Reading through the book of Nehemiah, I noticed a trend of prayers that Nehemiah prayed to God asking God to remember what he has done for His Name and also for Israel. Listed four occasions when he prayed that. I have listened to much gospel centered sermons by some big names too, they have always told me that we can never remind what we have done for God and hence to remember to bless us, because that’s moralistic. That’s against the spirit of the gospel of grace when everything we have achieved is really by the grace of God. My thesis is that we can never brag about what we have done to justify God saving us, I call it the pre justification phase. Redemption can never be earned by our efforts of morality, except by faith and faith alone in Christ. That’s a given. However, we can remind God what we have done for His Name after the justification phase, or salvation phase, going into the sanctification phase, we can certainly tell God what we have sacrificed and stayed committed to serve Him, and ask him to bless us. Well, take a look at Nehemiah:

Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people

Nehemiah 5: ¹⁸ Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people.¹⁹ Remember me with favor, my God, for all I have done for these people.

Nehemiah asked God to remember him with favor, for all that he has done for the people of Israel. He was kind to Israel; he didn’t demand good supply of food and wine from them on a daily basis because they are heavy on them. He never demanded the governor’s portion from his people even though he was entitled.

So he did this out of love for the people of Israel, and he therefore asked God to remember him with favor, for what he has sacrificed and done for Israel. That’s totally biblical because God accepted that. Is that counter gospel centeredness? No. Why? Because that’s after he became a Christian in the OT sense. He didn’t use this to demand or negotiate God’s salvation. He’s already saved. He’s in sanctification mode.

Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.

Nehemiah 13: ¹² All Judah brought the tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil into the storerooms. ¹³ I put Shemaiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites. ¹⁴ Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.

He asked God to remember him for his setting up manpower for the house of God, and asked that God will not blot out what he has faithfully done for the house of God and its services. This can be interpreted as not blotting what he has done, to bless his labor of love for the house of God. Like us today, that we ask God to remember our labor of love for his house, the church, in our service unto the Lord. That God may bless us with in our labor.

Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.

Nehemiah 13: ²² Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy.  Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.

This is probably so easily understood to glow in the gospel centeredness, because is according to God’s great love.

Remember me with favor, my God.

Nehemiah 13: ³⁰ So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. ³¹ I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the first fruits. Remember me with favor, my God.

He asked God to remember him with favor. All good, and we should not be shy to ask God to remember us with favor. All biblical.

This is more than a philosophical question, this is a spiritual and physical question that goes back to the entire Adamic race’s fall from grace. You see when the archangel Lucifer and his cohort of 1/3 of total angels in heaven rebelled against God and fell, there was no rescue plan or redemption for him. But for human race when Adam fell, God immediately put into place a redemptive plan starting with an animal slain and its skin used to cloth Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3: ²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

And that redemptive plan ran through the entire Old Testament through the covenant with Abraham to bless him and multiply his descendants and to take the nations, to Moses’ covenant with the chosen nation Israel, to David of Israel, and finally all the promises of God for global salvation and his global eternal dominance was finally established when Jesus died on the cross and resurrected three days later.

Jesus’ resurrection defeated the power and curse of death. He saved the entire Adamic race or mankind for those who put their faith in Christ. That is major breakthrough for redemptive act of God for mankind. The first Adam fell, then the second Adam came and succeeded to save the entire race.

Why did the bible calls Jesus as the second Adam?

Romans 5: ¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Through one man, Adam, death reigned thru that man to the entire human race, and similarly through one man, Jesus Christ, we all received God’s grace and the gift of righteousness.

But why does the Savior have to be a Man?

Hebrews 2: ¹³ And again, “I will put my trust in him.”  And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.”  ¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Jesus calls us, those who followed him as his children

Jesus called us as the children God has given him. He must be an earthly flesh person to become our Father. He can’t be Spirt, and we be the flesh. Then, since we have flesh and blood, he must share in our flesh and blood, so that by his death (remember God can’t die), he might break the power of Satan who holds the power of death. You see the rationale here? Because we are flesh and blood, in order to break the power of death over flesh and blood, he needs to become flesh and blood to break the power of Satan who holds the power of death. But why? Can’t God break the power of Satan who holds the power of death directly from his heavenly throne?

The first answer is that he is saving flesh and blood, and he must become like flesh and blood. V17 says for this reason, he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order to become a merciful and faithful high priest to God on our behalf, and that make atonements for the sins of us.

Jesus gained empathy for humans through his experience of temptations and suffering in faithfulness to God.

This is important to understand. Before Jesus incarnated into the world and became a human, He would not be able to have the complete empathy as he did in his earthly life after being tempted and all that. Because God cannot be tempted. Jesus could not be tempted before his incarnation to the world. Therefore for him to fully empathize with humans’ sufferings and temptations, he must become a man to experience temptations (40 days in the wilderness, and also the struggle in Garden Gethsemane when sweated blood). That’s crucial to understand.

God is omnipotent so why can’t he just save mankind?

People usually think God can do anything if he wants to right? Theologically its right but its also within constraint. Example, God cannot sin. God cannot be unjust. He cannot be deceitful. He cannot bypass his attribute of holiness, and because of that even though He is a God of love and faithfulness, He still needs to send men and women who reject Christ to hell. Modern world cannot understand that, and ask why would a loving God do that? But they forgot to insert the words, a holy God! He is both holy and loving. These two can’t meet on our daily logic until they meet on the cross of Jesus. It’s there on the cross, love and holiness meets. Holiness means wrath against those who break his laws. It’s like a judge who loves his son, but his son committed murder and was to be sentenced to death, he even though loves his son much, he is supposed also to uphold the law. The law of God comes from his attributes, and one of them is holiness, and hence wrath against all ungodliness. His wrath is poured out towards all those who walked away from Him, rebelled against Him, and hence sentenced to eternal condemnation. But Jesus came into this world, and he drank all the wrath of God His father in order that He may break the power of Satan who holds the power of death.

He cannot override one attribute of him to fulfill the other attribute. They must all be true simultaneously, or else He ceases to be God.

I was in a zoom session with Dr Ben Gladd & Dr Ligon Duncan this afternoon over an exegesis talks from scripture. Of the many awesome things that I got like the best commentary for NT related to OT is by Beale, which I promptly bought one, though expensive! Among other good stuff on reading and interpreting Greek, and the bible, the thing that hit me most came from an unlikely totally unrelated theme, albeit a really if not the most important theological and philosophical and existential hope theme, is about Gladd’s sharing about his dad who just passed away not too long ago. He told his dad, “I will hang out with you in heaven in future”. He said as a matter-of-fact way, and for some reason, this is not a new theology, but rathe rudimentary if anything, but it struck me. Must be the Holy Spirit moved in my heart. I immediately thought of my own dad, who passed decades ago, that I will see him and hang out with him in heaven! Whoa! Never really think of it that much, may be its too long ago when that happened. But then I turned to think about my 82 years old mum, and in future after she’s passed away, and in eternity, I will also hang out with her in heaven! Whoa! Then it dawned on me for my own kids, will I hang out with them all in heaven in eternity?

That’s when the rubber hits the road, and there is just a sense of uneasiness that came upon me. We all love to hang out with our loved ones in eternity, so we now must make sure they have put their faith in Christ Jesus, and totally be born again and follow Christ, and worship him. That’s the main drive for me, for I know I have a lot of prayers need to be done. I have to humble myself before God and pour out my heart to God for His divine work in all my children’s’ lives, and many parents I know must be praying for their kids for years, some have seen a turnaround, some have not, regardless, this is truly the remarkable love of parents, and the calling of parents for their kids that God has put in our hearts. I am thankful for my mum who had prayed for me a lot for years, and now continue to pray for me and my siblings and her grandchildren as well.

I want to bring that reality of seeing and hanging out in heaven for eternity into our feelings, perception, minds, spirits more. Sometime, in fact most times, we take things for granted, and leave them as they are. We either have given up with the status quo of our prayers not seeing results yet, or we have lost sight of the reality of eternity that’s coming. The eschatological age that’s coming. We must see that reality more and more. As Christians that’s the hope that no others have. If we see that we will see and hang out with our grandma, grandpa, fathers, mothers, in laws etc. in heaven for eternity in future, this will just make our hearts well up with so much joy and one can easily burst into tears of joy and gratefulness unspeakable.

Some of our parents, grandparents have passed away for years, and the notion that we will see them and remember us and hang out together in heaven is a bliss! It’s an amazing feat that’s of such epic proportion & unspeakable joy. We have that, and we must treasure it and rejoice. We will see our dear loved ones who are deceased one day. This is the good news that we must share with our friends, speak into their lives, evangelize, make disciples, and plant churches, because that reality should rejuvenate us and spring us into action. Evangelism and planting churches, making disciples are some of the hardest in the world, but that reality is the most powerful antidote for us which is the hardest impossibility for most in the world, and yet the most significant and important tin life, far more than the $$$ in bank account. Only in Christ we can have that, and we do. We give thanks from the bottom of our hearts!

Can you Imagine this man who carried the dead body of the God Man in his hands from the cross?

John 19:38–42 (NIV)

³⁸ Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. ⁴⁰ Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹ At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴² Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

I wonder what this man Joseph of Arimathea would feel when he finally stand before Jesus seated at his great throne of glory at the end time when Jesus judges all men? I mean he carried Jesus’ dead body together with Nicodemus and wrapped him up and applied myrrh and aloes to bury Jesus. That’s the narrative between the cross and the tomb, the most heart tearing story, and yet the most powerful world changing story that has brought healing and eternal hope for all of mankind whoever put their faith in him.

Welcome to Easter

Then Jesus rose the dead, and appeared to his disciples for 40 days teaching and exhorting them and assuring them before his final ascension to heaven.

I have lots of questions:

What does God the Father think looking down from heaven at his beloved Son been killed and now being carried out to be buried by this secret disciple? It is not just what went through Arimathea only, but what went through the mind of God at that time? To imagine the omnipotent almighty God allows his Son seemingly defeated and being killed in a murderous torturous humiliating way before the eyes of the whole world? What went through the mind of God?

Jesus’s death and humiliation on the Cross is exactly the Plan of God

But that’s exactly what God planned and written about his Son Jesus Christ from ancient prophecies of Isaiah etc. It’s just beyond human comprehension that this could happen to the God Man himself. No religion can fathom this, and for Christians today to pass through another Easter like life a usual, will be absolutely criminal!

Why did God allow that? The answer is God actually planned for it; God predestined it before he created the world. The Triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit had all thought through this carefully and decided to do this. My argument is that it was not an accident that Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of Satan. Going a step further, it’s also not an accident the fall of Lucifer the archangel to become Satan. The origination of evil is Satan. And Satan is also predestined by God in the eternity past before the angels were created. 

God did it to Show the Depth & Glory of His Love for Mankind

I can only imagine that God predestined it that way to show the depth of his love for humanity and that’s who He is. The only way to show such intense depth is in God’s eternal wisdom, is to have the second person of Godhead , the Son, to die on the cross to redeem humanity. It was not an accident we have Easter! It’s all written in the scripts of God in the Old Testament. 

That’s what Paul wrote in Romans the doxology of God! 

Romans 11:33–36 (NIV). Doxology

³³ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! 

How unsearchable his judgments, 

and his paths beyond tracing out! 

³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord? 

Or who has been his counselor?”  

³⁵ “Who has ever given to God, 

that God should repay them?”  

³⁶ For from him and through him and for him are all things. 

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Our Response to Such Intense Love

Ephesians 3 ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Our response is to pray that we may have power to grasp how wide, long, high and deep is the love of Christ for us all!!

And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. We can never reach the fullness of God without realizing the depth of the love of Christ!! Let this Easter melt your heart one more time, on a yearly basis every time at this time of the year. Let God’s Holy Spirit dwell in us to richly that he may strengthen us with power in our inner being to understand, to grasp his deep, wide long high love of Christ! Amen

Matthew 17:1–9 (NIV)

17 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ² There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. ³ Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. ⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” ⁸ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

His Face shone like the sun

No one can ever look into the sun, as the billions of light rays can blind your eyes immediately in a second! And Jesus’s face shone like the sun, and I can just see Peter, James and John had to raise their hands to cover their eyes while talking to Jesus for that moment. I am sure it lasted may be for a few minutes. Then Moses and Elijah appeared to him talking to him. This is so angelic, so heavenly to be seen by mere mortals humans Peter, James and John.

For a moment, Jesus flashed his eternal glory in front of the eyes of Peter, James & John! Jesus revealed his glory and it was a blazing sun rays on his face. I thought they would have fallen to the ground and worshipped him, but they didn’t.

A Voice from the Cloud spoke to them about Jesus

The voice came from the cloud said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”Then, and only then, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. We need to see some supernatural happenings to have that awe and fear. But apparently the sun blasting from Jesus face wasn’t enough. Though that voice form the cloud shook them.

The thing that really got me is that on the way down form the mountain Jesus told them not to tell anyone what they have seen, until he has been raised from the dead,

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Jesus calmly told them to keep it secret his transfiguration

While walking down form the mountain, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone what they have seen, until he has been raised from the dead. He said it as a matter of fact manner, and guess what the response of the disciples? This: ¹⁰ The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”¹¹ Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. ¹² But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ¹³ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

I was kind of shocked. After seeing the most spectacular transfiguration of a man into God, they asked question about Elijah?? What’s wrong with them? They saw with their eyes, this man, Jesus, whom they had been following, actually transformed into divine glory like a sun blazing into their eyes. Theological term is transfiguration. How did they not bow down to worship and be empowered with such encounter physically with the living God? Jesus, walking as a man, though having performed miracles like walking on water, raised the dead, was nothing like this one, because his entire body transfigured into the glory of God.

Again what really shook me is that Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone, until he has been raised form the dead. He is talking like his death and resurrection is a foregone conclusion, foregone reality that will happen and must happen. And of course it exactly happened like he said. Isn’t he God?

Why did Jesus want it to be kept a secret until his resurrection?

The revelation of Jesus as God for a moment, should have shaken the world. But it was kept secret, until the gospels were published. But why did Jesus keep it as a secret? Better still, won’t it be cool if he transfigured before the 5000? Or even better, transfigured before Pontius’s Pilate and the legions of Roman soldiers and the Pharisees who couldn’t wait for his death? Wouldn’t that have shaken the Roman world and the pharisee world, if Jesus transfigured before them, and displayed his divine glory like a sun blazing into the eyes of Pilate and the Romans and Pharisees and his own twelve disciples and the women Mary? Wonder if history would have been re-written? But what will that achieve, the Romans began to flee for their lives? The Pharisees fuming and fleeing in fear? The disciples rising up and clapping their hands and worshipped the Lord Jesus? And then what? Jesus must be crucified and died for our sins, and that must happen. Of course the transfiguration won’t happen at the trial of Jesus. That doesn’t serve God’s purpose. What served God’s purpose is that short moment displayed for Peter James and John the three top disciples of Christ and be recorded in Bible for us to read and worship. I love it. The self-control displayed by Jesus is astonishingly impressive, while having all the power in the world to strike Pilate and the Pharisees, he held his peace while being slapped by the soldier, spit at by the Romans, whipped till bloody by the romans soldiers. He endured! Hebrews 12: For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That is Good Friday. Three days later, He became legend. Jesus was resurrected from the dead by His Father, and he walked through the stone. Yes, the legend has risen. The God Man has finally returned to his God divinity. Seated on his throne in heaven now, still praying for us, his beloved people.

Our Easter.