Zachaeus Wasn't A Wee Man Of Faith


Luke 19:2-5

- "And, behold, there was a man named Zachaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus, who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, "Zachaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house.""

I must admit that I don't that I have ever read this story and realized what a beautiful picture this is of how our relationships with Jesus should be; How we should be pursuing our Lord. I would think that this is a story in the Bible that almost everyone has heard of and that we all read and see the Love of Jesus and how He even eats with the cheating tax collectors; How no matter what we have done will matter to Jesus, as long as we choose to turn away from those things and pursue Him. I believe that Jesus knew the heart of Zachaeus, when He saw him and told him He would dine at his home. As we read past these verses, we see that Zachaeus turns from his wicked ways and has this big "Grinch That Stole Christmas Turn Around" giving back his cheated money back to the people as well giving to the poor, but what really touched my heart while reading this story this morning was found in these verses above. First off we read that this Zachaeus guy was chief among the publicans, which automatically made my mind switch over to where Paul admits to be the "chief of sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:16. Now I'm not trying to put Zachaeus on blast or anything, but Paul with a changed heart tells us that he was the "chief of sinners" which, in my mind, when someone admits that they are the worst at something I usually think, "ehh, they're probably not that bad." But here we see that he, Zachaeus is known for being the chief of these publicans (tax collectors), who were known for cheating people out of their money, which is, in its on way, stealing. So Zachaeus is the "Leading Thief" we can call him, so the next part of that sentence becomes a little obvious, "and he was rich." Then it says that "he sought to see Jesus..." That hit me. Like I can't lie, this verse is what hit me and spoke to me and why I felt like I had to write this down. "He sought to see Jesus..." why?, for "who He was..." Zachaeus with all of his money and "power" that he probably had over these people, heard about who Jesus was, from somewhere, I don't think it really matters where, but he heard of Him and went to see Him. Why did he go to see Jesus? Well, It's my assumption that he liked what he heard of Him! He heard something that sparked in his head and thought, "Ya know, I should probably go see this Jesus guy." Then we see the part that kills me because I realize how much I DONT do this my walk with Christ... he, while being super short, unable to see Jesus through the crowd, ran AHEAD of the crowd, which by the way, if there's a crowd so big that you can't see through it, then there was probably a lot of people in it, meaning he had to work his way to the front of that crowd to get where he made it to. Then, it says he climbed into a tree, to see the Lord for he was to "pass that way." So we have Zachaeus, this wicked man, who hears of Jesus, wants to see Him, why? don't know, but I would assume it's because he heard something really good. Then he gets to the crowd, he's too short and says, "Bump that I'm going home"? NOPE, he drops his shoulder, forces his way to the front of the crowd, then waits for Jesus to walk past him"? NOPE, then he climbs into a tree... to make sure he gets a complete view of Jesus as He walks past. All this effort in hopes that he would be able just to SEE Jesus. Then Jesus looks up, sees a midget in a tree and says, "Oh now I've seen everything." No, however that would be quite a sight. But no He looks up and says "Hey! Zachaeus! get down here quick! I'm going to eat at your house today!"

Ya know, I feel like Jesus always has had a knack for finding the person in the crowd who stands out a little more. We have all these people who went to see Jesus just like Zachaeus did, they all went, but they all stood in the crowd. It's in some ways a little strange to me, because, I don't think that's a bad crowd to be in, ya know? That crowd was all there to see Jesus because either they heard of Him, maybe some of them really loved Him, they were all there to see Jesus yet, we have this one guy, Zachaeus, a well known sinner, putting forth all this effort just look upon Him as He passed by. And I believe that this is a great example how we should be striving to see our Lord as Christians but this also reminds me of one of my favorite lines ever in a movie. It's from God's Not Dead (I know a lot of people didn't like it, I personally didn't like it all that much), It's not out of the Bible so I'm just going to paraphrase, but it's the part where the jerk son visits his dying mother with Alzheimer's and she tells him, That sometimes the Devil allows people to live in a life of sin where they feel like nothing is wrong so that they stay in their sin, but in actuality, they are just paving their way into an eternity of Hell. This is how I feel Zachaeus' live was like before Jesus. I feel like he was just like those of us who didn't get hurt from their sins initially, but then He heard of Jesus, that there was something better for him in Jesus, and so he went to see Him and went beyond these other "Christian" people to see Him because he knew that he needed Him. We all can get very comfortable in our sins, and think we don't need to be working so hard just to see Jesus, we just need to stand in the crowd with the others and heck there are times when we have this annoying little man push us out of the way to get in front of us, to be the first up there, then we watch him climb a tree and we sit there and judge him and murmur at the situation as it says the crowd did in verse 7; but we didn't know the heart of the person "On Fire" for Jesus. How about we all just be the ones on fire for Jesus.

 

I have a lot of friends who are in sin, who are Atheists, who are living "great" lives, who feel they don't need God that they live lives the way they want to because that's all life is. I continue to pray for them, not that they would have to go through some traumatic experience to make a turn around, but that they would realize themselves that Christ is Life and run to Him.

Let Him Guide Your Life

Luke 5:4-6

- "Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake."

This morning, for some reason I truely can't explain, I have been full of joy! Perhaps it was the 10 hours of sleep I had last night, but for whatever reason I'm extremely joyful! With this joy, I stepped out the front door and looked around and what did I see? Well, I saw my God's beautiful creation. How amaizing His work is, how His beauty shows through His masterpiece that we are able to call our home while we are here on earth. How truely blessed we are. So I began to thank Him, for all that He has done, for all that He is doing, and for all that He is going to do, when I realized that I hadn't yet read this morning. So I ran over to my room, grabbed my Bible, picked up where I left off in Luke and read this passage. I was blown away with these verses, especially in relation to what I was just praising Him for, so I just had to write it all down.

I had just sent out a mass SnapChat saying, "following The Lord will take you to places you would have never expected to ever be in." Then I read this, where we see Simon, jsut living his life, doing what he always does, and Jesus walks in and tells Simon to fish as He tells him to. Simon, adresses Him as "Master" which means we can tell he repects Jesus, he knows what He's all about, says, in my own words, "Master look, we've been doing this all night, a million different ways, but you know what, it can't hurt to try." Now before I get into saying what happens next, when I read this passage this morning, I immediatley looked back at my life. While it's not a very long life, I quickly noticed that I tried living my own way a million different ways. I knew Jesus, I knew He was my Master, I knew what He was all about, yet I did my own thing in a sense. Finally I come up to graduation from Highschool, I had been living my way, trying different roads, different paths of life for 17 years now. While for at least the first 10 years of my life I was obviously too young to really go out and rebel against my parents, I was living with the option of obeying them, or not. So now I graduate from Highschool, faced with the "real world," What am I gonna do? I feel The Lord telling me to go to Guatemala with Potter's Field and give a year of my life to Him, or I could stay home, wait a couple years without going to college, and work my butt off, and make some money and do whatever I want with it. I think this was probably the first time in my life where I actually said, "ya know what, moving to guatemala for a year sounds kinda crazy, and I don't even have enough money to do that, but you know what, It can't hurt to listen to the voice of God right? I mean worst comes to worse I won't get accepted into the program right?" So I put the application in, or in Simon's case, cast my net to the side Jesus told me, and now I am amaized with what He has done with just myself and my net. So what happened with Simon and his fishing? He caught so many fish that his net broke and in the next verses it says he had to call his friends over to help pull all the fish in.

In short, all I really wanted to post today was this fact that God will blow your mind all over the room if you would allow Him to. I am reading a book called Real Worship by Warren Wiersby right now. If we would worship our Lord with wonder and amazement, give Him our lives, you will be caught up in a whirl wind of blessings! I am living in Antigua, Guatemala because I cast my net on the other side. I am teaching children english, spreading the Love of Christ, teaching children the Bible, learning Spanish, meeting people from all around the world, and I'm learning so much more than I ever would have if I had just stayed home and worked. Now obviously The Lord works in different ways, this program isn't for everyone, but in whatever you are doing, just the Lord guide you because you have no idea where you might end up!

Going Hard For Christ

Mark 14:3-8-

"And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on His head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. And Jesus said, "Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come a forehand to anoint my body to the burying."

Last Tuesday, a team from Oregan arrived here, and will stay for two weeks. So we decided to hang out with them a little bit and get to know these guys and perhaps encourage them to come to Ignite. Before Kids Club the following day, I was talking with a few of them about the Kids Club program in Antigua. They asked me how many kids usually come to Kids Club, I told them that we don't know, quite frankly it's a little hard for me sometimes because due to some rumored about circumstances, the number of kids went from 150ish to a max of 20. Anyways, the clock struck 1pm and it was time for kids to start arriving. A total of 6 children came that day. Personally I felt embarrised. It was my week to "lead" Kids Club and for what we had planned and the 12 extra college students we had visiting we only had 6 children. Once I started thinking like this I took it to prayer. Simply asking the Lord that He would give me an overflowing amount of Joy to be able to share with these kids. Long story short, we had an amaizing time with these children, and the team had a great time as well. That night, for some reason, a few of us interns decided to join the team with their nightly "wrap up" time. As they went around the circle telling their "highs" and "lows" of the day, it got to me. I asked them if they could be praying for me and my heart as I was feeling down today when I really shouldn't have because the number of children shouldn't matter. After my turn one of the team members said something I won't soon forget. He told me that his highlight of the day was watching me lead songs with the kids that came that day. He told me that because of the joy and excitement that I put forth he could see that what I was doing on that stage was for the Lord, and whether it was for 6 or 600 children I would have done the same thing becasue it was for the Lord. PRAISE GOD TO THAT! Talk about an answered prayer! That day I learned what the Lord was saying to His disciples in this passage. There is nothing better than giving our Lord everything you have. I this woman spared no expence when she anointed our King, so why do we? Looking at it, the Lord gives us talents, He gives us resources and He wants us to use them for His glory. I don't think the discples were wrong in thinking that the ointment should have been sold and then the money given to the poor, but giving what the Lord has blessed us with back to Him shows how much we love; and like His word says, we will be blessed in doing that. It makes me think of the "Gringos" I've talked to here who say that they are here to do volunteer work (contruction, helping at orphan homes, etc.) They are doing a great work, but if the Lord has given them a heart for people, they should be not focusing completely on phyisical help, but spiritual help. If they love the Lord and have a heart for people, use that to bring them back to the Lord. It's my prayer that I will never forgot that when we go all out for the Lord, we will be blessed by that.

Am I Satan?!

Mark 8:33-

"But when He had turned about and looked on His disciples He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, Satan: for you savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men."

Everytime I read about Peter in the Bible, actually, I think this goes for anyone who reads about Peter in the Bible, we look at him and his example and think, wow how is it that this guy can mess up so much. He lives with Jesus everyday, and claims to love Him, yet we see him falling short in many different areas. He knows what's right, and he knows what wrong, so why is it that we see him doing the wrong so many times? I mean The Lord told him that He was going to use him to be the foundation of the church, how is it that he was so love by God and yet messed up so much and was even, like we saw in this passage, called Satan!

If there is anyone I would hate to be called Satan by, it would have to be Jesus, not simply for the reason that He is my Lord and Savior and I would hate to have God mad at me, but because He has actually had face to face experiences with the devil, He actually has been around Satan and knows how disgustingly wicked he is. Know I'm not saying that we have no idea how wicked Satan is, but just holding on to the simple truth that Christ knows all, I think He knows a whole lot more about the devil than anyone else. But let's take a look here, why does He call Peter Satan? Jesus says because "you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." This stopped me for a minute, because this would qualify me as Satan. Jesus says in the next verse that "whoever will come after me must deny himself; take up his cross and follow me." If we are wanting to be a follower of Christ we cannot be holding on to anything that is of the world. The Lord will bless us if we walk with Him, whether that is a physical blessing or not, we will be blessed.

Now let's look back at Peter's walk with The Lord, I mean, my walk with The Lord. Because I do walk with The Lord. There isn't much difference in Jesus physically being in a room and Him being there spiritually. We like to think so, but if you think about it, Jesus was on the earth, and man was still wicked. So when we sit here and say, "man those guys where so lucky! They actually walked and talked with Jesus! It must have so much easier to faith in Him!" We are just talking nonsense because He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. He was with us then, now, and will always be just the same. Anyways, my walk with The Lord, which could simply be put as knowing what was right and what was wrong and doing what was wrong. Pretty much reminds me of Peter. Pridefully I say that, you know I have my moments when all I wanted was Christ, and I lived for Him in those moments. But my pride is quickly squashed when I think back to what I said and respond to myself with, "Moments Jonny? Really? Moments?" I have failed countless amounts of times and just like we see here in the life of Peter, it happens right after I do something out of faith for The Lord. So what is my point, what am I trying to get at. Honestly it's this simple truth, that we cannot possibly grow closer than we are to Christ and still hold on to some sort of garbage that we want to keep from the world. There are going to come times in everyone's walk with The Lord when you are going to be in a place where it's one thing, or the other. The world or Christ. I pray that we will continue to pursue Christ in those times.

　

What Are We Holding On To?

Mark 6:7-9 -

"And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse; but be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats."

Being followers of Christ, whether it be at home or out in a foreign country, we know that we are all called to die to our selfish needs and be like Christ to others. While this passage speaks to me during my circumstances of being on a small team sent out from a bigger team onto a foreign mission field, this passage also applies to couples, families, kids in highschool; any Christians life really, considering that darkness is all around us, we are called to constantly be lights in this world. Here Chirst sends out His disciples in I guess we can call it, small groups. Before sending them out, He gives them power over the unclean spirits. Here we see that when we are going out into this world we need walk in the power of Chirst. We need to be faithful to recieve His power, that He wants to bestow upon us. If we know the fact that with Chirst all things are possible, then we should understand that without Christ, nothing is possible. While there are "good" people in this world, who love others, who go out and do volunteer work at hospitals and retirement homes, who take care of the homeless and the orphans, if they are not doing it for Christ, it will amount to nothing at the end of their lives. Continueing on in this passage, after He gives them His power, He tells them that they should take nothing with them but a staff and sandals and the clothes on their backs. After I read this, I quickly remembered that our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He tells them to keep a staff on them; do we know anyone who has used a staff because the Lord told them to? Here Christ is telling them what they need; shirt, pants sandals, staff and Him. God did amaizing things through men in the Old Testiment, and while I don't want to make extreme assumtions, I feel like most of these men had clothes, a staff, and God. Now I'm not saying that we need to all go out and buy staffs, but the picture here is very clear to me that all we need to serve Christ and to survive in this world is our clothes, our shoes our Lord, and what He has given us to use for His glory. While we all have spiritual gifts, we all have phyiscal gifts that we can use every day to bring glory to our Father, thats why He gave us these gifts in the first place. Like I said before, Our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomrrow, so if He told Joshua that He has given him every place that the sole of his foot will tread upon, and He has told us to not worry about what we will eat or wear because He feeds the foul of the air and He clothes the grass of the field, He will take care of us if we would allow Him to.

I will pray in the mornings that I will use the gifts God has given me to the fullest of my abilities!

The Lord Appoints Posistions In Ministry

Mark 5:19 & 43-           
        

          "Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, "Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee"; And He charged       them straitly that no man should know it..."

As we all probably know, or at least can tell, there are many different roles or aspects that take part in the ministry. One thing that I, personally, have always dealt with, was the issue with asking God, "Why is that person in that posistion," or "Why am I not doing that?" When I was in, I believe, 10th grade, the youth pastor who had been teaching the newly developed middleschool/highschool aged teens, stepped down from his postition. I still have no idea why he stepped down, perhaps because he had been fed up with our immaturity, but when he stepped down, the senor pastors 19 year old son began to take over. Now, while I didn't know him personally, I knew enough about him to know that I didn't like him, and to know that when he and my older brother where in school together, he wasn't exactly the nicest kid around. Now, I am supposed to look up and respect this person who, in my mind, didn't have the best reprutation? wrong. At least thats what I told myself. Honestly, while he was still a student in the youth group I couldn't stand this kid. He was always so prideful in everything we seemed to do. The first year the youth group performed at our Chirstmas program, I couldn't stand how much this kid wanted to do everything up front on stage. He also became the worship leader, and once again I began to see this self centered attitude in the way he performed. One summer, the youth went to California for a Youth Camp. While there, he and I butted heads so much we could've given eachother comas; but it was probably after that year when I felt God tell me, "Jonathan, you know this to be true... that nobody wins with a headbutt." While that may sound a little silly, it made me ask, Why am I continuously butting heads with this guy? Why have I seemed to purposefully set it on my heart to do this? I needed a heart change. So I asked Him for it, and He gave it to me. Now, Nate has been leading our youth group for 3 or 4 years now, is married, and has done amazing things for our Church and our community, because he had listened to God. We don't know why God asks us to do some things. We don't know why He tells some to go and be a witness, and others to stay at home, but the truth is, we don't have to know. It's His plan and we need to obey whatever He tells us to do. He has something planned for everyone, so when He tells you to be a witness, be that witness for Him; and when He tells you to stay at home, you stay because He told you to.

Faith Can Move The Mountains We Need To Overcome

Matthew 21:21-

"And Jesus answered them and said unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, if you have fatih, and doubt not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if you shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done'."

As this is the start of our first week of our feild time here in Guatemala, I can already see the enemy trying to attack in anyway he can, whether it be from sickness, or just the smallest things like making the decision on which board game to play. Of course the last thing we as a team want is any kind of division among ourselves, however as every team who has gone before has told us, "You are going to get tired, you are going to rub one another wrongly, and there will be times when you do not get along with eachother as a team." Yesterday while out into to town I joking brought up that fact, saying that we should start hating eachother now, that way we can spend the last four months learning to love eachother and end on a high note. However, after making that comment I remembered Philippians 4:12-13- "I know how to be abased and I know how to abound, in everywhere and in all things I haved learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And then it hit me; I don't know what will come ahead and I don't know exactly what the other teams went through, but I need to know that whatever is going to come my way, that If I trust on my God, Christ, that He will lead me on the straight an narrow path and I will not wander astray, and if we all (Team Guat.) are trusting in Christ, putting 100% of our faith in Him, giving Him our all, we will never fall of the path He has set before us, and the firey darts from Satan will not be an issue. The Bible says that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can tell a mountain to go for a swim and it will. I'm paraphrazing of course, but this is one of the many things that I know the Lord is going to teach me during my time on the field, the concept of having true faith in Him. I believe it starts with this team He has placed me in to be apart of.

Encourage my team in this truth. Let's be a team who keeps Christ first, not just as head knowledge.