Ask one-hundred random people what they believe the character of God is and you will receive close to one-hundred different answers. Throughout my years of speaking and counseling various people, I have noticed that they all have had one thing in common: a wrong belief about God. This wrong belief has served to hold them in bondage in an area of their life, because as we have learned in previous studies, we can only receive from Him and be set free to the level at which we see Jesus.
So today we will be examining the life of Jesus and in doing so we will reveal the true heart of God; not what popular opinion merely says about Him, but His true character and nature straight from the scriptures of the Bible. Furthermore as we see His true nature, these wrong beliefs that have been holding so many people in bondage will be utterly destroyed in the light of the truth of Jesus which sets us free.
While a total examination of the life of Jesus would fill many books, today we will focus on the truths which will shine light on the most common misconceptions of God. So let’s begin by reading Matthew 9:10-13:
“And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why eats your Master with publicans and sinners?
But when Jesus heard that, he said to them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
But go you and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
One of the most prevalent lies which I hear over-and-over again is that we must clean our lives-up before we can approach Jesus. That once we show ourselves worthy, then He will accept us with open arms. This idea may sound noble and it may sound right, but it is actually completely opposite from what the Bible says… and it serves as an artificial barrier between us and God.
We can plainly see the nature of Jesus toward the lost here. He does not push them away, but welcomes them. It is also interesting to notice that the Bible states in verse 10 that it was the publicans (tax-collectors) and sinners who came and sat down with Him. They were not put-off by Him, nor did they feel unwelcome, they had chosen to sit and eat with Jesus. This was obviously a different light than the light of the law of Moses (a light which scared people away), but this was a light that attracted people. I fully believe that the Gospel of Christ is attractive, otherwise the enemy would not need to try and blind people from it.
Now notice in verse 11, that it is the Pharisees – those who cling to the law of Moses – that called Jesus out for eating with “sinful people”, but even the accusation itself demonstrates their faulty and prideful reasoning. Jesus would never be able to eat with anyone if He had to avoid sinful people, because everyone is a sinner (Romans 3:23). The Pharisees were using the law to oppress others and to make themselves feel superior. However this was nothing more than self and pride. Jesus had no interest in their self and simply stated His reason in verses 12 and 13.
Jesus said that if man was truly able to live holy and righteous that there would be no need for Him at all. Yet because God knows that man can not keep the law, Jesus has come as our Savior to give mercy to all who will accept it.
He told the Pharisees that the true heart of God is mercy and not demanding sacrifices. There are a vast number believers both layman and ministers who have yet to grasp this principle of Jesus. God is a God of mercy. We do not need to clean ourselves up – in-fact we can not clean ourselves up! But we come to Jesus honestly and openly and He is the one who cleans us up and sets us right. When we get our self completely out of the way and let Jesus take the center place in our life, He will do exactly that; and it will be an effortless transformation for us. This is what makes believers shout and dance and sing for joy every day – even worship comes from the overflow of the joy of what Christ has done. It truly is an effortless and self-less life.
Now turn to Mark 3, and let’s examine verses 1 through 6:
“And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.
And he said to the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.
And he said to them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, Stretch forth your hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.”
It is interesting to note that this is the only area in the entire Bible that specifically mentions that Jesus was angry… and look at the reason why; look at what exactly angered Him. We see a scenario here where a man who had a crippled hand was in the synagogue, probably desperate for divine help from God. The Pharisees (again, the law teachers) rather than introducing this man to Jesus, were instead scrutinizing Jesus to see if He would heal the man for the purpose of accusing Him. This was their only intent. Their minds were so twisted and evil with this idea of law-keeping and self-righteousness that they had no heart to help this crippled man. This very thing is what grieved His Spirit then, and it is still what grieves His Spirit today, not showing mercy to those that need it, but bringing people into bondage with laws and sacrifices which God does not desire – as we have previously seen.
Look at how Jesus responds to their attitude. He calls the crippled man forward and asks a very straightforward question to the Pharisees, designed to show them their failure and cause them to confess and repent (to agree with God and change their minds), but they kept silent to protect their self-centered egos. This grieved Jesus because those who were the religious leaders were grossly misrepresenting God and failing to help the people. So Jesus heals the man, but instead of everyone celebrating and rejoicing and praising God for the miracle, look at how the Pharisees respond in verse 6. The response of the Pharisees to the miracle of Jesus was that they immediately went and made plans to kill Him.
The Pharisees with their blind law-keeping and self-righteousness had completely missed the point of the Sabbath. It was meant as a holy day of rest, but what is most restful for a crippled man? To sit in the synagogue still crippled? Or to be free from his infirmity and whole – to be able to lift two perfectly whole hands to God in praise? God’s heart is to heal and restore all who will receive Him. But those who are too busy serving self will miss His will and His goodness every single time.
The last scripture we are going to examine today is John 9:1-7:
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
And said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”
There is a very insidious idea among believers today that God makes people sick, weak and feeble. That God uses disease to keep people humble or to teach them lessons. Along with this is another idea that if someone is born with a sickness, disease or infirmity that this means that God designed it that way. My friends, this is not what Jesus demonstrates here.
The heart of God is to heal. God does not make people sick. God does not make people weak or feeble. God does not cause people to be born with infirmities or diseases.
Here the disciples were much like the Pharisees, interested in assigning blame for the man’s blindness, but Jesus set their thinking right: forget about who sinned, and just realize that I have come to heal.
God did not cause the man’s blindness, but He surely came to free him from it.
This blind man knew enough to not reject what Jesus was offering him. I have spoken with some people who are adamant that God is the source of their infirmity; and some even cling to it like a badge of honor. My friends, God does not curse those He came to save from curses. If any of these things were from God, then Jesus would not have gone around healing people from them!
Notice in verse 4 that Jesus said that He must “do the works of Him who sent Me”. This tells us plainly that healing all sickness, disease and infirmity is the works that Jesus came to do. He came not to curse but to heal! The blind man had enough sense to simply accept it. The blind man did not refuse and say “well God made me this way so it must be His will.” No! He gladly accepted the healing that Jesus offered, and received the most beautiful thing ever, the very first face that the man ever saw with his new eyes, was the face of Jesus smiling at him. Not telling him to patiently endure His blindness, but saying “Believe on me”, the very one who had healed him.
This is the heart and nature of God. The Healer, the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the Savior. It’s time that we start seeing Him for who He truly is and start believing in His goodness towards us because of what Jesus Christ has done.
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[…] a previous study (Seeing the Heart of God in the Life of Jesus), we saw that the heart of God is to heal and that He does not make people sick or cause them to be […]