The beginning of opposition

So I didn't get a chance to look this chapter over at work because I was a bit busy. That also means I'm really tired now as I write this, so I'm hoping its as good as the rest. (this is really where Christ intercepts and starts workin with me)

Matthew 9
We start out with Jesus healing a paralytic. To get an even better picture of this, Mark 2 says that when Jesus was healing people, the house he was in was packed, wall to wall. This paralytic was carried on a mat by 4 of his friends, and they're tryin to make their way to see Jesus but theres so many people there they cant get to him. These guys are so determined Jesus is gonna heal their friend that they climb onto the roof of this house, drag their friend up. They knock a hole in the roof and lower the paralytic with ropes so that Jesus can heal their friend. These guys were not taking no for an answer.

So when Jesus sees the faith of the paralytic and his friends he says, your sin are forgiven. If I was this paralyzed guy I'd be like "What? we came all this way went through all this trouble and I still can't use my legs" But I think Jesus does this on purpose. Up to this point Jesus has beel healing people right and left. He never even met the centurion's servant and he healed him. This is the first time Jesus forgives a man from his sin. He wanted people to know that he was more than a prophet, more than a healer, this is it. Hes telling everybody that he is the messiah they've all been waiting for.

The scribes and scholars are all thinking "Whao whao whao wait a minute, thats blasphemy, he can't do that." Jesus, knowing what they were thinking is like " I did do that, and I'm gonna be doing a lot more of that." Then he tells the paralyzed guy to get up and go home, and the man walks out of the place.

Now comes the fun stuff. Jesus is walkin around and he bumps into a tax collector, Matthew. I don't know if anyone has read Velvet Elvis but the way he invites matthew is very significant. He says "follow me". Read Velvet Elvis its awsome, but basically in the jewish culture everone had a shot at being a rabbi. They went to school for it all their childhood and eventually they'd be interviewed by a rabbi and if the rabbi thought what you had what it takes he'd say "follow me" those who weren't intived to follow the rabbi got stuck with the family trade for the rest of their life, it would be thier job from that point on. So when Jesus says "Follow me" to matthew hes not just saying, c'mon lets go, hes saying "You have what it takes, you can make it, I believe in you, you are good enough"

Jesus then goes on to hang out with some tax collectors and sinners. This is my favorite part. The pharisees found out where he was and they were all like " How can he condone their sin?"
I like this so much because I see how much we as christians still do this. Imagine what people were to say if a paster of a church went to a gay/lesbian/bisexual meeting. What if an elder in the church was found to be having dinner with a whore? What if a deacon was playing golf with an excon? What would people say? Unfortunatly these pastors and church leaders would most likely go through a rough time keeping their jobs. But these are the people who Jesus calls into the kingdom. Jesus says is in [12] Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick [13] .....For I came not to call the rightous but sinners.

Jesus just got done preaching the sermon on the mount. He said even if you have lustful thoughts its as bad as committing adultry, might as well say its as bad as being a whore. Hes leveled it all. Theres no difference between me and a whore. We are all pure through the eyes of christ. We are all made virgins in the eyes of christ.

To often am I quick to hold judements in my head of these people, when they are no different from me. These are our brothers and sisters. This our heavenly family. It breaks my heart to look at people the way Jesus does.

Im gonna stop here and hit up the rest of chapter 9 tomorrow. Think what a church would look like full of gays, whores, convicts, doctors, lawyers, construction workers. Thats the church I want to be a part of.

Calling and Dragging

Theres still so much in chapter 7 that I've been thinking about. Pulling back and reading the whole sermon on the mount, It says so much in just 3 chapters. This being the First teaching of Jesus he really takes the Jews through a spin. He is saying things that are counter culture,and in some eyes heracy. Jesus had balls.
Moving on.
Matthew 8
Jesus is coming down the mountain, and everyone is following him....I would too. If someone came and spoke like that, I would want to hear what else he has to say. On his way down a leper comes to him looking for healing, Jesus doesnt even blink, he says be clean.Done. So Jesus keeps going and just gets to Capernaum. I'm not sure how far away Capernaum is or how long it would take Jesus and his crew to get there, but thats besides the point. Hes in Capernaum and this roman centurion came to him and asks him to heal one of his servants. This is what he said "Lord, my servant is lying home paralyzed at home, suffering terribly." I emphasised the word Lord to consider a few things. First of all this guy is a roman centurion. Back in the day these guys led a group of 100 soldiers, hence the name centurion. These are the guys who would in todays world be considered Captains in the US. These men had power, were very structured, and were considered heathens by the Jews. I cant imagine a man of this stature saying to a civilian "Lord" or "Please". I see this today happening like this. A major comes up to a civilian, a preacher, and says "Please sir, one of my men is sick and paralyzed. I'm not worthy for you to come to my house. Please just say it and I know it will be done." Even in todays society its hard to see that scenario play out, except maybe in a movie.

Jesus' jaw drops. He says about a roman soldier, a heathen, that he has more faith than anyone hes known in Israel. Jesus says god, its done, and the man was healed. But lets look a little bit deeper into this. This roman centurion, a well respected leader, humbles himself and asks a rabbi to heal his servant. I can only see the look on his other servants face. It doesn't say this in the Bible but I see this man getting off his horse and walking up to Jesus, maybe even kneeling. What interesting is that the leper on the mountain acted in the very same way. He humbled himself and asked Christ to heal him.

When we put our pride to the side and come to Jesus with a humble heart and ask him for something. He does it. It seems like there is a direct correlation between humility and faith. These two things are related, you can't have one and not the other. For me, its easy for me to humble myself, but hard for me to hold faithful that what I pray will happen. In the same way its easy for me to get really head strong when I'm blessed and not credit the blessing to God. But notice that Jesus never runs up to these people and say, "ugh, you need healing." Hes not going to drag us through the steps of faith. He calls everyone and says "I'm right here." He puts the truth out there and doesn't try and hide how glamorous it might not be.

So Jesus is about to cross some body of water and this scribe comes up to him who wants to learn from Jesus. Jesus is basically like "yeah dude, but i dont have a home. So as long as you don't mind sleeping under the stars from time to time." The scribes like, yeahhhhh I don't think thats gonna work. Jesus doesnt try and convince this guy into following him. That doesn't mean that Jesus loves this guy any less. He still wants him to come, but that decision is ours to make.

Everybody piles into a sailboat and they head for the other side. Jesus is tired from a long day of healin' & preachin' so he takes a nap. By this point in the timeline I imagine maybe a few days maybe a week or two has passed since Jesus calls his disciples. So they don't really know this guy very well. All they know is it really sounds like he knows what hes talking about and hes healing people right and left. All of a sudden the sky starts getting black. It starts to rain and these guys are starting to get a little worried. The rain gets worse and waves start getting bigger and bigger......and bigger.

I've been on a few different kinds of boats in my life. I've been on small little speed boats and on big big cruise ships. I imagine the boat they were on to be a good size, not the size of a cruise ship, but probably what most of us would consider small yacht type. These things don't feel safe even in good weather. Your rockin and tossin and turnin, its fun....in good weather. In bad weather, you can see waves bigger than your boat. water is everywhere, everything is wet and slippery. It got so bad that these guys were like "Well its been an awsome few days see yall in heaven." They were running around the boat yelling "We are all going to die." So one of them wakes the still sleeping Christ and is like, "Jesus, I got bad news, we're goin down. If you can do anything about this situation....nows a good time, btw grab a life jacket." Jesus is like "relax" he tells the wind and the sea to calm down and they did. He says [26]....why are you afraid,o you of little faith?"

Now think about this. What do you think would have happened if they went to Jesus when the sky started to turn black, or when the rain first started to fall, or when the waves started to get bigger? What if they never went to Jesus and tried to fight the storm on their own? When we are in the middle of life's storms Jesus is right there, waiting for us to turn to him. These guys were just about to sink their ship it was so bad. In my life, I think I sank my ship and i was drowning....I was underwater when I turned to Christ, who was still there and pulled me out of the storm when I asked him to. It isnt until we humble ourselves and say, I can't fight this storm on my own, I need you Jesus, that he pulls us out of the water. Just a heads up, its gonna rain. Its not an easy thing to do, this christianity. Even after I asked Jesus to pull me out, Its rained since then, and granted I turned to him much quicker now than before. But it is gonna rain, and sometimes it rains hard, and sometimes you think your gonna sink, and sometimes you do sink. Jesus is with you through it all. You only have to turn to him and ask for his help.

Think about it, a homeless diseased man who no one will touch and a high ranking officer of the military both act in similar ways. Jesus doesn't see our situation, or our status, Jesus sees our hearts.

Most of the stuff from this point to the end of chapter 8 I pulled off of a commentary on biblegateway.com.

So they get to the other side safely to a place called Gadarenes. One thing to note about this place is that it is primarily a Gentile area with a large jewish population (thankyou biblegateway.com) The tombs where these 2 demon possessed men are coming out of are unclean and considered the usual haunts of demons and magic (biblegateway.com has an interesting commentary but im going to sum it up). So the two demon men get all freaked out and ask Jesus to cast them out into a herd of pigs near by. Jesus only says "Go" and they possess the pigs and they all commit pork suicide. So the herdsman runs back into town telling everybody, "hey, this guy Jesus just killed my pigs," and in a much less concearned tone "and he healed those two crazy guys by the tombs." I say all that because I really wrestled with the last verse in Chapter 8. It says [34] And behold all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region."

Relationship is a two way street

Ok, I'm totally excited about finishing the sermon on the mount. So lets jump in. Chapter 6 He starts off talking about Giving to the needy. He starts out strong with [1] Beware of practicing your rightousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Basically what hes saying here is if your going to give ti the poor, do it for the right reasons. Don't do it to look wealthy or "spiritual". I know I've been caught red handed with this. In fact usually I tell only the religious people i know of the things I give, I don't tell my "worldly" friends. Granted I don't have much to give, but that supports my previous theory that because I'm so broke, it better be darn amazing when I give something away.

This verse particularly hard for me, but I see the point. I'm usually on the other end, the recipient of the gift. Which is an amazing blessing always. But if the person who gave me the gift went around boasting about what they gave me, it would feel less like a blessing from God and more like the good will of someone who's better off than me. Take for example, my sister, whom I love with all my heart and who is such an encouragement to me. About 3 weeks ago I came home with a pamphlet for this EMT class that I wanted to take. The class cost $425 to sign up, so I went to my parents to see if I could borrow the cash. After a brief conversation with my mom, It looked like the chances were slim that they could afford it. But out of no where, my sisters like "I'll pay for it". My jaw droped. She totally fronted the cost. Given, a gift. This came to me at a point in time when I was like "God never blesses me with anything" and all pouting about life and such. If she were to go around and be like "look what i did for my brother" it wouldnt mean the same thing to me, it'd be much more forced and much less out of love. Thats what Jesus means, give gifts out of love, not out of obligation. (back to the Love over Law thing from chapter 5)

As soon as hes done talking about giving he says the same thing about prayer. He says don't go into church and put your hands in the air and pray loudly so everybody can hear you. If you do these things do them because you love God, not too look like you love God.

After this Jesus begins the famous Lord's paryer. Before he delivers the prayer he says something interesting that made me chuckle to myself a little bit. He says [5] And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for thier many words. I know people like this. I've done it myself a bunch of times. Empty words do not mean fulfilling prayers. I'm not going to go too much into detail with this, the main reason is because over the past few months I've been checking out a church in Bethel, Walnut Hill. They've been doing a whole series on "praying like Jesus" and I would just end up rewriting the book. Definatly check out the book, its amazing.

One thing I do want to mention, is one part of the Lord's prayer thats been hitting me hard since I heard it at Core (Walnut Hill). [11] Give us this day our daily bread. The first thing I want to mention here is that we as Americans do not comprehend what its like to have to go without food. Especially in New England, we dont have to drive farther than a mile to find some kind of food at our fingertips. Go through your phone book and count how many Dunkin Donuts are in a 10 minute radius....Mcdonalds.....TacoBell.....Stop & Shop? So that makes it a little hard for us to understand here, theres always something in the fridge, cupboard, down the street. But why doesn't Jesus just say Give us this day the food we need? I think its related to back in the day when Moses was leading his people out of the desert. Thats right, crack open that Old Testament to Exodus chapter 16. Now I'm gonna paraphrase this, but deffinatly read it if you get the chance. Basically heres what happens, Moses is leading the Israelites this is not too long after the parting the Red Sea, so they haven't been doing this wandering in the desert thing for too long. The Isrealites were starting to whine and comlain that they are hungry, word gets back to moses and hes like, Yo God, everybodies hungry down here help a brotha out? So Gods like I got this. He says no problem, I'll just make it rain bread....BUT only take what you need, this is a test, you will be graded...So Moses goes back and is like, chill out, its gonna rain bread. And it did....for 40 years. God made it rain bread for 40 years. If they took too much and tried to save it, it would rot and grow worms. God was like, TRUST ME, if i made it rain bread once, I can do it for 40 years no prob.
I need to rewrite the bible in ebonix....tonight.....
back to matthew
So hes not only saying God, give me the food i need for each day, but hes saying God, you fed Isreal for 40 years by making it rain bread, I trust you.

After the Lord's prayer he starts talking the same way about fasting. Don't fast just so your religious friends will think your ubber religious, do it as an intimate act between you and God.

Jesus then starts talking about laying up treasures in heaven. One of my new favorite verses in this part. [21] For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If all you care about is looking religious, you will be excellent at...but you wont have a relationship with God. Jesus is saying your social, political, and religious standings will probably be challenged and you might have to give them up. [24] No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. If your gonna walk the walk with God, you better talk the talk, live the life.

Ok, now hes about to tie all this together. One big Jesus knot. here it is. Trust in God, trust that he loves you and that he wants to be in a 24/7 all encompassing relationship with you, and trust that He will take care of you. He says [26] look at the birds in the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Father in heaven feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? God knows our needs, every last one of them. But Jesus says [33] seek first the kingdom of God and his rightousness, and all these things will be added to you.

He makes it sound so easy. I have a really hard time trusting that God will take care of me. I have a really hard time thinking that anyone will take care of me for that matter. I've felt for so long that its up to me to look out for me. Theres no free lunch. No one else cares about me, so I better be watching my own back. Its so hard to turn that over to God. But I find the more he keeps blessing me, like when my sister fronted that cash for me to take my EMT class, the more he really does want to take care of me. I still backslide and somedays just try and justify my blessings. But I'm coming to recognize those attacks more and more lately.
If you've been following along in your Bible you might notice that in each of these three sections Jesus repeats himself. he says "And your Father who sees in secret will reward you" It comes up in verse 4, 6, and 18.
Give to the needy in secret
Pray in secret
Fast in secret
These are the things that build a relationship between us and God. They aren't made to be trophies displayed to all. They are made as a conduit to relationship. Anyone whos ever been in a relationship knows, relationship is a two way street. God has always been there, Hes just been waiting on me to turn around and give him a hug.

At this point in my night last night I was soooo excited i couldnt sleep, so i kept going on to chapter 7.

Jesus starts out with the whole Judge not, that you be not judged thing. This is the part where he says how can you take a speck of dust out of your brother's eye when you have a plank in yours? Hes leveling the playing field by basically saying, these teachers you have they all talk like they know God, but have no kind of relationship with him.

I'm gonna toot my own horn here for a minute. I know what its like to have people talk like they know me, but have no idea who I am. I used to run a venue and had all the important titles, I had people throw my name around right and left to get special privileges. Hey, he said I could come in early, get backstage, He said we could do this, I've known him forever its cool. Its not. I can only imagine how God feels when we talk like we know him for our "heaven insurance" but when it comes to having a relationship with him haven't done much.

Thats what Jesus says All throughout chapter 7. He says [22] On that day many will come to me saying "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your nameand do might works in your name?" [23] And then I declare to them " I never knew you..." Jesus Died so we can have a relationship with God. Thats how bad God wanted to know us.

The whole sermon on the mount boils down to this. If you love the Law, you can't Love God. We are all equal in the eyes of Jesus. Trust in God, he knows what you need. [7] Ask, and it will be given;seek,and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened. God wants us to ask for things so he can give them to us. God wants us to look for the truth so he can reveal it to us.

He tops all this off by saying if you listen to what I've said, you will start the narrow path to be in a relationship with God. If not, you'll be washed away. [14] For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. I still struggle with this a little bit. This means that not everyone who hears the gospel is going to follow it, not everyone will be saved. That means at one point in time, before God made time maybe, He picked some people to be saved and some people not to be saved. I can only rejoice that He chose me. But it still saddens my heart to know that there are people I've known who will never get the gospel. Jesus never ran after people who were like "eh no thanks" but i want to. I want to be like, nono, this is the way, dont you see. Christ gave the truth to everyone, and only a few people took him up on it.

1...2...3...GO

Ok, so i found myself forewarding all my emails so i figured it best just put all these thoughts in one place. I've been reading the gospel of Matthew in preperation to start a Bible study (on Matthew). I just got to chapter 5, the beattitudes, and stuff really started jumping out at me. I can go through that later if anyone reading this wants to know, but now I'm just gonna pick up right at the end of that with verse 13. (Matthew 5)

After the beattitudes he starts talking about the salt and the light, these are things that I've heard thousends of times and i get it. One of Jesus' more simple of parables in my opinion. But soon after that he starts talking about Anger.

He starts to relate anger and murder. wow. To me these are 2 completely different things. He also ties in insult with with anger and goes on to say [23] So if you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something agaist you,[24] leave your gift there before the alter and go. First be reconciled with your brother, and then come offer your gift. This didn't really impact me until i thought of ALL the people i have wrong in my life so far, and believe me, the list is long. There are 2 cases in my mind that specifically come to light.

The first is my friend Chris, I've known this kid for years. We've always got along very well and about a year ago when I returned home to CT we met up and became great friends. I was hurt on the job day working, my right hand was crushed in a one ton hydraulic lift. Chris got a job at the same company picking up the slack doing things i couldnt do, which was awsome. Chris and I worked so well together that we decided to start a clothing company. Long story short, bad descions were made on both of our accounts and company flopped. Since then Chris hasn't even really spoken to me. Looking back, I can't say I can blame him. I was a different person. But now, I feel like I should look him up and apologize for the whole mishap. But I was so bitter about the whole clothing company thing, I lost a lot of time, money, friends, credit. Most of that I've blamed on him. What really hit me is that what if he gets saved and I'm still holding this against him? This is HARD. I feel like i need to go back, humble myself, and apologize for shattering this kids dream and our friendship. To make the situation even more difficult is that I started taking the steps to sue this kid. So now i have to call off my lawyer and eat that charge too.

The second case is the company I worked for. Im trying to sue them for the whole getting my hand crushed thing. To make that even more difficult I left the company without giving a 2 weeks notice. I felt justified in doing so. I felt mistreated. I had a right to leave. Bull. I didn't want to man up. So Im gonna email the owner and apologize, which is a little bit easier than chris. I'm gonna call off that lawsuit too. EVEN though they deserve it. I might not always understand why God has us do the things we do I just know if its from him its right.

Changing gears not so gracefully....
Verse 27 starts talking about lust. Ok so he just got done saying if you make fun of people or are angry with people you will be liable to judgement. Heres the kicker verse [28] But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultry with her in his heart.
Then he starts talking about crazy things like tearing out your eyes and chopping off hands. So according to this, Im gonna deffinatly be blind and cripple. But after I chop off my right hand, how can i chop off the left? While BLIND? just kidding. This is a really difficult subject for me, and I know for lots of people too so Im not gonna sugar coat this. Actually Im gonna steal what pastor wes preached on this. Jesus is talking about radical things here, chopping off hands and such. To overcome these sins its gonna take radical change. I'm not talking about ripping out your eyes, but cancelling your cable, tossing out garbage movies, cancel the....internet. For me, I know I've got some DVDs hidden that are porn. I am going to throw them away as soon as i go out to my trailer. I've had them for years, and i felt God telling me, nows the time....they gotta go. Also, Im gonna download that webpage scanner. Basically it reports any "pages of ill refute" to your accountability partners. I need it. I can't trust myself alone with a world of garbage, I'll want to check it out.

The next passage is interesting. He starts talking about divorce. I think what he's really talking about though, is marrage. Just like back in the day people got married for the wrong reasons. I think hes emphasizing the importance of marrage. It makes sense that right after he talks about lust he talks about marrage.

Then he starts talking about Oaths. I think this can be largely related to that passage in James that says the tounge is the rudder of a ship. I think here hes emphasising the power of what we say. Vows, curses, oaths, blessings all come from our mouth. It seems far too commonplace nowadays for us to say, "i swear to God" or "on my mothers grave". I feel like America as a whole has kinda forgotten the power of speech. God SPOKE the entire universe into existance and here we are speaking terrible things to each other and not even realizing it. I did it last night. I was sitting around the table with friends and just started tearing into this girl for no reason. It seems like whenever the conversation heads that way i need to point out that im witty and sharp and say something clever and mean and disrespectful. What really bothers me is that some people dont know how else to communicate. I don't think it was very much different in Jesus' day. I'd like to find out how the whole "i swear by..." came about.

So after he talks about oaths He goes on to the famous turn the other cheek thing. Great. After everything that I decided to change in my life, now I have to turn the other cheek. But its more than that. In verse 39 He says "But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil." Well I've done a good job of that. I've done pretty much everything the "one who is evil" wants for most of my life.....What hes saying here is people are going to hurt you, physically, emotionally, anyway they can, but that doesnt mean these people are not your brothers.

Here it comes, hes about to tie together everything from anger, lust, divorce, oaths. He says is someone is suing you for all your clothes, give them all your shoes too. He says if anyone holds a gun to your head and makes you drive for 10 mile, drive 20. He says Love your enemies. He says the sun rises and the rain falls on all people good, bad, rightous, unlawful. Equal. Everyone is Equal. It doesn't matter if you've never murdered anyone, if you hate them with all your heart, your just as guilty. You can be celibate and have lustful, perverted thoughts all day. In otherwords, The Law won't save you, Jesus will. Its not about what you do, Its about whats in your heart. He tops it off saying [48] You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Hes saying If you want to follow this law, you need to be perfect. hes saying "good luck, let me know how that works out for you" Your good deads dont save you, its whats in your heart. The Law wont save you, Jesus will.

thats the end of chapter 5
let me know what you all think.