Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ

(Seed Sowers Christian Book Publishing House. http://www.seedsowers.com/)

Tuesday, November 13, 2012      I Was Asked About Fasting         

Page 79-80   Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39

The Apostle Paul said “by the grace of God I am what I am” and in Christ I live and move and have my being. (1 Corinthians 15:10, Acts 17:28 NRSV) Seeking the life in Christ as your way of life is about continually reaffirming each day that Jesus Christ is the source of your life. That may sound simple and straightforward, but the road to the Christ-life is filled with appealing alternatives. Typically, in our society, faith in God is based on a compilation of cultural values, bits and pieces from many different denominational doctrines and odds and ends from religions.

In the reading for today, Jesus used the spiritual discipline of fasting to demonstrate “that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In first century Judaism, fasting was about remembering their past sins and lamenting their present reality of waiting for God to come and redeem them. Jesus’ message to the Pharisees was that the waiting was over; God had come and was redeeming them. Thus it was time for celebration, not fasting.

Jesus also made clear that God was doing something new, and trying to blend God’s redemptive work through the Messiah with first century tradition would not work. The Messiah was not just a little salt and pepper for their diet. The Messiah was an altogether new meal, a feast.

One of the realities of first century Israel, as well as twenty-first century America, is that “no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say” (Luke 5:39). Jesus is calling us to become wine stewards who continually sample our wine to insure we are drinking his new wine as we reaffirm each day that new life in Christ is our way of life.

Sē’lah

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What word or phrase in today’s reading attracts your attention?

Reflect on that word or phrase.

What insights come to you?

How does this passage touch your life today?

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

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The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ

(Seed Sowers Christian Book Publishing House. http://www.seedsowers.com/)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012   My 2nd Passover in Jerusalem - I Broke the Sabbath Tradition   

Page 85-86   John 5:1-47