Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure

Choosing the Future: Luke 22:7-13

Published May 31, 2022 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: Luke 22:7-13 (NIrV)

⁷Then the day of Unleavened Bread came. That was the time the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. ⁸Jesus sent Peter and John on ahead. “Go,” he told them. “Prepare for us to eat the Passover meal.”

⁹“Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.

¹⁰Jesus replied, “When you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house he enters. ¹¹Then say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, “Where is the guest room? Where can I eat the Passover meal with my disciples?” ’ ¹²He will show you a large upstairs room with furniture already in it. Prepare for us to eat there.”

¹³Peter and John left. They found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover meal.

Read Luke 22:7-13 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

When I read our passage for this entry, I am always amazed at how specific Jesus’ instructions were to these two disciples. Jesus tells them, “When you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house he enters. Then say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, “Where is the guest room? Where can I eat the Passover meal with my disciples?” ’ He will show you a large upstairs room with furniture already in it. Prepare for us to eat there.” (v.10-12)

This isn’t the first time that Jesus has given a very specific set of instructions to the disciples, but it is no less amazing how detailed Jesus was in His description, and how exact the events played out.

I am sure that by now, these two disciples, really all twelve disciples, were not surprised by Jesus’ foreknowledge of what was going on around them. This makes me all the more surprised that Judas would think his betrayal would stay secret, and also surprised that the other eleven disciples would run away later that night when the mob shows up to arrest Jesus. The disciples seemed surprised at this, but Jesus wasn’t.

Reading about the details of this Passover preparation event brings me to one solid conclusion: Nothing about that weekend was a surprise to Jesus. He is able to see the future, and because of this, He knew the cross was coming, and He knew what the cross meant. Jesus intentionally faced the cross because He wants to spend eternity with you and me. He paid our debt so we can share in His future.

This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!

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Flashback Episode — According to Your Faith: Matthew 9:27-31

Published May 30, 2022 in Audio Journal Entries

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Continuing forward in the miracles of the gospels, we come to a short event and miracle where it appears as though Jesus ignored those asking Jesus for help for a period of time prior to actually healing them. Not only this, but Jesus heals them with a somewhat strange statement. This statement is worth us paying attention to because it gives us a clue into the importance of faith in our own lives.

As we read this event, let’s focus on what this event teaches us about Jesus, about God, and about the faith we are called to have. Our passage is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 9, and we will be reading from the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 27, Matthew tells us that:

²⁷ As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” ²⁸ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” ²⁹ Then He touched their eyes, saying, “It shall be done to you according to your faith.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: “See that no one knows about this!” ³¹ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.

In these five short verses, we see a number of things that are worth paying attention to. In the opening two verses, we get the impression that Jesus was traveling between two places, and these two blind men were following behind Jesus crying out for help. If we didn’t know God’s love before this point, we might be tempted to think that Jesus, and by representation, that God too, is unloving. Why else would Jesus seem to ignore two people obviously crying out for Him to help them?

I believe the answer to this challenge is found in Jesus’ question and response to them. Verse 28 contains Jesus’ question and the blind men’s response: “Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’”

While I don’t know why it wasn’t already evident through their seeking Jesus out and following Him asking for help, Jesus asks these two men plainly if they believe that He is able to do this. In their response, which is just two words long, we see an amazing display of faith. It is easy to discount the response they give, which is simply, “Yes, Lord,” as something that is said with humility and respect to someone with authority. However, by using the word “Lord,” I see in this response that these men believe Jesus to be from God, and that the healing they desperately want to have will be from God as well.

To wrap up this healing, Matthew describes in verse 29 that Jesus then “touched their eyes, saying, ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith.’”

Interestingly enough, these blind men had clearly demonstrated their faith. They persisted when it appeared as though Jesus was ignoring them, and they acknowledged their faith in Jesus and God when asked. It almost seems redundant for Jesus, who would know they had plenty of faith, to tell them they would be healed “according to [their] faith”. It should not surprise anyone reading this event to learn that these men were healed.

In this event, we see an amazing truth that the level of faith we have in God will directly determine how clearly we see God working in our lives – and it may even directly affect how God is able or not able to work in us and through us. The faith of these blind men is clearly visible both before they are healed, and it is confirmed after they have been healed. This makes Jesus’ message to them a principle and a promise we can live by: Our requests of God will be done to us according to our faith.

While we are encouraged to pray for other people, this principle focuses on our personally focused prayers. If we want healing, freedom, or a specific opportunity, we must be willing to display a visible faith before we can expect it to happen.

However, the last portion of our passage is interesting as well. After healing these men, Matthew tells us in verse 30 that “Jesus sternly warned them: ‘See that no one knows about this!’” Since we are reading from the New American Standard Bible, there are two words in this command that are italicized. This means that they are not included in the original language, but have been added to smooth the reading. The literal response Jesus gives is simply, “See that no one knows”. While the context can imply that Jesus is telling these men to keep silent about this healing, it could also simply be Jesus telling these men to keep secret this extreme truth about faith.

Faith is powerful; more powerful than we realize. Faith can be placed in many things, and persistent faith is powerful enough to conquer virtually anything we face in this life. However, faith, when it is not placed in what God did for us through Jesus on the cross, is worthless in the context of eternity. These men experience healing because they had amazing, persistent faith and because they placed their faith in Jesus.

Matthew’s final statement in this event is that these men go and do the exact opposite of what it seems like Jesus asked them to do. Matthew tells us that these healed men “went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land”. If Jesus wanted them to stay silent so He wouldn’t be flooded with people needing help, we can understand His reasoning. And we can contrast this with also realizing that the formerly blind men’s enthusiasm to share what Jesus had done for them was their way of saying thank you to Jesus and to God for healing them.

But it is also possible that these men shared what Jesus had done for them without sharing that Jesus attributed their healing to their level of faith in Him. In this regard, it can be said that these men obeyed Jesus, while also enthusiastically giving thanks to God for healing them.

The big thing for us to remember in this passage and this healing is that our faith is a powerful tool that we are called to place in Jesus. Faith in many other things can be productive in this life, but only when our faith is in Jesus will we discover a future, eternal life with God in heaven.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Always seek God first and place your faith in Him. Bring your questions, problems, challenges, and concerns to Him and trust, believe, and move forward knowing that God will take care of them. Have faith that God works with a bigger picture in mind than we can even begin to imagine, and that His goal is as many people to be saved with Him as possible.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn, grow, and mature towards God in your own life. While other people can give you ideas to think about, always filter what you learn, see, or discover through the pages of God’s Word to know whether it is something worthy of eternity. God’s goals is saving us for eternity, and the Bible teaches us everything we need to know to accept this gift He has offered us.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Flashback Episode: Year of Miracles – Episode 22: When two blind men follow Jesus asking for His help, we discover an amazing truth about faith within this miraculous healing, and a truth we can apply in our own lives related to our faith in God.

Judging the Miracle Worker: John 7:25-36

Published May 27, 2022 in Written Journal Entries

Focus Passage: John 7:25-36 (NCV)

²⁵Then some of the people who lived in Jerusalem said, “This is the man they are trying to kill. ²⁶But he is teaching where everyone can see and hear him, and no one is trying to stop him. Maybe the leaders have decided he really is the Christ. ²⁷But we know where this man is from. Yet when the real Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”

²⁸Jesus, teaching in the Temple, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. But I have not come by my own authority. I was sent by the One who is true, whom you don’t know. ²⁹But I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

³⁰When Jesus said this, they tried to seize him. But no one was able to touch him, because it was not yet the right time. ³¹But many of the people believed in Jesus. They said, “When the Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?”

³²The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about Jesus. So the leading priests and the Pharisees sent some Temple guards to arrest him. ³³Jesus said, “I will be with you a little while longer. Then I will go back to the One who sent me. ³⁴You will look for me, but you will not find me. And you cannot come where I am.”

³⁵Some people said to each other, “Where will this man go so we cannot find him? Will he go to the Greek cities where our people live and teach the Greek people there? ³⁶What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘You cannot come where I am’?”

Read John 7:25-36 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

One interesting dilemma the crowds faced when looking at Jesus’ life was with the number of miracles that Jesus performed. Even though Jesus said some pretty hard to understand truths, it seemed that God was fully supporting Him because of the miracles and all the people Jesus was able to help.

In this passage in John, we see an interesting dividing line present among those who were listening to Jesus. On one hand, there was a number of people who wanted to arrest Jesus for saying things that implied He was making Himself equal with God.

On the other hand, there were people in the crowd who were stuck wondering what to make of all His miracles. None of the prophets performed as many miracles as Jesus did, and this prompts many of those present to ask the rhetorical question, “When the Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this man has done?” (v. 31)

The volume of miracles drew these people to believing in Jesus. While the people acknowledged Jesus said some challenging ideas, the question they ask is profound because it points us to think about whether God would be so supportive of someone if they were not the Messiah (i.e. the “Christ”).

In this way, the miracles Jesus performed prompted the people to take notice. For many, the miracles became the starting point for their faith in Him.

It can be the same with us today.

For many people, following Jesus began with some experience that drew us to Him. This could have been an experience tied to forgiveness, a selfless act, or a miracle Jesus performed in our lives. Whatever the case, many people can point to a point in time when Jesus helped them through a difficult or impossible challenge.

But while this is an okay place to start, making the foundation for our faith in Jesus only on the miracles He does for us makes a very unstable relationship with Him. It sets us up for a possible great deception. What would happen if someone came in the future who seemed to perform more miracles than Jesus? Could someone performing miracles lead you away from Jesus?

Miracles are given to draw attention to an individual, and then it is our job to determine if the miracle worker is from God based on what they teach and how they live. Jesus lived selflessly, and He focused on uplifting those who were pushed down in the culture of His day. That aligns perfectly with how the Bible describes God.

In contrast, any miracle worker who comes seeking their own glory then must not be coming from a place where God is supporting them. If someone is leading you away from focusing on Jesus, the their ministry is supported by another spiritual force.

When Jesus stepped onto the scene, He performs enough miracles that prompt those present to take notice. It was then up to the crowd to decide for themselves if Jesus was really from God or not – based on His life, character, and teaching.

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Loved, Healed, and Forgiven: Mark 8:22-26

Published May 26, 2022 in Audio Journal Entries

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While moving through Mark’s gospel and comparing what Mark included in his gospel versus what the other gospel writers include, not much of Mark’s gospel is truly unique. However, the miracle that we will be focusing on for this episode is one of the few events that made it only into Mark’s gospel. I wonder if this is because this event was kept relatively secret, or if something within the event prompted the other gospel writers to exclude this event from their own respective gospels.

Whatever the reason for only Mark including this miracle, I am glad that he did. Of all the miracles Jesus did, this one may be the most fascinating one in my mind. So without any further delay, let’s read it.

Our miracle and passage are found in Mark’s gospel, chapter 8, and we will be reading from the New International Version. Starting in verse 22, Mark tells us that:

²²They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. ²³He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

²⁴He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

²⁵Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. ²⁶Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”

This miracle is fascinating in my mind. This is the only miracle that I can recall where it takes Jesus a second try to get it right. While other miracles are attributed to faith, and at least one of the gospel writers suggested that the lack of faith in a situation could cause a miracle to not happen, this is the only miracle where the man is healed, but only after a second attempt by Jesus.

However, was this really a second attempt, or was there something happening behind the scenes that made the second try of this miracle distinctly different?

Looking at the details in this miracle, one set of details is easily overlooked. These details form the foundation for this situation. First, the man is brought to Jesus when Jesus has entered Bethsaida. Jesus then leads the man outside of Bethsaida. Finally, Jesus tells the man to go home and to not return through Bethsaida. Putting together these details points us to the high likelihood that the blind man was not from Bethsaida. It is possible this man lived close by, but it is also possible that those in this village searched out someone they knew Jesus could help, and then convinced this man to come to Jesus.

Another detail worth paying attention to is that this blind man was brought to Jesus. This detail is important because it shows more initiative coming from this group of people than from the blind man himself. Related to this detail is the detail that the group of people were the ones begging Jesus for the miracle, not the blind man.

With all these details put together, we can conclude that this group of people were more interested in seeing a miracle than on giving God the glory, or even on helping this man who was blind. Instead of seeing an opportunity for God to help someone in their presence, this group wanted to see Jesus perform for them. Oddly enough, knowing that faith is needed for a miracle to take place, I believe that if Jesus had attempted the miracle in the presence of this group of people, not only would Jesus have let the spotlight shine on Him, but also this miracle likely would have worked the first time. This would have been because those bringing this man to Jesus had the faith necessary to see him be healed.

However, Jesus wanted to heal more than this man’s eyes and He wanted to help this man without stealing the focus off of God. Jesus wasn’t interested in getting an audience or on gaining popularity. Instead, Jesus wanted to help people on an individual level as much as possible.

Up to Jesus asking the blind man a direct question after they are away from those who brought him to Jesus, we do not see or hear anything specific about this blind man. From the details leading up to this miracle, we don’t get the picture this man had faith or hope that he would ever be able to see. We are left to wonder if this man was born blind, or if he was blinded because of something that had happened earlier in his life.

However, when Jesus asks the man if he can see anything while they are alone, we start to get answers for some of our questions. This man responds to Jesus’ first attempt by telling Jesus that he can see people, but they look like trees walking around. If this man had never seen anything, I don’t believe he would know what a tree looked like. Instead, this detail makes me think something happened earlier in this man’s life that caused him to lose his eyesight.

This then leads us to another interesting conclusion. In this culture, people believed that sickness and disability happened because God was punishing people directly, or perhaps indirectly in the case of parents sinning and children being punished. If this man had eyesight then lost it, it is quite likely that he believed God was punishing him for something in his life that had happened.

If you believe God is punishing you, you don’t believe God would want to heal you. In the case of this man, I bet he was doubtful, skeptical, and probably reluctant to even be brought to Jesus. It is likely that this man told those people when they found him that God wouldn’t be interested in healing him because God was too busy punishing him instead.

This makes Jesus’ first attempt a successful attempt at healing this man. However, with the first attempt, while Jesus only partially heals this man’s eyes, Jesus healed this man’s hope, and I believe this man went away believing He had been forgiven. With a restored hope, this man had enough faith necessary for Jesus’ second attempt to fully heal his eyesight.

In our own lives, when bad things happen, it might be easy to let doubt tell us that God is mad at us and that He is causing the challenges we are facing. However, if we believe God is mad at us, then there is no reason to have any hope that our lives could be better. If God is truly mad at us, there is no hope, and if God was very mad at us, we wouldn’t be alive. If God had rejected humanity, Jesus wouldn’t have come to this planet.

However, Jesus did come. Jesus did heal someone who likely believed God was directly punishing him. Jesus gave His life as a substitute for our lives, and through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have the promise of a new life with God.

Jesus came to show us what God is really like. Jesus came to show us God’s love for us. And Jesus came to demonstrate for us that even if we are in open rebellion towards God, He still loves us and He wants to forgive us when we repent and return to Him.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to have faith and hope that God loves you and that He wants the best for you. When bad things happen, choose to see these things as a wakeup call from a God who loves each of us and not as a divine punishment from a cruel spiritual dictator. God loves us and He wants the best for our lives.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Through prayer and Bible study, we can open our hearts to God and let Him into our lives. When God is in our lives, we will know how much He loves us and we will be fully equipped to show His love to a world that needs to see God’s love more than ever!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Year in Mark – Episode 21: In a miracle that only Mark included, discover some things we can learn from a miracle that didn’t work entirely the first time around. Or maybe it did and what Jesus healed first is something a little less visible on the surface.

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