Loving Jesus Style

How Not to Read This Book Revelation has suffered more at the hands of speculative interpreters than almost any other book of Scripture. Newsstand prophecy charts have taught us to read it as a coded newspaper, a puzzle to be solved by matching beasts and bowls to this week's headlines. But that is not how the book announces itself. Revelation calls itself an apokalypsis — an unveiling — given to strengthen suffering churches by showing them that the slain Lamb, not Caesar, sits on the throne. It is a pastoral book before it is a predictive one. Reading It as Symbol, Not Timetable I read Revelation as what scholars call an idealist, or symbolic. That means the visions are not chiefly a forecast of specific future events, nor merely a record of first-century persecution, nor a code for successive centuries of church history. Rather, John's symbols depict recurring realities that mark the entire age between Christ's first and second comings: the church's sufferin...

Scripture: Matthew 5:43-45 (NIV) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Devotion: With these words, Jesus throws down a challenge to our human nature. We naturally don’t love those who oppose us; we tend to dislike or hate them, depending on our mood. Jesus challenges us to transcend our natural reactions, ask God to bless them, and pray for them. We so often plan to resist or argue with those who oppose us. Jesus challenges us to go beyond reaction to action in loving all of our neighbors, not just those who agree with us. Here, Jesus takes the common understanding of love and turns it on its head. The people of His day had heard, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” a sentiment that fits neatly into the insti...

  Scripture: Daniel 4:1-3 (NIV) King Nebuchadnezzar, To the nations and peoples of every language, who live in all the earth: May you prosper greatly! It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation. Devotion: In this passage, the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar confesses that the God of Israel is the only true God. The king has just passed through a time of great mental illness from which he was delivered by confessing that God is God and he is not. In the chapter that follows these opening words, the king makes it clear that he now believes in God. He finally knows his place in the world and that there is a God who is in power and rules over everything. These verses stand as a remarkable testimony, not from a prophet or a priest, but from a man who once believed himself to be th...

  Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Devotion: This verse, located at the end of an explanation of how God is reconciling us to Himself, shows us the true power of the cross in the life of the believer. Paul gives us one of the most breathtaking summaries of the gospel found anywhere in Scripture. It is a single sentence, yet it contains the depth of eternity. Every word is deliberate. Every phrase is heavy with meaning. And every part of it reveals the astonishing grace of God toward sinners who could never save themselves. Paul begins by reminding us that Christ “knew no sin.” Jesus lived the only truly righteous human life. He never rebelled, never wavered, never entertained a sinful thought or committed a sinful act. His obedience was perfect, not only outwardly but inwardly. He loved the Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He fulfilled the law not...

  Scripture: Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Devotion: This verse should humble us. When we think we understand what God is doing, we often miss the mark. God’s plans for our lives and indeed the course of the world’s events are completely beyond us. We need to be open to God doing new things, things we never imagined He would do. The cross and resurrection prove that not even the devil knows all things. If he did, he would never have inspired men to kill Jesus. These verses press this truth into our hearts with a force that is both unsettling and deeply comforting. God declares that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. We hear those words often, but rarely do we let them sink in. They are not a poetic flourish or a gentle reminder that God is a little ...

  Jude is a letter written under pressure. Its author, who identifies himself as a servant of Jesus Christ and as the brother of James, had intended to write a calm and constructive letter about the salvation that believers share. Instead, the urgency of the moment compelled him to take up a different pen entirely — a letter of alarm, calling his readers to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. That phrase alone is worth pausing over. The faith is not a developing conversation or an evolving consensus. It is a fixed deposit, delivered once, held in trust by the church, and worth fighting for. The occasion is the infiltration of the congregation by ungodly persons who have turned the grace of God into sensuality and denied the only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude does not speculate about these men or treat their presence as a minor concern. He reaches deep into the Old Testament and into Jewish tradition to demonstrate that God has always deal...