Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

17 - Trustworthy

While He was in Jerusalem during the Feast of the Passover and the week of Unleavened Bread which followed it, Jesus must have begun His ministry of healing the sick and delivering those oppressed by demons because John says, “many believed in His name beholding Him (because of) the signs which He was doing” (literal). And then John adds the strangest statement. He says, “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men.” Then he reinforces that statement by saying, “because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man (humankind), for He Himself knew what was in man.”

16 - Someday, You‘ll Understand

Sometimes Jesus tells us things we can’t understand, at least not yet. Someday we will. Someday we will look back, and it will all fit together. But not now. Now, frankly, what He said doesn’t make any sense at all. This raises an obvious question: Why would Jesus tell us something we’re not capable of understanding? Why wouldn’t He wait until we’ve matured sufficiently? Yet we need only read through the gospels and watch for examples of Jesus telling people things that made no sense to them, to see how often He did it. This is clearly one of the ways He deals with people. He will tell us deep things long before we’re able to understand them. In fact, it seems most of us spend a lifetime trying to understand even the most basic truths we were taught as children or new believers.

15 - Cleansing the Temple

What is surprising when we read this account of Jesus cleansing the temple is the lack of resistance by the merchants. For some reason, a large number of people allowed one man to walk in and totally disrupt their business activity. One would have expected a fight to break out or the temple police to intervene, but none of that happened. And though Jesus was certainly a strong young man, having worked for years as either a stonemason or a carpenter, no matter how strong or angry an individual may be, a group of furious merchants could have stopped Him. But none did. And I believe the reason is because they were ashamed of what they were doing. Moving these stalls and tables into the Court of the Gentiles was a recent, and still very unpopular decision. Annas, the high priest, had decided to do this, and Josephus (the historian) described him as a “great hoarder of money” and very rich. He moved these merchants onto the temple grounds as a means of generating personal revenue, and it quickly became a principle source of income for his family (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, E.R. Herrick and Co, 1886). In time that court would come to be called “the bazaar of the sons of Annas,” and after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Annas was thought to be the one who caused the destruction of the temple. So what Jesus did was understood as a prophetic act. Everyone understood why He was doing it, and many, even among the religious leaders, were already troubled by a guilty conscience. It’s possible Jesus had a crowd of supporters cheering Him on. 

14 - Water To Wine

John recorded this event to build our faith. He wanted us to know about a miracle Jesus performed that fulfilled a particular Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah. The prophets had said that when the Messiah comes, “the vats will overflow with new wine and oil” (Joel 2:24), and “the mountains will drip with sweet wine” (Am 9:13). And a miracle Jesus performed at a wedding in Cana proved He had the power to fulfill those prophecies. When John and the other five disciples who had accompanied Jesus to the wedding saw that miracle, they recognized it was a “sign,” and it caused them to believe even more deeply that Jesus was their promised Savior (Jn 2:11).

13 - Our True Identity

We aren’t animals. If we were, life would be much simpler. We’d go through each day controlled by our bodily appetites and instincts until the moment arrived when we died. And because we were animals, we would have no idea that we were dying, so we wouldn’t worry about it. Our focus would be on getting enough to eat, staying safe and occasionally reproducing the species. But being human makes things far more complicated.

12 - The Son of Man

After recognizing that Jesus knew things about him that only God could know, Nathanael immediately told Him that He was the promised Messiah. He said, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel” (v49), to which Jesus replied with a statement that must have stunned Nathanael. Basically He told him, “Because you believe in Me, someday you’ll rise from the dead and return to earth with Me to set up the kingdom of God.” By combining Jacob’s vision of a ladder lifted up to heaven (Ge 28:12) with Daniel’s vision of a heavenly Son of Man (Da 7:13-14), Jesus showed him a picture of the end of the age. Why would He do that, particularly with someone He just met? He looked more than 2,000 years into the future and took him straight to a vision of the last days. Why?

11 - Finding Disciples

It only took two days for Jesus to gather the first five, and probably six, of the twelve apostles he would send out “into all the world” a few years later (Mk 16:15). Two days! How did such a special group of people meet Jesus in such a short period of time? Why were they all gathered there in one location? The answer, or course, is that they had come to the Jordan River to be baptized. They were part of a crowd of people who were doing all they knew how to do to draw closer to God. This wasn’t a random group; it was a gathering of people who were hungry for God and who were willing to act on that hunger.

10 - Your Real Name

Each of us has two names: the name our parents gave us and the name God gives us. If our parents took the time to listen to God when they named us, those two names may be the same. In that case our given name is prophetic. It reveals something about God’s plan for us. Whether or not the name our parents gave us holds such meaning, the name God calls us always does. That’s because He knows how He designed us in our mother’s womb. David saw this truth and declared it in worship. Listen:
“For You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You. When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained [for me], when as of yet there was not one of them.” (Psa 139:13-16)

This has to be one of the psalms David wrote when he was an older man. He’s expressing the kind of insight that usually comes with age. He’s looking back on his life and realizing that he had simply played a part in a plan that God had determined before he was born. Before he drew his first breath, God knew the gifts and capacities he would need in order to fulfill what God was going to call him to do. In David’s case, he was going to be a warrior and a king, so God “wired” those abilities into him while he was developing in his mother’s womb.

The psalm reveals David’s humility. He’s acknowledging that everything he has accomplished was not because he had taken control of opportunities and willed himself to greatness, but because he had cooperated with God’s plan for him. In this psalm, he’s worshipping, not boasting; he’s marveling that God knew exactly who he would need to be, in order for him to do all He had planned for him to do, He’s giving the glory for an amazing life back to God. But what you and I need to realize when we read this psalm is that what was true for David is also true for us. What he discovered about God’s plan for his life we need to discover as well. We too have been “woven” in our mother’s womb with a plan in mind. We can ignore it, fight it or pursue it, but we can never change it.

9 - How Good People Repent

It’s easy for some people to see their need for repentance. They’ve led wild lives. They’ve done all sorts of terrible things, so when it comes time to repent, they literally have a checklist of sins they need to start working their way through. “Lord, I’m sorry for this… and for this… and for this,” etc. But there are others who have a much more difficult time seeing their need for repentance. Sure, they’ve done some minor things wrong, and maybe their attitude hasn’t always been that great, but by comparison to a lot of other people, they’ve led very good lives.

8 - Justice and Love

Sometimes it seems God waits until the last possible minute to act. I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure if I could see the situation from His perspective, I would realize He is acting at exactly the right moment, not a minute too soon, nor a minute too late. But since I can’t see things with His perfect knowledge, there are times I can feel myself growing frustrated with Him, wondering what He’s waiting for. And it’s at those moments that a real spiritual danger arises: I can become impatient with God. If I let my imagination run wild, I become filled with fear and can grow angry at God. I start questioning whether or not He cares that I’m suffering.