Wetzel's Blog

Jesus is our teacher

Verse:  Matthew 24:44 “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.”

Message: If I knew I had 3 days left to live, what would I do?  Maybe I would spend all my time with my wife, kids, and closets friends?  Maybe I would do something that I’ve always wanted to do but have never done?  Maybe I would burn though every credit card I have and buy anything and everything?  Maybe I would take a trip to my favorite place or to somewhere I’ve always wanted to go?  What would you do?

Jesus, knowing that He only had just a few days left to live, spent time in the temple and on the Mount of Olives teaching others the most important things about life on earth.  He wanted to make sure that everyone knew what this life should be about, what we should beware of, and what our mission is to be.  Jesus spent time imparting heavenly wisdom to those who hated Him and to those loved Him.  So what did he teach?  As you read Matthew 21-25 you will see the things Jesus taught just a few days before His death.  He taught about: faith, heaven, hell, judgment, money, the greatest commandments, the rapture of the church, marriage, hypocrisy, taking oaths, legalism, inward purity, suffering for Him, the tribulation of the church, eternal judgment, being ready for His return, faithfulness, who will go to heaven, and who will go to hell.  Wow!  So much to take in and so much to think about!  It’s so important to take time to meditate on the things Jesus wanted to impart to others who followed Him, hated Him, and loved Him dearly because it teaches us the most important things.  Maybe because He was going to die in a few days, He spent the majority of the day before impending death teaching about heaven and hell.  And really, that is what many people care about when they are on their death bed.  They think about the achievements made, the money earned, the debts acquired, the problems caused, the chronic struggles, and more.  What matters most in the end is will I spend eternity in heaven with Jesus?

In these last couple of days, Jesus shows us what an obedient and surrendered life to God, His Father, should look like.  His last steps were a selfless walk towards death, with a mission to do the will of His Father no matter what the cost.  His personal wants and agendas were pushed aside in exchange for God’s purposes.  Jesus showed us that giving our lives completely to God and to others is more important then holding onto our self-willed hopes and dreams.  What is it that you are holding back from God?  What is it that you need to learn from the last days of Jesus our teacher?  How does He ask you to live in the light of knowing that today may be the last day you have on earth?

Prayer:  “God, I want to be ready when your Son Jesus returns to this earth.  Show me the ways I have strayed from you.  Show me what ‘I do’ value most and then convict me, through Your Word and Your Spirit, of what ‘I should’ value most.  Teach me to live obediently to You.  Help me to walk surrendered to every step you ask me to take, whether it is difficult or easy.  God, I put aside my personal wants and dreams for You.  Reveal to me today Your ways and the will you have for my life.  I know you may return to this earth at any moment or I may even die today, so help me to be ready.  I surrender all to you.  Do what you will with my life because I give it back to You.”

Going Deeper:  Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 23:13-32, and Matthew 24:36-41

Jesus is our purity

Verse: Mark 11:17 "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."

Message:  It’s so easy in our world to view God as a genie in a bottle.  We say a little prayer, do a good deed, show up at a Sunday service, not yell at our kids…then “Pow, Shazaam, Bam”!  God show’s up, at my request, to fix my problems or give me what I want.  Approaching God in prayer with selfish incentives is a dangerous place to be.  We will most certainly be rebuked when we attempt to use God or the truths of His word for our own selfish benefit.

Just a few days before the death of Jesus, He seeks to purify and cleanse His Father’s house (the temple).  He drives out those who are greedy for money and using others for their own financial gain.  Jesus comes into the temple furious and ready to remove the impurity of greed from God’s temple.  Purity is what Jesus desired then and desires now from His followers.  Jesus knew that impurity has a way of slowly seeping into and infecting our lives.  It begins with a small area of sin, and can in no time grow into a massive problem.  If you are a child of God, you must know that being pure in all areas of your life is what God desires for you.  Whether it’s in business, family, behavior, attitudes and values…God calls His kids to be pure.  And when we do not walk in purity, Jesus will over-turn the tables of our lives to set things straight.  We must remember that Jesus will not allow sin to continue to dwell in a Christ follower’s life (God’s temple).

This brings me back to the subject of prayer.  Jesus desires that our prayers and requests be that of faith, selfishness and purity.  Not prayers for personal gain, but for the glory of God.  Impurity in prayer begins by approaching God with an unrepentant heart.  God, for the record, is not a genie who will grant our every request, but He is a holy and righteous God who grants the unselfish, humble and faith-filled request of His children.  To continue to grow in purity, we must have every table of our selfish life over-turned.  We must allow all of our money, wants and pride to be thrown to the ground.  We must allow every dark and secret door of our life to be opened and exposed to a holy God.  He waits for us to surrender all and to confess all to Him.  Jesus is at the door of our hearts, waiting and wanting to be the one who will purify us before a holy God.

Prayer:  “God, there is no question that I am an unholy and selfish person.  You know my darkness and weaknesses, and I pause now to expose each one of them to you…  God, please forgive me through Your Son Jesus.  I pray that His purity will become my purity.  God, purge my life of every selfish and self-centered sin.  Allow me to take on the purity of Jesus.  I want to have more faith and I want my prayers and requests to be something that will glorify you.  Help me God, to be the person you want me to be and not who the world tells me I am.”

Going Deeper: Mark 11:15-25 and Matthew 21:12-22

Jesus is our grace

Verse: Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

 

Message:  If mercy is “not getting what we deserve” then grace is “getting what we do not deserve”.  Grace is the “unmerited favor” that we receive from God.  Again, this concept of grace would mean that we are completely unable to come to have a relationship with a holy and just God.  To fully appreciate the grace of God, we must realize and admit to the fact that we are completely and utterly sinful.  We must acknowledge that within ourselves there is nothing good and nothing we can personally do to even the score between our sin and the holiness necessary to have a personal relationship with God.  When we come to this realization and surrender to our plight, then and only then can we begin to get a glimpse of what grace is all about.

 

Do we “Deserve” to be forgiven from sin through faith in Jesus?  Is our right standing with God based on our decision to follow Him or not follow Him?  The whole concept and belief that God is gracious means that we deserve nothing but death and hell and that our coming to faith in God through Jesus has nothing to do with us.  Grace is all about Him.  Grace is about God being so loving that He sent Jesus (the God/man) to this earth to be our sacrifice for our sin.  Not because we deserved it or because it wouldn’t be fair if God didn’t give us a way out of eternal death, but rather because of His grace alone.  To truly believe and fully embrace that God has rescued us from our sin will bring us to a place of humility before Him in this life.  When we embrace the belief that God is gracious to us, then we will begin to understand the reasons for which Jesus came into this world.  We will begin to understand what faith in Jesus is all about.

 

God draws us to belief and faith through His Holy Spirit.  He chooses us and we don’t choose Him by ourselves.  This is an incredibly difficult thing to surrender to because it requires us to completely give up and give in to God.  It requires us to put aside our striving to be holy, good and righteous.  We must succumb to the fact that it is not up to us, but it is up to God.  We do not merit anything in this life as God’s created child.  We merit only what He chooses to reveal to us and to call us too.  Jesus is His revelation to us.  He woos us and calls us to Himself by grace.  We get what we do not deserve!

 

Prayer:  “My gracious and loving God, I’m so thankful that you chose me first.  I truly believe that if it were not for your love and grace towards me, through Jesus, that I would have nothing good within me and have nothing that I could offer you which you would be pleased with.  I believe that I am sinful and You are gracious towards me.  I know God that I don’t deserve to have You, but You have chosen me.  I surrender to Your plan for my life.  Please continue to be gracious towards me.  Please God: lead me, guide me, give me purpose in life so that I may glorify You today.”

 

Going Deeper: Ephesians 2:1-10 and Ephesians 3:1-13

Jesus is our mercy

Verse: Titus 3:4-5 “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.”

 

Message:  By simple definition, mercy is “not getting what we deserve”.  Jesus paved the way for us to not get what we deserve from God.  So what is it that we really deserve and what is it that we are being saved from?  As the great reformed preacher Jonathan Edwards says in his famous message, we are “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”.  Edwards says in this message that "There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God”.  If you research the bible from cover to cover you will find that God demands payment for sin.  That payment is death and hell.  So if we have sinned, then death and hell is our destiny.  But….God in His grace and love showed us unbelievable mercy through Jesus Christ His son.  Even though we deserve death and hell, God loved us so much that He sent His son to earth to be “The” sacrifice that would pay for our eternal death sentence.  Jesus was the ransom that was paid to God so that hell would not be our destiny.

 

Man’s design from the beginning was to be like Jesus.  God showed us through Jesus that being merciful was possible.  Mercy is something that is rarely found in our world today.  When we have been wronged by someone else our attitude quickly becomes that of retribution and punishment for the wrong that has been inflicted.  For many, it’s all about receiving some sort of satisfaction and fairness for wrong doing.  Satisfying wrong doing is a God given principle that can be seen all through the bible.  And it is only when we embrace the biblical principle of retribution for wrong doing, that we can truly appreciate the fantastic mercy of God through Jesus.

 

Take your mercy temperature today.  To some, giving mercy is a gift.  To others, it is a battle with the forces of evil to give away.  If we want to be more like Jesus, then we are called to be merciful just like God.  We are asked to be merciful to those who deserve justice and payment for hurting and offending us and those we love.  Jesus is our model of mercy.  Seek to become like Him.

 

Prayer:  “God, today help me be more merciful.  To the ones I’m angry at, to those who have wronged me, to those who have hurt the ones I love, and to those who cause pain in my life.  Help me God, to be more like You in showing Your great love and mercy to those who truly deserve punishment.  Thank you God that because of Jesus, I can do this today.  I surrender to You and ask for the help of Your Holy Spirit to show more mercy to others, just as Jesus does.”

 

Going Deeper: Titus 3:3-8 and Hebrews 4:14-16

Jesus is our righteousness

Verse:  Romans 3:10 It is written, “No one is right with God, no one at all.”

 

Message:  Righteousness is synonymous with guiltlessness.  To say that we have a need for righteousness would first mean that we are guilty of something.  And guilt is not something that we readily admit.  It’s one of those things that we hide from, that embarrass us, and that we hesitantly confess.  Why?  In most cases it is because of our own pride.  We typically believe that we are right and not wrong.  We love to shift the blame so that another is made guilty as opposed to ourselves, but in the eyes of God there is no shifting the blame because it all ours.  Since the time of Adam and Eve, man has made willful choices to live by his own desires as opposed to the desires of God.  We (man) on many occasions have done what is not right in the eyes of God (this is called sin) which in turn is what makes us guilty of wrong doing.  So in God’s eyes we are no longer righteous, but guilty.

 

Thankfully, God loves us so much that He made a way for us to be free of our guiltiness through Jesus.  Because God is holy, we cannot come to Him without the removal of our guilt and sin.  God sent His guiltless and perfect son into the world to make a way for us to once again become righteous.  But we have a response to make, and that is confessing our guilt and sin.  When we come humbly to God as one who freely admits that we have sinned and are guilty before Him, then we are able to take on the righteousness of Jesus, the perfect one.  This is not a righteousness that we could attain on our own (so pride would like us to believe), but it is one that could only be given by Jesus.  Because Jesus became our righteousness, we can now freely come before a holy God as one without blame and shame.  Jesus satisfied the judgment of God and has made a way for us to come back to Him.  Don’t allow the stubbornness of pride keep you from receiving the righteousness of Jesus.  Freely come to God and admit your guilt before Him.  And thank Him that He made a way for us to take on the righteousness of Christ.

 

Prayer:  “God, today by faith, I ask to receive the righteousness of Jesus.  I realize that I am a sinner and am unable to remove my own guilt before You, and I humbly come to You to take on the righteousness of Jesus by faith.  I know that before You, because of my sins, I deserve the judgment of eternal death. I believe that Jesus was the one who took on my sins and is the one who makes me guiltless in Your sight.  Thank you God for the love and grace you showed me through Your gift of righteousness through Jesus.”

 

Going Deeper: Romans 3:9-20 and Romans 5:12-21