Jesus’ ministry was inclusive

 I have been studying the miracles of Jesus. I discovered something amazing that I have never caught before. In Jesus’ culture, the Jews were very exclusive. They thought that they were the only ones blessed by God, and everyone else was unclean. Well, Jesus performed at least 30 miracles that were recorded for us in scripture, and many more that weren’t. I was surprised to discover that many of these miracles were performed to bless “outsiders” or those that the culture of the day considered unclean and untouchable. 

We think that the gospel was sent to the gentiles by the apostle Paul, after Jesus returned to heaven. But clearly we see by Jesus’ own actions that the kingdom was available to everyone without prejudice all along. 

Psalm 22

 I had a new thought a couple of years ago that blew my mind. 

When Jesus was dying on the cross, he cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  On first reading, this shows is Jesus feeling the separation from God that had to happen for Jesus to die for us. This is deep. But it goes deeper. 

Psalm 22 starts with this same cry. It then goes on to describe the scene of Jesus on the cross. So many details: his dry mouth, his bones not broken, casting lots for his clothing. 

I think Jesus, on the cross, is taking one last opportunity to show the onlookers, and us 2000 years later, what he was doing. Verse 31 ends this psalm: “They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, for he has done it.”

It is finished 

God’s timing

 Right now I am reading Isaiah and Jeremiah in a chronological Bible reading plan. I am amazed at the prophecies spanning thousands of years. God promised destruction and restoration of Israel within a 70 year time span, which happened exactly as He said it would. There were also prophecies spread out between these events which pointed to our savior, Jesus. Still others described the destruction and restoration of the whole earth. 

I believe all of these predictions will come about, just as the ones that were already fulfilled have come true. The interesting part is that you can’t read these in a linear progression. It jumps from immediate predictions to messianic predictions to end time predictions in seemingly random order. I think this is because God lives outside of time. While we see many thousand years, he sees that, yes, this all happened. For me, this makes the waiting that much easier. 

Bakers bunch

 I have a great new baking community 

http://h3.sml360.com/-/4uli2

New Jerusalem

 I just finished a study of the book of Revelation. I’ve always been confused by the size of the New Jerusalem as described in Revelation 21. I get that it is huge. I can understand how wide and long it is, but when it says it is also says it is 1400 miles high (see verse 16), I think it is impossible!  Maybe it is figurative, like most of the symbols in this book. But now I have a different thought.  This is my own thinking, not someone else’s idea:

The New Jerusalem arrives on the scene AFTER Satan and all of God’s enemies are destroyed by a huge fire. In fact, heaven and earth are also destroyed in the fire. Then God creates a new heaven and a new earth. 

I always imagined this taking place on this earth. A huge New Jerusalem could fit on a new earth that has different dimensions than this earth. We aren’t told the size of the new earth. We don’t know much about it at all. It has no sun or moon.  It may not be constrained by the things that we have now. Gravity? Does it even spin? There is no day/night cycle. I’m seeing whole new possibilities that have never crossed my mind before. 

Questions

 I have a daily Bible reading plan. Every year I read a different translation or version of the Bible to get a different perspective on what I’m learning. I try to answer all the questions when I read a passage. 

Who?  Who is the passage talking to or about?

What?  What is the message the passage is trying to convey to the original audience ? What does it mean for my life today?

When?  When was this written and what was going on at that time?  Am I going through something similar?  Can this apply to our current time/environment?

Where?  Where did this take place?  Is it relevant to my city, family, or church?

Why?  Why was this message important?  What can I learn from it?

How?  How do I apply this to my life?

I also ask, “how do I know this is true?”  None of this even matters if God is not real or if the Bible is not truly his inspired word. I know so many people who claim to believe in God, but they think the Bible is just a man-made book of basically nothing more than fables. “If so,” I ask them, “how do you know what is true about God?”  I usually get comments about how God speaks to them. Well, even my schizophrenic patients seem to think”God” speaks to them. 

We need a reliable, unchanging source of truth by which to measure all other “truths” or we could just believe anything we want. 

I praise God that he has not left us floundering in the dark. We do have his trusted Word, The Bible, and there is so much evidence that it is true!  (Please read my other posts for some of this evidence)

Mental Health affected by COVID-19