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REACH! A husband and wife were at a gathering of friends when the topic of marriage counseling came up. "Oh, we'll never need that. My wife and I have a great relationship," the husband explained. "She was a communications major in college, and I majored in theater arts. She communicates really well, and I just act like I'm listening." And don't think that that isn't a big part of the problem in our society today—relationships that aren't even relationships. Today, families run in so many different directions, they often don't even know what is going on in each other's life. As we approach Pentecost Sunday on May 30th, we would do well to consider the underlying cause of all of this fractured lifestyle—a total misconception of what love really is. Today, love has become a feeling, coming and going according to personal whims. But in reality, true love is an act of the will—God's will and ours. Remember what Hannah Whitall Smith wrote—"As usual, we put feeling first, faith second, and His promise last of all. No, God's rule is everything—His promise (His Word) first, faith second, and feeling last of all. We can not change this order." We see this clearly in a story of a man named Thomas, though that is not his actual name—to reveal his real name could be dangerous for him, for he is a Christian in a very hostile nation. He is also a pastor, who was forcibly moved from his home and his loving family, and imprisoned for his love for Jesus Christ. He could have felt forsaken by God, but God's promise came first—preach. And so he did, right in his prison cell. When the guards caught him, they hauled him down to the "beating room" for his punishment. His "congregation" knew what would happen next. About an hour later, he was returned to his cell, bloodied and bruised. His face was disfigured, yet his eyes were surprisingly bright and clear. As he looked around the large cell block, he said, "Now, brothers, where was I when we were so rudely interrupted?" He continued to preach, communicating the love of the gospel with his very life to a group of hungry hearts—truly hungry, not just acting like it! Another jailed preacher put it this way—"We preached and they beat. That was the deal. We were happy preaching, and they were happy beating. Everyone was happy!" Remember—God's Word comes first, not feelings! Another Thomas needed to learn this lesson, and Jesus was just the one to teach it. That was His call after He was raised from the dead—to teach them of His physical reality. On the evening of the resurrection, all eleven disciples were gathered, with some others, in an upper room, fearful of further retaliation by the religious leaders. Soon, the two who had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, came running in with their amazing report. But when Jesus comes, there are only ten disciples—Thomas is not there! Incredible! He had just heard another report of a resurrection appearance, and he leaves! Why? Stubbornness! He was going to do what he was going to do! Oh, yes, he would have loved for this story of resurrection to be true, but as far as he was concerned, it was too good to be true—it was only a story. And that was all that mattered—how he saw it! He was going to be in control; he was going to call the shots! Or was he? We see it clearly in John 20:25. During the next week, the others tried to tell him what he had skipped, but he would not hear of it—"Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger in the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe." It is interesting to note that when he demands to "see" Jesus' hands, the Greek word refers to a physical seeing that results in a perceiving the truth of the situation, and obeying it—just as it was for the other disciples—"We have seen the Lord." In fact, the opposite of this word means to become hardened, to ignore, and ultimately, to skip! Amazing! He is the one who is demanding to "see", but he is also the one who skipped—insisting to do the opposite of what it would take to truly "see." He didn’t perceive it to be important to stay connected with the Body of Christ. He didn't see that as the church gathers, and Jesus lives within each one, faith grows. He didn't see that as he insisted on staying separate from the others, faith would wither and die. Oh, just look how far Jesus will go to rescue a soul—a week later, when they are all gathered together, including Thomas, Jesus appears again! And notice, His message for His gathering Church doesn't change—"Peace be unto you." (vs. 26b, cf Luke 24:36) It is His intention that His people be filled with His paramount blessing—reconciliation with a holy God! In other words, Jesus is that peace. Since all have sinned, and all deserve to go Hell, it is indeed a paramount blessing that He has paid for our sin on the cross of Calvary. The week before, when Jesus breathed on them, He told them to receive the Holy Spirit. And that is exactly what they did, and in so doing, they were born-again under the New Covenant—no longer was God out there somewhere; now He could and would live within them. But Thomas had skipped, so Jesus had a special first word for him alone—"Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." (vs. 27) The persecuted Christian, "Thomas", had been told to preach. Jesus' mission during these days of appearing to His followers, had been to teach—object lesson after object lesson, with the object being His own scarred body. Thomas, the disciple, is now told to reach. Preach, teach, and reach—Praise God for the depths of His true love! Reach! In the Greek, it refers to a bearing up under something, and all with the idea of motion. Reaching will never leave you at a stagnant standstill. Someone once wrote, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" In other words, we must never settle for where we are, and for what we have already embraced. Our reach must exceed that if we are to move forward at all in a loving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. "Thomas," Jesus is saying, "I know what you want and why you want it—you want your own way, and it's because you are stubborn. Thomas, go ahead—do what you wanted to do—reach out, only take me by the hand, stay by my side, and I will fill you with faith—even beyond that which you have known before." In the Greek, when Jesus tells him to not be faithless, it is actually a call to not become that way, intimating, of course, that it is possible to do so. If he had refused to bear up under all of this and come into a place of trust and peace, he could have gone to the same place as Judas—acting like he was listening, but never truly receiving. Praise God—He did not! Verse 28 tells us, "And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God." Literally, in the Greek, it reads—"The Lord of me and the God of me."—very personal! A. W. Tozer put it this way, "Nowhere in the Bible are we ever led to believe that we can use Jesus as a Savior and not own Him as our Lord. He is the Lord, and as the Lord, He saves us, because He has all the offices of Savior, Christ, High Priest, and Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption! He is all of these—and all of these are embodied in Him as Christ, the Lord." My Lord and my God! "Thomas," Jesus says, "you can say this, but it took your physical eyesight to get you there—imagine how blessed people will be in the future, when they cannot see me in the flesh but have to rely entirely on faith! I have so much more for all of you, if you will only receive it." You see, some time shortly after this, several of the disciples decided to not wait in the city of Jerusalem until they were "endued with power from on high," (Luke 24: 49b), as they had been told to do. Instead, they went fishing. After spending the entire night fruitlessly, Jesus called them to get back on track. He had always communicated this very well, but they weren't listening—not with their hearts! And guess what? Thomas was one of them—even his profession of Jesus being his own Lord and God could not carry him through to total obedience. Praise God—from that moment on, every one of the disciples knew they must be baptized in the Holy Spirit and in fire, which happened on Pentecost. So, don't just go through the motions, trying to earn a spiritual Oscar. And don't settle for where you are, even if you are truly saved and born-again. Even if you have experienced your own Pentecost—that is great, but don't sit down even there! Let your entire life preach and teach, but don't forget to reach. Reach for a deeper life in His love, and then…reach again! Reach beyond what you have already grasped, and you will no longer misunderstand love. Copyright (c)
2005 Christ Our Rock Bible Church. |
