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There are a couple events in the life of Jesus Christ (and how they are connected) that are very intriguing to me.
The first is Jesus' Baptism. Of course Jesus' immersion and arising out of the waters mimic and foreshadow his death, burial and resurrection.
Immediately after this figurative resurrection Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and temptation.
The second is Jesus’ actual death, burial and resurrection. In which he, immediately upon his resurrection, spends another (but different) 40 days demonstrating his power over death. Hooray!
Of course all of this is an example for us. Nothing happens by accident in the scriptures. Let me take a swing at this.
When Christians figuratively die and enter the waters of baptism it symbolizes our death to sin and our old way of life. We arise out of the waters brand new people… squeaky clean.
Immediately we become Satan’s number one enemy but as we learned from Jesus (during the 40 days in the wilderness) Satan has no power over us. We equip ourselves with the armor of God and go out to rescue as many people as we can from our great enemy... Satan. Also, we no longer rely on physical food but hunger for that true spiritual food that only God can provide.
When Christians literally die and are resurrected… like Christ... we are no longer tempted by Satan… he is out of our lives for eternity. Our fight is over. We gather with all the others of humanity who have conquered death and clothed with immortality we witness to “principalities and the powers in Heaven” the marvelous wisdom of God.
Here’s the thing… we can’t experience the good things associated with our literal death until we experience our figurative death… baptism. Don’t neglect or trivialize baptism.
“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.” Deut. 22:5
Here’s an interesting Old Testament verse. It says that we shouldn’t wear clothing of the opposite sex. I don’t think that means women shouldn’t wear pants or that Scot’s shouldn’t wear kilts. What I do think it means is that a woman shouldn’t try to look like a man and a man shouldn’t try to look like a woman.
But wait a minute… some might say… that’s the Old Covenant and that verse doesn’t apply to us because we live under the New Covenant. Hmmm…
Consider 1 Corinthians 6:9…
“Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men (homosexuals)…”
This verse says men should not be “effeminate”… defined as “having or showing characteristics regarded as typical of a woman; unmanly”
Okay so now we see God wants men to look like men and women should look like women in both Covenants.
In my office we see all kinds of people and more and more frequently I see people who I don’t know what their gender is… not a clue. That kind of behavior is often associated with homosexuality.
Since God “detests” that type of behavior then my advice is to not get caught up in being transgender at any level including your dress and how you present yourselves to others.
If you see young scripturally naïve Christians trying to be “cool” like some of their friends. Please, please, please share with them God’s word on this matter. Who knows you might help them save their souls.
Luke 10:25-37.
In this text a Jewish religious Lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to be saved. Jesus, in part, tells him to “love his neighbor”
The lawyer, of course being a lawyer, tried to justify himself and asked “who is my neighbor”?
Then Jesus tells him the famous parable about the “Good Samaritan”. First let’s identify the characters…
The Priest and the Levite were probably of the Pharisee class. As such they were doctrinally correct. They correctly believed in the afterlife and taught correctly about things like “tithing”.
The Samaritan was doctrinally incorrect… he didn’t worship in the correct place, he only believed in the first five books of the Old Testament, etc.
In this parable the doctrinally correct Priest and Levite ignore the plight on the hapless individual who had been beaten by robbers and was “half dead”. However the doctrinally incorrect Samaritan showed “love to his neighbor” and helped him.
Then Jesus asked the loaded and poignant question to the religious Lawyer… “which one proved to be the neighbor?” The Lawyer correctly answered… the one who showed mercy (the Samaritan).
Keep in mind the question has to do with salvation and Jesus elevates the doctrinally incorrect Samaritan over the doctrinally correct Priest and Levite.
Here’s another story. I know of a congregation who had a member who happened to be the son of the Preacher. This young man got hooked on drugs and while on drugs made several mistakes including evil mistakes and ended up in jail.
To my knowledge no one from his congregation went to visit him in jail. However, a denomination in the same town had a little jail ministry going on and visited this young man in jail and with their help he got clean and repented and had a much greater appreciation for the grace of God.
Here’s my question… which congregation proved to “love his neighbor”?...the one where he grew up or the one he met in jail?
Those are hard questions but here’s a learning point… we need to be correct doctrinally but at some point the rubber has to hit the road and we have to “love our neighbors” no matter what our neighbors have done
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The Pharisees and religious Lawyers had become spiritually elite and spiritually arrogant as if their religious correctness was enough. Well guess what… it wasn’t.
Thank God there are religious people out there who may not have everything figured out (scripturally)… like the Samaritan… but whose hearts are in the right place.
I’ve always wondered when reading the Old Testament how Baal worshippers could sacrifice their own children in their worship of Baal… unless somehow they got something out of it? Like for example they petitioned Baal for rain… sacrificed a child and then it rained.
Paul states (1 Cor. 10:20) that those sacrificing to idols are actually sacrificing to “Demons” or “Devils”.
A-Ha! Baal is really Satan or a minion of Satan.
That begs the question… can Satan do anything beneficial for mankind? If a Baal/Satan worshipper sacrificed a child could Baal/Satan reward that behavior by sending rain or whatever else was requested for the purpose of gaining followers?
During Jesus temptation in the wilderness (Mt. 2:8-9) the Devil offered to give Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if Jesus would fall down and worship him. Presumably Satan could deliver on that promise.
In the Book of Job we find that Satan has great supernatural powers… the power to manipulate the weather, the power to strike with disease, the power to send other people to pillage, etc.
This concept is something very important to realize about Satan… he may do a form of good for people… but at what price?
So before we start getting envious of people who seem to have great lives and seem to have everything going for them… conside this... they might have “sacrificed their babies to Baal” and in so doing… sold their souls to Satan.
