Rights of Ownership [part three] ...

How do you prove that you own something?  I have a plastic cup on my desk, if my ownership of this cup were challenged, perhaps I could produce a receipt for it.  But a receipt only shows that I bought “a” plastic cup, not that I bought “this” plastic cup.  At some point, the person who challenges my ownership of something is going to have to believe that it is mine, perhaps based on my word, perhaps based on the evidence I can produce (receipts, eye-witness testimony, etc.).  But if the questioner is determined “not” to believe me, no matter what truth I tell, what witnesses I can produce, and what evidence supports my claims … they can remain unconvinced simply because they choose not to believe.  Most of us would not be so hard headed, particularly where it comes to the ownership of a plastic cup, mostly because we could care less who owns a particular plastic cup.  When the stakes are higher, we need more to be convinced.  When the stakes are for your soul, what would it take you to be convinced?

Satan is playing the highest stakes game there is.  And he is playing it with you.  His argument is simple; he does not exist, in fact, nothing supernatural exists.  Therefore, you are the only one in charge of you.  You own you.  You must take care of you, as no one else will.  His goal is not to argue against God, for in this he would undoubtedly lose.  His goal is to convince you there is no game, there are no players, and the only one here, is you.  Atheists gladly accept this idea.  They like it better.  They prefer it.  They understand it.  Accepting that there is a supernatural, that there is something beyond their sight, complicates their decisions, and presents a different choice of ownership to them, one they do not want to make, or believe exists.  Atheists claim to believe only in evidence, and yet can find a way to disallow every piece of evidence, and eye-witness testimony you provide.  They are determined NOT to believe, and so they remain unconvinced by choice.

God is also playing the highest stakes game there is.  He is not playing by choice, but by necessity.  Satan has forced God into this position, because for Love’s sake, God must do something, or see Satan destroy His children with no remorse.  God never intended His children to suffer.  God never intended His children to know what “death” is.  Satan introduced that knowledge of good and of evil to us in firsthand experience.  God wanted us to be blissfully ignorant of disease, of pain, and of death.  But we wanted to know, Eve wanted to know.  And so we do.  God’s argument is also simple.  God wants to free us from the slavery we have unknowingly embraced in ceding our dominion to Satan.  God wants to take the chains of slavery of self-love off of us, and make us free to end pain, end death, and know perfection once again.  He offers us this gift, for no more reason, than He loves us, even more than He loves His own life.  And He dies to prove it to us, to take our punishment upon Himself.

So the players are assembled, the prize is you, and the choice about what you believe determines the ownership that will be asserted over you every day of your life.  Your death will finally end the choosing.  Your life will determine what choice you made most often, and at its end.  But what will it take for you to believe it?  This choice of whether one will believe or not is far from new.  Adam and Eve faced it.  You and I will as well.  Jesus Christ is perpetually facing those on both sides of the belief question.  Some of us accept what He offers.  Some decline, some even decline with a vengeance.  There are some, who do accept the premise of the supernatural, they just do not accept that Jesus can do anything to free their souls, or their choices.

Peter recalled for John Mark in chapter eleven, some of the first enemies of Christ.  These were religious leaders … perhaps that bears repeating … these were religious leaders.  These were men who devoutly believed in the supernatural, in the God they worshipped, just not in the manifestation of that same God.  They refused belief, because they would have had to give up control to do so.  Please read that previous sentence again.  How many of us refuse belief, because we would have to give up control to do so?  Instead we become the virtual enemies of Christ, while still claiming to follow Him.  The Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees also claimed the faith of Abraham, and to serve Abraham’s God.  But they refused to be saved by Jesus Christ, the long awaited Messiah, because He loved others, and they could not.  They loved themselves more, and they bear a reflection of so many of us, sitting in pews of Christian churches, with all the doctrinal knowledge of our forefathers, and as little love as them as well.

These men had gone from teacher, to killer.  They went from studying scripture to making plans on how to kill the Author of scripture.  And so this was the context of the day.  Jesus was still in “their” Temple, He was teaching “His” doctrine, not theirs, and He did not recognize their authority.  Something had to be done to remedy this.  The recollection begins in verse 27 saying … “And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, [verse 28] And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things?”  The trap was laid.  This question was designed to have Jesus publicly state that He was the Messiah, the Son of God.  Had they been listening, they would have already heard this throughout His ministry by the healed, by the saved, even by the demons He cast out.  But the leaders wanted Jesus to say it in their Temple, right after which, they would try Him for heresy.

Jesus responds in verse 29 saying … “And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. [verse 30] The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.”  Perhaps starting the great political tradition of our age, answering a question with a question, Jesus offers them a trap of His own.  The motives here are widely different.  An answer to Jesus’ question is to prompt their hearts about the state of their own salvation.  For Jesus has come to save His enemies, as much as His followers.  Sometimes, they are the same people, in His day, and in ours.

The leadership ponders picking up in verse 31 saying … “And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? [verse 32] But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed.”  Ouch!  Consider closely the reasoning of the enemies of Jesus, in His day, and in your own churches.  They “knew” that John’s messages were of God.  It was more than the people who were convicted of the error of their ways by the Holy Spirit speaking through John.  Priests were confronted.  Hypocrites were called out.  Even Herod was privately convinced he needed to change his life, and was planning to get rid of the women that were pulling him away from God (when those women acted to see John’s influence forever silenced by Herod’s pride).  The priests know John was telling the truth, as much as they know Jesus is.  But they continue to refuse to believe, because it would require them to give up control.  How many of us read these words, and ignore the 800-pound gorilla in our own spiritual lives … we too refuse to give up control to Jesus Christ?  We want to make ourselves ready for Jesus, not let Him do it.

So the matter is resolved in verse 33 saying … “And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”  How disappointed Jesus must have been.  Either answer from those men could have helped them recognize their need of Jesus to save to them.  Baptism was a public symbolism of what God does for each of us.  The internal carnal man, his nature, his addiction to sin, is put to death in the gentle waters of the Jordon.  Or by the Son of God who gently takes from us our chains of sin and pain.  We rise from the waters a new creation, a new creature born of our God, with a new life He gives us.  We are remade by our Creator.  Yet the enemies of Christ refused repentance, and embraced the pain of sin.  They cast aside scripture, because it teaches them to love, and embrace only the ideas of killing Jesus, and the scriptures that could be twisted to support that cause.

How like us.  We decide the meaning first, then open scriptures to prove our point, not to be taught a different one.  We perceive ourselves to be spiritually mature based on our accumulated knowledge, not on our ability to cast aside our knowledge and embrace the playtime of a toddler (dirty diaper and all) wholly dependent on our Father to care for us in every way, including removing the filth of our sins.  The danger in the lesson of the religious leadership in the days of Christ, are meant for the Christian to understand in our own day in age.  Those men believed they were owned by God.  They had given themselves to God by declaration.  But when Jesus came to them, looking to reform their hearts, in effect to follow up on the ownership deed they had given … the men took it back.  They revealed that control was more important than salvation, or belief.  Are we different?  Do we claim Christianity, until Jesus asks to change some aspect of our lives?  Only then do we decide our sin, is more precious to us, than His request?  Does our life reveal our slavery, or His victories?

The priests asked “by what authority” does Jesus perform these actions?  Satan asks Him the same question today.  When it comes to your life, in the game Satan is playing with you, whether you like it or not, Satan asks Jesus “by what authority” does Jesus intend to change your desires for his sins?  Have you given Jesus this authority, or are you yet holding it back, making sure Jesus does not touch “that” part of your life?  Jesus is fully capable of changing everything about you.  He can make you a new creature.  He can make your life exponentially better than it is today.  But only “you” can grant Him the authority to do so.  He cannot take it.  Satan cannot steal your decision to do so.  When Satan asks the question “by what authority” to Jesus Christ in the matters of your life … what will Jesus be able to answer?