10th December 2024
“Therefore they cast their nets, and now they were not able to draw it back in because of the multitude of fish. That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord.” …John 21:6
As the risen Lord Jesus stood there on the shore, the strange thing was that none of them knew Him; not even Peter and John who had been His most intimate friends, nor Thomas who so lately had identified Him by His wounds. The risen Lord was not to be recognized merely by human eyes, nor by hands of flesh. Even when he spoke to them of familiar things, still they did not recognize Him. But when the net was full to overflowing, John suddenly knew.
Later, when on shore He said “Come and eat breakfast,” none of them, we are told dared ask Him “Who are you?” knowing it was the Lord Jesus. Here is a paradox. In the ordinary way, if you ask a question it implies a lack of knowledge; if you dare not ask, it suggests a fear of displaying that lack! But here we have both fear and knowledge. With the outward man they feared, but with the inward man they knew. Often you cannot explain or even begin to understand, yet there is an inward God given assurance and we know. This is Christ in us! This is real Christianity! This is the real Church!
Today in the Church as the body of Christ, many do not recognise the resurrected life of Christ in others, let alone in themselves, for exactly the same reason. At best they look for a perfect “outer man” (soul) in others and themselves; at worst they look for a perfect “exterior,” whilst all the time they neglect to discern and detect the “inner man” where Christ dwells in their heart. The Pharisee does this all the time; but he can’t help himself because he has taken on board an evil religious spirit that will not allow him to behave in any other way. It is only the inner man who really knows these things because they are spiritually discerned, the outer man merely speculates or presumes according to his self-opinionated ideas with all its inaccurate self-preconceived notions and self-prejudiced feelings. As Christians, we are the dwelling place of God on this earth despite all our failures and limitations! We are the Zion of God. It is “the Christ in us” that is our truth, our reality and our accuracy now and therefore our one discerning faculty that is absolutely reliable. This is real Christianity!
11th December 2024
“He looked upon Jesus as he walked, and said, Behold the Lamb of God!” …John 1:36
When John first announced Jesus as the Lamb of God, he added “which takes away the sin of the world” (verse 29) thus emphasising his redeeming work. The second time he did so, however, he simply said “Behold the Lamb of God!” Here the accent was not so much on the work as on the Person. Real appreciation means that people are precious to us for their own sakes. We come to love them more for what they are than for what they have done for us. So it should be with our appreciation of the Lord Jesus. We thank the Lord Jesus for His gifts, but we praise Him more for His own worth. Christ on the Cross calls forth from us our eternal thanksgiving. Christ on the throne calls forth our everlasting praise! We look at what He has done for us and we are profoundly grateful; we behold who He is and we can do none other than just adore Him!
Today in the Church, we talk much about faith, but how many of us really recognise that in this business of real Christianity, there is nothing we can do of ourselves other than to enter into all that Jesus has already achieved for us by simple acceptance. The out-working of this is to thank Him for what He has done for us and to praise Him for all that He is to us. This then is the fruit of faith but not faith itself. To really know what He has done at the cross, and to really know who He is to us now, is faith itself! Those that walk this way do not have to try to make an effort to thank and to praise Him because it is virtually automatic, meaning that it is the spontaneous outworking from their mouths out of an inner happening in their hearts. The reason why we confess with our mouths is because we believe in our hearts!