Following Jesus

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My Bible reading this morning was about the conversion of a Roman Centurion. He was a most unlikely candidate to become a follower of Jesus (the term Christian was not used at that time, but that was what he became).

Roman Centurions (I am generalising now) were usually battle hardened, professional, cynical, no nonsense type of people. Faith in the unseen or putting your trust in someone else was not how they normally operated unless, of course, it was obeying their commanding officer. They usually liked to be in control, pragmatic and deal in realities i.e. things that could be seen, touched and controlled. Maybe you are like that and quite cynical about spiritual matters.

Before I talk about Cornelius, that was his name, let me tell you about another Centurion. The Gospel writer, Matthew, tells us about him. Jesus had just arrived in Capernaum when a group of men from a synagogue approached him asking him to come to this unnamed Centurion’s house to heal his servant who was dying. There are a couple of things that are unusual about this story (read it in Luke 7:1-10 or Matthew 8:5-13). 

Money could keep you out of heaven!

 

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Suggested Bible Reading for today - Mark 10:1-27

Life is busy, time is money, and there are many questions on my mind. Meet the man who thought money could buy everything!

His question was – ‘What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’ The key to the man’s question are the words ‘do’ and ‘inherit’. He was a self-made man; everything he had achieved resulted from what he had done. He probably had worked hard for everything he had. He thought of eternal life as something he could inherit. An inheritance is wealth that someone has worked hard to accumulate, and the people who inherit it have a right to it. He wants eternal life, but he doesn’t understand that you don’t get it the way you get wealth and possessions. 

The Lord checks his life out against the Ten Commandments. The man reckons he has scored ok on this one (remember, this is his evaluation, not God’s). At this stage, we read a touching comment – ‘then Jesus beholding him loved him,’ v.21. Then the Lord touches a raw nerve in the man’s life. He says to the man, who has everything, you lack one thing, so ‘sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me,' Mark 10.21 NKJV. The Lord Jesus is not telling him that the act of selling up and giving to the poor will save him. He says that money and possessions were his idols (ours may be other things) and that he needs to deal with the thing that keeps him from following Christ. He must also obey the rest of the command, i.e. ‘take up the cross, and follow’. 

Thankfully, money and possessions did not keep me from salvation, but they could keep me from living for Him, taking up the cross and following Him.

 

Forgiveness and Restoration

The title of the psalm makes it clear that this psalm was written at the time when Nathan visited David ‘after he had gone in to Bathsheba’. David has sinned by sleeping with another man’s wife and murdering her husband by proxy. He is in desperate need of forgiveness and restoration. This is probably the most classic of all the penitential psalms. In it we are given a clear view of the route we need to go down, after sinning, if we are going to have our relationship with God restored.

Forgiveness - how far does it reach?

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One day Jesus told a story comparing the kingdom of heaven to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants by calling in all his debts.  As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to Him. In those days that was a considerable chunk of money, the equivalent of about £20 million. We’re not sure exactly how he ran up this kind of debt but it’s clear that he would never be able to repay the king.  So since he couldn’t pay the debt, the king ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had, had to be sold to repay the debt.” The king knew he could never recoup all his losses - he just wanted to get back whatever he could.

At this point, the servant did what most of us would have done. He fell on his knees and said, “Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything.” Even though he could never pay it back, he is now desperate. He cannot stand the thought of his family being sold because of the debt he ran up.  The king was moved. The Bible says that he was filled with compassion. And, he does something the man does not even ask for. The king not only releases him, he also forgives the debt. This is at great personal cost to the king. By assuming the debt, he allowed it to go unpaid and thus impoverished his treasury. He wiped the slate clean, erased the books, and cancelled the debt. Now the man owed him nothing.   

This is exactly what forgiveness is all about. To forgive is to cancel the debt. When we’ve wronged someone, and they choose to forgive us, they are in essence saying, “I cancel the debt. The slate has been wiped clean. You do not owe me anything - I release you from ever having to pay me back.” Now it is quite clear that the servant did not deserve this forgiveness; it was purely an act of grace and mercy on the part of the king. 

We are a lot like the man in the story that Jesus told. We stand before a holy God with our sins piled up higher than Mount Everest.  Our sins are like a £20 million debt that we can never repay. And yet, out of compassion for our moral predicament, and motivated by His love and grace, God sent His Son Jesus to pay off our spiritual debts.

We all need Divine forgiveness today.  We need to come face to face with God, own our sin, and then asked Him for release? We need to do it, if we have not already done so - forgiveness is our deepest need and God’s highest achievement. Admitting our sins to a holy God is the way to receive His forgiveness? If we have not done so, now is the right time. The cost of our sins is more than we can pay, but the gift of our God is more than we can imagine. 

Repentance is the key to being forgiven.  In the Bible book of Proverbs we learn that “he that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whosoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." If we can confess it, we  can be forgiven of it! It does not matter what we have done, if we turn to God and confess our sins, He will forgive us of ALL unrighteousness... that includes anything we have done, that we are willing to bring before Him! So remember today, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness."

Produced by Messages with Meaning and published by 542day - with permission