The shepherd struck, the sheep scattered

The shepherd struck, the sheep scattered

Scripture:

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same. Matthew 26:31-35

Observation:

Speaking of the night of His arrest, the Lord prophesies to His disciples how they will all fall away according to the Scriptures. Yet He also adds how He will rise again, and go ahead of them into Galilee. Even before He died, the Lord was fully aware that He would rise again and meet His disciples again.

The disciples naturally refuse to accept their cowardice, claiming that they would never leave Jesus even if it meant dying with Him. Peter in particular boasts how even if all fall away, he would remain true to the Lord. However, the Lord prophesies to him specifically how he would deny Him three times before the rooster crows.

Application:

Earlier, the Lord had warned His disciples, whoever acknowledges Him, He would acknowledge before God the Father in Heaven while whoever disowned Him He would likewise disown. On the night of betrayal, all his disciples fell short there, especially Peter. However, the Lord already in essence forgave them in advance, knowing that they would be restored when they met Him again in Galilee. Later, after being given the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit, the disciples would receive boldness to proclaim the Lord throughout their lives right up to martyrdom.

In the Christian life, there are ups and downs, and sometimes we may be “sifted like wheat” like Peter. We fail in our humanity and weakness. Yet in spite of this, the Lord gives us His grace, even declaring ahead of time, our future position where we will be fully restored and in communion with Him.

For our part, we need to remain humble, to know that if even the Lord’s closest disciples fell away at the hour of trouble, we too can easily give in because of our fears and weaknesses. In these last days, where trouble is imminent for all true Christians once the Anti-Christ appears, we need to be prepared and seek God humbly, asking for His mercy.

Prayer:

We praise You and love You, Lord, for the great things You have done. We thank You for the disciples, and even the record of their failures, for it shows us Your great mercy and grace for our fallen race. Forgive us, we pray, and restore us again that we might serve You faithfully and passionately. Give us more and more of Your Spirit of boldness we pray. Even in these last days, O Lord, pour out Your Spirit abundantly upon us. In Jesus name, Amen.

Which type of servant

Which type of servant

Matthew 24:45-51

Scripture:

⁴⁵ “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? ⁴⁶ It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. ⁴⁷ Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁸ But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ ⁴⁹ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. ⁵⁰ The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. ⁵¹ He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Observation:

At the end of His prophecy of the end times and His second coming, the Lord gives His disciples a curious parable. The picture given is of a servant put in charge by his master to be in charge of all the servants in His household, with the specific responsibility of giving them their food at the proper time. Now this servant has two choices leading to very different outcomes. Firstly, he can be faithful and wise and discharge his responsibility faithfully. If at any time the Master comes back, He will be pleased and even put him in charge of all His possessions.  Secondly, this same servant could also choose to say to himself “Aah, my Master is away a long time” and proceed to beat his fellow servants and indulge himself in drink with drunkards. When his master returns, at an hour not expected, the punishment is death, for he will be cut to pieces and assigned a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, which is an expression the Lord uses time and again to depict the situation in hell.

The first thing we gather from this passage is that we are all servants when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Master and we are His servants. We are to serve Him, to worship Him. Too often, the gospel has been turned the other way around so that it seems like God is serving us. The popular “Cat and Dog theology” concept explains this most precisely. The cat says “You feed me and take care of me, I must be god” while the god says “You feed me and take care of me, You must be God”. We are not on earth just to be blessed by God, though that is one primary aspect of being a Christian. We are on earth because we are to serve God, and it must be our daily goal to see how we may serve Him more and more. Service is not confined to missionary service or service in Church, but in our whole lifestyle, in the way we treat others, in the thoughts that we think, in the words that we say, in the prayers that we pray, in the thanksgiving and praise that we give God. A non-serving Christian is a paradox in itself.

What is the demeanor of a servant? Humble, helpful, polite, regarding others as better than ourselves. However, too often, we are arrogant, easily angry and unwilling to help others. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many, we too who follow Jesus need to learn to serve.

The specific duty for the servant in question was to provide food for his fellow servants at the proper time. The unspoken meaning here refers to how we treat those lower than us. There are poor among us. Do we care for their needs? Do we provide for the hungry? In another parable, the Lord says that what we did not do for them, we did not do for Him, and vice versa. It is good and important for us who follow Christ to be involved in giving to ministries that serve the poor and marginalized of society. Nevertheless, in regard to service, we are to be faithful in whatever area God has commissioned us, with our hearts pure in seeking to please Him in all that we do.

On the other side, the behavior of beating up people doesn’t seem relevant to most of us. However, the root of this behavior is anger and unforgiveness. Do we shout and scream at waiters or staff because of “poor customer service?” Do we hold grudges? Do we harbor unforgiveness and anger in our hearts? Beware the Lord’s warning that even He who says “you fool” is in danger of the fire of hell, and that God will not forgive those who do not forgive others. Getting drunk with drunkards is probably a foreign possibility for most of us, however the root of this behavior is self-indulgence and lack of self-control. Have we allowed the lusts and desires of the world to so indulge us that we end up valuing them more than the things of God. The world of entertainment with PayTV, Ipads and Iphones offer great temptations to lure us away from seeking God and serving Him.

Application:-

We need to check ourselves to see if we have the mindset and attitude of a servant of Jesus Christ. Is it our desire to seek God and to serve Him? Or is it our desire to serve ourselves and our indulgences? Are we obedient to forgive and change our angry ways? When the Lord returns, will He find us serving Him faithfully or will He find us indulging ourselves and not showing love to our neighbors?

Prayer:

We praise and worship You Father God, for Your great and glorious love. We thank You, Lord for calling us to be Your Servants, to learn to serve You as our Lord and Master. Quicken our spirit we pray and give us that deep desire to want to know You more, to serve You more, to love You more. So abide in us we pray, that we live a life out of Your presence, letting Your Spirit flow through us to bless others, to serve others, to serve Your Holy name. Lead us away from temptations we pray, teach us to be focused on You alone, letting the things of the world recede and fade away. In Jesus name, Amen.

Justice, mercy, faithfulness

Justice, mercy, faithfulness

Scripture:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Matthew 23:23-39

Observation:

Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Four more times the Lord lambasts the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, bringing their complete woes to the number of perfection, seven.

In the fourth woe, the Pharisees are condemned for neglecting the more important parts of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. Although they gave their tithes faithfully, they did not practice the more important things God requires. Justice speaks of fairness, but the Pharisees were showing favoritism to the rich and disdaining the poor. Mercy speaks of compassion for those in need, but the Pharisees even mercilessly exploited the weak. Faithfulness speaks about doing what is right consistently, always seeking to do the right thing from God’s point of view. The Pharisees had their eyes clouded by materiality and pride so that they acted out of self-interest rather than a sense of always trying to do the right thing.

In the fifth woe, the Pharisees were likened to having a cup or dish very well cleaned on the outside but having all sort of filth within, a very vivid picture of what it means to be a hypocrite. Greed and self-indulgence were explicitly named here, typical characteristics most of us would easily be guilty of.

In the sixth woe, the Pharisees were compared to whitewashed tombs, looking beautiful on the outside but dead on the inside. Hypocrisy and wickedness were specially named here, and the way the Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus showed how evil their hearts were indeed.

Finally, in the last woe, the Pharisees are chided for pretending to be righteous themselves by decorating the graves of the righteous and boasting how they would not have participated in shedding the blood of the prophets if they had been alive then, The Lord exposes them by declaring how their very statement proves that they are indeed the ancestors of the murderers of old.

In a closing statement, the Lord then prophesies how God longed to gather the children of Israel together like a hen gathering her but chicks. Jerusalem herself was destined to be left desolate.

Application:

From the woes to the Pharisees, we can learn several important points regarding what God values and what He detests.

Again, the key point here is how we must beware of hypocrisy in our lives, when what we do does not correspond to what we tell or show others. Also, do we value and practice justice, mercy and faithfulness in our lives? Or are we self-indulgent and greedy for our own pleasures and desires.

Remember the imagery of the hen and her chicks. Our God loves us like a mother loves her children. Though we are wayward and stray away from the right path, our God is ever ready to take us back and restore us when we turn back to Him. It is His nature to forgive, to love, to welcome back and restore. Still, he will not force us to do what we do not want and as such, we must be careful to keep our hearts and ears soft to His Word and guidance lest we fall to a point that we can no longer find a way of return.

Prayer:

We praise You and worship You O Lord, for Your great and precious love to us. Help us O Lord and sustain us that we might be saved. Forgive our hypocrisy, for we are all hypocrites in one way or another. There is always selfishness and self-indulgence in our hearts. Forgive our sins O Lord, but change us by Your Spirit.

Strengthen Your qualities O Lord deep in our hearts, of justice and mercy and faithfulness. Let us be compassionate as You are compassionate, just as You are just. Let us seek and desire to be faithful just as You, Lord are faithful! Help us walk in Your ways. May Your name be praised forever O Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.