The Lord's Prayer Life

very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. mark 1:35

i think that the prayer life of Jesus is yet another example of His humiliation in taking on our human nature.

being fully divine, and having created the whole universe by the power of His Word, i suppose He had completely within Himself the power to heal and to cast out demons and to raise people from the dead.

but it is my guess that He completely emptied Himself of this power, and humbled Himself to depend utterly on His heavenly Father for that same power through prayer.

i think that Jesus deliberately chose to pursue His ministry in this way so that He would be unable to perform miracles and heal and cast out demons without the power given to Him by God

through prayer.

why would He do this deliberately? i think He did it to show us how we are supposed to conduct our own ministries, whatever they may be. (and everyone has at least one).

He is setting a pattern for us to follow, in other words.

all of us have been blessed with natural gifts. but we are not meant to depend solely on these talents in the doing of God's work, even if these gifts are tremendous. if we do, the glory goes to us.

whatever our capacities, we are meant to rely on our Heavenly Father, through prayer, in big tasks or small, so that the glory goes to Him.

we all know that, we might be saying to ourselves. it just goes to show that we rarely need new revelations to jumpstart our spiritual lives. we just need to really trust and act on the same old basic truths we've known all along.

truly, during His earthly life, Jesus came to live the perfect, Spirit-filled, God-centered, sinless life that we could never live.

He always lived in the presence of God and in perfect communion with Him. He set the pattern for us, and we are to emulate it.

when we humble ourselves in prayer, i suppose that the feelings of doubt and exhaustion and discouragement which so often beset us, would overcome us far less often.

i thank Jesus that He humbled Himself so much, becoming one of us and showing us by His example how completely we are to depend on God for everything through prayer.

a chorus of a certain song summarizes this so well:

He came, He saw, He surrendered all

So that we might be born again

And the fact of His humanity

Was there for all to see

For He was unlike any other man

And yet so much like me.

The Nazareth Manifesto

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

Jesus quoted this verse directly from Isiah 61 which happens to be His first public ministry. Referring to this quote, Dr. Stott mentioned about how spiritualizers and politicizers argue over for whom Jesus died. Spirtually poor or materially poor? Wait a minute... I thought all human without God are spiritually poor. Materially poor? who is rich in this world? Bill Gates? God owns Bill Gates. That's right. God owns Microsoft. God owns this world. Our wealth is really not "OUR" wealth. God is the master and the owner. Jesus died not just for selected people but for us all. In this sense, I thought today's study was pretty straight forward. But as I kept reading it over and over to get some insights. This quote of Jesus kept lingering in my head.

Luke 4:21 it reads

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

This was literally Jesus's first public ministry. He let know the world know who He was and His purpose. I thought this was such a powerful statement. This was "the moment". World was never the same and never will be from this point on. This was the moment when Satan realized he was doomed and the moment that gave hopes for all mankind, though most don't realize that they do. Wow

The Temptations

I was a little puzzled with the first point of today's reading. First, how can the devil attempt to confuse the identity of Jesus? Jesus was fully man but at same time he was fully divine therefore he should have known his identity, right? It was strange to read that Jesus had to repeat to himself the words of his Father, "This is my Son". Jesus has seen His Father and was sent by Him, how can he be tempted to think otherwise? Second, I always thought that we should always examine ourselves if we are truly children of God by comparing our actions and thoughts to the desires of God since no one knows for sure who are elected. Isn't it dangerous to think that we are children of God without thoroughly examine ourselves? Please feel free to share your thoughts, thanks.

The good News

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come”, he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:14-15

Repent- To turn decisively away from all known sin

Believe- To turn in faith and commitment to Jesus as King

Good News- Christ came to be crucify, raise from dead, and reign for ever

Intimate kingdom… (I like this story very much because it shows me how much God wants intimacy with us.)

Story…there was couple, loving and caring so much that they knew everything about each other. One day there was horrible fire in the house, the women got out of the house quickly but the man wasn’t quick enough. So the man was badly injured on his face and the body. After the incident their relationship changed, he wouldn’t talk much to her because of his disfigure. So the women went to world best plastic surgeon, and ask the doctor, if there is way to fix his face and body. The doctor told her that he has to see the man how bad his injury was. Woman told the man that there are ways to fix his injury, if he is willing to go and see this doctor. But the man refuse listen to woman, because he didn’t want to show his horrible face and the body to no one. The woman visited doctor many times to find the way to convince the man with every source she can get. But the man was very angry and annoyed, because he thought that she would never understand what he was going through. One day the woman visited the doctor again, but this time she asked doctor to fix her and make her like the disfigure man. So that she would understand what was man going through and maybe convince him to go to doctor with her.

I believe still this day we Christian are to share the good news to every nation we can reach. And I know the fact that there are many Christian trying to reach out to every person possible. Because these Christian, they understood how close kingdom of God is, and how good news for them to know that what Jesus Christ done for our lives. When you repent and believe the Good News.