Monday, March 25, 2013

The Right Rejoice–Jesus’ Way!

 Businessman shouting her victory to the world

This post follows a previous meditation The Right Rejoice. Here is a classic passage following the passage where Jesus teaches His disciples on what to rejoice. Jesus rejoices Himself and shows us the way to right rejoice; a demonstration of the lessons taught.

“At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21,22 NRSV)

Connect with the Ordinary

Jesus is not rejoicing because God’s hidden things were revealed to the “great” people but to the ordinary. In the world people reveal their confidential matters and trade secrets to people of “high society” and people with money and power through whom they can be benefitted. I would call is as “Power Connection” or “Power Association”. And when such connections happen they will be happy.

But here we see the opposite. We need to derive happiness and rejoice over the connections with ordinary people and by contributing to them.

Gracious Will

Talking further about this character of God this passage reveals yet another key element in developing God-like character in us. It is the “gracious will” of God. That is, ‘grace’ and ‘will’ acting together.

The “will” of God is powerful and greater than any great person on earth, but the “grace” of God makes Him stoop down to the level of the least of mankind. We need to develop such a character in us and our authority needs to be exercised in that “gracious will”.

Absolute Power

Why does Jesus say not to rejoice over the “authority” and “power” given to us? Because absolute power corrupts. That’s why Jesus demonstrates by example how not to hold onto absolute power; leave alone rejoicing over it. Here we see within the Godhead, the mutual total submission of authority. The verse 22 does not say that the Father has handed over only certain things to the Son, but “ALL” things.

And each person in the Trinity is revealed by the other; mutual glorification.

Only those craving for absolute power will hesitate or would never hand over everything in their authority to others and they also would only want to reveal (talk about) themselves and never or seldom others.

May the Lord enable us to connect with and contribute for ordinary people, to exercise our power with ‘gracious will’ and to never crave or seek for absolute power and self-glory. Let this Lent especially remind us to be like Christ,

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8 NRSV)

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3,4 NKJV)


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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Right Rejoice

Rejoice

People party for various reasons and a party is hosted for sure when someone has got a promotion to a higher level in the hierarchy and when he or she succeeds great time. Students party for completing their exams, even before the results are announced :)

When we accomplish something we rejoice; when we succeed in our endeavour we rejoice; we celebrate success and popularity. Here I am going to bring in an incident from the life of Jesus and His disciples; where the disciples return in a rejoicing mood. You will find this incident narrated in Luke 10:17-20.

“Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”” (Luke 10:17 NKJV)

Here the disciples come and tell Jesus about their great success in ministry. Jesus rewards them too for their success by giving them more power and authority,

“Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19 NKJV)

Though Jesus is happy about their success and rewards them richly, he also cautions them about over indulgence with success and teaches them the right kind of attitude and the right thing to rejoice for.

Rejoice not over authority

Though Jesus gives them the “authority” he says, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you…” (Luke 10:20 NKJV)

And saying so he brings in a very important aspect of authority – being subjected. When people obey our orders, when things get done immediately when we say; all this can make us feel happy. It gives a great feel of “control”. But Jesus cautions us to not rejoice over this.

The second aspect is the “possession of power”. I would call it the “power index”; where this denotes how much power one possesses. A person with a little or much power than other people might feel great about himself or herself because of the higher power that they exercise than others. Jesus admonishes us to not rejoice over the amount of power that we possess and on the higher the power-ladder that we might climb.

The third aspect of this authority is security. Jesus says that because of the power that He gives us “nothing shall by any means hurt you (us)” (Luke 10:19c NKJV). As we grow in our authority – spiritual and physical, we will come to a stage where we would feel completely secure and unharmed. This state can lead us to rejoice over the security that we enjoy and owe it all to our spirituality! Here again Jesus warns us to not rejoice over this.

Rejoice not over Popularity

The more we accomplish and are successful, more popular we become. Wherein people start appreciating you for your work, expertise, creativity, contribution, excellence and alike. Very subtly, but yet very meaningfully & purposefully Jesus makes His disciples understand the snare of popularity.

If you would closely look at this passage you notice two times name(s) being mentioned. The disciples come and say to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” (Luke 10:17 NKJV). In the end Jesus says, “but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20b NKJV).

The best part is Jesus teaching about this by being an example. When the disciples acknowledge Jesus’ name and say that the reason for their success in His name, Jesus doesn’t care about it. If we would equate this incident to our times, it would be like advertising saying that “demons expel as __________ prays” and “fever went away as _________touched” and sorts. But Jesus not only does-not-rejoice over great things happening over His name, but teaches it to His disciples and shows them the right thing to rejoice over, “because your names are written in heaven”. Let’s not rejoice because of the fame that’s attached to our name!

The truth is when we rejoice all the time because our names are written in Heaven, we will not worry when we are not successful, when people take us for granted and neither would we feel insecure or low nor proud. We will only boast in the Lord. I love the way The Message version translates this passage and I think it’s a good way to sum this up.

“The seventy came back triumphant. “Master, even the demons danced to your tune!” Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky. See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.” (Luke 10:17-10 MSG).

Last but not the least, the one with all these attitude will not only rejoice over the fact that his or her name is written in heaven and will always be found with the spiritual-sorrow over the others whose names aren’t found in the Book of Life! Such a person will plead like Moses,

“Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”” (Exodus 32:31,32 NKJV)


Is power a means to connect with just the "high society"? Are we to exercise absolute power? Read the post to get the answers - The Right Rejoice–Jesus’ Way!


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