Come,
thou Fount of every blessing,
tune
my heart to sing thy grace;
streams
of mercy, never ceasing,
call
for songs of loudest praise.
Teach
me some melodious sonnet,
sung
by flaming tongues above.
Praise
the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount
of thy redeeming love.
This
is a time I hope to share what to me feels like a morning in the presence of
the Lord. The photos are out of sequence
as well as the songs but I feel if I am able to tell it as it happened the
story will be told as it was meant to be.
The
morning began with a text from our daughter Carol of the prayer which instantly
spoke to my heart for myself and others recovering or in the middle of illness
or recovering surgeries.
As
usual I posted my article to hopefully touch someone as it had me. Then my next thought was this morning is my
time to be with the Lord in His Word not in a man-made feel good prayer. Now that is not meant to be negative. The prayer was a good one but it does not
replace God’s Word.
As
I passed through the quarterly looking for today’s lesson I passed “The
precepts of God’s Servant—Marriage and Divorce. The lesson for December 15th,
and thought about the lesson I shared with someone on that lesson. I thought you know Lord there are no
coincidences in life, you control each and every one.
Then
I found today’s lesson. “The Presentation
of God’s Servant—Messiah and King,” and the drama began in my mind as if
someone turned on a video and the music played in my ears in intervals.
Mark
11:1-3, 7-11
“To
get a complete picture of the events of this week, we must study the accounts
given in the other Gospels and fit them together. Mark gives us some of the details, but the
other accounts complement each, other and we should view them this way.
Jesus
entered Jerusalem from the east. He had
traveled from the Jordan River through the villages of Bethany and Bethphage to
the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives
overlooked the Kidron Valley and was across this valley from the eastern wall
of the Temple.
When
Jesus and his disciples came to the Mount of Olives Jesus sent two of His
disciples into the city to get a young donkey.
This colt had never been ridden. A
year old donkey is quite capable of upsetting anyone who attempts to ride it,
but Jesus had no trouble with this animal.
In our day, we think of a donkey as a humble beast of burden, but in
Jesus’ day it was the conveyance of kings.
A king rode on a donkey when he was coming in peace, but he rode on a
horse when he was waging war. Donkeys were
common and useful animals in Israel at this time.
These
two disciples were told to go to a certain place and there they would discover
this unbroken colt. They were to merely
declare that the Lord had need of the animal and the animal would be turned
over to them. God had used a donkey to
preach to a stubborn prophet years ago, and god prepared a donkey to be the
conveyance for the King of Israel.
This
young donkey did not have a proper saddle, so the disciples improvised one
using their garments and Jesus sat on the donkey. The animal was calm and cooperative at the hand
of Jesus. Others spread their garments
and branches before the animal as Jesus proceeded into Jerusalem. This was not an uncommon sight, but this time
the people recognized what was happening as special. They began to cry out, “Hosanna, Blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (verse 9). No one had to tell them to say this. God put this message in their hearts, and
they gladly hailed Jesus as their Messiah and King. Jesus was declaring Himself to be Israel’s
King. He was behaving like a king, and He
was being praised as a king. He was also
challenging the authority of the leaders of the Temple who were acting as
political allies with the Romans. Jesus was
deliberately laying the groundwork that would end in His crucifixion.”
(It was here the music began to play in my
head of the video “Hallelujah” and my heart sang along).
Can’t you just see it, can you hear the
music, can you feel the emotions of the ones there that day? They didn’t understand it, they didn’t even
mean to complete the actions they were doing.
The things God wanted to happen were happening because God was there and
this was His will.
We could stop the video here and the moment
would be complete as the song played in my mind Come thou Fount, but I didn’t
write this screen play of the true movie that played, the author of the lesson
did. I just got to watch and feel the
presence of the Lord this morning. I
want to complete the lesson as he gave it because the convictions must remain
private between God and I for the rest of the lesson. You see this was my time with the Lord. If you choose to read the entire lesson maybe
it will be your time with Him. He is so
great and powerful and wonderful, I know He will share His heart with you as He
has with me if you want Him too.
Originally I wanted a photo of the sky and
surroundings outside to put in my memory but God gave me a scene all of His own
idea. Two girls and one mom walking back
to her house with all the things she loves surrounding her. That is a memory in itself.
And
now is the rest of the story.
“Mark
11:15-19 the Purification of the Temple
Jesus
cleansed the Temple on two separate occasions.
Over the years worship at the Temple had been changed so that it bore
little resemblance to what was supposed to take place there. Jesus took two important actions that were in
effect, the fulfillment of the message of the cursed fig tree.
First
Jesus eliminated the commerce that had crept into Temple worship. There were men there who bought and sold
animals to be used for the sacrifices.
We can easily see the difference in offering an animal you had seen born
and raised, and merely going to the Temple and paying money for an animal that
was supposed to be offered.
In
addition to this, the Temple had coined its own money and there were men there
who changed the money of those who came to Jerusalem into Temple money. This was a profitable business that made the
Temple and its officers rich men. The
commerce had become so pretty there were even those there who were selling
doves. The Temple had become a literal
den of thieves, who were only intent on getting all the money they could.
The
second thing Jesus did, and this detail is only recorded in Mark, was to stop
all traffic through the Temple. No man
could carry any vessel through the Temple.
The effect of this was to stop the sacrifices that were taking
place. This was the Passover season and
Jews were gathered from all over the world and, no doubt, it was a busy time at
the Temple. Jesus brought all this to sudden
stop. He rightly declared this was
supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, not a place of commerce where
men stole from each other, even though the thievery was not a violation of
Roman law. The Romans left the Temple to
the Jews, but the Jews had perverted what went on there.
The
scribes and the chief priests heard about this, and they sought ways to destroy
Jesus. They would have killed him
outright, but they were afraid of the popularity with the ordinary people. What Jesus did was right, and everyone who
thought about His actions or read the Old Testament knew this. The ordinary people were astonished at the
doctrine Jesus taught. This was, in
part, because the scribes and Pharisees had not taught them the truth of the
Old Testament.
The
Power of Believing Prayer
Mark
11:22-26
The
next day, Jesus taught some of the abiding lessons implied in His recent
actions. As Jesus and his disciples came
into Jerusalem, they saw the fig tree Jesus cursed had died overnight. We must understand these verses in their
context. Jesus was not giving us a magic
formula for killing trees or for moving mountains.
Jesus
was teaching us we must have faith in God when it is difficult to do so. In fact, the more unreasonable our requests
seem to us, the more faith we must have in God’s power. There are mountains of opposition to our
faith, and they make it difficult for us to believe and act in the name of Jesus. Israel experienced those obstacles in Jesus’
day and they were formidable. One mountain
was their slavery under the Romans.
Another was that God had not yet delivered Israel. The many and various circumstances that bring
doubt and fear in our lives are like mountains that stand in contradiction to
our faith in God.
We
are to simply pray in faith, and God will remove the mountains. Now Jesus gives us the main obstacle to
successful prayer. It is an unforgiving
attitude. Not many Christians seem to
realize this, but the Bible is plain. If
you are not willing to forgive others, you will not be forgiven. If you are not forgiven the mountains are
still there and you will have to live in the valleys of life.
When
children of God sin, we can forgive others and ask God for forgiveness; If we do, our sins are forgiven; if we do
not, we will have to bear the consequences of our sins. An unforgiving attitude will block the
blessings of God, and, eventually, give us a bitter, sour spirit. We want others to understand an forgive us,
but we must be willing to extend the same forgiveness toward others if we want
the mountains of doubt in our lives removed.
A
FINAL WORD
These
are practical and applicable teachings. Has
Jesus been admitted to your life as He was admitted into Jerusalem? Do you allow Him to come in peace and do you
welcome Him for who he really is? Anyone
can have Jesus in his heart, but only on God’s terms, Jesus is the King of kings
and Lord of lords and we must receive Him that way.
Will
you allow Jesus to cleanse your life of the things thaqt do not need to be
there, as he cleansed the Temple? Over
the years we can become so burdened with the baggage of sin, we can no longer understand
our purpose on earth. We need to lay
asid the weights that so easily beset us and get a good look at Jesus as our
lord and Savior.
Are
there mountains in your life that need to be moved, mountains of doubt and unforgiving
sin? They will not move themselves, but
through prayer the y can be cast into the sea.
We can stand on the level ground at the foot of the cross. No one is too good to be saved and no one is
too bad to be saved. If God forgives you
of your sins, He can forgive those who sin against you. If God has forgiven us, we can forgive
others.”
I have enjoyed the insights of this
author. I believe God has spoken this
morning and I was able to listen. Are
their mountains in your life this morning as there were in mine? God bless those that endured to read my blog
today. I hope it will bless your life as
it has mine.
