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Jesus and Holy Week – Tuesday, Day 3 – A Long Day Teaching & Countering Religious Opposition

April 12, 2022 admindeb 6 Comments

Photo Credit – slidesharecdn.com

[Adapted from the Archives]

When He [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” – Matthew 21:23

On this long day, Jesus would demonstrate in one situation after another that he spoke and acted with the authority of God Himself. The barren fig tree cursed by Jesus the day before had indeed withered and died. The disciples saw it themselves that morning as they walked again from Bethany to Jerusalem. Jesus spoke to them of faith, which they would need all the more in the days ahead (Matthew 21:21-22).

Again and again…in Jerusalem, in the Temple, and on the busy streets during Passover, Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders.

It’s amazing that he even gained entry to the Temple after overturning the market just the day before. Again, another sign of his authority. He was untouchable, until he gave himself over to his own death on the cross…for us.

The religious leaders were determined to trap him in some sort of blasphemous teaching or interpretation of the law. It would not happen, yet they were set on his destruction one way or another.

In an attempt to test Jesus’ understanding of the law, a legal advisor to the Pharisees asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment in the law. The Pharisees emphasized strict adherence to the laws of the Torah, all 613 of them! They were not prepared for Jesus’ response:

Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:29-31

Jesus’ love for the Father and his love for all people were in perfect unity. Loving God, with all we are, gives us perspective and capacity to love those around us, whomever they are, as we have experienced love ourselves, from the God who loves us perfectly and completely.

His 8 “woe to you” pronouncements against the Pharisees are listed at bottom of this page. When I read them, the song from the original Godspell film comes to mind as the Jesus character stands against the religious “machine” of his day – those “hypocrites”, those “blind guides” of the people.

Photo Credit: www.faithbibleministries.com

Finally, leaving Jerusalem that day, Jesus stopped on the Mount of Olives (Olivet) to speak about the future. He talked at length, to his disciples and all those who followed, about the end times. He cautioned them about false teachers and the evil that would rise up in those last days. What it must have been to listen to Jesus, the Messiah, on that Tuesday – filled with a mixture of faith in him and fear of what could lie ahead for them, and the generations to come.

When Jesus and his disciples returned for the evening to Bethany, Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, stole away and met with Jesus’ enemies. [Matthew 26:14-16] In the dark of night, he would betray Jesus to them. He acted as a coward, away from the crowds who would have strongly objected…

For 30 pieces of silver, Judas would seemingly take history into his own hands, but the clock was already ticking, and Jesus would finish what he came to earth to do.

Postscript:

8 “Woe’s” Spoken by Jesus Against the Pharisees (Matthew 23:13-30)

1- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men.

2- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you devour widows’ houses, and pray at length as a pretense.

3– Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

4- Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.”

5- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.

6- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.

7- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

8- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.”*

Holy Week – Day 3: Tuesday in Jerusalem, Mount of Olives – Mary Fairchild

YouTube video Alas for You from the original film Godspell

Spotify Playlist – From Palm Sunday to the Resurrection – Beth Wayland

The Way of Jesus #2: Unsettling the Religious Status Quo – James Nored & Phil Ware

Experience Easter – From Genesis to Revelation – K-Love

Reasoning Why Jesus Cursed the Fig Tree – Sam Shamoun

Jesus and the Pharisees

*8 Woes Upon the Pharisees – Curtis Kittrell

Great Texts of the Bible – The Two Commandments – commentary by James Hastings

Jesus’ Olivet Discourse about Two Future Events – Ronald W. Leigh, Ph.D

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Worship Wednesday – Authority in Prayer – Come Alive (Dry Bones) – Lauren Daigle

February 2, 2022 admindeb 2 Comments

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Climbing up the steps of our church stage, I kept in the shadows. One of our pastors had asked me to close our service in prayer for two refugee families we were sponsoring for resettlement. We have been praying for them for weeks now.

Coming forward to the podium, I had a strange experience.

I became timid…almost afraid, preparing to talk to God…and not at all sure why.

As if standing in front of my own church family was a scary thing. I don’t know what was off-putting about it, but it has given me pause over these last few days.

When we pray we have only good before us in the person of Almighty God. He calls us to prayer and He bestows upon us the authority to pray believing in the One True God.

The Scripture is full of descriptions of the magnificence of Christ and the power of prayer, in obedience to God.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:9-11

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me [Paul] in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.” – Ephesians 6:10-19

When we pray, we enter into an arena where God shows Himself mighty on our behalf. Praying can be scary because it is the stuff of miracle and mystery.

As often happens in preparing to write Worship Wednesday each week, God gave me a song. Sometimes it’s the passage of Scripture first, but today it was a song. Lauren Daigle‘s “Come Alive (Dry Bones)”. Then I was carried back to the Scripture. The Valley of Dry Bones.

In Ezekiel 37, The Lord spoke to the prophet (Ezekiel) during the Babylonian captivity of Israel. God’s people had rebelled (again) and they were dead to Him…They felt the deadness inside themselves and cried out to God, even in their hopelessness…as if God couldn’t raise them back to life.

Yet He is the only one who could save them.

The passage below is long, but don’t miss the vision God gave Ezekiel:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. ‘I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ “Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. “Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’” – Ezekiel 37:1-14

This vision was a metaphor, symbolic of what was to come. God would forgive the people of their sin. He heard their cries, restoring them to Himself, and eventually restored them to their homeland. He pointed Ezekiel to what He would do for Israel…in that Valley of Dry Bones.

Prayer is our witness to the just and merciful authority of God. He speaks to us and we tune our ears to Him. He regularly does the miraculous in our lives, and we don’t want to miss it.

I was nervous praying in front of church family. Maybe it was because I was afraid the words wouldn’t come. The words I needed to ask God on behalf of these refugee families who had lost so much. God already knows what they need…maybe it’s what we need from Him that He calls us to settle…and to trust Him with.

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Worship with me.

Through the eyes of men it seems
There’s so much we have lost
As we look down the road
Where all the prodigals have walked
One by one
The enemy has whispered lies
And led them off as slaves

But we know that you are God
Yours is the victory
We know there is more to come
That we may not yet see
So with the faith you’ve given us
We’ll step into the valley unafraid, yeah

As we call out to dry bones
Come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts
Come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes
Let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones, come alive

God of endless mercy
God of unrelenting love
Rescue every daughter
Bring us back the wayward son
And By your spirit breathe upon them
Show the world that you alone can save
You alone can save

As we call out to dry bones
Come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts
Come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes
Let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive

So breathe, oh breath of God
Now breathe, oh breath of God
Breathe, oh breath of God
Now breathe

Breathe, oh breath of God
Now breathe, oh breath of God
Breathe, oh breath of God, now breathe

As we call out to dry bones
Come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts
Come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes
Let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive, yeah
We call out to dry bones, come alive

Oh come alive!*

_______________________________________________________________________

So…if we struggle with timidity, or doubt, or even some unbelief… we know what to do. Come. Come alive. Wake up afresh to the saving power of Redeemer God.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

*Lyrics to “Come Alive” – Songwriters: Michael Farren & Lauren Daigle

What Is the Meaning of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37?

The Meaning of the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones – Ezekiel 37:1-14, Part 3 – Joel Kine

Ezekiel: Valley of Dry Bones – Sean Koos

YouTube – Indescribable – Chris Tomlin

YouTube Video – Even If – MercyMe

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Monday Morning Moment – 6 Basic Elements of Leading Well – Dave Mills

August 6, 2018 admindeb 6 Comments

Leadership is a process that has been a great interest all my adult life. There’s this man I know well who actually spends concentrated time studying about leadership, both through books and observing it in practice. He has had the experience of being a leader of few and many. He has managed teams, budgets, and action plans. Other times, he has led only by influence, without authority. He is my go-to person on what is good leadership – which is never a finished product. Leadership changes as organizations and cultures change.

Yet, the basic elements of leadership that builds leaders and, at the same time, gets the job done are foundational.

The man is my husband. He, from time to time, has also been my boss in the workplace. Dave Mills wears many hats. He most recently applies himself to risk/crisis management, security processes, and strategic partnerships. Making leadership development happen is his professional happy place.

In the training he does on Leading From the Heart, he lays out these 6 Basic Elements of Leading Well. With permission, they are excerpted in brief below:

Be clear about what you want personnel to do (What)
Make sure they know why it is important (Why)
Make sure they have what they need to do the job (How)
Give them a way to know how they are doing
Follow up regularly on priorities and progress (accountability)
Make sure they know you care about them

This is intended to help leaders understand what they need to provide for people to thrive in their work. This doesn’t address vision or strategy; it focuses on the people part of the process – the interaction between leaders and those we are responsible to lead.

For someone to thrive in a job, they need all six of these in place.

6 Basic elements of leading people:

1. What: Be clear about what you want them to do.

People tend to underestimate the amount of communication effort required to achieve clarity. This requires repeated communication to hammer home a clear understanding of the task. A feedback loop where you ask the team member to explain the assignment back to you is essential. Even when they can do that, you still need to revisit it regularly. Do not short-change the work involved to achieve clarity.

[This is very different from micro-managing. This is empowering through comprehensive, understandable information-sharing.]

2. Why: Make sure they know why it is important.

Do not assume that employees understand why the task is important. Make sure that is clearly communicated. If they already know the importance, it helps them to hear it so they know their leader understands the importance.

This is often neglected. Sometimes it is because it is assumed that the person knows why the task is important. Sometimes it may be obvious why it is important. However, it is worth unpacking that together to reinforce the importance of the task and your confidence in the person to successfully carry out the assignment. The most common scenario is probably just to ignore the issue and never bother to help the person understand why their work is important. This is one of the points in Lencioni’s three characteristics of a miserable job. He calls it irrelevance.

3. How: Make sure they have what they need to do the job.

When you assign a task you must be sure that the person has what is needed to do it. This may involve resources, like access to equipment or funding. It may be knowledge. It may be connections to other people. There may be a training need. Or it may be capacity. Do they have the capacity to take on the task you are assigning to them? Make sure they have capacity, or free them up from something else, or give them someone to help them with the task. Also recognize that sometimes at the beginning it may not be clear where the gaps are. This is something that should be regularly revisited with people – Don’t forget to ask them if they have everything they need.

[This is another area where micro-managing would stifle rather than empower employees. Give team members the authority to get what they need to get the job done.]

4. Give them a way to know how they are doing.

People need to know what a good job looks like. At the end of a day they need to be able to assess whether or not they did a good job that day. What are the most important outcomes that you are expecting from them? Have you expressed these in ways that can be quantified?

5. Accountability: Follow up regularly on priorities and progress.

Check in with them regularly, with intentionality, about progress and priorities. The leader must take responsibility for driving this. The frequency depends on the employee and situation, but there should be a regularly set time. This needs to be a one-on-one conversation with each direct report to discuss what progress has been made since the last check-in and what are the priorities to be focused on until the next check-in.

Not only do you give them a way to assess their own performance, you regularly review their progress and provide feedback on how they are doing. This is a good opportunity to revisit whether or not they have everything they need to accomplish the assigned work. This is where coaching and accountability happen.

6. Heart level connections: Make sure they know you care about them.

Relationships are key to leadership. You need to be intentional and deliberate about building heart level connections with those you lead. There is an enormous amount of research indicating the importance of this. If you do all the other parts of the process well and fail on this one, your people may endure your leadership but they will not thrive. On the other hand, if you are not so great on some of the other parts but do this one well, people will cut you a lot of slack if they know you care about them. Relationships are the oil that keeps the work machinery going. Like having something with a lot of moving parts – as long as the oil is there, it runs smoothly. If you throw some sand in the works, it doesn’t run so well and over time it will grind down to a point where it doesn’t work at all.

Caring about our employees (direct reports, in particular) involves investing in their development. Proactively looking for ways to help someone improve and grow in their work is a very caring and practical thing to do.

[Be careful that you, as a leader, don’t presume a relationship exists. This is only effective when the employee experiences the relationship as positive and caring.]

– Dave Mills, Leading From the Heart

___________________________________________________________________________

What do you think? Any element you could use as a leader or team member? In our work (both together and in work independent of each other), Dave and I also believe that leadership development – intentional and proactive – should begin at orientation. The tendency in the workplace is to load development on those already in authority. Entry level and mid-level employees don’t always have benefit of the care needed to provide opportunity to grow and develop in their areas of expertise. It is something to consider on the order of company core values.

Lastly, I just wanted to give a shout-out to some of the folks who have demonstrated excellent leadership to Dave…as well as those in relationship with him who have developed as excellent leaders themselves during the time they worked together. These make for long and rewarding relationships across a lifetime of work.

[Just a few of those remarkable ones are in the following images]

Monday Morning Moment – What You Think of Others Matters – Workplace Wisdom – Deb Mills

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Jesus and Holy Week – Tuesday, Day 3 – A Long Day Teaching & Countering Religious Opposition

March 27, 2018 admindeb 2 Comments

Photo Credit – slidesharecdn.com

[Adapted from the Archives]

On this long day, Jesus would demonstrate in one situation after another that he spoke and acted with the authority of God Himself. The barren fig tree cursed by Jesus the day before had indeed withered and died. The disciples saw it themselves that morning as they walked again from Bethany to Jerusalem. Jesus spoke to them of faith, which they would need all the more in the days ahead (Matthew 21:21-22).

Again and again…in Jerusalem, in the Temple and on the busy streets during Passover, Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders. They were determined to trap him in some sort of blasphemous teaching or interpretation of the law. It would not happen, yet they were set on his destruction one way or another.

Two commands: 1) Love God with your whole being; 2) Love your neighbor as yourself. Some might say that a third is presumed in that you must love yourself in a right and wholesome way in order to truly love others. Jesus’ love for the Father and his love for all people were in perfect unity. Loving God, with all we are, gives us perspective and capacity to love those around us, whomever they are, as we have experienced love ourselves, from the God we love.

The Pharisees, Sadducees, and other Jewish leaders grew more angry at Jesus and were vexed as to how to destroy his popularity and influence with the masses of Jews loyal to him. All their trickery that day failed. Jesus was not intimidated by them, and in fact, spoke some of his strongest words against them while teaching that day. His 8 “woe to you” pronouncements against the Pharisees are listed at bottom of this page. When I read them, the song from the original Godspell film comes to mind as the Jesus character stands against the religious “machine” of his day – those “hypocrites”, those “blind guides” of the people.

Photo Credit –www.faithbibleministries.com

Finally, leaving Jerusalem that day, Jesus stopped on the Mount of Olives (Olivet) to speak about the future. He talked at length, to his disciples and all those who followed, about the end times, cautioning them about false teachers and the evil that would rise up in those last days. What it must have been to listen to Jesus, the Messiah, the day. Filled with a mixture of faith in him and fear of what could lie ahead for them, and the generations to come.

When Jesus and his disciples returned for the evening to Bethany, Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, stole away and met with Jesus’ enemies. [Matthew 26:14-16] He would betray Jesus to them in the dark of night, away from the crowds who would have strongly objected…in just two more days…for 30 pieces of silver…Judas would seemingly take history into his own hands, but the clock was already ticking, and Jesus would finish what he came to earth to do.

Postscript: