Palm Sunday…What’s your impression?
This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: Shadows: A Glimpse of a Savior! (WATCH HERE)
I may have had the wrong impression.
If I were part of the crowd that lined the street waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” I may have been thinking something very different than what Jesus was really doing. Jesus was riding on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem…a perhaps odd way to enter, but the buzz was he was the Messiah. But…
I may have thought, “This is the end to the plaguing occupation of the Romans!”
I may have thought, “This is the beginning of a rule greater than King David!”
I may have thought, “All my problems are going away because Jesus is making his entrance today.”
The prevailing thought in the nation of Israel at the time of Jesus was that the Messiah of which the Old Testament spoke of was going to be an earthly ruler and provide deliverance from earthly problems. He would establish a political kingdom like King David. He would bring healing to the sick and food for the hungry. Even Jesus’ followers seem to have this idea.
Perhaps we have the same, but wrong, impression too.
It’s easy to think that if we proclaim allegiance to Jesus, all our earthly difficulties will go away. We kind of want Jesus to be the earthly king that establishes a kingdom of peace and absence of problems.
I spoke to a gentleman a number of years ago who thought “God owed him” something positive in his life because he didn’t feel he deserved the life challenges he was going through. In recent political cycles, it seems common among Christians to seek a political “savior” who would help legislate Christian morals into the law of the country. It’s easy to want problems to disappear, illnesses to be completely cured, and broken relationships restored. Perhaps none of these is completely a bad thought, they just are mistaken realities of what Jesus came to do. .
Even today, it’s easy to have the wrong impression.
Jesus didn’t come to be an earthly king. He made that very clear when on trial before Pilate when he said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He didn’t come to free us from every physical ailment, relational challenge, or financial worry. Rather he came to be the Savior we really need and solve the biggest problem we really have…the problem of sin.
Holy week is the culmination of his work on our behalf. Zechariah prophesied this way in chapter 9:9-10
9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Perhaps at quick read, Zechariah seems to be speaking of an earthly king and reign…but when you read him slowly, you realize no earthly king or earthly kingdom can be or bring what Jesus brings. The Savior we need is righteous, gentle, brings salvation and peace. Nothing any earthly king can bring, but is exactly what Jesus does.
Jesus is the Savior we really need…and we’ll unpack that this week!
Apply: What misguided impressions have you held about Jesus? What helped to clarify them?
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for riding into Jerusalem to be the Savior I really need, not the Savior in my mind I really want. Clear out the misconceptions and replace them with the truth of who you really are and what you came to do. AMEN.
Prayers for Easter…
To all our devotion readers,
May I ask a favor to spend your devotion time in prayer for our Easter outreach ministry, Easter Eggstravaganza happening tomorrow, March 23? Last year we had over 900 people and this year we are planning for over 1000, including 600 kids. While the event is a bridge building event to connect our community to our ministry, we are fervently praying that the Lord would use the event to bring further Gospel ministry opportunities to our congregation and the expansion of the kingdom. We also have been blessed with dedicated volunteers from our small congregation, kids from the local high school and four college students from our WELS college ministry at the University of Eau Claire in Wisconsin. Together we are serving to bring this event to our community.
So will you pray with us?
- Ask the Lord for his Spirit to work conversations and connections at the event for the advancement of the Gospel in the hearts of people.
- Ask the Lord to move individuals to seek deeper connection with him through the Gospel ministry of Crosspoint.
- Protect all participants from any harm or danger.
- Give strength and health to all who are volunteering.
- Curtail any evil or anyone wishing evil at or on the event.
- That people would find more than eggs, but find a connection to their Savior.
- That the hundreds of invitations to Easter would be received and individuals attend worship on Easter Sunday.
- Gratitude for the many dollars that have been contributed
- Gratefulness for dedicated volunteers and willingness to serve.
- Thankfulness for our four mission team members from Wisconsin who came to serve the Lord on their spring break.
- Ask the Lord to bless the event as he sees fit…opening doors he wants open and closing the ones he wants closed.
- Any other prayer the Lord prompts you to pray!
Lord, thank you for all your faithful people who are praying today. Hear their prayers as ones redeemed by Christ and purified by your Spirit. We anticipate your blessing in many ways, ones maybe we expect and ones we didn’t. For each, we are grateful! AMEN.
Made holy to live holy!
This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: Shadows: A Glimpse of a Scapegoat! (WATCH HERE)
Remember Monday’s reflection on Leviticus?
God is perfect…we are not…yet God wants us to be.
Leviticus 19:2 “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.
It’s easy to think that God can’t be serious and want us to be holy. Afterall, we are human. How can we be holy. It’s easy to think that all God is encouraging is our best effort to live as good as we can. It’s easy to think…rationale that God doesn’t say.
The standard is not removed. The Lord wants us to be perfect and to live as perfect people.
Might as well give up, right?
Sure, if it was left up to our own effort. But remember the power of Jesus as our Scapegoat.
Our sin is placed on him and he removes our sin from us…forever.
Last time I checked is that a person without sin is holy. So if sin is transferred to Jesus and removed by Jesus, I am left without sin and therefore as holy.
The Apostle Paul affirms this line of thinking in 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The moral perfection that God demanded is GIVEN to us by Jesus Christ. How can he do this? Because he was perfect he is able completely remove our sin and call us holy.
But holy is not just moral perfection or the lack of sin. “Holy” is also the reality of living a life that is reflective of the Lord and separate from the world of sin. Jesus said it this way, “John 17:13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
The word “sanctify” is really the same as “make holy.” These words carry the idea of being “set apart.” So the Lord wants us live as HIS children which is different than the world around us. The tool? The Word of God.
When you think about it, what guides us in our ability to live “separate and holy lives.”? The Word of God. When we are guided by the Word of God, our lives and voices and thoughts will be different. We will take our direction from the truth of God’s word, not the popular opinion of the people. We will not seek to blend in and be like the world around us, but rather we will experience the joy of being in the world but living for the Lord. The Apostle Peter put it this way:
1 Peter 2:9-12 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
With Jesus as our Scapegoat, we can very much be holy because of the perfection Jesus gave to us and the power that the Spirit gives to live for him.
Apply: What makes it difficult for you to live as holy, set apart, distinct in the world around us?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the gift of holiness. Enable me by the power of your Spirit to live as one who is holy, set apart for you! AMEN.
No Take Backs.
This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: Shadows: A Glimpse of a Scapegoat! (WATCH HERE)
Leviticus 16:22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.
The scapegoat would not make it back to the camp. The sins of the people had been transferred and the goat was led out into the desert to die…never to return and thus the sins of the people were never to return.
The picture was very clear, but was the impact?
I can’t speak for the nation of Israel at the time of Moses and the celebration of the Day of Atonement, but I can speak for myself and maybe you can relate.
Sin can be like a boomerang instead of a scapegoat.
There are things from the past that you know in your head that Jesus has taken away and forgiven, but Satan loves to bring them back to your mind and torment you once again with the guilt they carry. We can say, “Jesus takes my sin away” but inside feel like the sin is still very present and Jesus forgot that particular sin and left it with us. We can maybe even visualize our sin being transferred to Jesus as our scapegoat and watch him carry our sin away, only to run after the goat and grab onto the sin and not let go of it.
It’s hard to release sin and the guilt it causes. It becomes all too comfortable or common.
That’s why we need Jesus as our Scapegoat.
The symbolism of the scapegoat was to remind the people that the sin that had been transferred to it was removed forever. The person in charge of leading the scapegoat out to the wilderness was tasked with one thing. Remove the goat from the camp and thus every sin attached to it and MAKE SURE it does not wander back to the camp alive and thus bring the sin and guilt of the people back to them.
Jesus made sure that our sin was removed and would never come back. He left no doubt that sin was paid for when he died on the cross. He made sure the work was complete by the resurrection from the dead.
Because of Jesus, sin is not coming back. Once transferred to Jesus, Satan can trick us to believe that Jesus forgot to take away a sin or two, but the promise could not be clearer. Here’s how the Psalmist stated it in Psalm 103:9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Because of Jesus, our sin does not boomerang back. When it’s placed on him, he removes it forever. It’s not coming back!
Apply: What sin do you keep giving to Jesus, but then like to take back?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for taking my sin and removing it for good. AMEN.
Who’s to blame?
This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: Shadows: A Glimpse of a Scapegoat! (WATCH HERE)
Leviticus 16:21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head.
A scapegoat by definition is one who is made to bear the blame of others. The word is used regularly in our English language and we ourselves have probably experienced a scapegoat or been one ourselves. Whenever someone is blamed for something they didn’t do and treated as the guilty one even though they are not, they are a scapegoat. A scapegoat can be the kid in class that gets blamed and punished for the unruly behavior of others in the class. A scapegoat can be the person who gets fired for the failure of the whole team. Situations come up that from the outside looking in, someone needs to get punished, but no one knows who and so someone is picked and treated as the guilty one.
If this has happened to you, it stinks to be the scapegoat.
Yet we can find it very easy to want a scapegoat or make something or someone else the scapegoat for us. Every time we blame someone or something else for wrong we do, we are really trying to find a legitimate scapegoat.
We are uncomfortable with sin and the guilt it creates. We want to get rid of it because we don’t want to deal with it or feel it. So what is our answer? We blame someone.
This tactic really started in the Garden of Eden when God approached Adam for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam responded, (Genesis 3:12) “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Adam didn’t want to admit he was at fault too. He was looking for somewhere to transfer his guilt and appropriately blame for his sinful behavior. Eve was no different. When God approached her, she said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” In other words, “the devil made me do it.”
Taking personal responsibility for our sins is so hard. The natural response is to blame Satan or blame someone else. I suppose one could minimize the seriousness of their sin also, but the goal is to get rid of the sin and the guilt it creates.
So do these tactics work? Does it work to blame someone else and claim to be the victim of someone else’s behavior? Perhaps for a very short time, but the reality nags at your heart because deep inside, you know that blaming someone else doesn’t really get rid of the issue.
That’s where Jesus as our Scapegoat comes in.
In fact, we don’t have to sneak our sins onto Jesus or forcefully put them on him, the Lord himself lays on him the sins of us all. The Lord himself is willing to take our sins and transfer them to Jesus.
Isaiah 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
The impact of this is profound. When we blame someone else, we know we still did something wrong. When we minimize sin, we know we are fooling ourselves. When we blame the devil, we know it really is our fault. However, when our sin is placed on Jesus, guilt is gone. The sin is not coming back because it is fully given over to Jesus to pay for. Our blaming is a pseudo transfer. We just think the sin is gone, but it really isn’t. When the Lord lays our sin on Jesus, it is gone from us onto him.
So forget the blame games and pseudo solutions for guilt. The only place where sin can be placed for a true solution is on our scapegoat, Jesus Christ.
Apply: What sin have you blamed someone else for and never really owned or confessed. Stop blaming someone else and place it on Jesus and let him carry it away!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your grace that takes our sin and lays them on Jesus. Jesus thank you for being willing to be my Scapegoat and take the blame and punishment for my sins. AMEN.