Notes of Faith April 23, 2022

The descriptions in Revelation 21–22 of the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem are literal—or they are images of an even more literal reality—and how wonderful is that? We will literally, physically, and bodily be with the Godhead, the godly personalities of the invisible realm, the saints of all the ages, and one another for eternity.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if we never recognized anyone? Is it possible we’ll be total strangers in paradise forever, that we’ll have everlasting amnesia?

No. It isn’t remotely possible—yet we sometimes wonder if we’ll know each other in Heaven. It’s an emotive question. Our relationships on earth mean more to us than anything else. I loved my dad and mom; I love my sister and her family; I miss my wife, and I cherish my daughters, their husbands, and all their children. These relationships are more valuable to me than any other single thing in this world apart from my relationship with Christ. I never want to lose these bonds of love. It doesn’t matter if I lose everything else on earth, I don’t want to lose those dearest to me. I want to be where they are, and I want them to be where I am.

Jesus felt the same way. In the upper room on the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples,

If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

—John 14:3

He wanted His friends to be with Him, near Him, fellowshipping with Him forever. A couple of hours later, Jesus prayed an unutterably deep prayer just before His arrest.

Father, He said, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am.

—John 17:24

Jesus Himself—God of very God—wanted His friends and family to be with Him in eternity, where He was, so He could enjoy their fellowship and love. He feels as we do about our dearest ones. These passages in John 14 and John 17 clearly imply that one of the greatest joys of Heaven will be our everlasting reunion with those we love.

While the Bible doesn’t give us a verse saying, “You will know each other in Heaven,” it treats this reality like an obvious truth, simply assuming this is the case. There are a number of passages that make this assumption reasonable and clear.

John 20:19–23

The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us our first glimpse in Scripture of what the glorified resurrection body will be like. John 20:19–20 says,

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After He said this, He showed them His hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

When Jesus rose from the tomb, He had the same identity and the same appearance He had prior to His death. The disciples recognized Him. They recognized His face and His features, they recognized His hands with the nail prints, and He even showed them His side. They recognized Him by the scar left from the Roman spear. He knew them after His resurrection, and they knew Him, though His body was now imperishable.

I’ve long believed that our resurrection bodies will have the appearance of our being in our early thirties. Jesus was about thirty-three when He rose from the dead, and Philippians 3:21 says He will “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Whatever our apparent age, we will be physically, mentally, and emotionally mature, and we will be recognizable as ourselves. The essence of our identity will not be lost through the process of rapture or resurrection. Our faults and failures will be gone, but I will still be me, and you will still be you—in the fullness of the perfection of Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:12

Another clue comes from 1 Corinthians 13. In the first several verses, the apostle Paul commended the virtues of love, and he ended the chapter by talking about its permanence. Love will continue after we die. Faith will not be needed in Heaven, and our hope will be fulfilled. But love will continue. Our relationships with those we love will go right on, and, in fact, be far better.

Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

—1 Corinthians 13:12

In other words, “I know Jesus Christ now, but one day I’ll know Him better; I’ll see Him fully and I will know Him just as He knows me.” The implication is that we’ll also know each other better and love each other more fully in the future than we do now.

Right now, even the best of human relationships are imperfect. One day those of us who know Christ Jesus our Lord will see His face, reflect His love, and know one another even as we ourselves are known.

1 Thessalonians 4

Another helpful passage is in 1 Thessalonians. The Christians in Thessalonica were still learning the rudiments of Christian theology. They had questions about what happens when we die. Paul wrote,

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

—1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

The basis of Paul’s encouragement and comfort is that we’ll be together with those we love and with the Lord forever in heaven. Our fellowship with our Christian loved ones goes right on! We’ll pick up where we left off, and we will know even as we are known. We will recognize Him and others, even as they recognize us.

There’s no capping the encouragement this gives me!

2 Corinthians 4:13–14

In a similar vein, in 2 Corinthians 4:14, Paul wrote,

We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence.

Paul knew something. He didn’t hope, think, speculate, or wish. He knew his body would be resurrected and he would be reunited with his Corinthian friends in the presence of the Lord. That gave him vast encouragement, and he repeated the same idea elsewhere in his letters to his friends and to other churches he established. For example, he called the Thessalonians “the crown in which we will glory in the presence of the Lord Jesus when He comes” (1 Thessalonians 2:19).

He fully anticipated an eternal friendship with those he had won to Christ.

Luke 16:22–31

In Luke 16, Jesus told about a neighborhood beggar who died and went to Heaven. But Jesus didn’t use the word Heaven. He used the phrase Abraham’s side, saying, “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.” The passage goes on to talk about “Abraham . . . with Lazarus by his side” (Luke 16:22–23).

In other words, a dirty but God-trusting Middle Eastern beggar went to Heaven and found himself walking down the street side by side with Abraham, the greatest figure of the Old Testament. The whole story is based on the premise that we will know one another in Heaven. Though their earthly timelines had been separated by two thousand years, Abraham and the beggar knew one another and fellowshipped together.

I don’t know if they knew one another instinctively or if they were introduced to each other. I’m curious about this. When I get to Heaven, will I instinctively know my grandfather, who was a mountain preacher and died long before I was born? Or will he come up to me and say, “On earth, I was your grandfather”?

I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to knowing him, along with Abraham, the beggar of Luke 16, and all the other heroes of the faith. One small hint that our knowledge may be instinctive comes from the next passage.

Matthew 17:1–8

The transfiguration of Christ was the moment when Peter, James, and John caught a glimpse of the intrinsic, eternal glory of their Savior. Matthew 17:1–4 says,

After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.

When Jesus came to earth, He left His throne and its eternal glory. He temporarily relinquished His splendor and some of His divine prerogatives. He entered humanity as a baby in a manger. But on this occasion during His earthly life, He was momentarily enveloped with a flash of His original and eternal glory. How amazing that two Old Testament heroes joined Him! Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all belonged to different epochs of human history. Moses dates to about 1400 BC, Elijah lived in the 800s BC, and Jesus lived in the first century AD.

Here we have three men whose earthly lives were separated by fourteen hundred years, and yet they all knew each other. They were standing there physically, fellowshipping and talking together. They were known by their same names, but they were glorified, energized, wrapped in light.

This is a sneak peek of Heaven!

So, yes, we’ll recognize our loved ones in Heaven. As someone once put it, we’ll certainly not be greater fools in Heaven than we are on earth. If we know one another now, we’ll certainly know one another in the soon-to-be.

Excerpted from The 50 Final Events In World History by Robert J. Morgan, copyright Robert J. Morgan.

What a life we have to look forward to forever!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 22, 2022

When I talk about the nature of saving faith, I share the Protestant and Reformed zeal to magnify the majesty and glory and all-sufficiency of God in Christ.

My heart leaps with joy when I read how Calvin exalted the glory of God as the main issue of the Reformation. He wrote to his Roman Catholic adversary Cardinal Sadolet, “[Your] zeal for heavenly life [is] a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God” (A Reformation Debate, 52).

This was Calvin’s chief contention with Rome’s theology: it does not honor the majesty of the glory of God in salvation the way it should. He goes on to say to Sadolet that what is needed in all our doctrine and life is to “set before [man], as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God” (Ibid.).

“Saving faith glorifies Christ by looking away from self to Christ alone.”

The ultimate issue in saving faith is the glory of Christ. How, then, does saving faith glorify Christ? One answer is that faith is divinely suited, as a receiving grace (John 1:11–13; Colossians 2:6), to call all attention to Christ. Saving faith glorifies Christ by looking away from self to Christ alone — to his all-sufficiency, including his blood and righteousness, without which we could have no right standing with God. To which I say, with all my heart, Amen! Let us be willing to die for this. As many have.

But it gets even better. There is more glory to give to Christ as we receive him for justification.

Sight of Spiritual Reality

There are good reasons to think that Paul and other New Testament writers understood saving faith as a kind of spiritual sight of spiritual reality, especially the self-authenticating glory of Christ. For example, Paul contrasts believers and unbelievers by what they see and don’t see in the gospel of the glory of Christ:

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . . For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3–6)

Unbelievers are blind to “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” But for believers, “God . . . has shone in our hearts” to give that very light. Both groups hear the gospel story. Both grasp the historical facts of the gospel. But unbelievers can’t see what believers see in the gospel. Unbelievers are still walking by (natural) sight, not by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). And natural sight looks at the gospel with no spiritual awareness of the glory of Christ in it. The natural mind (1 Corinthians 2:14), with its natural eyes, does not see what faith sees in the gospel.

But the case is very different with believers, who are described in verse 6. They experience the miracle of God’s light-giving new creation. They see what unbelievers do not see. God said, as on the first day of creation, “Let there be light!” And by that faith-creating word, God gives “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). When this happens, unbelievers become believers. This is the grand and fundamental difference between believers and unbelievers. Hearing the gospel, believers see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Awakened from Boredom

Before the miracle of 2 Corinthians 4:6 happened to any of us, we heard the gospel story of Christ and saw it as boring or foolish or legendary or incomprehensible. We saw no compelling beauty or value in Christ. Then God “shone in our hearts,” and we saw glory.

This was not a decision. This was a sight. We went from blindness to seeing. When you go from blindness to seeing, there is no moment to decide whether you are seeing. It is not a choice. You cannot decide not to see in the act of seeing. And you cannot decide not to see as glorious what you see as glorious. That is the miracle God works in verse 6. Once we were seeing the gospel facts without seeing the beauty of Christ. Then God spoke, and we saw through the facts of the gospel the beauty of divine reality.

This seeing in 2 Corinthians 4:6 is conversion. It is the coming into being of a believer. Verse 4 describes “unbelievers,” and verse 6 describes the creation of believers. One group is blind to the compelling glory of Christ. The other sees the glory of Christ as it really is — compelling. Or to put it another way, believers are granted to see and receive Christ as supremely glorious. This is the meaning of becoming a believer, or having saving faith.

‘We Have This Treasure’

Now, how does Paul describe this experience in the next verse (2 Corinthians 4:7)? He says, “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” The most natural meaning of this “treasure” in a jar of clay is what God has just created in us in verse 6: “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The word this in verse 7 makes the connection specific. “We have this treasure.” He is not speaking in broad, general terms. He is referring to a specific treasure, “this treasure,” the one he just described.

It is not strange that Paul would use the word treasure to describe the glory of Christ in the human heart. Nothing would be more natural for Paul. He loves to think of Christ as the believer’s wealth, his riches, his treasure. He speaks of the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8), God’s “riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19), “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7), and “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). This was the heartbeat of his ministry, the meaning of his life. He saw himself “as poor, yet making many rich” (2 Corinthians 6:10) — rich with Christ!

What this means for our question, then, is that 2 Corinthians 4:6 describes the way a believer comes into being, that is, the way saving faith comes into being. It happens when God removes spiritual blindness and replaces it with a sight of the glory of God in Christ — the beauty of Christ, the worth of Christ, the divine reality of Christ. This miracle of spiritual sight is believing. That is, it is the receiving of Christ as true and glorious. In this miracle, the believer is simultaneously united to Christ. We “have” Christ. He is ours and we are his. Then to make things crystal clear, Paul calls this a “treasure” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

All-Sufficient, All-Satisfying

How, then, does saving faith glorify Christ?

It does so, to be sure, by turning us away from self to his all-sufficient blood and righteousness, without which we could have no right standing with God. Yes, the glory of Christ is at stake in protecting his righteousness from any intrusion of our own righteousness, compromising the sufficiency of his. So let the glory of Christ blaze in the all-sufficiency of his perfect obedience unto death, as the only ground of our acceptance with God.

But there is more glory to break out into view because of God’s design for faith alone to unite us to Christ. Second Corinthians 4:4–7 is one passage among many showing that what is at stake is not only the sufficiency of Christ’s work, but also the worth of it, the beauty of it, the all-satisfying glory of it. Or to be more accurate, what is at stake in the way we are justified is the shining forth of the worth of Christ himself, the beauty of Christ, the glory of Christ reflected in the justifying faith of his people.

In other words, God ordained for faith to be the instrument of justification not only to magnify the sufficiency of Christ’s living and dying obedience, but also to magnify his infinite beauty and worth. Faith is not an expedient acceptance of an all-sufficient achievement that I use to escape hell and gain a happy, healthy, Christless heaven. God did not design faith as the instrument of justification in order to turn the righteousness of Christ into a ticket from self-treasuring misery in hell to self-treasuring pleasure in heaven.

“Saving faith is not only the acceptance of Christ as all-sufficient, but also the embrace of Christ as our treasure.”

No. God designed faith as the instrument of justification precisely to prevent such utilitarian uses of the work of Christ. This is why saving faith is not only the acceptance of Christ as all-sufficient, but also the embrace of Christ as our treasure. Faith perceives and receives Christ — the sole ground of our justification — not only as efficacious, but as glorious. Not only as sufficient, but as satisfying.

Treasuring Trust

God is glorified when he is trusted as true and reliable. He is more glorified when this trust is a treasuring trust — a being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. God designed saving faith as a treasuring faith because a God who is treasured for who he is is more glorified than a God who is only trusted for what he does, or what he gives.

Therefore, that God would design saving faith to include affectional dimensions, which I have summed up in the phrase treasuring Christ, is no surprise. For in this way, he built God-glorifying pleasure into the Christian life from beginning to end. It is there from the first millisecond of new life in Christ, for it is there in saving faith. Not perfect, not without variation, not unassailed, but real. And it will be there forever because in God’s presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).

John Piper (@JohnPiper)

Jesus is indeed a treasure!  We have received the glory of God and should respond in praise, worship and giving God more glory.  Though we live by faith and not by sight we shall see Him as He is one day in all His glory!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 21, 2022

What is the value of your soul to God?... God doesn’t forget even the small sparrow He has made. How then could He forget or abandon you?... So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in the world.

—Luke 12:7 TPT

Discover...to find (something or someone) unexpectedly or in the course of a search.

True...real or actual.

Worth... deserving to be treated or regarded in the way specified.

The opposite of discover is ignore, neglect, overlooked.

The opposite of true is incorrect.

The opposite of worth his worthlessness, insignificance, uselessness.

Wow! That speaks volumes to me. God’s Word has so much to say about our true worth, meaning our worth as God sees us according to His Word. But, John 8:32 says it’s only the truth that we know that can set us free. And, in that freedom, it allows us to really find our true worth.

I’m always reading the Bible. I’ve always loved reading it. But, one day I felt a strong impression to stop reading and pause for a minute and just listen.

So I did and I got the sweetest impression to “read the Bible from the inside out.” I really thought that sounded strange, but I felt the Lord impressing me to “receive” His word from the inside out and allow that word to stir up my “most holy faith.”

I felt impressed to absorb and experience God’s Word from “His” perspective and not just my interpretation of it. Usually when I read, it’s like taking information on pages from the outside and processing it on the inside. But this was completely different. I felt like I was to see the word from His perspective inside out.

Psalm 139:13-14 says,

You created my inmost being;... I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful...

Suddenly, I began to think about myself, my situation, and my life in general from the inside out, from the way God created me to be, to think, to live. In spite of anything that has happened to me, my fault, someone else’s fault, or only Heaven knows how it happened, I began to “feel” and “think” of the scripture I was reading from the perspective of, “Why did God write this in this manner?” Then, it was like a lightbulb went off. It was because His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).

His plans might not exactly be my plans or the plans others have for me, good or bad, but they are to give us hope. Jeremiah 29:11–13 NIV says,

For I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope in the future.

Wow! That may not be someone else’s plan for you and perhaps not the plans you thought off or yourself. But it’s God‘s plan for you. And who can top or even stop God‘s plan? Then it goes on to say you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13). That’s discovery! And when we discover God, I believe that’s when we discover our true self... our true worth.

People’s opinion of your worth may change. Your opinion of your worth may change. But when God said I am the Lord I change not, He doesn’t change. His Words doesn’t change. And as I read the Bible, His opinion of us doesn’t change from being His beloved creation, fearfully and wonderfully made. God loves us with a love so precious, so dear, so unexplainable that He calls it unconditional. It’s always there and never fails.

To me, God’s opinion is the most valuable opinion for us to discover our true worth. If He created us, He knows our worth better than anyone ever can or ever will.

So, I encourage you to discover your true worth and become the woman God created you to be. If you have ever feared, fallen, failed, hurt, missed the mark, or experienced anything that doesn’t seem to set you up for great success, consider giving all of that to God and ask Him to set you up for His success, the success He planned for you from the beginning of time. Allow God to teach you how to discover your true worth in Him... from the inside out.

I pray right here, right now for you to know that you are God’s precious creation... valuable to those around you, valuable to yourself, valuable to this world, and most of all valuable to God.

Note: All definitions are from Oxford Languages Dictionary. All antonyms are from Thesauras.com.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Lindsay Roberts, author of Discover Your True Worth.

 How do you feel about yourself? Has your self-esteem taken a nosedive over the years? Are you hardest on yourself and maybe give grace to others but not yourself? When we dig into the Word of God, we discover our true worth because to Him, we are precious!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 20, 2022

Article by David Mathis
Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb . . . ” These words from a breathless Mary Magdalene were the first breaking of the news that Sunday morning. “. . . and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2).

Just as Mary herself had run to inform Peter and “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,” they then ran together to check for themselves. That Jesus’s body was gone, they now believed. But somehow, even with Jesus’s words to them, on multiple occasions, about his coming death and resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34), they, like Mary, “did not understand” (Mark 9:32).

On this world-changing Sunday morning, Jesus’s closest disciples first assumed his body had been taken and laid elsewhere. “As yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:9). Must rise. In Jesus’s mind, and in the courts of heaven, and in the pages of holy Scripture, the suffering and subsequent resurrection of the Messiah were not just possibilities or likelihoods. These were not options. They were musts. Jesus had said it before, and later that day he would explain it again — that it was necessary, that it must have happened this way.

O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? (Luke 24:25–26)

Everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. . . . that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. (Luke 24:44–25)

But when Peter and John first looked into the empty tomb, that necessity had not yet struck them. Fresh off the devastating grief of the previous two days — doubtless the two worst days of their lives — they still were coming to terms with his death, and assumed with Mary that he was still dead and “they” — some undefined group — had moved the body. Having seen the empty tomb, John reports, “the disciples went back to their homes” (John 20:10).

Only Mary stayed behind, and soon found Jesus alive. Then, with his commission, she “went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (John 20:18).

Christ Must Rise

However slow his disciples had been to understand the necessity of his suffering and rising, they soon became convinced — not just that he did rise (that was indisputable) but that he had to rise. It was necessary. It must have happened this way.

“Death could not hold him, restrain him, keep him. It was not possible. Christ, the Son, had to rise.”

Just fifty days later, when Pentecost came, Peter would preach this in public — not just the resurrection but its necessity. At the height of his sermon, Peter declares about his Lord — “this Jesus,” who was “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” — “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23–24). Death could not hold him, restrain him, keep him. It was not possible. Christ, the Son, had to rise.

Why, we might ask on this Resurrection Sunday, was it necessary? Why did Jesus have to rise? Acts 2, together with other New Testament texts, give us at least five reasons why the Son had to rise again.

1. To Make Good on God’s Word

First, the word of the living God was at stake. Through his prophets, God had long promised to send his people a climactically Anointed One, the Messiah, heir to David’s throne and rallying hope of Israel. And essential to that Messianic promise was an eternal reign (2 Samuel 7:13, 16). Not only would David’s line continue one generation after another, but one great heir was coming who would reign without end (Psalm 45:6–7; 102; 25–27; 110:1–4).

Even in his own lifetime, David himself had spoken of God not abandoning his soul to Sheol — and not letting his “holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16:10), which Christians, including Peter, came to see as one of many old-covenant anticipations of the coming Messiah’s resurrection. Which is how Peter argues in that first Spirit-anointed sermon (Acts 2:29–32).

God’s anointed king would fulfill the promise of God’s word. Jesus was, and is, that Christ. Therefore, it was impossible for him to be kept from that eternal reign. Not even the last enemy could keep him from it. Strong as the power of death may seem, it was, and is, no match for the omnipotent God working for his Messiah.

2. To Vindicate His Sinless Life

Jesus’s life was without sin. He was utterly innocent, and rising again vindicated his perfect human life. Death and Satan had no claim on him because Jesus had no “record of debt that stood against [him] with its legal demands” (Colossians 2:14). With respect to Jesus, Satan and his minions never had been armed; they had no hooks in him because he had no sin or guilt. Rather, in dying, Jesus gave himself, nailing to the cross our record of debt, because of our trespasses, and disarming the demons against us (Colossians 2:13, 15).

Luke sounds the note of Christ’s innocence again and again — three times in the mouth of Pilate, then again by the thief crucified next to him, and finally by the centurion who saw him breathe his last (Luke 23:4; 14–15; 22; 41, 47). Jesus’s innocence — that he did “nothing deserving death,” before man and before God — would be, as Paul celebrates, “vindicated by the Spirit” in Christ’s resurrection (1 Timothy 3:16).

3. To Confirm the Work of His Death

The resurrection also confirmed that Jesus’s death on the cross worked. It counted. It was effective. His dying declaration, “It is finished” (John 19:30), was shown to be true by his resurrection. Had he stayed dead, what confidence would we have that his sacrifice worked, that it was sufficient for us and all who believe? What firm hope would we have that he indeed was not only innocent of his own sin but that his death could count for us, in our place?

“The resurrection confirms that his death on the cross worked. It counted. It was effective.”

Paul writes in Romans 4:25 that Jesus “was delivered up” to death “for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” The resurrection shows that his work was effective — not only in covering our sins with his death, but in rising to be our righteousness — our justification — before the holy God. Which leads to another distinct but inseparable reason.

4. To Give Us Access to His Work

Not only did our sins require a reckoning — by Christ, outside of us — but we also needed to have access to his work, to have it applied to us. Potential salvation is not enough. We need actual rescue, which comes through the instrument called faith which unites us to a resurrected, living Lord.

However sufficient his self-sacrifice might have been to cover our sins, we have no access to that rescue if he is not alive that we might be united to him. But he is alive. As he says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17–18). There is no great salvation for us if we are not united by faith to a living Lord to have the benefits of his work applied to us.

5. To Be Our Living Lord and Treasure

One final must or necessity is the final necessity: Jesus is alive to know and enjoy forever.

There is no final good news if our Treasure and Pearl of Great Price is dead. Even if our sins could be paid for, righteousness provided and applied to us, and heaven secured, but Jesus were still dead, there would be no great salvation in the end — not if our Savior and Groom is dead. At the very center of the Easter triumph is not what he saves us from, but what he saves us to — better, who he saves us to: himself.

Our restless souls will not find eternal, and ever-increasing, rest and joy in a Christ-less new earth, no matter how stunning. Streets of gold, reunions with loved ones, and sinless living may thrill us at first — but they will not ultimately satisfy, not for eternity, not on their own. We were made for Jesus. He is at the center of true life now, and he will be forever. If there is no living Christ, there is no final satisfying eternity. But he is alive indeed — to know and enjoy forever.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 19, 2022

Article by Scott Hubbard
Editor, desiringGod.org

Have you ever found yourself in a night so black that you nearly stopped hoping for morning?

Some guilt feels so deep that you wonder if you should just lie down and die. Some mental or spiritual midnights feel so thick, and the sky so starless, that a step in any direction seems useless. Sometimes, you not only walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but you collapse partway through, and don’t rise.

Maybe you’ve been there, as I have. Maybe you are there right now. If so, Holy Week offers a fellow failure, an anguished friend, a brother in the darkness. If anyone has tasted the bitter salt of midnight weeping, he has. And if anyone can testify to the miracle of dawn and the drying of tears, he can.

What was happening in those dreadful hours on Holy Saturday, as Peter, sobbing and beating his breast, remembered his three denials, remembered Jesus’s final look (Luke 22:61), remembered how it all ended, and yet somehow did not go hang himself like Judas? A scene from Maundy Thursday gives us the answer: the prayer of Jesus was holding him.

Against the accumulated powers of sin, Satan, and despair, a praying Christ was Peter’s only hope. And ours.

Satan Roars

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. (Luke 22:31)

Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, we read the foreboding words, “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). As night falls on Thursday, the time has come, and the devil knows it (Luke 22:53). And so, Satan, after devouring one of the twelve (Luke 22:3), roars for the other eleven.

For three years, Jesus had stood between Peter and the dragon’s mouth, keeping him, guarding him (John 17:12). But now he was leaving, and Peter, like Job before him, would discover how much his strength rested on the hidden shield of his Lord. For the first time, he would walk the valley without the familiar comfort of his shepherd.

Satan demands to sift the disciples: to throw them on the sieve and shake, shake, shake until Simon Peter was only Simon again — clay and not rock (Luke 6:14), a fisher of fish and not of men (Luke 5:10). Here is the real terror behind our darkest nights. We feel like we’re unraveling, as if our testimony is being told in reverse. We fear we’re falling back into a Christless past.

We would, if Jesus left us alone in Satan’s sieve. Thank God he doesn’t.

Jesus Prays

But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. (Luke 22:32)

What words could overcome the horror of “Satan demanded to have you”? These: “But I have prayed for you.” I have prayed for you, Peter. I, Jesus, the storm-stilling, sickness-healing, demon-destroying Son of God. I, Jesus, the Father’s beloved, his Chosen One, whom heaven hears with pleasure (Luke 3:22; 9:35). I, Jesus, have prayed for you.

Peter will still be put in the sieve. But Jesus asks that, in all the shaking, Peter’s faith will not fall dead to the ground. He asks for an ember to burn under the ashes of Peter’s failure — a secret comfort in his weeping, a buried warmth beneath his anguish, a hidden hope that would compel him come Sunday to sprint to the tomb rather than follow Judas (Luke 24:10–12).

“Your night, no matter how black, is no sure sign that your faith has finally failed and fled you.”

In all likelihood, Peter could neither see nor feel the ember. He may have felt inconsolable, sure that this darkness would never see the dawn. Maybe you feel similarly. Know this: Jesus has seen embers of faith in his saints where they saw only ash. Your night, no matter how black, is no sure sign that your faith has finally failed and fled you.

Jesus still held Peter, even from the tomb. So he holds all his people, even when a stone seems to have rolled over the heavens. And we can feel him holding us when we, like Peter, stubbornly refuse Judas’s despair, and labor to believe even on the bleakest Saturday.

In the coming hours, the sun’s light would fail (Luke 23:45). But in answer to Jesus’s prayer, Peter’s faith would not.

Peter Turns

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:32)

When Jesus looks at Peter, he sees the three denials hiding in his heart (Luke 22:34). But he also sees something deeper than his denials, a threefold “I love you” that will survive till Sunday, sustained by his own prayers (John 21:15–17). He sees a man who will plant his feet in the same footsteps of his denials, this time walking in the opposite direction.

And even now, Jesus wants Peter to see himself beyond the coming misery. And so, he doesn’t say, “if you have turned again,” but when. Peter’s perseverance does not rest on the slender thread of his own power, but on the unbreakable beam of Christ’s own prayers. And so it is for all Christ’s disciples. Our deliverance — whether from our own sin or from a darkness not our fault — may seem uncertain on our side; we wonder if our faith will fail along the way. But on Jesus’s side, our deliverance is as certain his own intercession (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25). If we are truly in Christ, our turning is a when, not an if.

And in the matchless mercy of Jesus, we will find, as Peter did, that he welcomes us back as not a slave but a son, reassured and recommissioned. “When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” The one who was too weak to stand with Jesus will now strengthen others, his failure having fitted him for a wiser, humbler, more Christward ministry, resting on a power not his own.

Peter now knows the weakness of Peter, the strength of Satan, and the overpowering redemption of Jesus. And the restored Peters among us, who know the same firsthand, are often best suited to strengthen others.

He Prays for You

What might Jesus have prayed for Peter on that darkest of nights? We get a clue in John’s Gospel.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. (John 17:15)

“Don’t come undone, and don’t despair, if the sky above you looks black as Peter’s. Instead, hope.”

Jesus did not ask that Peter be removed from the world, where the devil prowls. Peter felt “the power of darkness” on Maundy Thursday (Luke 22:53), and the darkness nearly broke him. But Jesus did ask that Peter be kept from the devil’s devouring jaws. And the Father answered: Peter did not become a Judas.

We may find, too, that Jesus’s intercession does not keep us from nights whose darkness nearly swallows us. Don’t come undone, and don’t despair, if the sky above you looks black as Peter’s. Instead, hope. Pray. Huddle together with the other disciples and wait for Sunday morning.

In time, something will stir on the horizon of this midnight: a light beyond hope, a magic deeper than the misery of sin or the mercilessness of Satan. Jesus prays for you.

Read the gospel of John chapter 17 and know the love of Jesus as He prays for you to be protected from the evil one! What love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 18, 2022

When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come, follow Me.”

—Luke 18:22

I long to be a woman who follows hard after Jesus. And I’m not talking about aplastic-Christian life, full of religious checklists and pretense. No, that would be hypocritical at best and deadening at worst.

I want the kind of soul-satisfying closeness that can only come from daily keeping pace with Him. A rich and deep level of intimacy that frantic attempts at rule-following will never produce.

Rules and regulations were an everyday reality for God’s people in the Old Testament. Lists of do's and don’ts to help sinful people maintain fellowship with a holy God. First the Ten Commandments. Then law after law about sacrifices and ceremonies, food and cleanliness.

But in the New Testament, Jesus shows up on the scene and turns everything upside down with His message of grace. A message that declares, “Following rules won’t get you into Heaven. Being good won’t earn you bonus points. Lay down your checklists... your agendas... everything... and follow Me. Believe in Me. Receive Me.”

It was a complete shift in thinking. One that left people perplexed, like the rich ruler in Luke 18.

We first meet the rich ruler when he approaches Jesus with a question:

Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

— Luke 18:18

Jesus, already knowing his checklist-mindset, begins naming several of the Ten Commandments. It’s a list the rich ruler feels he has kept well. But Jesus has more to say:

You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come, follow Me.

— Luke 18:22

It would be so easy to gloss over this moment and think Jesus is simply talking about money. We could be tempted to label this a story for “those” people —the ones we think have more money than they know what to do with. But the words in this conversation are for every single one of us. Because the core issue Jesus is getting at is this:

What holds the key to your heart?

Oh, how I want my answer to be “Jesus.” I want to want Him most. To live completely captured by His love. Enthralled with His teachings. Living proof of His truth.

There have been others who have gone before me who desired this as well. Imperfect heroes of faith we read about in the Bible who, despite their shortcomings, pleased God. And it wasn’t perfect actions that carved a path to God’s heart. It was something else. Something less defined that can’t be outlined and dissected. Something that was sometimes messy and offensive. But something that was so precious at the same time it caused God to pause.

Abandon.

It’s a word used to describe a little girl leaping from the bed’s edge, completely confident her daddy will catch her. It’s the same thing that fueled David’s courageous run toward Goliath with nothing but a sling and five smooth stones. It’s what fueled Joshua. And Moses. And Noah. And Paul.

And it’s the one thing Jesus is asking of the rich ruler. Not for a life lived perfectly, but a heart of perfect surrender.

So this is my prayer:

Everything I have. Everything I own. Everything I hope for. Everything I fear. Everything I love. Everything I dream. It’s all Yours, Jesus. I trust You in complete and utter abandon.

Sadly, it’s also the one thing this man felt he could not offer. He stood on the edge of everything uncertain with the arms of all certainty waiting to catch him. And he just couldn’t jump; he lived his life entangled in lesser things.

He was not captured by, enthralled with, or living proof of the reality of Jesus. And so he walked away from the only One who could ever truly satisfy his soul.

Oh, friends. Let’s not allow this to be the tragedy of our lives. Let’s be found captured by Jesus’ love, enthralled with His teachings, and living proof of His truth. Let’s be found living with abandon.

Because the life that follows Jesus with abandon is the life that gets to experience His presence, His provision, His promises, His soul-satisfying abundance.

Father God, please forgive me for all of the times I have settled for lesser things. I want to want You most. Today, I am handing You the key to my heart. The key to everything in my life. I love You. I need You. And I want to follow hard after You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Excerpted from Embraced  by Lysa Terkeurst, copyright Lysa TerKeurst.

Even if the truest answer to what holds the key to your heart isn’t Jesus right now, do you want it to be?  Let’s pray that today. Let’s be found captured by Jesus’ love, enthralled with His teachings, and living proof of His truth.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 17, 2022

God’s Promise in the Empty Tomb

 With the cross, [God] won the victory.

—Colossians 2:15

On the first Easter morning . . . the smothering silence that insulates the domain of the dead from the world of the living was suddenly shattered.

~ Gilbert Bilezikian

But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

—1 Corinthians 15:57 MSG

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in victory through Christ.

—2 Corinthians 2:14

HIS BIRTH

The words of King Herod when told of the birth of Jesus. “Kill Him. There is room for only one king in this corner of the world.”

The number of religious leaders who believed a messiah had been born in Bethlehem. Zero.

The type of people who did. Some stargazers, night-shift shepherds, and a couple of newlyweds who claimed to have more experience giving birth than having sex.

The reward given to Joseph and Mary for bringing God into the world. Two years in exile, learning Egyptian.

This was the beginning of the Christian movement. (And these were the calm years.)

HIS MINISTRY

The word on the streets of Jesus’ hometown when He claimed to be sent from God. Weird family. Have you seen His cousin?

The reaction of the hometown folks. Stone Him.

The opinion of His brothers. Lock Him up.

The number of disciples Jesus recruited. Seventy.

The number of disciples who defended Him to the authorities. Zero.

The assessment of His followers as found in the Jerusalem editorial page. A group of unemployed ne’er-do-wells recruited off the shipping docks and out of the red-light districts.

The number of lepers and blind and lame people Jesus healed. Too many to count.

The number of healed lepers and blind and lame people who defended Jesus on the day of His death. Zero.

HIS EXECUTION

The popular opinion regarding Jesus before He cleansed the Temple. See if He’ll run for office.

The popular opinion regarding Jesus after He cleansed the Temple. Let’s see how fast He can run.

The decision of the Jewish council. Three spikes and a spear.

The talk on the streets of Jerusalem after Jesus died. He should’ve stayed in the furniture business.

The number of times Jesus prophesied that He would come back to life three days after His death. Three.

The number of apostles who heard the prophecy. All of them.

The number of apostles who waited at the tomb to see if He would do what he said. Zero.

The number of His followers who believed in the resurrection before it occurred. You do the math.

The odds a street-corner bookie would’ve given the day after the crucifixion on the possibility that Jesus’ name would be known in the year 2000. “I’ll give you better odds that He’ll rise from the dead.”

HIS MOVEMENT

The official response of the Jewish leaders to the rumors of the resurrection. Of course they say He’s alive. They have to. What else can they say?

The actual response of the Jewish leaders to the resurrection of Jesus. “A great number of the Jewish priests believed and obeyed” (Acts 6:7).

The decision of the Jewish leaders about the church. “If their plan comes from human authority, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them” (Acts 5:38–39).

The response of the church. “The number of followers was growing” (Acts 6:1).

The official response of the Jewish leaders to the conversion of Saul. Good riddance to the former Pharisee. Won’t be months before he is in jail, and then what will he do? Write letters?

What Saul, turned Paul, understood that his former colleagues didn’t. “God gave [Jesus] as a way to forgive sin” (Romans3:25).

THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES

The belief of French philosopher Voltaire. The Bible and Christianity would pass within a hundred years. He died in 1778. The movement continues.

The pronouncement of Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. “God is dead.” The dawn of science, he believed, would be the doom of faith. Science has dawned; the movement continues.

The way a Communist dictionary defined the Bible. “It is a collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support.” Communism is diminishing; the movement continues.

The discovery made by every person who has tried to bury the faith. The same as the one made by those who tried to bury its Founder: He won’t stay in the tomb.

The facts. The movement has never been stronger: more than one billion Catholics and nearly as many Protestants.

The question. How do we explain it? Jesus was a backwater peasant. He never wrote a book, never held an office. He never journeyed more than two hundred miles from His hometown. Friends left Him. One betrayed Him. Those He helped forgot Him. Prior to His death they abandoned Him. But after His death they couldn’t resist Him. What made the difference?

The answer. His death and resurrection.

For when He died, so did your sin.

And when He rose, so did your hope.

For when He rose, your grave was changed from a final residence to temporary housing.

The reason He did it. The face in your mirror.

The verdict after two millenniums. Herod was right: there is room for only one King.

1. The quote from Michael Eric Dyson was excerpted from his book Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, published by St. Martin’s Press, p. 2.

Excerpted from He Chose The Nails  by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Happy Resurrection Sunday!  Join believers world-wide in rejoicing and celebrating our risen Christ Jesus, raising our hands in worship and praise, dancing and singing, laughing and thanking God for the miracle of the resurrection! Amen!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 16, 2022

A man is hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

This is the most widely recognized and revered image in human history. Billions of people over twenty centuries have venerated it. Countless thousands of artists have depicted it. Countless millions have mounted these depictions in their homes, carried them in their pockets, hung them from their necks and ears, even tattooed them into their skin. This image of a dying man.

And he is not merely dying; he is being executed. By crucifixion, no less. Does that strike you as odd? That the most famous image of all time is of a man in the horrific throes of death by one of the most barbarous, hideous forms of capital punishment depraved minds ever devised? It’s typically not a sign of good mental or moral health when people fixate on gruesome torture and death — not to mention wearing depictions of it as jewelry. It’s a strange phenomenon.

What is it about Jesus’s agony that has captivated so many? Why has it captivated us? Why are we engrossed in the very moment of his utter humiliation, when he’d been betrayed and deserted by those closest to him, accused and condemned by those in power over him, mocked and taunted by those who gathered to watch the grisly spectacle of his death?

This is what we want most to remember about him? This is the most memorialized moment in history? What kind of people are we?

Morbid Memorial

It’s an important question. This is not the typical way people have historically honored their greatest martyred heroes.

Think about it. How many of the most iconic memorials to our most honored and beloved martyred heroes are graphic depictions of their violent deaths? Why don’t we hang framed prints in our homes and schools of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. with fatal head wounds? Why didn’t ancient Greek sculptors create busts of Socrates in the throes of suffocation from hemlock poisoning? Why aren’t the most inspiring portraits of William Wallace of his disembowelment? Why not Mahatma Gandhi being shot in the chest? Why don’t our memorials to fallen soldiers feature images of mangled bodies?

And wasn’t Jesus’s death penultimate? Isn’t the climax of his story and the Christian hope his resurrection? Wasn’t his death on the cross a prelude of apparent defeat that was swallowed up by the victory of his emergence from grave? Why don’t we feature depictions of an empty tomb at the front of our church sanctuaries? Why don’t we hang that in our houses and around our necks? Why have we chosen to remember and memorialize his terrible crucifixion, an event so horrid to witness that it would have made most of us nauseous and some of us faint?

Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.

How Jesus Wanted to Be Remembered

If we are a strange people for making Jesus’s torturous death a central focus of our private and public remembering of him, Jesus himself made us so. It’s how he wanted to be remembered.

“Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.”

Before the dreadful event, he repeatedly told his disciples that he must “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21). His death was necessary.

More than that, he told them, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). And to make sure we understand what he meant, John adds, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:33). His crucifixion would be the great draw.

More than that, on the night Jesus was betrayed and deserted, accused and condemned, during his Last Supper, he instituted a tradition to help his followers remember what was about to take place. He broke bread to symbolize the intentional sacrifice of his body, which, he said, “is given for you.” And he poured out wine to symbolize, as he said, “the new covenant in my blood.” Then he said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19–20). His death is what he wanted memorialized.

And more than that, after his resurrection, Jesus captured in one sentence why his death was necessary and why it would draw all people to him:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47)

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to be the final Passover Lamb of God, whose willing, necessary, sacrificial death would take away the sin of the world — necessary, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And henceforth, whoever would believe in the Son would not perish but have eternal life (John 1:29; 3:16; Hebrews 9:22).

The apostle Paul captured in one sentence the connection between the memorial meal Jesus instituted and the gospel proclamation to the nations: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

The Kind of People We Are

What kind of people are we who are so captivated by the image of a crucified man? The kind of people who have good reason to be so. A supremely good reason. A reason we glimpse in words this man uttered in his moment of utter desolation, words of life he used his dying breath to say on behalf of people like us: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

“Our only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins.”

The kind of people who need forgiveness are sinful people, and that’s the kind of people we are (Romans 3:23). We are the kind of people whose only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins. And “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

This is what makes Jesus unlike any other martyred hero in history. All other martyrs laid their lives down for a cause they believed worth dying for, but their deaths weren’t inherently necessary to their cause. Given different circumstances, their aims conceivably could have been achieved through other means. But Jesus’s death was inherently necessary to achieve his aim: “to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). It was a strange death, for it was a moral, judicial, merciful necessity at the very core of ultimate and eternal reality.

We do not remember Jesus’s death at the expense of his resurrection, for the cross would have been in vain without the empty tomb (1 Corinthians 15:12–19). The two are inextricably connected. But this is why Jesus’s death is so central in what we remember about him. This is why it’s the most memorialized moment in history. Because of the kind of people we are.

Behold the Man

Behold this man hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

It’s a horrid image. And it’s beautiful. It’s tragic. And it’s hopeful. This man is the tortured Paradox. His execution was simultaneously history’s most despicable act of injustice and most noble act of justice, an utterly merciless death and an utterly merciful death, the supreme display of hatred and the supreme display of love.

This is why people like us paradoxically call the day Jesus horribly died Good Friday. This is why we find the cross so wondrous, so captivating. This is why it moves us to sing,

Behold the man upon a cross,

My sin upon his shoulders.

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice

Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held him there

Until it was accomplished;

His dying breath has brought me life,

I know that it is finished.

(“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”)

Article written by Jon Bloom.  He serves as teacher and co-founder of Desiring God.

It is Friday . . . but Sunday’s comin’!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 15, 2022

Can’t wait for our 3-fold communion service tonight…see you there!

Father, forgive them.

—Luke 23:34

The dialogue that Friday morning was bitter.

From the onlookers, “Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!”

From the religious leaders, “He saved others but He can’t save himself.”

From the soldiers, “If You are the king of the Jews, save Yourself.”

Bitter words. Acidic with sarcasm. Hateful. Irreverent. Wasn’t it enough that He was being crucified? Wasn’t it enough that he was being shamed as a criminal? Were the nails insufficient? Was the crown of thorns too soft? Had the flogging been too short?

For some, apparently so.

Peter, a writer not normally given to using many descriptive verbs, says that the passersby “hurled” insults at the crucified Christ.1 They didn’t just yell or speak or scream. They “hurled” verbal stones. They had every intention of hurting and bruising. “We’ve broken the body; now let’s break the spirit!” So they strung their bows with self-righteousness and launched stinging arrows of pure poison.

Of all the scenes around the cross, this one angers me the most. What kind of people, I ask myself, would mock a dying man? Who would be so base as to pour the salt of scorn upon open wounds? How low and perverted to sneer at one who is laced with pain. Who would make fun of a person who is seated in an electric chair? Or who would point and laugh at a criminal who has a hangman’s noose around His neck?

You can be sure that Satan and his demons were the cause of such filth.

And then the criminal on cross number two throws his punch.

“Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

The words thrown that day were meant to wound. And there is nothing more painful than words meant to hurt. That’s why James called the tongue a fire. Its burns are every bit as destructive and disastrous as those of a blowtorch.

But I’m not telling you anything new. No doubt you’ve had your share of words that wound. You’ve felt the sting of a well-aimed gibe. Maybe you’re still feeling it. Someone you love or respect slams you to the floor with a slur or slip of the tongue. And there you lie, wounded and bleeding. Perhaps the words were intended to hurt you, perhaps not; but that doesn’t

matter. The wound is deep. The injuries are internal. Broken heart, wounded pride, bruised feelings.

Or maybe your wound is old. Though the arrow was extracted long ago, the arrowhead is still lodged . . . hidden under your skin. The old pain flares unpredictably and decisively, reminding you of harsh words yet unforgiven.

If you have suffered or are suffering because of someone else’s words, you’ll be glad to know that there is a balm for this laceration. Meditate on these words from 1 Peter 2:23.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

Did you see what Jesus did not do? He did not retaliate. He did not bite back. He did not say, “I’ll get you!” “Come on up here and say that to my face!” “Just wait until after the resurrection, buddy!” No, these statements were not found on Christ’s lips.

Did you see what Jesus did do? He “entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” Or said more simply, he left the judging to God. He did not take on the task of seeking revenge. He demanded no apology. He hired no bounty hunters and sent out no posse. He, to the astounding contrary, spoke on their defense. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”2

Yes, the dialogue that Friday morning was bitter. The verbal stones were meant to sting. How Jesus, with a body wracked with pain, eyes blinded by his own blood, and lungs yearning for air, could speak on behalf of some heartless thugs is beyond my com-prehension. Never, never have I seen such love. If ever a person deserved a shot at revenge, Jesus did. But he didn’t take it. Instead he died for them. How could he do it? I don’t know. But I do know that all of a sudden my wounds seem very painless. My grudges and hard feelings are suddenly childish.

Sometimes I wonder if we don’t see Christ’s love as much in the people he tolerated as in the pain he endured.

Amazing Grace.

Excerpted from No Wonder They Call Him The Savior by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado

Never, never have we seen such love as when Jesus asked God to forgive those who mocked and derided Him in His deepest suffering... It showcases His tremendous love and forgiveness, His beauty and grace upon us all. Today is Good Friday, the day we remember our Savior's sacrifice for us. Let's remember that even when we don't love Him back (yet), He still responds with love, tenderness, kindness, and forgiveness.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith April 14, 2022

Thursday was a busy day. The disciples were hastily gathering the food and supplies necessary for the seder meal, not to mention trying to secure a room for the dinner. All was in order when they gathered on Mount Zion that fateful evening. And then they got into an argument, right there at the table. About what? Who of them would be the greatest in the coming kingdom Jesus had promised! At this point the greatest among them became the servant of all of them.

Jesus arose from the table, girded Himself with a towel, and knelt before each of them to wash their feet. Whose feet needed washing the most that night? Whose feet in a matter of hours would be nailed fast to a Roman cross?

And His were the only feet that left that night unwashed.

At the end of the meal, they sang a hymn and retreated beneath the olive trees of Gethsemane’s garden to pray. Judas came in the shadows, followed by a mob with torches, and planted the kiss of betrayal on Jesus’ cheek. Jesus called him “friend” (Matthew 26:50).

To be attacked by the enemy is one thing, but to be betrayed by one of your closest “friends” is quite another.

Before we are quick to point a finger of accusation at Judas, or Peter, or any of the others who betrayed Jesus that night... we must ask ourselves,

Lord, is it I?

—Matthew 26:22

When you think about a good friend today or interact with a group of friends at lunch or dinner, let it remind you that you have a true Friend, the Lord Jesus, who always “sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). Faith is not about rituals or religion. It is about a relationship with Jesus.

PASSION PROCLAMATION

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

—John 15:15

Lord, I am no better than Judas. I may not have betrayed You for thirty pieces of silver, but I am too often quick to turn from my loyalty to You. May Your goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to You this day. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Excerpted from The Passion Code by O.S. Hawkins, copyright Dr. O.S. Hawkins.

Let’s pause today, on Maundy Thursday, and reflect on Jesus... how He modeled being a servant when we grasp for positions of honor... how we so often betray even as He sacrifices Himself for us... how He loves us no matter what! Let’s turn our hearts back to Him and commit or recommit our lives to Christ!

Pastor Dale