Behold!

Posted on October 31, 2022 by LovingLikeGod.com

The Best View From the Hill

The day He died, Jesus had the best view on the hill.

Among other things He saw that day, He saw His mother standing beside John, “the disciple He loved.”  He gave them to each other that day – John to her as a son, and her to John as a mother.

But the beholding I would like to share about here is our own beholding; what we need to see in connection with the day He died.

Pilate presented Jesus to the crowd and said, “Behold the man.” Jesus was wearing a crown that day.

Many years before that day another king wrote: “Behold …” – Well, perhaps you might want to read it for yourself in Song of Songs 3:11.

While you are there, please note the context beginning with verse 7.

And here are a couple of clues that might help with your own beholding: Jesus said that these Scriptures were all about Him, and, another way of understanding the “Who” in this passage is to remember that king Solomon was also the Son of David.

Jesus began to put the solitary in families even before He died.

-By Jay Ferris, originally published March, 2011

Posted in J.Ferris: The Passion of the Cross | Leave a comment

The Unlimited Liability of Jesus’ Home

Posted on September 26, 2022 by LovingLikeGod.com

rsz_prcas2617
Where the “cost” of following Jesus is concerned, you may remember He once said to a young man who wanted to follow Him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”(1)

Surely, having no place to live is a great cost, so great that most of us can dismiss the idea as not having relevance for us today. In seeming contrast to this verse, however, how many of us noticed that Jesus DID have a home?

“… Jesus … went and lived in Capernaum…”(2)

“When Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (3)

“… They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house…” (4)

Whether or not Jesus or His family owned the house, rented the house, or were more or less extended house guests, it is clear there was a place in Capernaum called “home”, and it apparently included a house.

Now before Jesus went to this location, however, He was in next door Nazareth where He was raised. It was here that He announced His anointed purpose in the local synagogue:

“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up … ”The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (5)

It was after this that Jesus went to the next town, even to the house where He was then living.  And it was here that the man was lowered through the roof.

Broken People Break Things

Jesus’ agenda of bringing the Good News and setting people free was not in an institutional context. His lifestyle, and the lifestyle of the early Church gave evidence God’s heart is not to institutionalize people, but to meet them in their brokenness and transform their lives in a vital community of faith. Jesus brought His work home with Him, and one consequence of this was the roof of the house where He was staying was torn off.

“Institutional ministry” by its very nature is “limited liability ministry.” The ministry of Jesus was unlimited liability. Where having a “place to worship” is concerned, an unlimited liability mindset is one which does not claim even bird’s nests or fox holes. It is capable of occupation without possession or grasping.

Our point for present purposes is to see how having a home does not disqualify us from following Jesus. The important thing is our attitude about the things we possess, and most poignantly the place where we live. If our homes are going to be available for Jesus to occupy, then we must face the cost. Jesus wants to accomplish His purpose “from house to house.” This means opening our homes, our families, and our lives to poor, broken and oppressed people; and broken people break things. In their desperation they, and/or their friends, have even been known to even tear roofs off.

Are we ready for this? Are we ready for unlimited liability? Or would we prefer to go on touching lives at the relatively safe distance of our institutional programs, churches, and buildings?  I need to confess that I do not lose much sleep contrasting my own ministry to that others, that of Mother Teresa, for instance. My problems of conscience come from what I am doing or not doing in my own home.

Having flirted with His purpose in the past, it is clear that isolated individuals and families are quickly overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and the world’s response to even limited success. As a result there are more broken people than even semi-sold-out saints can handle. Making the effort, one quickly discovers why in so many cases, those who take the Lord seriously do so by appointment, someplace else, and for earthly compensation.

It is still my hope that a vital community of faith could both risk, and actually walk in the heart of Jesus.

Isn’t it time for the nets, torn by our institutions, to be mended, and the limits of liability be removed from the Church? Isn’t it time for “church” to cease being something that we do someplace else?

  1. MAT 8:19,20, 2. MAT 4:12,13, 3. MAR 2:1-5, 4. MAR 9:33, 5. LUK 4:16-24

Jay Ferris,  2/14/91

Posted in J.Ferris: New Releases, Jay Ferris Writings | 3 Comments

Fighting the Wild Beasts of Ephesus

Posted on August 8, 2022 by LovingLikeGod.com

Recently I was impressed with a question:

What does it mean that is written,

“And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome
them” ? Revelation 13:7

That was the question, and the following passages came to mind as I
wrestled with God for an answer:

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may
reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  Genesis 11:4

“Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they
want is to alienate you [from us], so that you may be zealous for them.”
Galatians 4:17

Here the beast, (man as Satan’s agent) was given power to make war against the saints, and to overcome them.  How can this be, since the saints are “more than conquerors” in Christ?  Surely the “new man” cannot be defeated by the beast.  It must, therefore be the “old man.”  The “new man” reigns with Christ, but to do so, he must first be “beheaded.”  How can Christ be our head, if we still have our old one?  So Satan is in the business of beheading the “old man.”  As it was with Christ, so it is with us, if he had known the result, “he never would have crucified the Lord of Glory.”  The beast can only do what Satan empowers him to do, and he only says what Satan says…This war against the saints is Satan’s idea. Whose idea was it to build the tower of Babel? It was Satan’s idea.  They did it because they thought that they would be scattered if they didn’t have a name and a building. It was a variation on the same lie that the serpent told the woman in the Garden.

It was the wrong name and the wrong building. It has something to do with builders. It does not say, “the stone that some of the builders rejected…” Jesus is the stone that all of the builders reject, because it is either His building or theirs. He is the only one who can build His building. All man can do is submit as building material or mess it up when we try to help. As soon as we build anything, we have something to lose, and so we compromise.

The war against the saints is a war against God’s building. God builds with living stones, and He builds by placing them in right relationship with one another. It is right relationship under God that is the focus of the beast’s attack or warfare against us. “And because iniquity abounds, the love of most will grow cold.”  It is the Love of Christ that binds us together in right relationship. Iniquity is a weapon against love.

If we claim to be lovers but have not love, we are dead meat. And if the love we have is not God’s kind of love, (i.e. the love redefined at the cross) then our love cannot overcome iniquity. The “old man” is incapable of God’s kind of love. Only the “new man” of Christ in us is capable of a love that is “more than a conqueror” in the face of iniquity. The beast has power to make war against the saints, and overcome them, when the saints muddle through with the wrong kind of love. We must be beheaded of that muddle-headed kind of love, and the beast, inspired and energized by Satan, is God’s instrument for the completion of that task. It is the task of the cross, and He who began this work in us, will finish it in us.

Relationships that come from God are the enemy of Satan, and the builders are his agents against such relationships. They make war against relationships that come from God. You have heard that the beast is coming, even now many beasts have come. What else could Paul be talking about, that he “fought wild beasts at Ephesus”? 1 Corinthians 15:32.

If our being one, “as Jesus and The Father are one,” is the way He has chosen and prayed “that the world may know..,”, then our loving one another in that oneness is the greatest possible threat to Satan.  It is no wonder that the builders do everything possible to alienate us from Christ in each other. They want us to be zealous for them and their buildings.

In my experience, the war is horrendous.

By Jay Ferris

P.S. “The Wild Beasts of Ephesus” … That is where they tested them that say they are apostles, wasn’t it?? :-)

Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | 1 Comment