I was talking with a young man, an unbeliever on his way to becoming an engineer. “If God exists then why doesn’t he do miracles?” This question about miracles is a very important question. Before I answer it we must establish this point: Miracles are primarily demonstrated towards God’s people in order for their faith to be increased.

Many people even in the Christian faith believe miracles are to demonstrate the power of God towards the lost world. This is not the case. God demonstrates His power towards His children. When the doubting world seeks a sign to know whether God is real they are faced with this statement from Jesus “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Matthew 16:4

For the lost world God has demonstrated His power through the resurrection of Jesus. This is the sign by which people can know He’s real. If there were any other sign by which lost people could know God is real it would become an idol! A good example of this is nature. All of creation declares the glory of God and yet men glorify the created thing more than the Creator.

Jesus worked many miracles. Primarily all of His miracles were for those who already believed in Jesus and were seeking His compassion and kindness. They were not (Primarily) for those asking Jesus to prove to them that He was the Messiah. There are a couple of instances where seemingly Jesus is proving His anointing, but even these are demonstrated on behalf of believers.

Jesus worked miracles to identify Himself to those who already believed and for the physical well being of those who followed Him. If you’re seeking a sign to know whether Jesus is the Son of God, or whether God is real look at the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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In the past when cloth was dyed by hand there were cities that specialized in cloth making. Around the city there would be large vats filled with dyes. Clean cloth was submerged in these vats until their color had been changed. This process is still practiced around the world. The process of dipping the cloth into dye, in the ancient Greek world, would be commonly referred to as Baptizo. This is was a common term when Jesus walked the earth.

Jewish people had started to make it a habit to do ritual washings before meals and ceremonies. Although there are some Levitical laws for sick people and priests washing, these laws of ritual washing were mostly traditional. God had not commanded the Israelite nation to make a ritual of washing. However, a man named John (a cousin of Jesus) came to Israel and started to preach repentance. He called people to forsake the things of this world and seek God’s kingdom.

When people began to seek the kingdom of God and produced fruit of God changing them, John would take them to the river and baptize them. All those who were baptized, just like clean cloth dipped in a vat of dye, changed the way people saw them. By being dipped in the water of the Jordan river they were making a claim of affiliation with this “Kingdom of God”.

Then one day Jesus came to where John was baptizing. John saw his own need to be identified with Jesus, but Jesus told John that it would be beautiful in the sight of God for John to baptize Him instead. As John dipped Jesus into the Jordan river, Jesus was affiliating Himself with the Kingdom of God. Jesus came out of the water and the Spirit of God descended on Jesus in the bodily form of a dove. The voice of God declared “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” With the Baptism waters rushing over Him, the Spirit of God landing upon Him and the voice of God speaking over Him, Jesus had been identified as the son of God before John and all those around.

Baptism is about being identified publicly with the Kingdom of God. It is a declaration of sorts that God has complete control over your life. That’s exactly why Jesus was baptized. There’s also a part of baptism that is a declaration to ourselves, there is the voice of God spoken over all those who believe and are baptized, that “you are my beloved son or daughter, and I am pleased in you.”

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While on the cross Jesus said seven different things. These have come to be known as the seven last words on the cross. They have become an important part of meditation for many believer’s. They serve to remind us of the mortality, humanity and the divinity of Jesus.

1. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
2. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” 
3. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
4. “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
5. “I am thirsty.”
6. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.”
7. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

Each of these sayings are important and profound. From Jesus’ heart of forgiveness, His care and love for His mother, His mercy on the humble and then the most human expression of rejection. I would love to cover each of these individually, but I think they ought to be meditated upon for yourself. When I think upon these sayings, I see a very human Jesus experiencing very human pain. When I am at my lowest point there is an overwhelming feeling that God has forsaken me – Jesus has truly experienced the lowest of human pain. Yet, in this darkest hour He pleads for us, giving us forgiveness and life. Approaching God on our behalf to negotiate mercy. These are the sayings of Jesus on the cross, and they are vastly important.

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Jesus taught so many wonderful things. Many Theologians and experts agree that Jesus’ first teaching for His disciples was the Sermon of the Mount. This is the longest of Jesus’ teachings recorded. If you read it at a normal speed it is shorter than 15 minutes. He starts this Sermon with the Beatitudes. These are attitudes that people who follow Jesus will possess, and they set the tone for this sermon. Each of the attitudes illustrate a deep need for God and a mindset of humility and selflessness. The rest of this sermon serves to illustrate our deep need for grace. If you tried to live out the principals of the sermon in a perfect way, you would come up short.

Essentially Jesus lays out the core truths of the law and puts them into philosophies and mindsets. For instance, the law says to not commit adultery, but Jesus lays out an expectation of living and thinking in purity. The Law says do not murder but Jesus calls us to not think hatefully towards others. The Law gave us an understanding that God is good, and we ought to be good like Him, likewise this sermon shows us that Jesus is good and we ought to be good like Him. It also serves to teach us how impossible it is for us to be that good.

This fundamental teaching of Jesus sets the standard of righteousness so high we are unable to reach it. By setting the value so high it removes our barrier of self-righteousness, because we realize that our only hope in life is for God to have compassion on us. We become completely reliant on the kindness and goodness of God. Jesus’ fundamental teaching in this sermon is that God is good. This truth, that God is good, is why Jesus came. Jesus stated that He came to testify to the truth (John 18:37). He also said that He is the truth (John 14:6). The truth is that God loves you (1 John 4:9). Jesus is the image of that love. God did not have to send Jesus, but He did. Jesus was not obligated to die on the cross, but he did.

Jesus’ teachings give us a perfect picture of obedience and communion with God. He calls all of mankind to turn away from imperfect living and orient our direction towards holiness, all the while knowing that true holiness can only be achieved by direct intervention of God’s love. If you are not familiar with the teachings of Jesus, read for yourself these wonderful words. His teaching is life and truth.

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A few years ago, I was exploring biblical ways of eating. I’ve tried the Daniel fast, and I gave a few months to eating according to the Hebraic law. I have definitely googled this question myself. There’s a significance to identifying with Jesus even through what He ate that appeals to some of us. A small reason that communion is so stirring for us is because its something we know Jesus shared in.

              It’s mostly agreed that Jesus ate according to the law of the Old Testament. Some people have speculated that He had special dietary restrictions. There was a kind of Jewish dedication called a Nazarite vow and some people have accidentally mistaken Nazarene to be the same as Nazarite. Jesus, who was famously a Nazarene, was not likely a Nazarite. We find Jesus touching dead fish and creating wine, both restricted for Nazarites.

              I’ve also heard that Jesus might have been a vegetarian. There are passages in the Gospel accounts that imply He ate fish, and at the very least He told His disciples to catch fish and eat them (Luke 24, John 21). There is very little Biblical evidence that Jesus was a vegetarian. I suppose there could be an argument made that Jesus was a pescatarian but I’m going to walk out on a limb to assume that term wasn’t available in the first century.

              We do know that Jesus ate bread, and fruit. Because of the Galilean sea nearby and that one third of His disciples were fishermen He probably ate fish. It was part of the Passover to eat lamb and bitter herbs. It was a common practice to drink wine at celebrations.

The truth about what Jesus ate is interesting to think about, but there are very few instances that the Bible records his eating habits. I would be missing an important opportunity to quote Jesus’ words about food He says to a crowd of people “It is not what goes into the mouth which defiles you, but what comes out of your mouth that defiles you.” (Matthew 15:11). He says to Satan “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”. The Bible doesn’t spend a lot of time discussing what Jesus ate, mostly because the emphasis of His work was on His teaching. It would be better to consume the commandments and statutes of God like Jesus than to figure out better dietary habits.

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We all have a mental image of what Jesus looked like. For most of us in the western world it has been shaped from Sunday school literature and how He is depicted in movies. Jesus is often depicted as having a beard, shaggy or long hair, a white tunic and a blue mantel. In the western world we play a tug of war over His skin color but mostly we’ve rejected the blonde hair, blue eyed, fair skinned version.

              Why is this question important? There’s something deep in the human soul that tries to visualize our ideas and thoughts. For instance, when my wife and I found out we would be fostering a little boy I began to try and build a mental picture of what he would look like. It wasn’t for weeks that I would meet him. When he was brought to our house, he looked absolutely nothing like my mental idea. Our ability to imagine in some ways prepares us for the unknown. We build a mental construct so that we can interact with it. Without a picture or an image in our heads that object is often too abstract to have value.

              The association between our mental image of Jesus and our value of Him can be closely linked. Often people pray to an ideal image of Jesus in their mind. Perhaps they pick a moment in Jesus’ life that they identify with. When they are in pain, they picture Jesus being beaten. When they are under pressure, they picture Jesus in the garden of gethsemane. While the specifics of the image aren’t necessarily important the image is. The image we form in our minds about Jesus either honor His identity or it does not. This image must be built entirely by what scripture teaches us about Jesus. Artists throughout history have tried to capture an image of Jesus. You should take some famous images of Jesus and see how they match up to the Jesus of the Bible.

              There is a danger in this pursuit, however, constructing an image of Jesus without the guiding hand of scripture will result in idolatry. If you only take the pieces of Jesus that you agree with and reject the parts, you’re uncomfortable with you have a Jesus that isn’t in the Bible. This is especially important in the scope of our prayer life. We cannot pray to who we think Jesus is, we must pray to who He really is. We must build in our minds a biblical and true image of Jesus, in order to avoid the trap of idolatry. 

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