Blog — Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North

Monday - April 3rd

Prayer: Ask the Lord to give you a heart to love what He loves and hate what He hates. 

Read: Matthew 21:12-17, Isaiah 56:1-8, and Jeremiah 7:11

What angers you? What instantly raises your hackles and tempts you to use words that wouldn't go in a sermon? I was thinking about this in my own life. And sadly, too many things came to mind way too fast. When the fitted sheet pops off the corner of the bed while I am lying in it (>Pfft! < “The sheet came off! My life is ruined.”). Getting stuck in traffic (“That light isn't getting any greener!”).

Matthew 21:12-17 has two quick accounts. One (v12-13) sees Jesus driving out those who turned God's Temple into a Wal-Mart. “Let's use God's place as a way to make a buck! “And the other, v14-17, tells us that the chief priests and scribes saw people coming to Jesus, and Jesus helping those people, then those people praising our Lord, then the chief priests and scribes being indignant over that whole scene. 

Each story is full of lessons in their own way. We can talk about how Jesus placed a premium on prayer and reverence, and examine His zeal for the holiness of God being sustained. We can talk about the power of Jesus to heal, the way He draws those who recognize that He can meet their need. We can even do a little homily on the appropriateness of worship as a result of encountering the work of God. And this would all be good and apply.

But I want us to take one giant step back and look at something these two stories have in common: both feature a response of anger. One from our Lord, one from the chief priests and scribes. Jesus displayed a righteous anger over the flagrant disregard for the things of God. The chief priests and scribes displayed a sinful anger over people drawing close to Jesus. I know when I read the Bible, I want to think that I am one of the good guys, one who gets it. But you and I may be more scribe and less Jesus in our anger than we would want to admit. 

How often do we see God's name blasphemed, His character misrepresented, His glory ignored for the sake of human selfishness – and we are just indifferent? We are like those crowds plowing through the Temple that day, “I guess this is just how it is. Oh, well, what can you do?” Would any of us care enough to start flipping tables with Jesus? “But I wasn't there that day, Jeff!” No, but you are there today when people have elevated self over God's glory. You've sat in churches when a man-centered gospel was preached instead of God's Gospel in Jesus Christ. When immorality of all kinds is normalized in our culture, sewage piped into our homes through the internet and TV. WHERE'S the anger? 

And we've been that other passage, too. The verses 14-17 one. When someone comes out of addiction to receive Christ, and we shake our heads. When someone is truly born again through prison ministry and are upset that “those people” are coming to my church. When someone tearfully and passionately gives their testimony and we roll our eyes, “Oh, puh-lease! I can't believe he would get up there looking like that and talking like that.” WHY the anger?

Jesus showed anger over the sin the chief priests and scribes allowed. The chief priests and scribes showed anger over the worship Jesus allowed. Have we been too often guilty of getting this all backwards: tolerating the sin, but being indignant over the true work of God?

Reflection Questions:

  • What instantly makes you angry? Is this something that would anger God? Why does it anger you?

  • Is there anything in your life that you are tolerating that our Lord certainly wouldn't tolerate?

  • Do you sometimes get indignant and annoyed at the things that maybe, just maybe, God is doing in (or through) people?

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Palm Sunday – April 2nd

Prayer: Ask the Lord to increase your love, appreciation, and admiration for what Jesus has done for you while reading His Word in these devotionals this week.  

Read: Matthew 21:1-11 and Zechariah 9:9

We kick off this Easter week by getting dropped into a scene unlike any other in Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. To this point, Jesus has been doubted. He’s been questioned. He’s been accused of blasphemy. He’s had his life threatened to the point of being taken to the edge of a cliff to be thrown off of it (before putting an end to that by merely walking back through the crowd of people ready to put Him to death). He’s also been followed, desperately touched for healing, and even swarmed by crowds at times.

But He never made a public display of His entry into a city like this. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, He knows this will be His final stop. For once, He is treated by the people there like who He really is, whether they fully realize it or not: Priest and King. Savior and Lord. They lay their cloaks and tree branches out on the road before Him and shout, “Hosanna (meaning ‘please save us’) to the Son of David! Hosanna in the highest!”

I love thinking about this scene. How bittersweet that must have been for Jesus, feeling so much love and adoration from the people yet knowing what was in store in the coming days. But it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t make His triumphal entry to soak up the attention. He did it for a much more important reason, and that’s to fulfill prophesy. Jesus came in just as the coming king of Zion was supposed to back in Zechariah 9:9. The Bible is all about Jesus. Old and New Testament. It’s all about Him. It all points to Him. This is just another glorious example of that. Also, isn’t it a little amusing that it’s the “triumphal entry” yet Jesus is still only mounted on a lowly donkey colt, the foal of a beast of burden? Even in this moment, Jesus is humbling Himself before man. By the way, Matthew loves to point out when Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophesy and it’s littered all throughout his gospel. That’s kind of his thing.

As I mentioned before, this passage provides a picture of people choosing the rightful response to Jesus’ presence in their lives. Laying it down before Him. That’s what we’re called to do as followers of Jesus Christ. We are to lay our lives down to the glorious King, who laid His life down to save us from the penalty of our sin and redeem us to eternal life spent with Him in heaven.

Reflection Question:

  •  Are there any areas of your life that you aren’t laying down before Jesus? Do you express the rightful response to Him in your life?

 

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Pray Expectantly or Submissively? Why Not Both?

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This past Sunday, I preached through Hebrews 4:14-16 and wrapped up the message with a call to boldly approach the Lord for help. I drew this call from vs. 16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” I could have spent much more time on this verse and what it means for our prayer lives but unfortunately I wasn’t able to due to time constraints. But this verse did cause me to meditate upon a seeming tension that we see in Scripture in regard to prayer. This seeming tension is the relationship between praying expectantly and praying submissively.

Throughout the New Testament, we are commanded to pray with the expectation that God will move and act in response to our petitions and requests (Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, James 5:16). At the same time, we are called to pray submissively and accept the will of the Father when He answers our requests with a “no” or a “wait”. Which is it? Both of these commands seem contradictory but in reality, they are compatible. If you are a parent of young children or teenagers, you see this play out in your home all the time. You want to cultivate an open door policy with your kids where they feel comfortable approaching you and making requests. At the same time, you reserve the right to say “no” or “you have to be patient” because you know what’s best for your child. In a much greater way, the Lord wants us to boldly come to Him with our requests but His will always trumps our own. His plans always win out over our own. We serve a sovereign Father who knows what He is doing and the accomplishment of His perfect will includes the trampling of some of our dreams. The accomplishment of His perfect will includes us going through seasons of difficulty and trial.

We see this dynamic play out in the life of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. He was experiencing some intense trial that many try to speculate on but we’re not actually sure about the exact nature of his affliction. Whatever it was, it was bad. He didn’t want to deal with it anymore. He wanted this thorn in the flesh gone ASAP. We are told in 2 Corinthians 12:8 that Paul pleaded with the Lord three times that this affliction would be taken away. As I studied this verse, many scholars suggest that three times “likely means that Paul pleaded with the Lord to exhaustion.”* Despite Paul’s honest and bold pleading, the Lord would not remove this trial from His faithful servant’s life. There was a greater purpose for Paul’s pain.

The Lord responds to Paul’s pleas with one of the most encouraging verses in all of the New Testament, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, “ (12:9 ESV). We are not promised a yes to every request but we are always promised the presence of our God. He will never leave us or forsake us. He will never waste our pain. He will show Himself mighty in the midst of our struggles. He doesn’t say “no” or “wait” to torture us. He says “no” or “wait” to refine us and mold us into the image of HIs Son. God may not be answering a certain prayer of yours in the way that you want Him to right now. That is hard. It can be painful to realize that God’s plans and timetables do not line up with your own. But don’t let that disappointment crush you or disillusion you from continuing to approach the Lord with confidence and boldness. God answers so many of our requests with a “yes” but we’re so often blind to these things because we’re so focused on what He isn’t giving us. I want to encourage you to write your prayer requests down over the next week. Keep track of how God is answering your prayers and you’ll be blown away by what He is doing in your life. This will give you a much different perspective on those requests that he is currently saying “no” or “wait” to. Don’t give up on praying expectantly and submissively.

*https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-was-pauls-thorn-in-the-flesh-2-corinthians-12/

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The Sanctity of Life

Do No Harm

I have been a physician assistant for 14 years now.  I started my education/training at Gannon University and then spent a year training/working at Johns Hopkins solely in surgery, the specialty I had chosen for my career.  I remember being in awe learning the history of the great doctors and the legacy they left for us at Hopkins.  Many wings in the hospital were named after them like Alfred Blalock, a Hopkins surgeon who with pediatric cardiologist Helen B. Taussig, devised a surgical treatment for infants born with the condition known as the tetralogy of Fallot or “blue baby” syndrome.  Even some of our surgical instruments were named after them, like DeBakey forceps, named after Michael DeBakey a cardiovascular surgeon, educator, international medical statesman, and pioneer in surgical procedures for treatment of defects and diseases of the cardiovascular system.  I was so proud to be a medical professional; to be part of this legacy in learning, researching, diagnosing and treating patients.  It was also terrifying to realize people’s lives were in our hands, I took that very seriously.  And thus began my experiencing first hand life and death.

What is life?  This seems like a simple question, right?  But is it?  In our current culture right now, there are ALL kinds of opinions on how to answer this.  Webster’s dictionary defines life as “the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body; an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.”  (All things a growing baby starts in the womb and throughout life by the way). 

The Bible defines life many ways, “God created it” (Genesis 1-2, John 1:3, Hebrews 11:3) and specifically “created man” (Genesis 2:7, Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:14-16), “Jesus is life” (John 11:25,14:6), a “gift from God” (Romans 6:23).

God’s words to Jeremiah apply to all mankind: He knew us, formed us, and consecrates us as His own.  We have value because God created us in His image.  Doctors used to understand this.  It is very disturbing, and deeply grieves me, that medical institutions like the AMA (American Medical Association) and ACOG (American College of OB/Gyn), to name a few, are siding with the murdering of children.  We took an Oath to protect our patients.  You can read what the Hippocratic Oath USED to say before its revision, and what it says now. (1)

The classical Hippocratic Oath involves the triad of the physician, the patient, and God, while the revised version involves only the physician and the patient.  Is it a surprise then, that the phrase “I will give no sort of medicine to any pregnant woman, with a view to destroy the child” has been removed?  When God is removed, there is no reason to value life.  And sadly this atheist, nihilistic worldview has not only taken over our culture, but taken over the medical field as well.  The institutions that I once held in high regard now train medical students that abortion is health care and euthanasia is now becoming a “merciful” way to “assist” one in dying.  When we devalue life at any stage, we devalue it all together.

There is conflict in the medical field; “product of conception” vs baby.  During medical school lectures, in one instance they “ooo” and “ahh” the baby on screen, yet the week before they were talking about termination of “product of conception.”  When the “medical experts” don’t recognize life at conception anymore, even though science overwhelmingly shows that at conception a zygote forms, which has its own unique DNA separate from the parents…new life (2).  They take the humanity away by saying the heartbeat that begins around 4 weeks gestation is just “electrical activity”.  Or they question if a baby can only become “human” once they develop “consciousness.”  It’s no wonder than that lawmakers can get to the point of voting against laws that would protect a baby that survives an abortion, like 210 did in the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” that just passed the House last week (1-11-23). (3)

 

Abundant LIFE

Now, add on a culture that thinks it has a “right to abortion”, celebrates it even, and has turned its back on God and considers the Bible, and those who follow it, “outdated”, “archaic” or even “foolish.”  “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  1 Corinthians 1:18.  Then some say, “Well, we don't find the life issue in Scripture.  So, we can go with whatever the culture says.”  We want to make sure you DON’T do that.  The Bible has plenty of principles that speak to plenty of issues in our day. 

Let me share some insight from Roland Warren, the CEO of Care Net (nonprofit organization that empowers women and men considering abortion to choose life for their unborn children and find abundant life in Christ.)

“In John 10:10, Christ said that He came not just to give us life but abundant life.  In the Greek, there are two primary words for life.  Bios and Zoe.  Bios refers to our physical life.  This is the root of the word biology.  Zoe on the other hand refers to a unique spiritual life.  In the Greek, it was the divine life uniquely possessed by God.  When Christ says in John 10:10, ‘I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly,’ He is speaking in terms of both Bios and Zoe.  Indeed, Christ came to give this kind of life to all—both inside and outside the womb.”

“[Approximately] 2,500 unborn babies will lose their lives in abortions today.”

“These children need more than laws to protect them, they need men and women whose hearts have been transformed by the Gospel, ready to disciple any parent considering abortion.  As Christians, we know that lasting transformation comes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and ongoing discipleship.”

“If we really want to see abortion end or for abortion to be ‘unthinkable in this generation’ then we have to see people transformed so that they don’t just choose life (Bios) for their unborn children, but they also choose abundant life (Zoe) for their families.  This can’t happen if we are only meeting their physical and material needs.  And this can’t happen outside the church’s call to make disciples for Jesus Christ.” (4)

Spiritual Battle plan

We have to see abortion for what it really is…a sacrifice to Molech.  This is a SPIRITUAL BATTLE!  As wise King Solomon said “nothing is new under the sun.”  Today, our children may not be sacrificed to appease the gods, but they are sacrificed to idols of convenience, career, finances, etc.  Abortion is not just an attack on unborn children, it’s an attack on the sanctity of marriage and the family as God designed.  Church, we need to recognize this first and foremost if we are going to be able to do something about it.  You can’t win the battle if you don’t know your enemy and his tactics.  Paul teaches us this in Ephesians 6 with the spiritual armor.  Satan knows us…our strengths, our weaknesses…and he is an expert at deception.  It’s time for us to put on our spiritual armor and go to battle!

Let me break down practically our battle plan:

  • "The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not being able to do something, and enter God's realm where everything is possible.”  - Corrie ten Boom

    James 5:16 talks about how “the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”  And Ephesians 6:18 ends the armor of God by stating “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.”  Pray is a huge part of the activation of the spiritual armor. 

    Pray for:

    • Truth of what abortion is to come to light

    • For the men and women deceived and harmed by this industry to find healing

    • For the abortionists and abortion workers’ eyes to be opened to the evil they are doing and they stop.

    • Protection of all the pregnancy centers and organization on the front lines fighting this, and also encouragement and boldness, as this is a dark area they work in.

    • Boldness of the church to speak up on this issue and to transform hearts and minds

  • It’s hard to debate something if you don’t really know much about yourself.  Christians need to educate themselves on abortions…the types, how they are done, the risks.  Yes, it’s hard to look at the horrors of a fallen world sometimes, but sometimes it’s necessary in order for us to see the severity and urgency of the issue.  Many people don’t speak up because they don’t feel they know enough to speak intelligently on the subject.  There are many great resources available to you:

    • Lifechat - Of all the information I am sharing, this is a must see.  As I stated earlier, the argument “we don't find the life issue in Scripture” is dealt with here.

    • Live Action News - Pro-life, non-profit organization with educational videos, news in regards to life issues, resources like Myth vs Fact.

    • Baby Olivia – A medically accurate, animated glimpse of human life from the moment of fertilization. The story details her growth as she progresses from one developmental stage to the next, in preparation for her continued life outside of the womb.

    • APPLOG - (American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists) exists to encourage and equip its members and other concerned medical practitioners to provide an evidence-based rationale for defending the lives of both the pregnant mother and her pre-born child.  This is more for medical professionals but full of evidence-based studies and information.

    • The Procedure - **Viewer discretion advised** A four minute animated video showing the unvarnished truth of what abortion is from the perspective of an ultrasound technician that participated in a 2nd trimester surgical abortion.

    • Life Apologetics - Scott Klusendorf is a well-known speaker on teaching people how discuss/defend the life issue. 

    • History of Abortion - Do a basic web search, and it is not hard to find that this whole movement was based off eugenics and racism by its founder Margaret Sanger.

  • As stated above, the only way to change this culture of death to a culture of life, is to transform the hearts with the Gospel.

    • Bible study - Know your Bible, and know what it teaches on life. Go back under education to LifeChat video series.

    • Boldness - Be bold in speaking truth “with gentleness and respect” 1 Peter 3:15

    • Pregnancy Centers - They are already doing this work, support them in prayer, through donations, with supplies, volunteering, or meeting specific needs they have.

    • Making Life Disciples - Ministry resource that equips churches to create ministries for women and men facing unexpected pregnancies by offering compassion, hope, and help.

  • “Rescue those being led away to death;  hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?” Proverbs 24:11,12.

    We cannot sit idly by and do nothing when our children are being murdered daily.  The prophet Micah said that God requires us to, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8).  Part of doing justice is ensuring that governments rule justly.  Yes, that means be political…BUT before you tune out, consider the biblical way to address injustice:

    • Laws - “Governments have the power to tax, imprison, and kill.  When a government becomes unjust in its use of those powers, its first victims are the most vulnerable (i.e. Nazi Germany).  We cannot ignore the political realm.  We are called to actively engage our government and elected officials so that they respect the sanctity of life and enact just laws.  HOWEVER, we can’t allow our engagement of the political realm to cause us to think that our primary calling is political.  IT ISN’T.  Our primary calling is to make disciples for Jesus Christ, which requires us to also care about the spiritual, along with the material and political” (4).  PA Family Institute is a great resource in Pennsylvania.  It’s a non-profit organization who’s “goal is for Pennsylvania to be a place where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished.” https://pafamily.org/

    • Children - The sexualization of our children by this culture has grave consequences, it leads to normalizing risky sexual behavior, which then in turn leads to pregnancies, which then can lead to abortion.  The abortion industry knows this, which is why for years it’s been pushing “comprehensive sex education” starting in kindergarten.  You can see for yourself the CDC guidelines: https://npin.cdc.gov/publication/guidelines-comprehensive-sexuality-education-3rd-edition

    • Purity - One of the trainings, of many, I did when I started working for a pregnancy center was on how to assist parents on talking to their teens about sex.  Yes, parents, this is YOUR JOB!  Not the church, schools, and heaven forbid Hollywood or social media.  How does this connect to abortion?  “By the time you are faced with the unconscionable decision to end a life, you have most likely blown through fifty other bad choices to get there.”  - Keith Guinta.  In his article, he makes the point that “We have debates, rallies, protests, and politicking intent upon either proliferating or eliminating acts of abortion.  Yet I never hear honest, deeply intellectual dialogue on the issues of human sexuality that lead to unwanted pregnancy in the first place.”  (5)  The church needs to be talking about sexual integrity.

  • Many of the clients we see tell us that if the father of the baby would support them, they would likely choose life.  Care Net’s research into abortion found that the father of the baby was the most influential voice in a woman’s pregnancy decision.  Men have been demasculinized in our culture by a feminist movement that started as just wanting equality but has now gone far beyond that.  This has left many men feeling lost and confused on how to even be a man, let along the importance of being a father. 

    • Care Net - has great resources for dealing with this.

    • Tony Evans - is another big proponent of raising biblical men and dealing with fatherlessness.

    • Prolife Men’s Summit - is a great way for men to get involved and be discipled and encouraged.

  • “Care Net’s large national study of women who had abortions found that two out of five women were attending church at least once a month during their first abortion.  This means that too many women are walking out of our churches Sunday morning and into abortion clinics on Monday.  Our research also found that most women did not feel their church had any resources to help with their unplanned or unexpectedly complicated pregnancy decisions.  Others feared judgment from the congregation should they find out about the pregnancy. Accordingly, there is a critical need for churches to minister to the abortion vulnerable.” (4)

    • Post-abortion counseling - There are various organizations (e.g., Reassemble) that offer abortion recovery support groups and Bible studies helping to heal the pain of those who have chosen abortion.  Local pregnancy centers usually offer this or can refer to one.

  • God calls us to be good stewards of our money. Are you willing to inconvenience yourself in order to stop supporting this evil with your hard earned money? Vote with your dollar!

BE BOLD

While this has become a very complex issue, the answer remains the same, for every issue vexing our culture right now…JESUS.  I hope this information stirs the Holy Spirit inside of you to have compassion for the lost and boldly, in word and deed, share the Gospel.  That is the greatest need we see in each of our clients that walks through our doors.  As Toby Mac once said in their Jesus Freak album “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle.  That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” We can no longer be silent.  When God called me to leave my 12 year surgical career to use my medical skills at a pregnancy center, I learned about Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who boldly stood against the Nazis and was eventually killed.  I started reading Eric Metaxas’s book about him and ordered a poster of Pastor Bonhoeffer with this quote attributed to him, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless, not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act.”  Every time I look at it, it reminds me of what God has called me to do and encourages me to be courageous.  So BE BOLD brothers and sisters, BE BOLD!

    1. “The Hippocratic Oath: The original and revised version.” posted on March 10, 2015 by Practo. https://doctors.practo.com/the-hippocratic-oath-the-original-and-revised-version/#The_Classic_Hippocratic_Oath

    2. Quotes from “The Developing Human Being” By Keith Moore, and T.V.N. Persaud, 7th edition, 2003.  https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes.html

    3. “H.R.26 - Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” 118th Congress, Jan 11, 2023. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/26

    4. “Why we can’t end abortion without discipleship” By Roland Warren.

    5. “Roe vs Wade, and What We All Seem to be Missing” By Keith Guinta, June 25, 2022. https://www.winepatch.org/blog/roe-v-wade-and-what-we-all-seem-to-be-missing

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