusion about why Jesus died.
If only Joe had listened to what Jesus said about himself instead of the opinions of others. If he’d only looked in the Bible instead of online he could have skipped the clichés and found the real, authentic Jesus of history… born in Palestine… who probably had brown skin… who lived well before stained glass and gothic church architecture and who challenged religious hierarchies. Joe could have heard Jesus say that he “came to seek and to save the lost” and that his plan was to give his life, “as a ransom for many”. And he could have read these immortal words…
“I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life” (John 8:12).
So, don’t follow a cliché. Follow the Christ revealed in the Bible.
Bible Verse: John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life”.
Prayer: Dear God, please help me to follow Jesus in 2018 and to understand more about Him as I read about Him in the Bible. Amen.
Images and text © Outreach Media 2018
Posted, January 2018
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Three Steps to Spiritual Revival
God’s Word is the Key
In Old Testament times the Jews were God’s special people. He promised them many things, but some of these were conditional on their obedience (Ex. 15:25-26; 23:25-26; Dt. 7:12-16). If they worshipped idols, they were told: “The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you” (Deut. 4:27NIV). Because the Jews were unfaithful and followed idols instead of the true God, they were overrun by the Assyrians and Babylonians and Jerusalem was plundered and destroyed.
However, after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, some returned to their homeland. This journey of about 1500 km took them 4 months to travel (Ezra 7:8). They returned in three phases: Zerabbabel rebuilt the temple, 80 years later Ezra led a spiritual revival, and 13 years later Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Although there was opposition from the surrounding nations, they persisted and there was a spiritual revival when they turned back to worshipping the only true God. Let’s look at the key steps in their revival.
The main character is Ezra, who was a devoted student and a teacher of the Scriptures (Ezra 7:10). He was instrumental in a spiritual revival after Nehemiah rebuilt the city walls. One day all the Israelite men and women gathered together and Ezra “read it (the books of Moses) aloud from daybreak till noon” (Neh. 8:3). The people listened for 5-6 hours! That’s a long time! Thirteen Levites helped by “making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read” (Neh. 8:8). As Aramaic was the language at the time, they probably translated it from Hebrew into Aramaic. On the next day Ezra taught the leaders, priests and Levites from the Scripture (Neh. 8:13). When they discovered that they had not been celebrating the Festival of Shelters, they celebrated it with joy. On every day of this 7-day festival, Ezra read from the Scripture (Neh. 8:18).
Three days later the people gathered together to confess their sinful ways. They “read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for 3 hours, and spent another 3 hours in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God” (Ezra 9:3). They prayed one of the longest prayers in the Bible, which traces God’s faithfulness across history despite the Jews unfaithfulness (Neh. 9:6-37). After this they wrote a binding agreement that they would obey the Lord and follow the Scriptures (Neh. 9:38 – 10:39). So the sequence of events was: they read the Bible (Neh. 8), they confessed their sins (Neh. 9), and they obeyed the Lord (Neh. 10).
This pattern is similar to the Jewish revival under king Josiah. After he was informed of God’s message in Scripture, “he tore his robes” and wept in anger and sorrow acknowledging their disobedience, and then promised “to follow the LORD and keep His commands” and acted to remove all the idols in the land of Israel (2 Ki. 22:8 – 23:20; 2 Chr. 34:14-33).
Read the Bible
What can we learn from this? Revival begins with God’s word. Did you notice how often they read the Scripture? The Bible showed them how they had failed. The bible is our spiritual food: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16). It helps us learn God’s perspective on our world including what is right and what is wrong (“teaching”); where we are on the wrong track (“rebuking”); how to get back onto the right track (“correcting”); and how to live a godly life (“training in righteousness”).
Confess our sins
After they read the Bible, they felt guilt and shame. This led to confession of sin in prayer to the Lord; they were honest with God. After God speaks to us in Scripture, we need to respond in prayer. This is necessary to keep in touch with God: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). Although the penalty of our sins has already been paid, they affect our relationships in the family of God. If we confess our sins to the Lord, He promises to forgive them and enable these relationships to be restored. If the sin is against another person, we should confess to them so that they in turn can forgive us (Lk. 17: 3-4; Jas. 5:16).
Follow the Lord
After they confessed their sin, there was repentance and obedience; they acted to get back on track. Signs of being in fellowship with the Lord and with believers in the family of God are that we “keep His commands”, obey “His word”, and “live as Jesus did” (1 Jn. 2:3-6). This means obeying Christ’s teachings, doing what pleases Him, and letting Him live His life through us. Paul said, “I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Christ left an example for us to follow, and said “learn from me” and “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mt. 11:29; 16:24; 1 Pt. 2:21).
Lessons for us
So let’s read and meditate on the Bible and apply it to our lives. This is the key to the three steps of spiritual revival: read the Bible, confess our sins, and follow the Lord.
Written, June 2011
George's Journal 
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