Tag: Jesus

A Love Story: Life Sustaining Water

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date October 2, 2012

In a love story, culturally distant and a bit strange to us, Jacob is enamored by the fetching Rachel.

In an act of service, to garner her attention, he rolls away a stone from the mouth of a well to provide life-sustaining water for her sheep. It works and she becomes his bride.

In another love story, also culturally distant and a bit strange, Jesus, in an act of service sacrifices himself for those he loves.

Three days later Jesus is resurrected and an angel rolls away the stone that sealed his tomb, effectively providing living water for his sheep; that would be us. It works and symbolically we become his bride.

The water is provided as an act of love. We drink the water to accept the love.

[Genesis 29:10, Matthew 28:2, and Mark 16:1-6]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

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Tags bride, Jacob, Jesus, Rachel

Bible Insights

How Do You Earn Eternal Life?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date September 27, 2012

In the Bible, it was common for Jesus to invite people to follow him. That’s simple enough. Anyone can do that. Does this give them eternal life?

But sometimes Jesus would give a different instruction. For example, he told one very wealthy man to give away all his money and possessions, not ten percent, not half, not even 90 percent, but all.

That’s not so simple or so easy.

Some people assume this means the man was putting his trust in his money and as long as he trusted money, he could never fully trust Jesus.

I get that and agree with that: anything that’s more important to us than Jesus, keeps us from Jesus.

But I wonder if there’s not a different explanation.

The man was trying to earn eternal life. We know we can’t earn our salvation. That’s impossible.

So to make his point, Jesus gave him a seemingly impossible task: give away everything.

Eternal life is a gift. We can’t earn it. All we need to do is receive it.

[Luke 18:18-29, Romans 6:23]

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Tags eternal life, gift, Jesus

Bible Insights

Why Do We Ask For Our Daily Bread?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date September 11, 2012

Jesus taught his disciples to ask God for their daily bread, that is, the food they needed for the day.

Just as God provided manna for the Israelites in the desert, the implication is God will meet our needs each day.

We are not to ask for enough for the week, the month, or the whole year, but for only one day, today. Tomorrow we will need to ask again.

The instruction to ask daily isn’t because God is only powerful enough to supply our need for one day, but because God doesn’t want us to take him for granted. And if we seek him each day, that’s not likely to happen.

Plus, I think he enjoys hearing from us each morning.

[Exodus 16:14-32, Matthew 6:11]

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Tags daily bread, God, Jesus, manna

Bible Insights

What is Manna?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date September 6, 2012

When the nation of Israel was in the desert, God provided food for them each day. The Israelites called it manna and it miraculously appeared every morning.

The manna would provide them with the sustenance they needed for that day.

If they tried to gather extra and stockpile it, it would turn bad (except for the Sabbath). God gave them what they needed for that day but no more; it was essentially their daily bread.

Later on, Jesus instructed his disciples to pray for God to give them their “daily bread.”

The disciples surely connected that with Moses and the manna in the desert, and as a result they were assured God would faithfully provide for them each day.

This is just one of many amazing ways the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are connected.

Manna is the daily bread that God faithfully provides.

[Exodus 16:14-32, Matthew 6:11]

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Tags daily bread, Jesus, manna, pray

Bible Insights

What is Eternal Death?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 23, 2012

Since eternal life is the result of following Jesus, what’s the alternative? Might “eternal death” be the opposite?

If eternal life starts immediately when we begin our journey with Jesus, does eternal death start as soon as someone rejects him?

If eternal life results in heaven, don’t eternal death result in hell?

Some opine that eternal death is merely physical death; when the bodies dies, that person is forever gone; their spirit does not live on; it dies too. Death is the end.

However, that’s not my understanding. You can’t have the promise of heaven without the possibility of hell.

For those who follow Jesus, eternal life begins here and now when they align with him. When their body dies, their spirit continues on, enjoying eternal life in heaven.

For those who don’t follow Jesus, eternal death begins here and now when they disregard him. When their body dies, their spirit continues on, suffering eternal death in hell.

[See verses about eternal death in the Amplified Bible, the Message, and the New Living Bible]

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Tags eternal life, heaven, hell, Jesus

Christian Living

Are You a Pharisee?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 19, 2012

When we think of the word pharisee, we envision a narrow-minded, hypocritical, self-righteous person. To call someone a pharisee is an insult. So, when we read pharisee in the Bible, we automatically think ill of that person.

However, a Pharisee was someone devoted to following a strict moral code aligned with Moses’ instructions, which he received from God.

They were devoted to following the Almighty and did so with zealous dedication. They were the most religiously minded people in the Bible, the spiritually elite.

Paul was a Pharisee before he made a U-turn to follow Jesus. Yet afterwards he persisted in that label and the practices that accompanied it. To him, being a Pharisee was an honorable designation, not a slur of derision.

Yes, Jesus was highly critical of Pharisees, but not because of their zeal for God, rather because they got carried away, making it into something it was never intended to be. Their intentions were noble; their execution was lacking.

In some ways—the right ways—we should be more like a Pharisee: following God’s moral code and zealous for him.

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Tags Jesus, Paul, Pharisee

Bible Insights

Is Being Good, Good Enough?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 16, 2012

When a man asks Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life,” he is showing proper respect for Jesus by calling him good.

Jesus, however, is quick to assert that only God is truly good.

If ever anyone deserved the label of “good,” it was Jesus. But instead he offers this accolade up to God his Father as an affirmation of God’s character.

Then Jesus reminds the man of the Ten Commandments.

The man asserts he has kept them all since he was a boy; he is effectively saying, “I’ve been good.” He seems to miss Jesus’ teaching that only God is good.

But merely being good is not enough. Jesus tells him to sell all he has and give away the proceeds. This is easy when we have little, but harder when we have a lot; the man has much.

The idea of giving it all away distresses him and he leaves.

Though it might be unwise to turn this story into a rule, for this man, at least, being good is not good enough.

Being generous is what’s required.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Luke 16-18, and today’s post is on Luke 18:18-23.]

Read more about the book of Luke in That You May Know: A 40-Day Devotional Exploring the Life of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, now available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

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Tags eternal life, good teacher, Jesus

Bible Insights

Jesus Often Did the Unexpected

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 14, 2012

Jesus seems to specialize in doing the unexpected.

For instance, consider when the rich young ruler asks Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus side-steps the question about eternal life. Instead, he goes into teaching about good. That was unexpected.

Another time, four men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed. Jesus shocks everyone by forgiving the man’s sins. That was really unexpected.

However, later on Jesus does heal the paralyzed man and he does answer the young ruler’s question (although it’s not what the man wanted to hear—that was unexpected, too).

Jesus often does the unexpected. Perhaps that’s one reason the crowds were drawn to him two thousand years ago and why we are drawn to him today.

Unexpected Jesus may surprise us and at times perplex us, but he is still our healer and savior.

[Luke 18:18-22, Luke 5:18-25]

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Tags eternal life, heal, Jesus

Bible Insights

Are We Just Doing Our Job or Getting God’s Attention?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 7, 2012

Jesus gives a brief story about the interaction between a servant and his master. The conclusion is that the servant should not expect any praise or special treatment for merely doing his job.

So too should be our attitude when we do what God expects of us.

Instead, we—I don’t think I’m alone in this—have a tendency to expect God’s attention and special favor when we merely do what we’re supposed to do.

It’s as if we tell him, “Look what I did for you; now you need to do something for me.”

While I do think God appreciates and takes pleasure in the good things we do, he doesn’t owe us anything as a result.

He’s already given us everything through Jesus. What more could we want or need?

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Luke 16-18, and today’s post is on Luke 17:7-10.]

Read more about the book of Luke in That You May Know: A 40-Day Devotional Exploring the Life of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, now available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Tags Jesus, master, obey God, servant

Bible Insights

What Did Jesus Have to Say About Forgiveness?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date July 31, 2012

Once when teaching his disciples, Jesus addresses forgiveness.

He says when someone treats us wrongly we are to first confront (“rebuke”) them about the issue. If they apologize or acknowledge their error (“repent”), then we are to forgive them.

Although Jesus literally says we are to do this seven times, there is actually no limit to forgiveness.

What a great picture of God’s mercy towards us—endless, unconditional forgiveness!

[Luke 17:3-4, Matthew 18:22]

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Tags forgiveness, Jesus