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A Wolf Among the Sheep

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13:1 ESV

My heart stirred when I read that verse the other day over my morning coffee. There’s nothing quite like Jesus’ love. He poured it out on His disciples while He lived among them, and “…He loved them to the end.”

Sadly, they didn’t all love Him in return. The very next verse ushers in the unthinkable.

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 13:2-5

I wonder how Judas felt as Jesus knelt before him to wash his feet. Did his heart race as Jesus tenderly dipped them in the basin? I wonder if Jesus gazed into his face, eyes blazing with the love He felt for him.

His betrayal must have burned within his soul, and yet Judas still left the table to sell his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.

It seems impossible to us, but the truth is, any one of us could easily be him.

Dear one, I doubt that Judas set out to betray Jesus in the beginning. He probably began his journey much like the other disciples—full of hope and wonder, drawn by possibility.

So what went wrong? How could a trusted friend of Jesus stray so terribly far off course?

One thing separates the sheep from the wolf, beloved. Love. Judas may have served with Jesus, but he never offered Him his heart. He wasn’t willing to deny himself to follow Him. He wanted to use his relationship with Jesus to further himself.

How do I know that? The previous chapter invites us to view another scene where the disciples reclined around a table and a different foot washing of sorts took place. Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus,

. . . took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  John 12:3

Our friend Judas had an interesting response.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. John 12:4-6

Do you see it, dear one? Judas served, but he didn’t love. He couldn’t understand “wasting” expensive perfume to anoint Jesus. He didn’t love Him like Mary did. And he didn’t want to waste spending the ministry funds on the poor Jesus loved. He wanted it for himself.

Hear me, beloved. Jesus gave Judas the same power He gave the other eleven (Luke 9:1-2). He could preach the Word. He could heal the sick. If power marked the true disciple, Judas surely was one.

Yet John 17:12 reveals that Judas was doomed to destruction (NIV).

Power and authority are not the marks of salvation, dear one. God can empower anyone at any time to do His will simply because He’s God. The mark of salvation is found in a different place. It’s found within the heart. Jesus said,

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love . . . ” John 13:35

1 John 2:5-6 adds this:

But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Jesus lived out love, and “ . . . he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

While Judas went through all the motions of being a disciple, he wasn’t one. He looked like one. He acted like one. Jesus even empowered him like one. But he didn’t have the heart of one.

No one else could tell. The disciples had no idea who Jesus was talking about when He told them one would betray Him (John 13:22). They saw no external signs because he looked and acted just like the rest of them.

But Jesus saw. He knew the self-centered longings of Judas’ heart. He knew he never truly offered Jesus the right to rule in him. He remained his own lord, choosing to exalt his own kingdom instead of God’s. And Jesus honored Judas’ choice.

He loved him to the end, but He did not save him.

Week 7: Empowered by Grace

We have reached the final week of the workbook. Well done! God will bless your perseverance as you follow hard after Him.

Today we take a deeper look at the grace of God. Grace offers so much more than what most of us understand. We will dig into Scripture to discover some of what God reveals in His Word about grace. I pray you will open your heart to receive His Truth so that you can become empowered by God’s great gift.

Click here to print the prepared note sheet for this session.

Watch the Video

Week 7 Assignment

Complete Days 1-2 of Week 4 in your workbook

Additional Suggestion:

Take some time to consider the impact grace has had in your own life. Do those around you bear witness to its affect on you? Has the gospel come to you “not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction” (1 Thessalonians 1:5)?

If so, take some time to thank God for His grace and invite Him to reveal more of His lavish plan for you. If not, consider that faith and humility are the keys to accessing the grace of God. Surrender yourself to His will for you and commit to trust Him as He leads you. Ask Him to help you believe and step into His promises. Then get ready to experience the touch of His grace.

My Righteous One Will Live by Faith

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.” –St Augustine

I spent a good bit of my life misunderstanding faith. Instead of exercising it and living my life by it, I thought of faith more like a noun—something we hold in our hearts. If we simply possess enough of it, God will act on our behalf, right?

Then I found myself discouraged because I didn’t see God move. It left me wondering about my own condition. Did I not have enough faith?

Perhaps you’ve been there, wondering why others can share powerful testimonies of how God showed up in their need, but you’re left doubting yourself and the God you claim to trust because your circumstances haven’t changed.

Dear one, if that’s you, perhaps you’ve missed the beautiful foundation through which true faith must flow: relationship.

Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Look at the actions describing one who pleases God with faith. Not only must we believe He exists, but we must “come to Him” in that belief. True faith can only be exercised by one who comes near to God. And that approach isn’t simply uttering a casual prayer when the need arises. The verse is clear that God rewards those who “earnestly seek Him.”

Consider Romans 10:17:

“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

Dear one, faith is birthed in us when we hear a message through the Word of Christ. Perhaps our faith is failing us because we haven’t drawn near to Christ to hear what He is saying. Maybe we’ve told God what we think we need, even believing He can provide it, but we haven’t approached Him to listen for what He knows we need. Beloved, faith comes from hearing.

In John 10:3-4, Jesus describes the true nature of faith.

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

We express faith as we trust and follow. In order to follow, we must quiet ourselves and draw near to the One who speaks. Perhaps we don’t see God moving on our behalf because we haven’t bothered to quiet ourselves to hear Him speaking (Psalm 46:10). We haven’t given Him the opportunity to reveal His thoughts on the matter. Instead of following behind, we’ve wandered toward what we think we need and expected God to come with us.

Beloved, Jesus releases His power where He is. If you want to see Him move in your circumstances, you must draw near to Him with an open, listening heart. As He faithfully whispers His will into your life, you must trust Him through your obedience. Your faith—initiated as you hear from Him (Romans 10:17) and completed as you follow His instruction to you (James 2:22)—will open the door to the release of His grace.

You will see Him move. Perhaps not the way you first thought He would, but you will see Him nonetheless.  And you will discover with a thankful, joyous heart, that Jesus is, indeed, faithful. His love is better than life.

 

When God Stirs, He Hears

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15

On Sunday we celebrated Father’s Day at church. A guest speaker—a husband and father from the congregation—brought the message. Well, perhaps I should rephrase that. The Holy Spirit brought a powerful Word through a real estate salesman. The result?

At the close of the service, our Pastor took the stage and gave an invitation. Moved by God’s presence hovering in that place, his voice caught as he told the congregation that he would be joining the speaker on his knees at the altar. He invited any willing man to join them . . . any man desiring to lead his family by submitting himself daily to Christ’s leadership . . . any man ready to believe that true power comes when we bow down.

The next moment bore witness to God’s glory. Men from all over the sanctuary began to rise and walk to the front of the church, dropping to their knees one by one as they reached the altar. When the floor space at the front could no longer hold them, they began filling the aisles between the chairs. I wept before the Lord in worship as my gaze took in the empty seats and the sight of hundreds of men kneeling before their Creator, committing to know Him more, to follow Him more faithfully, to be the example for the next generation.

I could do nothing but bow in my own seat, lifting my hands in worship and my voice in praise.

It was a beautiful moment, glory descending as worship rose to heaven’s throne from the hearts of a people united, carried on the wings of praise. You know what made it even sweeter? The moment reflected an answer to prayer.

Have you ever felt compelled to pray for something that reached beyond the scope of your personal circumstances? That focused on the rise of Jesus’ glory instead of your own needs? If not, I challenge you to listen for the stirring of the Spirit within your soul to intercede for His kingdom. That’s the kind of praying that calls heaven down.

In response to God’s prompting, several women within our congregation have been praying for a spiritual awakening among the men of our church. Specifically, we had prayed for God to raise up leaders among them who would turn their hearts toward the Lord. We asked God to stir up mighty men of faith who would model whole-hearted devotion to God and lead others to follow in their steps.

Those prayers began almost 8 years ago.

And God did it. Last Sunday morning, we saw visible evidence of the invisible work God had been doing within the hearts of our congregation as a result of our prayer. And He raised an ordinary man to challenge His people with powerful truth at just the right time when the hearers were ready to respond.

Don’t you just love God’s faithfulness? It shouldn’t surprise us. It’s what God does. He stirs among the hearts of His people to pray and then He delights in answering. As we read in our opening Scripture,

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15

Even if it takes 8 years to see the evidence of it.

Just this morning, I came across these words in David Earley’s, 21 Most Effective Prayers of the Bible (Barbour Publishing, Inc., 2005), a prayer journal I’ve been working through in my quiet time. [Original quote from David Jeremiah, Prayer: The Great Adventure (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997), p. 40-41]

Pastor David Jeremiah has written, “I scoured the New Testament some time ago, looking for things God does in ministry that are not prompted by prayer. Do you know what I found? Nothing. I don’t mean I had trouble finding an item or two: I mean I found nothing. Everything God does in the work of ministry, He does through prayer. Consider:

·      Prayer is the way you defeat the devil (Luke 22:23; James 4:7)

·      Prayer is the way you get the lost saved (Luke 18:13)

·      Prayer is the way you acquire wisdom (James 1:5)

·      Prayer is the way a backslider gets restored (James 5:16-20)

·      Prayer is how saints get strengthened (Jude 20; Matthew 26:41)

·      Prayer is the way to get laborers out to the mission field (Matthew 9:38)

·      Prayer is how we cure the sick (James 5:13-15)

·      Prayer is how we accomplish the impossible (Mark 11:23-24)

. . . everything God wants to do in your life He has subjugated to one thing: Prayer."

 

Do you see the work of God displayed in and around you, dear one? If you are missing out on experiencing the revelation of His power, perhaps you haven’t picked up the key to unlock it.

Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in prayer, beloved. As He directs you to pray the Father’s will, you can know with confidence that God hears. And when He hears, He acts.

And you get to witness glory.