Ascension Thursday

We are now on Ascension Thursday and we are ready with open hearts and minds to receive all that has been prepared for us. Only through the Holy Spirit's

teaching, if we by faith accept and believe, will we ascend in our thoughts and actions, to the pleasure of God.

We first bow, and give credence and homage to our Only Wise, God the Son, who is the same with us today as He was with His disciples so very long ago.

Jesus, You are still our Lord, Saviour and Master. We believe that You still want us to know that You are not dead and that You are with us in many different ways. We thank You Holy Spirit for granting us this knowledge. Amen!

Here is a reminder of our main text as recorded in Mark 10: 3. What did Moses command you? He replied.

We are today noting the wisdom of Jesus, which is the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit – One God. Here begins the strategic steps, ascending steps, as promised. With the Holy Spirit’s enabled power to give us teaching and learning, we will be taken up these steps, to the end of the week.

Expose

The first strategic step of the wisdom of Jesus is to expose. Don’t forget, these Pharisees have come with ulterior motives to Jesus. Jesus brings out into the open what is being covered up. Is it lawful…? Jesus comes right out and speaks of the command of Moses, because their life is their understanding of Moses' law given by God. Jesus exposes the deviousness of the learned Pharisees, without them even having a clue. What a thing! The highly learned, the scholars of the day, those who are esteemed and accorded the title of wise, have come to Jesus, in their exalted wisdom, thinking that Jesus, a mere ordinary Jew from Nazareth in Galilee, can be a walkover.

Is this still not the mentality of the world and all who see themselves as more learned and astute than others? You must understand the thinking of Jesus’ day, which is no different from ours, even now. We often judge people on the place or area from which they have come, where they were brought up, and still hold fast to the awful prejudice which snobbishly and haughtily ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Alas! Their wisdom is so inferior to the superior wisdom of Jesus, they are blind to see, hear and receive, how they are destroying their own intentions.

Lord Jesus, we see You and hear You in Risen Light. Your Wisdom is Light that dispels darkness and shows up all our evil thoughts, words and ways. As You continue to inform us about the Kingdom of God, we accept that the Kingdom has no darkness in it. The Kingdom has come, the Kingdom of God is here, for You, Holy Lord, are the Kingdom of God.

A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth. John 4: 23 – 24

The understanding of that woman to whom Jesus was speaking was one which I’m afraid many of us still have. She is still waiting on Messiah, on God’s promised deliverer, to come. Her faith allows her to keep on holding to God’s promise for she knows that God is faithful to all His promises. She has every confidence that when Messiah comes He will explain everything to her and her people. We keep speaking to Jesus about the promised Holy Spirit in like fashion. O! But can you and I in this moment, hear Jesus saying to us, I, the One speaking to you – I am He? The Kingdom of God is our One True Holy Spirit who exposes our ignorance and lets us know that the Kingdom is with us, even now.

Tomorrow we continue, as we are lifted higher with our Lord.