Category: Christian Life

Unbelief’s Heart of Stone

26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”  27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”  28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”  John 9:26-29 NIV      

        

A  blind man healed by Jesus was cast out of the temple because he attested to the fact that Jesus healed him. These very words riled the religious leaders:   ” Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind” (John 9:32).   

The Pharisees would not accept the miracle even though he was staring them in their faces with eyes that were blind from birth but now are able to see.  They had hearts of stone, fixed, immovable, unpersuadable; they had hearts of unbelief.

What is unbelief?  Dr. Lloyd-Jones expounds upon it as a power that controls and manipulates men, a state and a condition that leads to wrath.  The Pharisees were so filled with indignation at the testimony of the man who was healed by Jesus that they cast him out.  There were other accounts of this consuming animosity, including one time when the Pharisees were so enraged at Jesus that they took Him to the brow of the hill in order to throw him down the cliff.

Unbelief  is a power based on prejudice.  Here was the undeniable evidence of the miracle healing power of Jesus, but the Pharisees would not acknowledge it.  They came up with reasons, from saying that Jesus was “merely” the son of Joseph the carpenter,  to the accusation  that Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath.

It can be argued by persons who reject the message of the Gospel, that it is a matter of intellect; they would say that they cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because their understanding won’t allow them to do so, that they would be committing intellectual suicide if they did.  Not so, says Dr. Lloyd-Jones.  It is not a matter of intellect, it’s a matter of prejudice.  This is his argument:

” If the possession of intellect and understanding and the capacity for reason makes it impossible for men to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, well then I can say that no man of intellect has ever been a Christian. But the fact is of course that some of the mightiest intellects that the world has ever known have been great Christians and saints adorning the life of the church.”

“Christ and the Gospel and the way of salvation that were able to satisfy the intellect of Paul and Augustine, of Luther, Calvin, Knox, Whitfield and a whole lot of other intellectual giants is at least worthy of your careful and serious consideration”.

The other element of unbelief is pride.  What is holding people back from believing the Gospel message is that they are concerned about themselves, their standing and reputation.  It is intellectual pride and fear that the rest of the unbelieving world would call them fanatical, that they have “lost their capacity for reason”.

Pride and prejudice are the pillars of unbelief.  Dr. Lloyd-Jones concludes that unbelief is a tragedy.  It blinds us to God’s most glorious blessings in time and eternity: His gift of salvation through His Son Jesus Christ Who came into this world to preach the gospel to the poor:  the poor in spirit, the down and out and the broken, the lost whom nobody else could help because they have made such a mess of their lives; He came to bind the broken-hearted, to give them beauty for ashes, to open prison doors, to deliver people from their sins and the many things that ruin people’s lives.

Unbelief makes one hate and revile the Son of God, much like the Pharisees when, face to face with Jesus, they had so much loathing and abhorrence for Him,  that they were blind to His glory and majesty and they rejected Him, accused Him wrongfully, and put Him to death on the cross.

The good news is that hearts of stone can be transformed to hearts of flesh, as in the conversion of the apostle Paul’s stony heart to a heart of love; from breathing out murderous threats against Christ’s followers, to preaching the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.

Forsaking the Bread of Life

“I am that bread of life” John 6:48

The day after Jesus multiplied the loaves of bread and two small fish to feed the five thousand, a great rejection of the Son of God took place. It did not start out that way.  At the beginning of the day, the people searched everywhere for Jesus, getting into ships so they could be with Him on the other side of the sea in Capernaum.

Jesus knew their hearts. He told the crowd that the reason they pursued Him was not because of the miracles, but because they ate of the loaves the day before and were filled. Yes, filled to their heart’s content, so much so that there were twelve baskets full left over.

Knowing that humans labor for food and drink for the sustenance of life, Jesus directed the crowd not to labor for food that perishes, but for that which lasts unto everlasting life, which only He can give.

“I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35) “For my flesh is flesh indeed, and my blood is drink indeed”. (John 6:55).

The people, including many of His disciples murmured.  They were offended, saying these were hard sayings.  Who can accept it?  How in the world can one eat human flesh and blood, never hunger and thirst, and have everlasting life?

Jesus responded, revealing the central core of the truth:  It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh counts for nothing. Jesus capped His statement with the resounding words, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” 

Herein  lies the answer why one must not labor or put prioritized value on feeding the flesh.  The body perishes. Man is an eternal being.  He has a soul that needs to be redeemed to life eternal. Jesus claims that only He can give this everlasting life through faith in Him.

But after Jesus spoke these words, many of His disciples walked away and no longer followed Him.  They rejected His words.  They determined that they would rather live and perceive things as they did before they heard the words of Jesus:  to labor each day for the meat and drink that perish, and be hungry and thirsty again before the very next meal,  to ignore their souls and be mindless that their lives on earth are finite, to overlook the fact that they are appointed to die one day.

Will you also walk away from the Bread of Life?  I pray that your answer will be as the apostle Peter’s: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

How to love our enemies

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  Matthew 5:44-45

The second of the two commandments of Jesus is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  The definition of “neighbor” is all-encompassing: it includes our enemies, for Jesus asserts that we should also love them.   What was His reasoning?  So that we may become the children of the Father in heaven.

How are we to carry out this kind of love?  We are to be as children, imitating their Heavenly Father, Whose love is unconditional, and even undeserved:  One  Who makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

What kind of love is it?  It is an absolutely disinterested, impartial love, one that does not depend upon the qualities of the object of this love, but in spite of it. And this is the kind of love we are to have towards our neighbor, too, and yes, even towards our enemies: those who are arrayed against us, who curse and hate us, those who despitefully use and abuse us.

I like how Dr. Lloyd-Jones explains it:  “The whole secret of living this kind of life is that man should be utterly detached.  He must be detached from others in the sense that his behavior is not governed by what they do.  But still more important, he should be detached from himself, for until a man is detached from himself, he will never be detached from what others will do to that self. ”   For as long as a man or woman is living for self, he or she will always be sensitive and reacting to what others will do towards oneself, therefore, “the only way to detach yourself from what others do to you is to detach yourself from yourself.”

Hence our treatment of others must not be dependent on how they treat us, or how they are towards us, but rather, dictated by how we view them and their condition.  Instead of reacting to their negative treatment, our actions toward them are to be governed by the principle of love: to understand that their attacks towards us either are due to the basic imperfection and failings of human nature,  and/or perhaps influenced by the god of this world; therefore, we are to pray for them.

Detachment from self, dying to self, takes supernatural grace, and the good news is that it is possible for a Christian to carry out this kind of love by living his or her life in Christ.  For in Him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are a new creation who can live in this present evil world at a higher level, belonging to a different kingdom, the kingdom of God.

The Precious Possession

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“A lazy man does not roast his prey, but the precious possession of a man is diligence.” Proverbs 12:27,  NASB

There is a certain possession that the Bible esteems as valuable, something to be desired.  It is not a material treasure; it cannot be bought with worldly currency.  That precious possession is diligence.

The best way I can expound upon this scripture is to share how I have witnessed this trait from my parents. To this day, they continue to amaze me beyond words.   I don’t ever remember seeing them idle or wasting time.   When I was growing up, I recall both of them going to work early in the morning each day.   As both of them are lawyers, they had plenty of things to occupy them; however, they somehow managed to come home and eat three meals with their children almost every day.

When my father was home, I remember that he would either be reading or writing.  My mother incessantly tended to projects that she would follow through to completion.  They were compassionate people, reaching out to help the poor and underprivileged.  I remember many times when we children would have to sit squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder at the dinner table because some poor folks were invited to dine with us.

My father is now in his eighties, but he still goes to work every day:  he serves the people as the oldest member of Congress in a Southeast Asian country.  Surrounded with books and so many documents to read and review,  he always carries a pen,  a small pad of paper, or a book to read.  My mother is in her late seventies, and yes, she also goes to work each day.  A long time ago, when I was a little child, she started a cooperative to help and encourage poor people to save their money and to free them from the grasp of greedy usurers.  What she set into motion decades ago has now grown by leaps and bounds — from a membership of less than 20, and at present, to almost a hundred thousand — one of the biggest cooperatives in a Southeast Asian country.

Diligence involves perseverance, persistence, and tenacity.  It is not achieved overnight, but grows through the days and through the years as it is applied.  It is honoring one’s Creator with making the best use of one’s time and talents, and like the cooperative that my mother once started, through daily application, grows exponentially in value.  Diligence eventually becomes a person’s precious possession where moths cannot corrupt, nor can thieves break through and steal.

The Course of This World

“ in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience”  Ephesians 2:2

A life that has not been born again is a spiritually dead existence: born of the flesh, dead in trespasses and sins.  The Apostle Paul makes that claim. It is a life without knowing Who God is, separated from Him and His life: a mere existence that is outside of all the richness and fullness of life that a relationship with God has to offer.

The course of this world may be lauded as logical, sensible, and desirable.  Its pathways have birthed ideas and ways of life based on the premise of a universe without God and moral-based laws.  Its roadways are packed with herds of followers.

A man or woman may say that there is perfect freedom apart from God because of  free will to choose to live as one pleases.   Not so, says Paul.  A person without God walks “following the course of this world”, with a perspective on life dictated by the fickle mindset of the world through media, advertising, and whatever is the “in” thing to do, the “way things are done”.  Its biddings are luring and whimsical, but it is exactly the opposite of free will at play: one becomes a slave to it.

It is in being born again, born of the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ that we are quickened, made spiritually alive to connect with God and everything that pertains to Him: His wonders, His love, His blessings, His joy, His peace, His freedom, His gift of everlasting life.

” Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” John 3:3

 

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