Jesus & The Fig Tree

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”

Mark 11:12–14

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Jesus isn't pitching a fit here; He's making a point. In the Old Testament fig trees and figs were sometimes used as a metaphor for Israel. Jesus was on His way to the temple to pass judgment on God’s people and their worship when He gets hungry. In the distance, He sees a fig tree (a symbol of God’s people) that has leaves on it. Now, it isn't the the season for figs yet, but by this time of the year this tree ought to have edible buds on it. Fig trees in first century Palestine produced these buds before they grew leaves and figs, and poor people often ate these buds.* But when Jesus goes over to the tree looking for this fruit, He finds that it has nothing to give Him. There is an appearance of fruit, but there is no fruit.

Now, Jesus could have said nothing. He could have simply walked away. But He knows that this fig tree is a perfect picture of God’s people at that moment in time. The Jewish religion had an impressive outward appearance, but no fruit. God’s people had become just like that fig tree. They had an appearance of righteousness from afar, but up close, you could see they were barren, fruitless, unproductive and displeasing to their God. So, Jesus chooses to curse the fig tree as a sign (as an acted-out parable) to show His disciples that God’s judgment was coming on His people.

In doing this, Jesus condemns all religion that is outward only. If you appear to be a Christian, if you appear to be godly, but it’s all just a big show, a charade, a mask that you use to fool people; then you need to know that you aren’t fooling Jesus and judgment is coming.

If Jesus were to come inspect your life today, would He find fruit or just leaves? Are you pretending to be something you aren’t. Are you just pretending to be a Christian.... pretending to love God... pretending to believe…pretending to live according to God’s commands. Maybe you thought God was far enough away that He couldn’t see the real you! Well, you’re wrong! Jesus sees you up close. And all your outward show of religion and godliness doesn’t fool Him. Jesus doesn’t judge by outward appearances. He looks at the heart, and He sees you for what you really are.

Take an honest look at your life today. If there's little to no fruit on the tree, then take this story to heart and start producing fruit in keeping with repentance.

* John D. Grassmick, “Mark,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 157.

You Are Not Alone

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4–6

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According to this Scripture, all Christians share at least these seven things in common. We have:

• one body (church)
• one Spirit
• one hope
• one Lord
• one faith
• one baptism
• one God and Father of all

It is these things, our common God, baptism, faith, Lord, hope, and especially the one Spirit that we all have living inside of us that makes us one body as a universal church regardless of age, nationality, gender, socioeconomic status, and even regardless of what time we lived in. 

All Christians across the globe and throughout time are connected by these seven things! They bond us together as more than just a group of like-minded people. They make us a family, the family of God.

I think it’s important that we remember that we are not alone as believers. It’s important that you remember this first of all for your own benefit. You have a family of God around you to help you. You don't have to do everything alone. Lean on the believers around. 

But it’s also important that you remember this secondarily for the benefit of others. You have other people in your church and in the wide world beyond that need you, that need your encouragement and your help and your support and your prayers.

Don’t forget that you are connected in a deep and spiritual way to all believers. You should have an affection for them and you should seek to help and support them and to carry their burdens when you have the chance. And you should look to them first when you are in need of support, help, prayers and encouragement. 

You are not alone.

He is Risen!

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.

Matthew 28:6

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On the first Easter morning the women came to the grave looking for a dead man, and the angel is only too happy to tell them that Jesus isn’t in the grave anymore. He is risen! Jesus had predicted it, and Jesus always keeps His word.

‌‌It occurs to me though that many Christians still look for Jesus in the grave. He’s not there anymore. Jesus isn’t on the cross and He isn’t in the grave. He’s on the throne, at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

But that is much less comfortable for us. You see, everyone likes a dead Savior. Everyone likes a man who loved you enough to die for your sins so you could be forgiven. That makes us feel all warm and cuddly. That doesn’t pose a threat to us or our lifestyles in any way. You know why? Because a dead Savior makes no demands of us…none that He can enforce anyway. He loves us. He dies for us. He forgives us. But He can’t command us....not if we leave Him in the tomb of our minds.

We are much more comfortable with Jesus on the cross or Jesus in the tomb than we are with Jesus on the throne. But the message of Easter is undeniable. He is risen! Jesus is alive and He has been appointed “the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4)

The Apostle Peter put it this way in his sermon on the day of Pentecost. He said, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2:36)

Jesus is both our Savior (the one who forgives our sins) and our Lord (the one who commands our obedience). And He can’t be your Savior without being your Lord, because He is risen. He is alive, and He has plans for your life. Submit right now not to love a dead Savior, but to obey a risen Lord!

The Lord Needs It

...Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.

Mark 11:1b–6

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As Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the southeast, He arrives at Bethany and from there sends two of His disciples on ahead to the next village, called Bethphage. Jesus tells these two disciples that they will find a colt tied up in that village and He charges them with bringing it back to Him.

Now, Jesus is no dummy. He knows that people may question His disciples taking this young donkey that does not belong to them, so He tells them exactly what to say if they are questioned. And of course, they were. In fact, Luke’s gospel reveals to us that the people who question these disciples are more than just bystanders, they are the donkey’s owners. And no doubt they think they are being robbed.

‌‌But look at what Jesus told His disciples to say. The two disciples say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.” And that was enough. Whether the donkey’s owners knew Jesus by reputation or whether they were followers of Christ or whether they had never met Him before, we don’t know. What we do know beyond a shadow of doubt is that “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly” was enough for them.

If Jesus asked you to give, to contribute something of yours to His kingdom, would you do it? If the Holy Spirit whispered to your heart and said “I need you to give that to me do with what I will,” would you obey His prompting? Is there anything you wouldn’t be willing to give if Jesus asked for it? ‌‌Is “the Lord needs it” enough for you?

Peter's Prayer

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Matthew 14:29b-30

Many sermons have been preached on this passage of Scripture focusing on Peter’s faith, or Peter’s doubt or Jesus’ ability to walk on water. But I want to focus on Peter’s prayer.‌‌ 

It’s so short, and so unlike how we normally think of prayer that it's easy to miss. But verse 30 tells us that beginning to sink, Peter cried out “Lord, save me!” A three word prayer. Yet, an effective prayer. A prayer that God heard and answered. It says that “immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.”

There isn’t much to parse out or dissect in a three word prayer. We don’t need to look at the original language or see how any of the words function in the sentence. Yet there is a powerful principle of prayer here for you if you will receive it.

‌‌Consider Peter’s situation. He is sinking. Now, it doesn't take a grown man long to sink in water, so Peter had very little time to formulate a perfect prayer. Peter didn’t have time for impressive words or arguments. He had to get a prayer out quick! And he did. And it worked.

‌‌What I want you to see is that prayer doesn’t always have to polished. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. It is perfectly acceptable for you to simply cry out to God for help. In fact, that is exactly what some circumstances call for. There are certain situations in life that call for immediate prayer... a prayer of the moment. Sometimes you can’t afford to wait until you get back home to your prayer closet to pray about something. Sometimes you have to pray right now!

There will be times in your life when you will only have a few seconds to pray, or times that you will only be able to pray in your mind as someone is talking to you. Times when all you have time to pray is “Lord, save me” or “Help me, Lord!” And I want you to know that God hears those prayers!

As a parent I know that whenever one of my children has yelled “Help!” my wife and I both came running. That “help!” was an incredibly effective way of getting our attention and getting a quick response out of us. An entire paragraph of well-reasoned requests for assistance could not have gotten us there as fast as “Help!”

So, don’t discount the power of that type of prayer in a moment of crisis. Don’t discount the power of crying out to God for help.

Purify Yourself

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

‌1 John 3:2–3

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This passage tells us two important things about the coming of Jesus. The first is that when He comes we shall be made like Him. What a glorious thought! That we Christians, those who have strived all our lives to be Christ-like (for that is what the word 'Christian' means) will one day achieve our goal and finally be like Him.

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The second thing we glean from this passage is found in verse three when it says that “all who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.”

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The great Christian thinker A.W. Tozer, likened this purification process to the preparation a bride undergoes for her wedding day. ‌Before her wedding a bride usually takes great care to prepare herself and her appearance for her husband. She has hair and makeup appointments scheduled from early in the morning until the time of the wedding. She has people there to help her with her hair and to help her get her dress on and to style her. She wants to look just right. ‌And Tozer asks, “should not the church of Jesus Christ be dressed worthy of her bridegroom, even as He is dressed? Pure—even as He is pure?” [A. W. Tozer, The Apostles’ Creed (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2023), 98–99.]

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This is why “all who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Because we want to be found pleasing to our husband, pleasing to the Lord Jesus when He comes.

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So, let me ask. What are you currently purifying about your life? It’s a constant struggle to be holy. All of us are works in progress, and we should always be working on something. Otherwise we may not be making any progress. So, find something in your life right now to purify yourself from.

Some Prayers Need to be Repeated

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing.

Mark 14:39

What is going on here? Why is Jesus praying the same thing again in the Garden of Gethsemane? Does He think God doesn’t hear Him? Does He think God needs to be asked again?

I don’t think so. Although Jesus was clearly wrestling in prayer in the garden, I don't think He was wrestling with God. He wasn’t trying to convince God to do His will. No, Jesus was wrestling in prayer against His own human will. He was praying Himself into a more willing submission to the Father’s will.

Have you ever prayed something you really didn’t want to pray or said something you really didn’t want to say? If you have, then you know it’s hard to really mean it from the depths of your heart at first. But, eventually, over time, you get more used to the idea and surrender yourself to it more and more as you pray it again and again. With each prayer you mean it a little more until, eventually, you can pray it and really mean it.

That’s how I understand the time Jesus spent praying in the garden. As He prayed “not my will but yours be done” over and over again, He became more and more settled in His surrender to the Father’s will .

This is a helpful reminder to us that some prayers need to be repeated. They need to be prayed over and over again. Not for the Lord’s benefit but for our own. Sometimes it takes a lot of praying to bring your will into alignment with God’s will. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and effort, a lot of wrestling in prayer, to be able to pray something and really mean it.

So, pray earnestly. Pray seriously. Lift your prayers up to the Lord over and over again until you really mean what you are praying, until you are fully surrendered to His will in your circumstances.

The Pharisee's Prayer

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Luke 18:10-12‌

The Pharisee’s prayer is 33 words long in English, and it contains 4 favorable comparisons for himself. It’s long and arrogant and all about himself. When you look closely at his prayer, you realize that all the Pharisee did was thank God for making him so superior to other men. 

His prayer is full of pride for himself and contempt for those he believes are beneath him. The Pharisee doesn’t ask God for anything. He makes no requests. And the reason why is obvious enough. In his own estimation, he doesn’t lack anything. So, he prays about his own greatness. He uses prayer as an opportunity to sing his own praises to God.

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Jesus is teaching us in this passage that not all prayers are pleasing to God. In fact, some prayers can be downright sinful. God hates pride! He hates arrogance! Don’t use your prayers to exalt yourself. Prayer should be a time to sing God’s praises, not your own. 

And don’t use prayer as an excuse to look down on other people. Don’t allow your prayers for other people to turn into an opportunity to slander them or pour contempt on them before the Lord. Make sure your prayers for other people are seasoned with grace. "For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

How Jesus Started His Prayer

This, then, is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven...

Matthew 6:9

These four little words, "Our Father in heaven," start the Lord's prayer off with an important balance. They are like training wheels, teaching us to balance two important principles in prayer. 

First, Jesus teaches us to address God as ‘Father.’ That word, ‘Father,’ grabs hold of the All-powerful, Eternal, Creator of the universe and brings Him close. ‘Father’ is a relational word. It reminds us as we pray that God isn’t a god who is far away, He is a god who is close by... a god who loves us.

‌‌But then come the words “in Heaven,” which balance God’s closeness as a Father with the truth that He is high above us. Yes, God is our Father who loves us, but He is also the one who sits on the throne of Heaven. He is both near to us and highly exalted and beyond us in every way.

‌‌These two truths must be balanced and held in tension in your prayers. Your prayers should be personal and intimate like a conversation with your Father, but they should also be respectful and worshipful because you are talking to the King of Heaven. Your prayers shouldn’t err too much on either side but should strike a balance between humble adoration and childlike closeness.‌ When you pray, pray with an awareness of both these truths.

How Nehemiah Started His Prayer

Then I said: “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

Nehemiah 1:5

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Most of us begin every prayer we pray the same way, “Dear God”; but I have no idea where we get that from. It’s not from the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible will you find someone start a prayer with the words “Dear God.” 

Frankly, I don’t think it's a very helpful way to begin a prayer. It's so formal and distant. It sounds like we are writing a letter to God, not having a conversation with Him. And most of the time when we say those two words, we don't mean anything by them. We aren’t really saying anything about how dear God is to us. It's just a meaningless way to get our prayer off and running. 

Notice that Nehemiah doesn’t start his prayer that way though. He shows us a better way. He starts his prayer with: 

“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.”

That's so much better than "Dear God!" I want to encourage you to think about how you start your prayers. It's not necessarily bad to start your prayers with “Dear God,” but it may be a rut that is holding your prayer life back. 

So, when you pray, think about who you are praying to and address Him as such. Try starting your prayers off with “Heavenly Father" or "Lord God in Heaven” or “Lord God Almighty” or “My God, My Rock, My Savior” or “O Great Friend of Sinners.” Try anything to break yourself out of the rut of “Dear God.” 

I freely admit that it has proven more difficult than I thought it would be to break the habit. But ‌I have found that my prayers are much more meaningful when I start them off by really thinking about who God is. Why not give it a try?

Why Christians Can't Reject the Old Testament

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).

John 1:40-41

Have you ever heard someone say that the God of the Old Testament isn’t the same God we find in the New Testament? Or maybe you've come across someone who rejects the Old Testament but is happy to accept the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus? A single word in the passage above, along with many other New Testament passages, reveals the error in that thinking. 

Sometimes we get confused and start to think of "Christ" as Jesus’ last name. But it wasn’t part of His name at all. His name was Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the son of Joseph the carpenter. ‌‌"Christ" is simply the Greek word for "Messiah." And what both words mean is “anointed one.”

‌The great Jewish hope was for a Messiah or a Christ- an anointed king to come. And the Old Testament promises over and over again that He would come from the line of King David and would restore and repair David’s fallen tent. This Messiah would be a king. He would sit on David’s throne, and his kingdom would even surpass David's kingdom in glory. The Messiah would destroy the enemies of God's people and He would bring about a new order of justice and peace and prosperity for them.*

‌‌So, when we as Christians say that we believe in Jesus Christ, we are connecting our faith to the Old Testament and to the promises that God made to the Jewish people there. We are claiming a continuity with the Old Testament. We are claiming that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, that He is the promised Messiah.

T‌his rules out the idea that we can somehow reject the God of the Old Testament while we embrace the God of the New Testament. Jesus' very identity binds the two testaments together. Remove either testament and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ makes no sense. It was the God of the Old Testament that sent Jesus, and it was the God of the Old Testament that Jesus submitted to and obeyed all His earthly life. Christians can’t reject the Old Testament or the God that we find there, precisely because Jesus flows out of its pages. So, we as Christians must be a people of the book, all of the book. You cannot write-off the Old Testament and follow Jesus Christ.

‌*Gonzalez, Justo L. The Apostle’s Creed for Today. (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY) 2007, p30.

Daniel Prayed All the More

In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

Daniel 9:1–3

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D‌aniel had been carried into exile in babylon from Judah as a young man. He had spent his whole life living in a strange land among a strange people. And perhaps more than anything what Daniel wanted was to see was for his people to return from exile to their own land. 

In the verses aboive Daniel has apparently been ‌reading part of the book of Jeremiah. And he has found where God promised Jeremiah that the Babylonian exile would only last 70 years and that after that He will restore His people to their land. (Daniel might have read this in Jeremiah 29:10). Upon reading this Daniel realizes that the 70 years of exile  are almost up. And that prompts him to pray. 

Think about that for a moment. Daniel prays for God to do what God has already promised He will do. ‌‌As the fulfillment of God’s promise approached, Daniel didn't fall silent and wait for it to come. No! He’s like a spectator at a race who has seen his runner top the hill and start down the home stretch. Daniel cheers all the louder and prays all the more as God’s fulfillment approaches.

Here’s a lesson on prayer for us. God’s promises don’t make prayer a pointless endeavor. They encourage us to pray all the more. They give us the confidence to pray. And you don’t quit praying when God begins to answer your prayer. You pray all the harder until you have what you ask for!*

* I'm indebted to the great Puritan Pastor Matthew Henry for this insight. Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Da 9:1.

Take Your Problems to the Lord

Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

2 Kings 19:14

The King of Assyria had declared war on King Hezekiah's people. He had conquered all of Hezekiah's fortified cities. He had sent a large army right up to the gates of Hezekiah's capital city of Jerusalem. Now, he has sent a threatening letter to King Hezekiah trying to convince him to surrender instead of fight.

Put yourself in King Hezekiah’s shoes. How would you respond? Your life, the lives of your family, your soldiers, and your people all hang in the balance. They're all relying on you. If you don’t get this right, many will suffer and die. What would you do?

The eyes of every man, woman and child in Jerusalem were turned to Hezekiah to see what he would do, but Hezekiah’s eyes were turned to the Lord. Hezekiah didn’t say anything to the messengers who delivered the letter. He didn’t convene his war council. He didn’t seek the advice of the wise men. He didn’t even go up to the prophet Isaiah to ask him what he should do. Hezekiah took his problem to the Lord. 

Hezekiah went straight to the temple and spread out the scroll the King of Assyria had sent to him. He laid it's threatening and blasphemous message out before the Lord...and he prayed

This is such a beautiful picture of prayer. So often we take our problems to our friends or spouses or anywhere else but to God. But we must to learn to be like Hezekiah. We must learn to lay our problems out before the Lord in prayer. This is what prayer is. Getting on your knees before God, spreading your problems out before Him, and asking for His help. That is how you ought to pray.

Take Your Sorrows to the Lord

In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly.

1 Samuel 1:10

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Hannah lived in a culture that measured a woman's worth by the number of her children, and Hannah had no children. To make matters worse, Hannah’s husband had two wives. His other wife had many children, and she used this fact to humiliate and torture Hannah until Hannah was so upset she “wept and would not eat.” (1 Samuel 1:7)

Hannah could have taken her sorrows to the local bar to try and drink her problems away, but she didn’t do that. ‌‌Hannah could have even taken her sorrows to her husband. She could have tried to turn his heart against his other wife to get revenge. But Hannah didn’t do that either. Hannah took her sorrows to the Lord. In her distress, in her pain, in her anguish, Hannah went up to the tabernacle to pray. 

‌‌Where do you take your sorrows, your anguish, your bitterness of soul? If you turn to alcohol it won’t help you, nor will turning to drugs. They only pour gasoline on the fire. Trying to get revenge only turns you into what you hate.

‌‌Have you tried turning to God in prayer? Have you tried taking your sorrows to the Lord? That’s the example of not only Hannah but of so many heroes of the faith. Even Jesus did this on the night of his crucifixion. In His anguish, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and He prayed.

‌‌Take your sorrows to God in prayer. He alone truly knows your pain. He alone can help you. So, when you are hurting, when you are suffering, when you are in pain, take it to the Lord in prayer.

Responding to Risk

Whoever watches the wind will not plant;

whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning,

and at evening let your hands not be idle,

for you do not know which will succeed,

whether this or that,

or whether both will do equally well.

Ecclesiastes 11:4–6

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Solomon speaks to us in these verses of how we should respond to the threat of chance disasters and misfortunes in life. Are you a risk taker? Or are you more prone to sit on the sidelines waiting for ideal circumstances, for the sure thing?

If you are looking for a path through life that comes with zero risk, you won’t find it. And if you are waiting for ideal conditions, they won't come. All you will accomplish in the end is preventing yourself from ever doing anything.

Yes, life is full of misfortune and disaster and unpredictability, but behind it all is a God we trust who is in control…even when we don’t understand what He is doing. And the best thing for us is not to shout at the heavens, nor is it to sit on the sidelines of life doing nothing. No! The right response to uncertainty and unpredictability and potential disasters is found in verse 6. 

We should “Sow our seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, [i.e. take on some other skill to bring in money] for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.” In other words, don’t let the difficulties of life paralyze you. On the contrary, let them motivate you to action!

This is a good reminder for me. I'm not much of a risk taker. In fact, I'm very risk averse. But what people like me forget is that there's inherent risk in doing nothing. We think, "If I don't play, then I can't lose." But the reverse is just as true. "If I don't play, then I can't win!" It is much better to invest your money and your life liberally and diversely and take the risk of loss along with the risk of profit than it is to sit on the sidelines and do nothing. At least you will have lived and done what you could.

‌‌You have a limited amount of time, money and resources in this life. Use them wisely. Don't bury your talent. Do something for the Lord. Try multiple and varied things. You never know what might pay off in the end.