What Really Happened on Palm Sunday?

March 27, 2010

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” (Matthew 21: 43, 44)

Most of us know that on Palm Sunday we commemorate the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Have you ever considered what Jesus did when He got off that donkey?  He cleansed the Temple and then gave a series of scathing messages to the leaders of the Jewish religious establishment.

The essence of those messages was that Jesus formally and officially fired Israel!  He took the Kingdom of God from them and said He was giving it to a people who would bring forth the fruits of that kingdom.  In these messages He declared a principle about the way God works.  Jesus claimed that He Himself is a Stone and when those who profess to be His followers fall on Him and are broken to His will as the King of the kingdom of God, they bring forth the fruits of His Kingdom.  When they no longer do that, this Stone falls on them and crushes them to powder.

In other words, God moves His headquarters.  There was a time when God worked from what we call the “Holy Land,” He then moved to Asia Minor, then Europe and America.  Many believe it’s an interesting observation that the largest churches in the world are now in Korea.  Could God work primarily from Asia, perhaps China in the 21st century?

Since there is a sense in which the Kingdom is now within us, how do you personally apply what really happened on Palm Sunday?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

Has God Oversold the Product?

March 16, 2010

“… God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 KJV)

This is the most superlative and emphatic verse in the New Testament about the grace we need to live in to serve Christ. I once heard Dr. A.W. Tozer preach on this text. After he read the verse with much inflection, he paused, shook his head and said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God has oversold the product in the New Testament!” Of course, he went on to explain that God has not oversold the product. We undersell the product because our access into this grace is flawed.

Think of this with me for a moment. God is able to make all grace, not just some grace, abound toward us, not just trickle in our direction, that we, (he repeats that for emphasis meaning it’s not just for the pastor, or the missionary, but for every believer), always, not just sometimes, may have all sufficiency, not just some sufficiency, in all things, not just some things, may abound, not just go limping, unto every good work, not just the ones we like.

Once you have meditated on this verse ask yourself this question, “True or false?”

If we answer that question as we should by saying it’s true, should that not give us the courage to tackle the things God is leading us to do that we know we cannot do? Are you doing anything that can only be explained by the supernatural reality that He is, only He can, and He did because you found access into this grace?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

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