Matthew 14 Thoughts

"23 With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night."

Just one. Jesus was always seeking God via prayer. Earlier in this chapter, he went off to pray after he found out about John the Baptist's death. And above, he's praying after he healed people. When did he pray?

• when news hit - when he found out about something that affected his life (ie., John)
• to recharge - after he healed people, he needed to be with God

Probably other reasons, too. What do I need to do? Follow Jesus' example and pray more often. Before and after big events. When I need to be recharged ...

Often.

Matthew 13 Thoughts

I'm really liking The Message - love the language. For example, Matthew 13:15: "The people are blockheads!" - that's awesome!

And verse 16 is cool. “But you have God-blessed eyes—eyes that see! And God-blessed ears—ears that hear!" - nice. I like the way that is illustrated - God-blessed eyes and ears. God has blessed my eyes and ears so that I CAN hear His voice, see his works. Not that I always DO listen and see ... that's another thing entirely. But I have the ability to see and hear, and be connected to the Father. All because of a simple decision. That is simple astounding.

Matthew 11 Thoughts

Interesting - in 2-3, John the Baptist has doubts about who Jesus is. He didn't earlier on, when he baptised Jesus. I wonder what changed? If Jesus didn't meet John's expectations, and what those expectations might have been?

Jesus answer is even better. Instead of arguing about who he is, Jesus simply states facts about what he's been doing, then asks "is this what you were expecting?" I like that answer - not confrontational, but loving yet direct. Not argumentative, yet spoken with authority and proof.

One of Jesus' answers is rather intriguing. "The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side" (quoting from The Message today). Jesus listed that one with some pretty amazing miracles - blind being able to see agai, deaf hearing, the dead being raised to life ... and ... the wretched of the earth learning that God is on their side." It's quite possible that that one is the greatest miracle in this list - it's the one that gives us a way to the Father, and a way to Heaven, after all. And this miracle involves a changed heart - a change that isn't physical, but emotional and spiritual. Interesting ...

And my new favorite verses (again from The Message, with my thoughts in brackets):

^28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? [yes I am] Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. [this sounds wonderful - getting away=listening to God during prayer, during worship, reading the bible, and allowing Him to work through those ways (and probably others, too)] I'll show you how to take a real rest. [that would be good, cause I really don't know how - does anyone?] Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. [simple instructions - but "walking with" requires two-way communication, does it not? Much learning there] Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. [wow. I'm a drummer, so this line really speaks to me. Unforced means playing easily, out of your very being. being able to spontaneously erupt in rhythm ... like when you talk - it comes so easily to most of us that we don't even think about it - it's natural. I want that in my God relationship.] I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." [again - "freely and lightly" sounds like a good way to live, indeed. And there's the "keep company with me" part. This means so much more than simply reading your bible and praying at God. It's a relationship - how do you have a relationship with someone you can't see? This is MUCH harder than it sounds, but the result sounds worthy of pursuit, I think.]

Matthew 10 thoughts

Judas, who betrayed Jesus ... when Jesus sent out the 12 to do miracles, I can only suppose that Judas did miracles, too.

Huh. The whole "do not be afraid ... you are worth more than many sparrows" statements, at least in Matthew, were centered around evangelism and being "sent out." NOT the whole "I don't know how I'll make my next house payment because my cable tv bill costs too much" thing I usually hear in Christian circles. Amazing.

This last section needs some thinking about:

³⁷"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it"

As for me, in a way, I've "found" my life. God has given me a nice-paying, fun job. We don't have to worry about money, and things seem to be going swell. Am I going to "lose it?" Have I already lost it? Not sure. What I DO know is that need to not be caught up with career and comforts to the point of ignoring God. If I always have a focus on on God - if I'm always close enough to him to hear him speak to me - and I'm listening - then I should be ok.

⁴⁰"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. ⁴¹Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. ⁴²And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

And apparently, if you helped out one of the 12 disciples, you were good, and received God... and did not "lose his reward." Whatever that means. Maybe something gets lost in the translation or in the thousands of years between the saying and the reading here ... but sometimes Jesus is just plain confusing. Just sayin.

Matthew 9 thoughts

Men obeyed Jesus.

The paralytic in vs 6-7 did exactly as Jesus asked - "Get up, take your mat and go home." No questions recorded, no - "are you SURE I'm healed?" questions - he just got up and went home.

Same with Matthew. Jesus said "follow me" in vs 9, and Matthew apparently "got up and followed him" - no questions asked. And that was a man with a job, who had responsibilities. Yet he followed, no questions asked, anyway.

Even dead people obeyed - "he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up" - Jesus healed her by merely taking her hand and helping her sit up.

Interestingly, some commands didn't compel people to obedience. For example, when "Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this."" in vs 30 (after he healed some blind me), they shared what happened anyway.

I'm guessing that was Jesus' plan - do something amazing and get the news circulating - and how best to do that by telling the recipient "now don't tell..." :-)

Matthew 8 Thoughts

Not much from today's reading. Here's what I noticed:

"See that you don't tell anyone" in vs 4 - what's up with that? How could you NOT tell someone what happened, if you had just been miraculously healed? At the least, the priest who had to verify there was no leprosy might have been inclined to ask ... like the healed dude would be all " oh, it just sort of happened." His life had just miraculously changed - at the least, that would be VERY hard to not share in excruciating detail (maybe that's just me).

vs 11 - Jesus talking about the rest of the world becoming followers. Cool - hadn't noticed that before.

vs 23-27 - I think Jesus knew it wasn't his time to die, so he had nothing to fear from the storm. Simple as that. Though I don't see how anyone could sleep through all that racket - tossed boat, waves, people shouting, and all. Jesus must have been a hard sleeper!

Matthew 7 thoughts

So my goal here is to start writing thoughts about what I read in the Bible during my morning Bible reading times. And hopefully, this will push me to actually DO it - because I like to write down thoughts... but my bible reading has been sporadic at best for a LONG time.

So we'll see, won't we?

Anyways ... Matthew 7 holds a TON of Sunday School memories for me - there's lots of "known" stories there, like the speck/plank/judging thing, the ask, seek, knock ting, the narrow and wide gates thing, and the wise man who built his house upon a rock parable. Lots of good stuff.

And it's all pretty simple stuff, too. Jesus basically says to worry about improving yourself instead of judging others (vs 1-6), simply ask God and He'll give it (vs 7-12), and only a few will find God (vs 13-14, 21-23). Those are all pretty simple concepts to understand.

The thing that stands out to me here is at the end of the chapter: "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law."

Jesus got that reaction how? Well ... I'd have to guess there was that whole sonofgodcometoearth authority - he was/is God, after all, so if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Jesus being an amazing speaker that people were compelled to listen to. He had some built-in authority.

But. His teaching was also ... again my guess ... a breath of fresh air to to his audience, who until then had only heard from their own religious establishment of the day. Their whole religion was works-based, you had to sacrifice your way into heaven, and the pharisees were there to basically be the religion police - if they found you lacking, they'd stone you on the spot.

So when Jesus said "don't judge" or "ask and you'll receive ... with no sacrifices" or "not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven" ... well, that WAS simple. Something average, everyday people could understand. And it was backed up with their own scripture and traditions (since Jesus frequently drew upon the those things during his teaching).

So - simple message that made sense + Son of God delivering it = understanding. Sounds like a formula we can still use today, huh?