I Know God Is Able To Do It; But Is He Willing? (Daily Devotion)

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

Matthew 8:1-4

Think of the 4-5 most powerful people on the planet. These people have unparalleled authority. These people have unmatched power to get things done. Who comes to mind? Is it Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos? Is it President Donald Trump? What about Russian President Vladimir Putin? All of these men are incredibly powerful and have unsurpassed authority. But here is the question: With such power and authority, can you picture any of them stooping down to the lowest of the low?

This isn’t a dig at any of them but rather just an observation. We rarely think of the most powerful people as those who stoop down to the lowly. Take a look at Matthew 8:1-4. Up to this point in Matthew, Jesus has been seen as the greater Moses, the Divine Warrior, and the King of the already/not yet kingdom. Matthew has painted a picture of Jesus as not merely a man but God in the flesh. This person is unusual. He is unrivaled. He is at the top of all authority and power.

Mountain Theology

In Matthew 5-7, Jesus has just finished preaching the now-famous “Sermon on the Mount”. In 8:1, it says that Jesus “came down from the mountain”. Why would it say this? Surely Matthew isn’t wasting words here. So, if he isn’t, then why does he want us to be reminded that Jesus is coming down from the mountain?

Did you know that there is such a thing as mountain theology? Mountains play a crucial part in the Old and New Testament. Mountains represent the presence of God. Think about the Garden of Eden that was on a mountain. Think about Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. These high and lifted up places have always been where we have seen God’s glory.

Listen to what biblical scholar T. Desmond Alexander says: “The concept of God living on a holy mountain is a significant theme in the Old Testament. However, this same theme frames the entire Bible.” The theme is that our God is high and lifted up. There is no one so glorious and great as our God! And here is what’s awesome, God’s plan is for His people to dwell on His mountain with Him. God wants us to be in His presence. God desires to glorify His people and redeem them from their sin. That’s why the Bible begins on a mountain and ends on a mountain. Have you ever noticed that?

So, how does this relate to Matthew 8? Jesus, God in the flesh, has just gotten done proclaiming the law of the kingdom on the mountain. Does this remind you of something from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy (Hint: see Exodus 19-20)? Matthew is saying that the same God who proclaimed the Law from the mountain in the Old Testament is the same God in the flesh here. Jesus is no ordinary man. Jesus is Yahweh in human flesh!

Mountains and Mr. Clean

Because the mountain represents God’s holy presence, it means that the mountain also represents purity and cleanliness. Everything unclean cannot dwell on the mountain in God’s presence. Now, this is where it gets REALLY cool! In Exodus, God speaks from the mountain. At the end of Exodus, God tells Moses to build a tabernacle. The tabernacle becomes the “mobile version” of the mountain. In other words, it’s where God’s holy presence is.

So, in Leviticus (the next book after Exodus) God speaks to Moses from within the tent of meeting (the “mobile mountain”). In Leviticus 13, God tells Moses about what they should do with people with leprosy. Twenty-one different times (21!!!), God tells Moses that people with leprosy are unclean. Here is what this meant for them. Because they were “ceremonially unclean”, people with leprosy had to stay away from the “clean” people. God told Moses in Leviticus 13:45 that if people with leprosy went in public that they had to cry out “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn people to stay out of the way. Could you imagine having to do that for a long time? This wasn’t a disease that was easily healed. People who got it were those who would be socially shamed by others.

“OK, Wilson. What in the world are you talking about?” Wait for it. This is so cool! Jesus, the Holy One who speaks from the mountain, is now coming down the mountain to a man with leprosy. Jesus (aka Mr. Clean himself), approaches someone unclean.

I wonder if you feel your uncleanliness. Do you see the depths of your depravity? Do you understand how dirty and shameful your sin really is? If we’re honest, we’re spiritual lepers. In God’s presence, we should have to go around saying, “Unclean! Unclean!” We don’t deserve to dwell with the God of the Mountain. We are unholy and He is Holy, Holy, Holy (Is. 6:3). Did you notice that the word “clean” or “cleansed” was used three times in this short section in Matthew 8:1-4?

So, what’s Jesus going to do? Do you see the tension here? This guy doesn’t deserve Jesus to respond to him. Jesus doesn’t have to approach him. But, He does!

Mr. Clean and Mr. Unclean

Look what the leper asks Jesus. “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” Do you notice what he’s saying? He calls Jesus “Lord”. This leper is recognizing that Jesus is not merely a man. He is more than just a man! But then he says something else. “Lord, I know you’re powerful enough to clean me but I’m not sure if you are willing to clean me. I know you’re able to do it but I’m not sure if you really want to come near someone as unclean as I am.”

Haven’t you and I been here before? It’s easy to think about God’s power and even His sovereignty at times but it’s often harder to believe in His goodness, His compassion, and His desire to help us. Don’t our cries often sound like this: “Lord, I know you’re powerful enough to provide for me but I’m not sure if you are willing. Lord, I know that you are powerful enough to forgive me of my sins but I’m not sure if you are willing. Lord, I know that you are powerful enough to turn this past mistake into some form of redemption but I struggle to believe that you’re willing.”

So, what does Jesus do? Look at v3. This is wild! Jesus reaches out His hand and TOUCHES the leper! “Jesus! You’re not supposed to do that!” But, He does. And notice how Jesus responds. “I am willing; be clean.” Why didn’t Jesus just say, “Be clean”? Why did He have to also say that He is willing?

Jesus wanted to grow this man’s faith. The man had unbelief in Jesus’ willingness to stoop down to the lowly. He saw Jesus as Lord and someone of God-sized authority and power but he doubted that Jesus would want to take His time with someone as small and unclean as a leper. So, what does Jesus do? Jesus not only touches the leper but also speaks to him. Jesus shows him that He is more willing to stoop down low than anyone could ever imagine.

Jesus is like no one else! Jesus is simultaneously the Sovereign King and also our Compassionate Savior. Jesus is the Divine Warrior who fights the strongest enemy and He is also the Prince of Peace who goes to the lowest of the low. Don’t you see how different and amazing Jesus is? No one is like Him!

Jesus really cleansed this guy. There were eyewitnesses and everything! There was no denying that this happened. There was only a matter of how they would respond to Him in light of this happening. It’s the same with us. We must respond in faith in our all-powerful, all-compassionate King. We must trust that God is not only able but He is also willing. The reason why this moment in history is recorded in Holy Scripture is that God wants you to trust that He is the most willing person to cleanse you! The God of the Mountain is also the one who comes down the mountain to transform us.

So, What?

Take all your sin and shame to Jesus. Take all of your failures and faults to God. The Holy One deeply desires to cleanse you. The greatest yearning that you have to be cleansed doesn’t compare in the slightest to God’s desire to cleanse you.

But, how does He do this? He does this by coming down the Mountain into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Jesus came to die. Jesus came to be declared unclean so that we might be able to cry out “Clean! Clean!” If you’re a Christian, you stand in cleanliness because of the Cross and Resurrection. Not only that; you are also being practically cleansed as you walk in faith.

There is nothing in the Christian that will remain unclean. All of your life will be cleansed and you will be brought home to the Mountain. That’s your destiny because Jesus took your place! This is what Matthew wants us to see. This is the Jesus that Matthew proclaims to us. He is simultaneously the Holy One of the Mountain and also the Suffering Servant who shows compassion to the unclean. Now that’s a Savior you can trust in these times and any other time!

Should Christians Feel Guilty All the Time? (Kevin DeYoung)

This article is one that was written in 2016 but the power of the gospel still speaks in this short blog. This blog greatly helped my own heart especially when feeling the guilt and shame of past mistakes that can go back as far as 10-15 years ago. So, for those of you who struggle with something similar, maybe this excerpt will help you too:

1. We don’t fully embrace the good news of the gospel. We forget that we have been made alive together with Christ. We have been raised with him. We have been saved through faith alone. And this is the gift of God, not a result of works (Eph. 2:4-8). Let us not be afraid to embrace the lavishness of God’s grace.

2. Christians tend to motivate each other by guilt rather than grace. Instead of urging our fellow believers to be who they are in Christ, we command them to do more for Christ (see Rom. 6:5-14). So we see Christlikeness as something we are royally screwing up, when we really should see it as something we already possess but need to grow into.

3. Most of our low-level guilt falls under the ambiguous category of “not doing enough.” Look at the list above. None one of the items is necessarily sinful. They all deal with possible infractions, perceptions, and ways in which we’d like to do more. These are the hardest areas to deal with because no Christian, for example, will ever confess to praying enough. So it is always easy to feel terrible about prayer (or evangelism or giving or any number of disciplines). We must be careful that we don’t insist on a certain standard of practice when the Bible merely insists on a general principle.

For example, every Christian must give generously and contribute to the needs of the saints (2 Cor. 9:6-11; Rom. 12:13). This we can insist on with absolute certainty. But what this generosity looks like–how much we give, how much we retain–is not bound by any formula, nor can it be exacted by compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7). So if we want people to be more generous we would do well to follow Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians and emphasize the blessings of generosity and the gospel-rooted motivation for generosity as opposed to shaming those who don’t give as much.

For the full blog, click here.

Don't Forget to Remember that God Remembers and God Forgets

Tomorrow is the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath. God commands us in the fourth commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Every time we gather around the Lord’s table we hear the same language: “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). Indeed, a large swath of Christian practice can be summed up under the word “remember.” We are to remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to Paul’s gospel (II Timothy 2:8). At the Lord’s supper we remember that He is the Son of God and the son of Abraham and David. We remember that He died for our sins and rose again for our justification and sits at God’s right hand as the King of kings ruling over all things for the good of His church, even sicknesses, wars, persecution, economic struggles. We are to remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them (Numbers 15:39-40). We are to remember our former state in slavery to sin (Deuteronomy 5:15; Ephesians 2:11-12). We are to remember the Lord our God and all the way the Lord has led us (Deuteronomy 8:2, 18). We are to remember the marvelous works that He has done (Psalm 105:5). We are to remember Lot’s wife and avoid her worldliness (Luke 17:32). Psalm 103:2 tells us not to forget all God’s benefits. We’re eleven days into a new year, but it’s still not too late to remember how God was with us in 2019, through the easy times and the hard times, and bless Him with all that is within us.

But if we’re honest, we know how prone we are to forgetting. So how do we remember to remember? One way is by remembering that the Bible teaches that God remembers and that God forgets. Psalm 103:14 tells us that God “knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Obviously, when the Bible speaks of God remembering or not remembering, it’s accommodating itself to human speech and human modes of being. There is no past or future with the great I AM, only an ever-present now. When the Psalmist tells us that God remembers that we are dust, he means that God takes notice of our mortality and is mindful of our infirmities, and deals gently with us. How easy it is for us to forget that we are but dust, or to not keep in mind the infirmities of others as we deal with them! But God remembers our frailty and hears our cries for help. Indeed, if He did so before the incarnation, how much more after it, when the Son of God took to Himself human frailty and weakness, and knows intimately what it is to be dust.

God remembers, and He also forgets. Jeremiah 31:34 tells us that in the new covenant, because of the blood of Jesus, God remembers our sins and lawless deeds no more – that is, He forgets them all, when we believe in Jesus Christ. Again, it’s not that God has dementia – but He deliberately does not bring our sins to remembrance when He deals with us. Psalm 103 puts it this way: “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (103:12). Isaiah 38:17 tells us that He casts all our sins behind His back. Isaiah 44:22 says He has wiped out our transgressions like the sun burning away the thick fog. Micah 7:19 says that He has cast them into the depths of the sea. And He has done this through the cross of Jesus Christ. In Jesus God remembered our sins. In Jesus east and west meet. In Jesus our sins are right in God’s face. In Jesus our sins are the thickest cloud you’ve ever seen. In Jesus our sins are the heaviest anchor, and He bears them all upon His back, suffering the punishment that we deserve. Salvation is free for us, but only because Jesus paid for it at the cost of His life. I love how our Westminster Larger Catechism puts it in question 71: “Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in the behalf of them that are justified; yet inasmuch as God accepts the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them, and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace.”

And so as this new year begins, don’t forget to remember that God remembers and that God forgets. He remembers that you are dust. And He forgets all our sins. He does both supremely in the person and work of His Son. As you remember these two things, you’ll be enabled more and more to remember everything else that God calls you to remember.  

Elizabeth Holmes and Our Need For Repentance

If you have found yourself in a conversation with me in the past two weeks, there’s a good chance I’ve brought up the Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos story. After listening to an 11 hour audiobook and a six episode podcast about her rise and fall in silicon valley, I’ve asked myself why I’m so intrigued by this story. If you haven’t listened to me ramble on about it and you’re asking yourself, “Who in the world is Elizabeth Holmes?” here’s a quick summary:

Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos' founder and CEO, dropped out of Stanford University at age 19 to launch Theranos in 2003 as a cheaper, more efficient alternative to traditional blood testing. After serious allegations about the legitimacy of the company’s technology, Theranos’ valuation of $9 billion collapsed, and Holmes along with a former COO were indicted on federal fraud charges in June 2018. The podcast (The Dropout) and book (Bad Blood) seek to tell the story of Elizabeth’s demise through first hand accounts of former employees, investors, and journalists.

Now, I’m about to ask something from you. Instead of hearing this story and thinking, “Wow what a shame someone could go to such great lengths just for money and fame,” I want you to ask yourself, “In what areas of my life am I like Elizabeth Holmes?”

Sin has a sneaky way of revealing itself to us when we have gone much too far than we ever intended. The World, The Flesh, and The Devil want us to think we are doing just fine until suddenly we are in uncharted waters wondering how we got so far from shore. Listening to Elizabeth’s story has made me reflect on where she went wrong, and how we can apply steps in our lives to keep our souls from going where we never intended on going in the first place.

1) You cannot serve two masters - Elizabeth’s technology was a healthcare device that would give blood test results. The catch was, it never worked consistently well, and she knew it. In some very real instances, this caused patients to take medical care steps for illnesses they didn’t even have. Elizabeth put the money she would gain from partners and investors before the lives of patients.

We cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:24) just like she could not serve money and patients. The Bible makes this so clear through several parables spoken by Jesus (Luke 16:13). We must rely on the Lord for our provision and sustenance - our daily bread (Matt 6:11). When we serve money over God, we are serving an idol made in the image of man. When have you treated others in a sinful way because the stake of money was in the balance?

2) Put yourself around others who will hold you accountable - Elizabeth ran a company of 700 employees including scientists and researchers who were working on her technology. There was very high turnover of employees. Why? When someone would question the product or the process of the technology, they were fired. If someone suggested the quality control was skewed, they were fired. She didn’t want to hear someone tell her she was running her business unethically. Elizabeth may not be facing criminal charges today if she took some of these critiques to heart and slowed down the roll out of her devices to stores.

We must not run away from loving and wise rebuke (1 John 1:8-10). When we only surround ourselves with friends who “only lift us up and ‘support’ us” and not those who love us too much to leave us in our sin, we are not pursuing holiness and will find ourselves in very deep sinful patterns before we realize they even started.

Elizabeth convinced herself, along with many others, that she was doing a revolutionary work for humanity while in reality she was lying about the legitimacy of her device in order to keep cash flowing. Have you sought a seemingly good end through self-justified sinful behavior? Have you closed off relationships that convicted you about a certain sinful behavior?

3) We must have a repentant heart - Elizabeth still hasn’t pleaded guilty to defrauding investors. According to a former employee, he saw Elizabeth this past January and she didn’t apologize or even act like there was a wrong doing on her end for his firing. It is also alleged she is pursuing another technology venture while she is still on trial for her time at Theranos.

When we see our sin, it is the grace of God and the Holy Spirit that gives us eyes to see and brings us to our knees with a contrite heart (again, see 1 John 1:8-10). When we have this posture, we can come to the ones we’ve hurt and ask for forgiveness (Matt 6:14-15). We can do this because we have seen that we have fallen so short of the glory of God, yet he still pursues a relationship with us and still covers us with his mercy. This allows us to battle our sin patterns and have freedom from them - the freedom you can only receive through being In Christ (Rom 8:1).

It is one thing if we sin and then quickly come to the Lord through repentance, but it is another thing if we live in a perpetual sinful pattern with no returning to the Lord with a contrite heart. Is there something in your life that you are living in sinful bondage to? Have you sinned against God and others and have yet to reconcile either? Do not hope that time will fix all, but run to the cross where mercy is given.

So what was Elizabeth missing that we could be missing too?

What draws many of us to stories like Elizabeth’s is that we think this could never happen to us. That we are so separated from this story that it is entertainment. We may never defraud investors of upwards of 700 million dollars in our lifetime, but we may slip into a sin pattern that leaves irreparable damage to relationships, jobs, or even the view of all Christians to others. But lift up your faces, there is good news for us and even for Elizabeth Holmes if the Holy Spirit lifts the veil from over her eyes:
No matter how small or big our sin may feel or look, God is Bigger. God is Sovereign. God is Merciful. God is Just. He has known before time every sin you will ever commit, and Jesus paid for every bit of it on the Cross (John 19:30). He knew you intimately before the beginning of time, and still chose to love you like He loves his perfect son (Eph 1:11). Will you take this love over Money? Over Power? Over an Affair? Over Comfort?