Romans 8: 15b-16a: “You have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba Father!’  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  This passage continues the point we were discussing yesterday.  What visible sign can confirm to you that you are a child of God?  But the witness of the Holy Spirit produces faith in us, that we may walk in what we know but do not yet see (2 Corinthians 5: 7). 

John 6: 29, 30: “’This is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.’  They said therefore to Him, ‘What then do you do for a sign, that we may see, and believe you?’”  Jesus had already told them (v. 26) that they were not looking for signs, but blessings.  One does not need to see to believe, as the people were assuming here.  One can believe from an inner witness, a work of the Holy Spirit, whether they see or not.  Signs can be faked; an inner witness cannot.  Jesus Himself said (John 20: 29) that belief stemming from within, rather than visible signs, is more blessed.

Jeremiah 16: 12:  “You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to me.”  It’s a great thing to be stubborn - once you have listened to God, know His will, and steadfastly follow it without change.  But when you are stubborn in pursuing your own desires, ideas, and plans it leads to trouble.  With Israel, it led to exile.  God calls one perseverance, He calls the other evil.  Which kind of stubborn do you wish to be?

John 1: 14:  “And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Today is exactly three months since last Christmas, which means it is exactly nine months until next Christmas, which means it is the day the Church celebrates the Incarnation, when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virgin Mary and she conceived the Christ.  Little-known fact: In the early days of the Church Roman society still followed the Julian calendar, in which March 25 was New Year’s Day.  (January and February were added later) Some think that as the Church first set up its Liturgical Calendar it placed this celebration of the beginning of the earthly life of Jesus (life begins at conception, you know) here on this first day of the year.  They then pegged the celebration of His birth on the day nine months after His conception, rather than the other way around.

Romans 6: 11:  “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  Do you ever find yourself wondering why you seem to be more dead to God and alive to sin?  First, you can’t skip verse 3: a genuine baptism is necessary before we can die to sin.  Then, we must walk in the grace of our baptism, and this is a walk with no rest stops.  While re-baptism is necessary only if we have renounced our faith, repentance and renewal are sometimes needed to keep sin in its place - dead and buried!

Psalm 86: 11b-12a: “Unite my heart to fear Your Name.  I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart.”  In some cultures religion takes a shotgun approach: try a little of this, and some of that, and see which works for you.  But God calls this mixture, and there is no place for it in His Kingdom.  All of our hearts - our whole hearts - must be united in the fear of the Lord God alone.  Only then do we find His lovingkindness and deliverance.

Jeremiah 8: 22: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?  Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?”  Gilead was the land east of the Jordan which 2 ½ of the tribes of Israel had received from Moses as their inheritance.  It was also the source of a well-known healing balm.  Jeremiah here uses these facts allegorically to ask the question: “Why is Israel weak and sick, and her brethren doing nothing to bring healing, but instead are making her illness worse?”  Could it be that the Lord yet asks this question of His Church today?

Romans 4: 13: “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be an heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.”  We must remember the order of things: Abraham came hundreds of years before Moses.  Whatever Abraham received from God, whatever he was before God, was without the help of the Law.  While Moses was the father of the Kingdom of priests, Abraham was the father of the household of faith (Galatians 3: 7), without which we cannot please God (Hebrews 11: 6).

John 7: 14:  “But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach.”  Some people make a big deal of the fact that Jesus said to His brothers in v. 8, “I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”  Then He went anyway.  Does this make Him a deceptive person?  No, He said His time had not yet fully come.  At the beginning of the feast it was almost, but not yet; in the midst of it the time was right.  Jesus is the Truth (John 14: 6), and it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6: 18). 

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Romans 3: 21, 22:  “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction.”  Romans was written because the Jewish believers in that city had little respect for their uncircumcised brethren, thinking it was the Law itself that set them apart.  St. Paul had to tell them that the Law and even the prophets served only as a witness of righteousness (John 5: 39), and the only one Who could bring righteousness - to them, to the Romans, to all - was Jesus Christ.  Thus, all are set on equal footing in Jesus.

John 5: 37:  “And the Father Who sent Me, He has borne witness of Me.  You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.”  But didn’t the people hear the voice of the Father at the baptism of Jesus, when He bore witness to Him with the words, “You are My beloved Son, with You I am well pleased”?  Although St. John doesn’t mention the voice, Matthew, Mark, and Luke do.  But John explains this in the next verse: “You do not have His Word abiding in you, because you do not believe Him Whom He sent.”  If we do not believe when Christ speaks, eventually we will not be able to so much as hear His voice.

Jeremiah 4: 23: “I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.”  See the parallel?  Because of the unfaithfulness of God’s Covenant children, His creation had become as it was in pre-Genesis times.  Thus, He had to give them up to exile in Babylon.  And in copying prophetic language such as this, Jesus and the first century Christian prophets were prophesying the same thing - another exile for the people of Israel, which happened in 70 A.D.  None of it, however, has to do with the Second Coming of Christ, which will happen in the midst of the obedience of God’s people, not their rebellion.

John 5: 1: “After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”  Some manuscripts mention that this feast was the Passover.  But Jesus had just been to the Passover in John chapter two.  After this he had His meeting with Nicodemus, then went to Judea for a short while. Then he went to Galilee, passing through Samaria on the way where He met the woman at the well.  From there He continued to Galilee, where He healed the nobleman’s son, which John says was His second miracle in Galilee.  That brings us to John 5: 1, when it is Passover time again, one year later.  According to John, Christ had not had a busy year!  But that’s why we have four Gospels, not one.  Matthew, Mark and Luke fill in many blanks in this year of Jesus’ ministry, while John hits the highlights they don’t tell us about.

Psalm 62: 9: “Men of low degree are only vanity, and men of rank are a lie; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than breath.”  Men of low degree are those on whom you can count to bend the rules to help you out.  Men of rank can use their influence to sway things your way. (All for a price, of course) They are both oft-used tools in the graft, corruption, and general wickedness that riddle our nation and the world.  But in the large scheme of things they actually carry no weight.  When all is said and done God alone is our source, our judge, and our only refuge.  Trust in Him!

Jeremiah 1: 12:  “Then the Word of the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching over My Word to perform it.’”  There is a reason why, as Isaiah says, “My Word will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55: 11)  God doesn’t speak it, then forget it and move on to the next word.  He follows up on it, follows through with it, until it is done.  So fear not: If God promises it, it will be!

Psalm 139: 24:  “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”  This is such a great prayer for Lent, and so obvious, sometimes it is overlooked.  Anxious thoughts can lead to hurtful ways.  And hurtful ways won’t last.  So this Lent let’s fast anxiety, and the hurting of others through insensitivity, as Detective Holy Spirit searches every corner of our hearts.  

John 3: 23:  “And John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and they were coming and were being baptized.”  Why was John still baptizing, preparing the way for the Christ, when Jesus had already been revealed?  Well, it’s hard for someone with a calling from God to stop and do nothing.  You keep on with what you know (John 21: 3). God had a new ministry upcoming for him - in Herod’s palace - but until then, the Lord in His mercy and knowledge of John, let him baptize on.

Hebrews 4: 9: “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”  Some Christians, quoting Scriptures like this one, expect an existence of eternal rest with God after this life on earth. But think about it: after a mere seventy or even ninety years of labor on earth, we require rest for eternity?  What’s wrong with us?  Eternity with God, yes.  Eternal rest - bakit?  The Lord has something more after this rest time (our time before the resurrection of the dead) is over, a time N. T. Wright calls life after life after death.

Psalm 49: 12: “But man in his pomp will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish.”  The vanity of man somehow thinks mass quantities of money begats endurance, even permanence.  Sorry.  Pomp never lasts.  If you want true staying power, try humility and patience (Psalm 37: 9, 11).

Deuteronomy 9: 4, 5, 6: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land …’ It is not for your righteousness that you are going to possess the land … know, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess.”  Just in case the Israelites had any thought that it was their own righteousness that had gotten them the Promised Land, the Lord not so subtly reminds them, multiple times: NOT!  As David later said, “In Your sight no man living is righteous” (Psalm 143: 2). It just goes to show you God’s passionate desire for His children to see the truth.

John 2: 12:  “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brothers, and His disciples; and there they stayed a few days.”  Here’s a picture you don’t see often: Jesus, His mother, brothers, and disciples all hanging out.  And it was no quick trip around the corner - Capernaum was almost twenty miles north of Cana, then they all went to the Passover together, a trip of over sixty miles. Who knows what foundations of relationships were formed during those days; foundations that became critically important in later years!

Titus 3: 1, 8, 14:  “Remind them to be .. ready for every good deed … so that those who have believed God may be careful to engage in good deeds … and let our people also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs.”  While St. Paul was dogmatic in his writings that good deeds were powerless to save us, one cannot read this chapter and still maintain the idea that they are unnecessary.  A good reminder on this fourth day of Lent!

John 1: 35, 36:  “Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked upon Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’”  For the second time in two days John pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God.  Even though no one else understood this role of the Messiah, John did: to be God’s sacrifice for sin.  (What else would Jesus do as a Lamb?  He certainly didn’t come down from Heaven to be livestock) John may have ministered for a while before he knew the identity of the Christ, but once he knew, he wasted no time in revealing Him.

Deuteronomy 7: 7: “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.”  It’s not wrong to be many; it’s not wrong to be few.  It’s wrong to try to be other than what you were called to be.  If your group was once large and is now small, or if you were once small and have been blessed with great growth, do not focus on that.  Either way, things can quickly change again.  Just remember, God never limits Himself to numbers, big or small.  Focus on His call to you beyond numbers.

Psalm 143: 8: “Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for I trust in You; teach me the way in which I should walk; for to You I lift up my soul.”  This verse encapsulates well the Church’s mission in Lent: to focus on God’s love for us, and, impelled by that love, to trust in Him. Then we listen to Him for direction, and offer ourselves to Him in obedience to that direction.  It’s a good reminder to us on this Ash Wednesday!