All is Right with the World

A Lenten series on Mountaintop Moments
– Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Luke 9:18-36 

[In this Lenten series, we will be looking at Mountaintop Moments. These mountains are more than just geographical features. They symbolize divine encounters and moments of revelation, faith and transformation. In other words, meeting God on the mountain top.]

 

Do you remember what it was like when you were young and in love? Everybody could tell! Your face glowed; you walked with a bounce in your step; little things didn’t bug you.  All was right with the world.

 

Jesus once asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am”? Peter responded, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. Jesus commended Peter for being technically correct. However, the disciples understood the word “Messiah” to be in the context of a political savior, not a spiritual one.

 

About a week later, in the middle of traveling throughout Galilee and beyond to minister to the people, Jesus took Peter, James and John - his inner circle of disciples - to the top of a mountain to pray. While there, something miraculous happened.

 

As Jesus prayed, “the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white”. Then Moses and Elijah appeared in “glorious splendor” and began talking with Jesus “about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem”.

 

Meanwhile, his disciples had fallen asleep. Waking up, Peter started talking. But as soon as he did, a cloud came over them and from the cloud came a voice saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the voice stopped, Jesus was alone again with Peter, James and John.

 

Why do you think that Jesus had Peter, James and John witness his transfiguration? For one thing, his radiant transformation was a physical manifestation of his divine glory. This helped them to understand that he wasn’t just a teacher or a prophet, but truly divine.

 

Secondly, the presence of Moses and Elijah underscored how Jesus fulfilled God's plan. That is, Jesus was the fulfillment of the law, which Moses represented, and the prophecy, which Elijah represented.

 

Finally, God’s voice provided unmistakable confirmation that Jesus was the Son of God. It also showed the disciples that Jesus was not only the Messiah, but also provided the divine connection between heaven and earth.

 

When Jesus encountered his Heavenly Father on the mountain, he experienced an outward physical transformation. However, he offers us an inward transformation that is no less miraculous. Paul put it like this.

¹⁷ When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!   TLB   2 Corinthians 5                   

Like a young person in love, when Jesus is in your life, people can tell. There’s something different about you. It’s because you’ve experienced an inner transformation. Indeed, all is right with the world because the Son of the living God lives in you.

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

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www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

The Fire Making Challenge

A Lenten series on Mountaintop Moments
– Elijah on Mount Carmel
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
1 Kings 18:16-46

[In this Lenten series, we will be looking at Mountaintop Moments. These mountains are more than just geographical features. They symbolize divine encounters and moments of revelation, faith and transformation. In other words, meeting God on the mountain top.]

  

At the end of the season of the TV show Survivor, there are four contestants remaining. However, only three will advance to the final. The bottom two compete in a fire making challenge to determine who that will be.

 

With a million dollars at stake, the competition is fierce, and the pressure is intense. But it pales in comparison to the competition and pressure that Elijah faced in his fire making challenge. His life was literally on the line.

 

Fifty-six years after the nation of Israel split into the northern kingdom (Israel) and southern kingdom (Judah), Ahab took power as the king of Israel. His reign was marked by significant idolatry and the promotion of Baal worship, largely influenced by his wife, Jezebel. Because of this, the Lord seethed with anger.

 

As a prophet of the Lord, Elijah confronted Ahab and Jezebel many times. On one such occasion, he directly challenged Baal, the Canaanite god of rain and fertility, when he told Ahab that “there will be no dew or rain… until I give the word!”

 

For the following three and a half years of the draught, Elijah hid from Ahab and Jezebel. Meanwhile in Israel, things had gotten much worse. Ahab blamed Elijah for the famine and had been looking for him everywhere to punish him. Not only was the famine very severe, but Jezebel had been killing the prophets of the Lord.

 

In one of the most dramatic scenes in the Bible, Elijah returned to Israel where he challenged four hundred fifty prophets of Baal to come to Mount Carmel for a fire making challenge. “All of Israel” gathered to watch.

 

²¹ Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.        NIV

 

First, the prophets of Baal prepared their altar by placing the sacrificial bull on the wood, but did not light it. Then they called upon Baal for fire. From morning until noon they shouted, they danced, they cut themselves… but with no response.

 

Following their failure, Elijah prepared his altar. Besides the wood and the sacrificial bull, he also had large amounts of water poured over everything; not just one time, but three times!

 

Without performing the theatrics like the prophets of Baal, Elijah prayed a simple prayer. And when he finished, “the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench”.

 

Why did Elijah challenge the prophets of Baal? The answer is in his prayer.

 

^36b “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. ³⁷ O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”    NLT

 

This wasn’t just a challenge of the prophets of Baal, or even of Ahab and Jezebel. It was a challenge to the people of Israel. A challenge for them to recognize the power and sovereignty of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; to turn from Baal and follow the Lord only; to understand that “The Lord – he is God!”

 

How has the Lord challenged you? Probably not miraculously like he did with Elijah on Mount Carmel. But his Holy Spirit is at work in our lives every day to draw us closer to him.

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

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www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

The Far Side of the Wilderness

A Lenten series on Mountaintop Moments
– Moses on Mount Sinai (or Horeb)
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Exodus 3:1-17 

[In this Lenten series, we will be looking at Mountaintop Moments. These mountains are more than just geographical features. They symbolize divine encounters and moments of revelation, faith and transformation. In other words, meeting God on the mountain top.]

  

In September 1974, when my wife and I were first married, we had season tickets for Michigan State football. There’s one game that still sticks in my memory. Ohio State was the perennial Big Ten champs and that year was no different. They were undefeated and ranked #1 in the country. We were average at best.

 

But that day, Levi Jackson ran for an 88-yard touchdown and the Spartans defeated the mighty Buckeyes! Later that night, as we watched the TV replay of Jackson’s winning run over and over again, we decided that we’d name our first son Levi.

 

You see, Debbie was born and raised in Lansing. And when growing up, her parents had season tickets for Spartan football for years. I also grew up in Michigan and graduated from Michigan State. I bleed green and white. Fast forward to 1985, we moved to Columbus, Ohio – home of the Buckeyes. Life is full of ironies.

 

Consider Moses. The very river that Pharoah had decreed to kill all Hebrew baby boys, saved Moses’ life. Discovered by Pharoah’s daughter, his biological mother was paid to nurse him. Raised as a prince in the household of Pharoah, despite Pharaoh’s decree. Spared by the grace of God, Moses showed no grace when he killed an Egyptian guard.

 

As a fugitive of the law, Moses fled to Midian, married the daughter of a Midianite priest, started a family and tended his father-in-law’s sheep. Until one day when he took the sheep to the “far side of the wilderness” at Mount Horeb, “the mountain of God”, also known as Mount Sinai. It was there that he met the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in a burning bush that didn’t burn.

 

God told Moses that he had seen the cruel oppression of his people, heard their desperate cries for help and that he had come to deliver them! Instead, he sent Moses the murderer, who hadn’t lived with his people for forty years. How ironic.

 

Moses gave the Lord excuse after excuse as to why he couldn’t do it. But, in a verse that’s easily overlooked, the Lord made this promise to Moses.

 

¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”                NIV

 

Moses’ life was filled with irony. You begin to get the feeling that maybe that’s how God works – through irony. After all, he works in ways you don’t expect. He works through ordinary people who do extraordinary things. He works through unexpected circumstances that change your life. He works through people’s weaknesses to show his strength.

 

Moses went to the far side of the wilderness to tend sheep, not to meet God. But ironically, God was there. Paul was in the middle of persecuting Christians when Jesus struck him blind so that he could see. Peter was in a fishing boat when Jesus invited him to come fish for men. Matthew was filling his pockets with tax money when Jesus said, “come follow me”.

 

Where have you met God? How has he surprised you? What has he done unexpectedly in your life? “I will be with you”, God told Moses. He makes the same promise to you and me even when we go to the far side of the wilderness.

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

A Living Temple

A Lenten series on Mountaintop Moments
– King Solomon on Mount Moriah
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
2 Chronicles 5:2-6:11 

[In this Lenten series, we will be looking at Mountaintop Moments. These mountains are more than just geographical features. They symbolize divine encounters and moments of revelation, faith and transformation. In other words, meeting God on the mountain top.]

 

The Lord promised Abraham that he would have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky. And yet, after waiting twenty-five years for Sara to have a child, the Lord told him, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and sacrifice him”.

 

Early the next morning, Abraham started his three-day journey to take Isaac to the mountain that the Lord would show him. Once there, he built an altar and bound Isaac. But when he raised his knife, the Lord provided a ram as a substitutionary sacrifice. The name of the mountain was Moriah.

 

Over 1000 years later, Solomon, the king of Israel, had a temple built for the Lord on Mount Moriah. He used the finest materials – cedar, gold, silver, bronze and precious stones. It was constructed by the most skilled craftsmen. The ornamentation was intricate. Gold overlay was everywhere. It was magnificent!

 

Once completed, Solomon planned a dedication that would be rivaled by none. He waited eleven months for just the right time - the Festival of Tabernacles. Then he summoned “the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of Israelite families”.

 

The Levites, who were musicians, played cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. All the people joined in singing and praising the Lord, “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!” To honor the Lord, so many sheep and cattle were sacrificed that they couldn’t keep count.

 

Finally, the priests took the Ark of the Covenant into the Most Holy Place. Then as they withdrew from there, the room filled with smoke. So much so that they couldn’t continue their service.

 

¹ Then Solomon prayed, “O Lord, you have said that you would live in a thick cloud of darkness. ² Now I have built a glorious Temple for you, a place where you can live forever!”        NLT

 

However, the story of Mount Moriah is much more than a substitutionary ram saving the life of Isaac. Or Solomon’s magnificent temple built for the God of Israel to reside forever. It’s the story of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who changed everything.

 

Almost 1000 years after Solomon built his temple, Jesus taught and healed in Herod’s temple… also built on Mount Moriah. 

But his sacrifice will save not just one but all who have faith and follow him. And his home doesn’t depend on a physical building because now he lives in our hearts, a living temple. Paul put it like this.

 

^16b For we are the temple of the living God. As God said:

“I will live in them
    and walk among them.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.     NLT   2 Corinthians 6

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com