Jesus Never, Ever, Lowers The Bar

September 2, 2016

Jesus Never, Ever, Lowers The Bar

I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

John  13: 15, 17

Jesus looks his disciples squarely in the eye and demands uncompromising loyalty and obedience, knowing full well that his disciples are destined to fall short of his expectations time and time again. In today’s passage, Jesus tells us that he has laid down a pattern for us to follow. We are to be humble followers of Jesus who never think of ourselves as better than others, and who never think of menial service as something beneath our station in life. Then Jesus hints that one of his disciples seated at the table with him doesn’t grasp this teaching. In the following passages Jesus will identify Peter as yet another disciple who will fall short of the expectations Jesus has set for Christianoi, the people of Christ.

Jesus never, ever lowers the bar. This is why we will never, ever outgrow our need for the church, for the sacrament of Holy Communion, for prayer, for accountability partners or groups, and personal devotional and worship time. For some, the poetic lines of worship songs may seem a bit over the top; “I need thee, O I need thee; every hour I need thee” or “This is the air I breathe . . . Your holy presence living in me; This is my daily bread . . . Your very word spoken to me; And I I'm desperate for you; And I I'm lost without you.” Do we really mean it when we sing these lines?

I do, because as we will see in several days, Jesus was quite serious when he said, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5b).

Sē’lah

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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.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.