Takin’ Him To Easy Street And Skid Row

May 27, 2024 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Jesus sent us and the Holy Spirit empowers us to take the Good News to all nations—all the streets (Luke 24:47-49; Acts 1:8). As we move away from Jerusalem and into Judea, we should expect to see more differences with our audience. And then as we move into Samaria, there will probably be more differences than similarities. Regardless of how little we may have in common with those on other streets, the Holy Spirit still empowers us to witness there. 

(You can find all of the Scriptures I reference in this post by clicking here.) 

When we don’t live on someone else’s street, we tend to make some pretty big assumptions about them. For example, until I married a school teacher, I thought, “How nice it must be to be done with work by 3:00 every afternoon and have three months off in the summer!” 

Mistakenly, we think we can so easily fix the problems people on other streets have—we think we can show them how simple it is to correct anything out of balance on their street. These are natural thought patterns when so little of our circles overlap.

If you live on Main Street, two streets which are quite different from you are Easy Street and Skid Row. When it comes to finances, there tends to be extremes in our thoughts about the Samaritans that live on those streets—

  • Those on Easy Street only cares about themselves
  • Those on Skid Row should work harder 
  • Those on Easy Street have too much—it’s not fair! 
  • Those on Skip Row don’t have enough—it’s not fair! 

But here’s the thing: It’s really not about the money but it’s about our attitude about the money. 

In Luke 21:1-6, Jesus saw both rich people from Easy Street placing their tithe in the temple treasury, and a poor widow from Skid Row doing the same. Jesus said this widow put in more than anyone else. He was talking in terms of quality, not quantity. 

While they were still in the temple, the disciples pointed out how beautifully embellished the temple was. These decorations came from the money those on Easy Street had contributed. Jesus told them not to focus on the temporal temple but on the eternal Kingdom of God.  

As I said, Jesus doesn’t have a problem with money, but He does warn us about our ungodly attitude toward money (Luke 8:1-3; Matthew 27:57; Acts 4:32-5:4; Exodus 20:17; Luke 12:13-22).  

Even though Easy Street and Skid Row seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, I think we are effective witnesses for Jesus on these streets in exactly the same way. 

(1) Guard your attitude about money. Remember that Gad often provides for us by giving us a skill, and then making a job available that can use our skill. So let’s be thankful for our God-given jobs. Then we guard our attitude about money by tithing regularly, and making sure that when we bless others financially, we do it without expecting any fanfare (Colossians 3:23; Malachi 3:10; Matthew 6:2-3). 

(2) Let God be unique as unique with these folks on Easy Street and Skid Row as He is with you on Main Street. Don’t try to be someone else, and don’t expect others to be you—simply obey what God has spoken to your heart, just as you allow others to obey what God has spoken to their hearts. 

(3) Don’t tell, but show how you use the resources God has given to you. It’s not our place to “preach” to others about how they should or shouldn’t be handling their finances, but simply live out the biblical principles outlined above, and let your life show your godly attitude. 

(4) Always turn the focus to the eternal. Just as Jesus did with His disciples in the temple, He always reminded people that this world with its perks or tragedies is only temporary. What ultimately matters is where we will spend eternity (Luke 13:1-5). 

Money is always a touchy subject with people, so let’s make sure we have our own attitude aligned with Scripture before we try to bring the subject up with others. 

If you’ve missed any of the other messages in our Takin’ Him To The Street series, you can find them all here. 

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

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Reason To Hope And To Proclaim

April 10, 2023 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

On Resurrection Sunday, Christians celebrate an event that is the foundational truth for all of the Bible and for the Christian faith which springs from the Scriptures: The resurrection of Jesus. 

If Jesus wasn’t resurrected, this is a terrible, cruel lie we are perpetuating. If Jesus was resurrected, we have been given the key to eternal life. No one has ever made the bold claims that Jesus made about His own death and resurrection and then backed them up! 

On the Sunday morning after Jesus was crucified, some women arrived at His tomb to finish preparing His body for burial, but Luke records something fascinating: “They did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (Luke 24:1-8). 

Think about this in a modern-day setting. If you were at the bedside of your loved one when they took their last breath, if you heard the doctor pronounce them dead, if you were at the funeral and saw their body in a casket, and if you saw that casket closed, sealed, and lowered into the ground, you would have every reason to find a body if that casket were re-opened. 

These women were on Golgotha when Jesus died, they saw the Roman soldiers verify His death, they witnessed Joseph and Nicodemus wrap His body in linen strips, and they saw His body placed in a sealed tomb. 

Then when there is no body where the dead body of Jesus is expected, there are only three possibilities: 

(1) He never died

Medical experts have concluded that the horrific torture that Jesus endured prior to even being crucified resulted in significant blood loss, and would have put His body in shock. Then the strain on His weakened body during crucifixion would have resulted in His body experiencing either pleural effusion or cardiac effusion, which is attested to by the flow of “blood and water” from Jesus’ dead body when His side was pierced by a Roman spear (John 19:34). 

The dead body of Jesus was thoroughly examined by both the Romans who conducted the crucifixion and His friends who prepared His body for burial (Mark 15:43-45; John 19:38-40). And two contemporary historians—Tacitus and Josephus—who were unfriendly to the cause of Christianity both attested to Christ’s death by crucifixion. 

(2) His body was stolen

The Sanhedrin was so insistent on Jesus being crucified, they wouldn’t have left the “conspiracy” option open. So they convinced Governor Pontius Pilate to allow them to both seal the tomb and place a group of soldiers outside the tomb to guard it (Matthew 27:62-66). It is highly unlikely that the disciples who fled before the temple guard and who were now locked in a room because they were quaking with fear would somehow gain the courage to undertake a mission to steal Jesus’ body. Nor is it likely that they could have escaped the notice of the highly-trained Roman soldiers guarding the tomb. 

(3) He was resurrected 

The angels at the empty tomb reminded the women that Jesus had foretold both the manner of His death and the assurance of His resurrection. Jesus described His death in detail multiple times, including such key details as His death would be in Jerusalem, the religious leaders would pronounce a death sentence but the Romans would crucify Him, and that He would be resurrected three days later (Matthew 20:18-19; Luke 18:31-33). In addition, Paul tells us that there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). 

Jesus said, “The reason my Father loves Me is that I lay down My life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father” (John 10:17-18). 

If Jesus foretold this and fulfilled this, we can also trust His other promises. Assurances such as:

  • He is preparing an eternal home for us and He will come back to take His followers there 
  • That He alone holds the keys to Death and Hades
  • And that only those who have been cleansed from their sins will be able to enter Heaven

(see John 14:1-3; Revelation 1:18, 22:12-14)

The bold claim that Jesus would be resurrected back to life is adequately backed up by the events on Resurrection Sunday! So now we can say that believing the bold claim of Christ’s resurrection gives us hope for the future and reason to tell others about Him! 

If you’ve missed any of the other bold claims that we have discussed, you can find them all by clicking here. 

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? My Patreon supporters get behind-the-scenes access to exclusive materials. ◀︎◀︎

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9 Quotes From “Seeing Jesus”

March 8, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Nancy Guthrie marvelously shows us how Jesus links the Old Testament prophesies with His New Testament activities. This book makes the Old Testament come alive! Check out my full book review by clicking here, and then enjoy a few quotes from this book.

“satan’s power is wielded in the world in the form of death. What gives him that power is sin and the estrangement from God it brings. But on the Cross, Jesus did what was necessary for sinners to be reconciled with God. The devil thought he was defeating Christ, but in reality Christ was reconciling us to God, defeating the devil, and delivering us out of his clutches.”

“It has always been God’s way to use the weak, the foolish, the imperfect—even the shamefully sinful but ultimately repentant—in His redemptive plan. It is His glory to do so, and will be into eternity.”

“God has always wanted His people to know Him—not in a generic or shallow way, but personally, as He truly is. So He revealed Himself in a progressive way, not only through His name, but also through His glorious presence that dwelt in the Temple, through the Law, and through His mighty deeds on behalf of His people. But these revelations all led up to a definitive revelation in the Person of Jesus.”

“Our security in Christ frees us to enjoy His Sabbath rest. Christ fills our hearts with the same love He has for His Father so that we can honor our parents. Christ fills us with His very own faithfulness so that we can live in sexual purity. He convinces us of all that is ours in Him eternally so that we can stop coveting the things other people have that will not last beyond this life. As we refuse to allow anything else to be a god to us; we honor His name, His day, and our parents; as we value life; as we live in sexual purity and fidelity; as we nurture contentment and integrity, we’re not being merely legalistic. The grace of God is at work in our lives, making us holy and happy in God.”

“Jesus was less interested in explaining Himself to Nicodemus than in offering Himself to Nicodemus. … Jesus wanted Nicodemus to understand that we, too, have been bitten—not by a poisonous snake, but by the poison of sin. We, too, need a cure or we face certain death. And just as God provided the cure to His people in the desert, so has He provided a cure to us. But to experience healing requires something of us. We have to look to Jesus.”

“Jesus came into the world to make God knowable so that we can truly love Him with all our hearts, souls, and minds.”

“Jesus came the first time to offer forgiveness rather than bring down fire. He came down the first time to experience the fiery judgment of God in the place of guilty sinners. But the day is coming when Jesus will ‘come with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus’ (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8).”

“Whereas Proverbs describes a way of wisdom that leads to life and to God, Jesus defined that way in much more personal terms. He said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me’ (John 14:6). The decision, as Jesus made clear, is not merely a matter of behavior or companions, but a choice about how we respond to Him, whether or not we will choose Him as our path, our life.”

“The people of Israel had the law; they knew what God wanted from them and for them. But they didn’t have the power or strength to obey. They knew what to do, but they didn’t have the ‘want-to’ to live as God commanded and to love Him as He desired. God’s commands in the covenant of the law were just a list of external rules. …

“In the new covenant, God’s law would be written on the hearts of His people rather than on stone tablets. He would put His Spirit inside His people. In this way, He would give them a love for His will and His ways, and a hatred of sin. His people would finally be able to love His will and walk in His ways because they would want to.”

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3 Possibilities For An Empty Tomb

March 28, 2016 — Craig T. Owens

3 possibilitiesLast week we explored the validity of the evidence for the accuracy of the biblical accounts for the life of Jesus (you can check that out here). You might be one who says, “Okay, I think Jesus was a good Man, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that anyone could be raised from the dead after three days.” I think that’s a reasonable thing to explore…

If the tomb where Jesus was placed is really empty, then there are only three possibilities for us to consider.

(1) Jesus didn’t really die.

  • It’s hard to imagine anyone could go through the intense torture Jesus did prior to His crucifixion unscathed.
  • The crucifixion process itself is one of the most gruesome forms of execution man has ever invented.
  • As a result, forensic science shows that Jesus most likely died of a heart attack. The mention in John 19:34 of the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s body is an indication of the cardiac distress His body experienced.
  • Men who were followers of Jesus handled His dead body, and undoubtedly would have checked for any signs life (John 19:38-40).
  • A Roman centurion reported to the Roman governor Pilate that Jesus had in fact died (Mark 15:43-45).
  • Extra-biblical historians, many of whom were unfriendly to Jews and Christians, reported Christ’s death as an historical fact.

(2) Jesus didn’t really rise.

  • Some have claimed that Christ’s followers “saw” Jesus only in a grief-induced hallucination. The problem is, Jesus appeared to individuals, small groups, and large groups multiple times and in multiple settings over the course of 40 days (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
  • At least one of Christ’s closest followers said he wouldn’t be convinced by verbal testimony alone, but needed to touch Christ’s body for Himself (John 20:24-28).
  • The disciples were afraid and lacked any military training that would have allowed them to get past the trained soldiers guarding the tomb (Matthew 27:62-66; 28:11-15).

(3) Jesus really did die on a Cross and was raised back to life.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes rightly said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Real-life cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace explains how detectives use abductive reasoning to examine all of the evidence and infer to the most reasonable explanation from that. As a result, Detective Wallace says about this third explanation:

“The last explanation (although it is a miraculous, supernatural explanation) suffers from the least number of liabilities and deficiencies. If we simply enter into the investigation without a pre-existing bias against anything supernatural, the final explanation accounts for all of the evidence without any difficulty. The final explanation accounts for the evidence most simply and most exhaustively, and it is logically consistent…. The final explanation is also superior to all other accounts (given that it does not suffer from all the problems we see with the other explanations).” —J. Warner Wallace, Alive

The truth is Jesus loved you so much that He had to die for you. He had to pay the penalty for your sins. And God loved His Son so much, that He raised Him back to life. Jesus can live in you now, and you can live with Him forever, if you will simply believe what He did for you on Calvary.

Jesus left an empty tomb behind to show how powerful His love and life is!

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Do You Smell Like Jesus?

April 21, 2014 — Craig T. Owens

Christ's aromaScientists tell us that the sense of smell contributes to more vivid and clear memory recall than any of the other human senses. Have you ever thought about the things Jesus smelled? Or about the memories others recalled about Jesus because of the way He smelled?

Less than a week before His crucifixion, Mary anointed Jesus with a highly-scented spice called spikenard (see John 12:1-8; Mark 14:3-9; and Matthew 26:6-13). Let me rephrase that: Mary didn’t just “anoint” Jesus as we think about that word today, she doused Him in a lifetime supply of this fragrance. Some people complained, but Jesus told those sour people that it was absolutely beautiful what she had done, as Jesus carried this aroma with Him to the Cross.

After He died on the Cross, Joseph and Nicodemus prepared Jesus for burial with 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes (see John 19:38-40). Think about that: seventy-five pounds! In doing so they actually fulfilled a prophesy from the Old Testament about King Jesus’ triumphal return to life—

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of Your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has set You above Your companions by anointing You with the oil of joy. All Your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia… (Psalm 45:6-8).

Jesus carried a powerful aroma with Him all the way to the Cross, into the tomb, and when He burst forth alive from the tomb! 

Without Christ, our lives carry the stench of death. We cannot come into our Heavenly Father’s presence because of that putrid smell clinging to us. But when God forgives us of our sins as we place our faith in Jesus, we are wrapped in the robes of Christ: we smell like Him and are welcomed into the Father’s presence.

Easter is a reminder of how a forgiven Christian should now live—

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God (Ephesians 5:2).

…Now [God] uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God… (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).

How do you smell? Do you smell like Jesus? Are others attracted to the aroma of Christ because of what they smell in you? Smelling good honors the work Jesus did on the Cross and in overcoming the grave.

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