Inside & Within

Imagine sitting in a theater waiting to listen to a fantastic speaker. Your favorite speaker in the world; they encourage you, everyone talks this person, it's a sold out venue, the lights go down, they walk on stage, pause...and look you, the audience, directly in the eyes and say, 'You are a wicked and dirty generation. You ridiculous fools living shameful lives...worse than some of the most vile sinners in history!'

Would you stick around?

While eating with some Pharisees (religious leaders) Jesus didn't wash his hands. Simple mistake right? The Pharisees wanted to make this a big deal, a sin. Jesus simply replied saying, 'you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness...'

Now, before dinner Jesus was in town speaking to a crowd and told them that the 'eye is a the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light but when they are bad, your body is full of darkness. Make sure that the light within you is not darkness...'

So, if we're dirty on the inside we'll be dirty on the outside. If we're living shameful lives on the outside odds are we're sinful and dirty on the inside. The audience didn't get this. They assumed that by looking clean on the outside they were clean on the inside; in their hearts and minds and spirits.

Jesus came and said...NO!

The inside matters. What you think matters to God. What you believe matters to God. What you desire matters to God. What your eyes see matters to God. What your hands touch matters to God. What you clean on the outside matters to God. What you transform on the inside matters to God. Everything you are matters to the God that made you.

What is inside you? What is within you? Is it light or darkness. Are you clean inside and out?
We have the knowledge, power, wisdom, insight, truth, righteousness, perfection of Christ within us.

Let's not be a wicked generation. Let's not remain fools.


- Passages from Lukes Gospel 11:29-41

LWBC: An Ugly Toddler 4

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and the work of God throughout all of history. Let's finish His role in the ridiculously fantastic temple in the History of His people.

4) Table of Showbread: once a symbol of communion with God - Now, Jesus is our communion with God. Not only do we eat bread and drink wine remembering His life and death but He IS the Bread of Life, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry...' (John 6:35). Faith in Christ is what fills us and connects us to God.

5) Candleabra: once a set of candles lit in the Holy Place - Now, Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life' (John 8:12). If we carry that truth, that light within us then we too are lights shining in the world (Matthew 5:16).

6) Altar of Incense: fragrant offering to God - Now, Jesus is that beautiful offering, as Paul the Apostle said, 'live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God' (Ephesians 5:2). Likewise, the faith and actions of a Christian replaces the Incense on the Altar, our lives in Christ are a pleasing aroma to God (2 Corinthians 2:15), our lives have been safed from eternal decay and our actions aren't to stink anymore.

7) Ark of the Covenant: once the seat of God on earth - Now, Gods Spirit lives in us, we are the Most Holy Place on earth! (2 Corinthians 6:16). We are the Temple, the church, Gods people, those who trust in Jesus Christ have replaced that gold covered box behind closed curtain and now live out in the open arena of the market, the world for all to see, all the time.

As dearly loved children of God, we are made new and pure and righteous and holy and all that is Christ we are called to be.

Our attitudes, our worldview, how we think, how we view life and live it out...this 'should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,' (Philippians 2:5).

Go and be the Temple of God.

LWBC: An Ugly Toddler 3

The Ugly Toddler, Israel, just didn't get it. No matter how much blood they spilled in order to reconnect with God in a state of forgiveness, they would return to their old life, their old ways, their law that didn't seem to require a heart change.

Let's go back to the Temple. Now we already discussed the purpose for each of the elements, tools or items in the temple (bronze sea, candleabra, etc.), so lets take a look at their eternal significance. Are they more valuable than their physical worth in bronze and gold? Do they have eternal spiritual sybolism...

1) The Bronze Sea: once its water cleansed the priests - Now, the Spirit cleanses the believer from the inside out. In response to His closest friends and students Jesus said this referring to salvation and the purifying Spirit 'A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his who body is clean' (John 13:10)

2) The Altar of Burnt Offerings: once it was the holy place of shed blood and forgiveness of sins - Now, through the death, pierced hands and feet of Jesus on the cross, shed blood and ultimate resurrection to eternal physical/spiritual life we no longer have to shed animal blood. Jesus was the final blood sacrifice. 'We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Hebrews 10:10).

3) Jachin & Boaz: once symbols of power at the temple entrance - Now, we are called to 'be strong in the Lord and his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand...' (Ephesians 6:10).

Jesus Is.

Everything points to Jesus and His power and purpose and love for His people. He became a flesh and blood man in order to show us how much He truly does love us.

The Old Testament Temple was a model of His life and His plan for salvation, unfortunately it (the temple) was imperfect so finally he decided to come and get rid of the temple and replace it with the body of believers faithfully following Him.

Issabon in 2011

Eve was given to pain. Adam was given to toil. Both were severed from a unity with God no one has ever had the opportunity to experience on this earth since. Both man and woman were handed over to the same struggle in different areas of their lives.

Eve, though created to assist Adam in keeping the garden, was given over to intense struggle in child birth - her main focus, purpose.

Adam, though created to keep and watch over the garden was also designed to assist his wife in raising their children. Now, however he is given over to struggling against a newly cursed earth in order to survive (opposite of Gods initial plan - Gen. 1:9-13, 2:6, 8-14).

Eve's pain, issabon, is the same as Adam's toil. Both define the new struggle. Hard work. Grieving. Affliction.

This new year is not the year of leisure nor is it another opportunity to climb the corporate ladder. It's simply another season we're blessed with to fulfill the purpose we were made to fulfill...walk with and glorify the Lord.

Paul takes us from the garden to the Christian community. To the Thessalonians Paul defines his strategy regarding work in this new community:

'We worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you,' (2 Thess. 3:8)

Paul uses three different words in Greek to describe his struggle:

worked - to labor, like an employee, perform

labored - weariness caused by work, fatigued from the labor

toiling - daily travails, routine of long hard - never ending work, common labor

'We worked hard day and night, wearied from the heavy burden of the daily grind and yet were not idle with our hands or minds and never a burden to your household or finances,' (2 Thess. 3:8 Rich version).

Adam and Eve worked before the curse, they may have even sweat from that work (I assume sweat glands existed) - it was the new struggle to survive physically, mentally and especially spiritually that altered their habits but not their basic purpose...that is, to glorify God in everything they did.

Paul takes their struggle, the common struggle of mankind and redefines it. He doesn't eliminate the struggle like the Greek philosophers attempted to do. He doesn't separate the 'holy' work of saints (bible study, prayer, preaching) from the secular/dirty work of the comman man (tradeswork, farming, shepherding). Paul simply does what must be done to glorify God, in all forms of labor, in all seasons, in all cities, with all peoples, all in the name of glorifying YHVH.

That is more than a New Years resolution...that is the resolution of a New Life.