Mat 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Mat 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Thy kingdom come.
What exactly is a kingdom?
kingdom a state or government having a king or queen as its head.
A state or government- territory. Can you have a kingdom made up of nothing? Can you say you're the king of air? Do you rule the air? Absolutely not. A king needs a kingdom and that kingdom is a territory- what territory? We have had kings in Saudi Arabia, Kings in England, Kings in Norway, Kings in Israel…we KNOW what kings are. We know that the king of England would be a king ruling over England not Germany. We know that the territory of a king is in his title… the king of… and we insert where that king rules as king and instantly we know where he reigns.
We are to pray that our Father in Heaven's kingdom…comes.
If we want the kingdom of another to come to us what exactly are we desiring? Not the king coming to visit, but the kingdom to come. We want the rule of another kingdom over our own. Or… if we do not possess a king we desire this king to come and rule over us king-less people.
Wanting Our Father in Heaven's kingdom to come is wanting to be governed by God, wanting God to rule over us, wanting to be the subjects in servitude to God.
Today we think of kings as figureheads and little more, men with no real power. Some would say that kings never have power and are really pawns of those around them. While that may be true in some respects in others it's not- in some kingdoms that have existed through our history the king's word was all that mattered- not anyone else's, not the queen's, not the prince's, not the princess's, not the duke's, not the lord's, no other's words mattered but the king's. If a king wanted someone killed then they were killed. If a king wanted to reward someone then they were rewarded. We might have many movies on television about kings and while they might fictionalize a lot of things to make it *exciting* to our senses a whole lot of what they DON'T show, what they don't fictionalize is very, very real and very horrifying. We can't let sensationalism dim reality no matter how silly that might sound. We are tricked into believing that because something is sensationalized that it's not really true and certainly not worse than it's made out to be. Kings have power as kings.
God our Father in Heaven has power, great power and we must pray for Him to come and bring His kingdom to rule over us. We know that when 'His kingdom comes' He will rule over the world, He will have power over the world, He will be KING over the entire world -- His kingdom will COME.
Jesus wants us to learn to pray-
Thy kingdom come.
Thy RULERSHIP come!
Some might argue that God's rulership is already here but if His kingdom were here we'd have NO need to pray for His kingdom to come, would we?
So the obvious question is … if God isn't ruler of the earth then who is?
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
God created the earth and then created man and then gave man the earth and all that was in the earth. Replenish the earth and subdue it. If you are subduing something you have dominion over that something. If you are subduing something you have control over it, you are dominating it, you are putting it under you.
Replenish the earth…and…subdue…it.
Man was to be the ruler of the earth, man was to have dominion over the animals, over the fish, over every living thing, over the birds, man was to be the king of the earth-God made man and set him over the earth.
So, does man have rulership of the earth today?
No.
Who has rulership then?
Mat 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
Mat 4:9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
The devil told Jesus- All these things will I give thee- all what things? All the KINGDOMS of the world!
Who has rulership of the kingdoms of the world? Who offered the kingdoms of the world to Jesus Himself?! The DEVIL!
Make NO mistake! This earth does have a ruler and this is why we are taught by our Savior to pray-- Thy kingdom come. We don't want to live under the rulership of the devil, we want to live under the rulership of our God! Yes, we must pray for His kingdom to come, we MUST pray this way! We must pray knowing that the Devil rules the world we live in and that his rulership is temporary! Our God will have His kingdom come!
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Rev 21:5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Rev 21:7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
By the grace of God may we drink of the fountain of the water of life freely in the kingdom of our God!
Heavenly Father - Thy Kingdom Come!
Amen!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Hallowed be thy name
Mat 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Jesus tell us how to pray- but remember we are not to make vain repetitions, we are NOT to memorize this prayer and make this our entire prayer life. After this manner…. like this… He did not say pray exactly like this, but pray after this manner…
Jesus wants us to pray properly- not as those who are doing so for show, not like those who are praying to garner favors of God, not like those who worship false gods.
Our Father - this acknowledges God as our Creator and there is NOTHING more important than understanding who we are praying to. Seriously. Think about it for a moment- you wouldn't just pick up the phone and dial a random number and start chatting to someone- would you? Most people wouldn't dream of doing that. You don't just walk up to strangers as a rule and start talking to them as if you've known them and they know you. You wouldn't want to pick up the phone and dial a number- start talking- revealing your innermost thoughts only to find out that the person you were talking to the whole time was one who only wished you evil. Don't think it can happen? I beg to differ. People pray to God all the time but because they're not sure who God really is, nor do they care to find out, they are praying to a pretend God, a phony God, a counterfeit, a trickster, a charlatan- you know what I'm talking about. Phonies, counterfeits, pretenders, tricksters, charlatans all do one thing that makes them what they are- they mimic the REAL THING. There is NO doubt that the greatest deceiver of all- Satan- knows perfectly well how to mimic God so closely MOST everyone will be deceived.
Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
God will NOT allow those who are His elect to be deceived and that is the only thing that keeps them from being deceived- GOD.
Praying 'Our Father' acknowledges God as our FATHER. Our HEAVENLY FATHER. To be our Father we must be His children, to be His children we must be His sons and daughters. We were CREATED by God and we must acknowledge this and not in some offhanded way that only is a half-hearted belief that God had a hand in our life. He is OUR CREATOR! We live because He wants us to live! Without Him we don't live. You might quickly scoff and say that's not true, there are many that live who don't even believe in God. It doesn't matter whether they believe in God or not, that doesn't negate the fact God created them. So why does God allow those who don't believe in Him to live? God's nature is all about love and that love is found in the Sacrifice of His Son. That love is revealed in SELFLESSNESS. That love is revealed in FORGIVENESS.
We have to believe that God in Heaven is our Father in Heaven and that He loves us with a love unlike any love we can fully imagine. Is there any wonder His name is Holy???? Is it any wonder that HE is Holy?
When we pray we HAVE to acknowledge who we are praying to, who we are directing our prayer to, and we have to do it knowing the full reality of God as that reality is revealed to us. We must not worship the counterfeit God and don't think for one moment there isn't a counterfeit God and that YOU can't be deceived. We will be deceived if we are not among God's elect and to be among God's elect we must know HIM and He must know us. This is a relationship and we need to understand that. Prayer is part of that relationship, a big part- an important part. Jesus wants us to pray with full comprehension of who we are praying to and this is why acknowledging God the Father, God OUR Father, first and foremost is very important and it's something we MUST do every time we pray- know and acknowledge God as the one we are praying to and NO other.
By His amazing Grace!
In His love, in His righteousness!
Amen!
Jesus tell us how to pray- but remember we are not to make vain repetitions, we are NOT to memorize this prayer and make this our entire prayer life. After this manner…. like this… He did not say pray exactly like this, but pray after this manner…
Jesus wants us to pray properly- not as those who are doing so for show, not like those who are praying to garner favors of God, not like those who worship false gods.
Our Father - this acknowledges God as our Creator and there is NOTHING more important than understanding who we are praying to. Seriously. Think about it for a moment- you wouldn't just pick up the phone and dial a random number and start chatting to someone- would you? Most people wouldn't dream of doing that. You don't just walk up to strangers as a rule and start talking to them as if you've known them and they know you. You wouldn't want to pick up the phone and dial a number- start talking- revealing your innermost thoughts only to find out that the person you were talking to the whole time was one who only wished you evil. Don't think it can happen? I beg to differ. People pray to God all the time but because they're not sure who God really is, nor do they care to find out, they are praying to a pretend God, a phony God, a counterfeit, a trickster, a charlatan- you know what I'm talking about. Phonies, counterfeits, pretenders, tricksters, charlatans all do one thing that makes them what they are- they mimic the REAL THING. There is NO doubt that the greatest deceiver of all- Satan- knows perfectly well how to mimic God so closely MOST everyone will be deceived.
Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
God will NOT allow those who are His elect to be deceived and that is the only thing that keeps them from being deceived- GOD.
Praying 'Our Father' acknowledges God as our FATHER. Our HEAVENLY FATHER. To be our Father we must be His children, to be His children we must be His sons and daughters. We were CREATED by God and we must acknowledge this and not in some offhanded way that only is a half-hearted belief that God had a hand in our life. He is OUR CREATOR! We live because He wants us to live! Without Him we don't live. You might quickly scoff and say that's not true, there are many that live who don't even believe in God. It doesn't matter whether they believe in God or not, that doesn't negate the fact God created them. So why does God allow those who don't believe in Him to live? God's nature is all about love and that love is found in the Sacrifice of His Son. That love is revealed in SELFLESSNESS. That love is revealed in FORGIVENESS.
We have to believe that God in Heaven is our Father in Heaven and that He loves us with a love unlike any love we can fully imagine. Is there any wonder His name is Holy???? Is it any wonder that HE is Holy?
When we pray we HAVE to acknowledge who we are praying to, who we are directing our prayer to, and we have to do it knowing the full reality of God as that reality is revealed to us. We must not worship the counterfeit God and don't think for one moment there isn't a counterfeit God and that YOU can't be deceived. We will be deceived if we are not among God's elect and to be among God's elect we must know HIM and He must know us. This is a relationship and we need to understand that. Prayer is part of that relationship, a big part- an important part. Jesus wants us to pray with full comprehension of who we are praying to and this is why acknowledging God the Father, God OUR Father, first and foremost is very important and it's something we MUST do every time we pray- know and acknowledge God as the one we are praying to and NO other.
By His amazing Grace!
In His love, in His righteousness!
Amen!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Mat 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
When you pray.
There is no doubt in Jesus' mind that we are to pray, no doubt at all. What is prayer anyway? Prayer is worshipping God. Some have the wrong idea believing prayer is simply a helpline to God. Prayer is so much more than simply asking for things from God. Prayer is worship, worshipping God is prayer. People try to determine when the first prayer appeared in the Bible but the truth of the matter is it began right there in the beginning with mankind worshipping God, their Creator. Over time after man was separated from God the worship of God continued even outside of the Garden of Eden. We know that Adam and Eve taught their sons to worship God and that continued on down throughout all history. The idea of prayer as something other than communing with God is ridiculous. The idea of being able to worship God without acknowledging God as Creator, as Savior is ludicrous.
We are to pray! We are to worship our God always! Is it any wonder we are told to 'pray always'?
Jesus didn't have to tell people they have to pray- people KNEW already how essential prayer was to their lives. What some people got wrong was their MOTIVE for praying. Their motive changed from worshipping God to worshipping self. They didn't pray in secret but rather used their prayers to show others how well they could pray, how articulate they were, how important they were, how wonderful they were… they wanted people to hear them and they wanted that NOT to glorify God. Is it any wonder that Jesus wanted to teach us that praying in secret - in a closet with the door shut - is better than making a great show of praying in front of people.
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Vain repetitions. Who are we honoring with vain repetitions? Who are we honoring when we pray by rote? Not God. God wants our heart felt worship, our heart felt praises, our heart felt supplications. God wants true worship not false worship and if you think that because you cry out God's name and make a show of praying to Him that you can't be a part of false worship- you're wrong.
Mat 6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him
Be not like heathens who use vain repetitions, heathens who speak a lot, heathens who makes a show of praying aloud.
We can't be like those who believe their false worship is what God wishes to hear in order for them to get the things they need. God the Father knows before we ask, what we need. Do we doubt He knows what we need? We shouldn't. It's in our nature to want to ask even when we know the answer.
We need to focus on worshipping our God in prayer, and yes we can make supplications as well, but we have to do so knowing that our God understands, our God knows, our God is all powerful, our God is merciful, loving, kind and our God wants our heart love, He wants our worship and devotion in selflessness- all through Him, all made possible by His love for us.
When you pray.
There is no doubt in Jesus' mind that we are to pray, no doubt at all. What is prayer anyway? Prayer is worshipping God. Some have the wrong idea believing prayer is simply a helpline to God. Prayer is so much more than simply asking for things from God. Prayer is worship, worshipping God is prayer. People try to determine when the first prayer appeared in the Bible but the truth of the matter is it began right there in the beginning with mankind worshipping God, their Creator. Over time after man was separated from God the worship of God continued even outside of the Garden of Eden. We know that Adam and Eve taught their sons to worship God and that continued on down throughout all history. The idea of prayer as something other than communing with God is ridiculous. The idea of being able to worship God without acknowledging God as Creator, as Savior is ludicrous.
We are to pray! We are to worship our God always! Is it any wonder we are told to 'pray always'?
Jesus didn't have to tell people they have to pray- people KNEW already how essential prayer was to their lives. What some people got wrong was their MOTIVE for praying. Their motive changed from worshipping God to worshipping self. They didn't pray in secret but rather used their prayers to show others how well they could pray, how articulate they were, how important they were, how wonderful they were… they wanted people to hear them and they wanted that NOT to glorify God. Is it any wonder that Jesus wanted to teach us that praying in secret - in a closet with the door shut - is better than making a great show of praying in front of people.
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Vain repetitions. Who are we honoring with vain repetitions? Who are we honoring when we pray by rote? Not God. God wants our heart felt worship, our heart felt praises, our heart felt supplications. God wants true worship not false worship and if you think that because you cry out God's name and make a show of praying to Him that you can't be a part of false worship- you're wrong.
Mat 6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him
Be not like heathens who use vain repetitions, heathens who speak a lot, heathens who makes a show of praying aloud.
We can't be like those who believe their false worship is what God wishes to hear in order for them to get the things they need. God the Father knows before we ask, what we need. Do we doubt He knows what we need? We shouldn't. It's in our nature to want to ask even when we know the answer.
We need to focus on worshipping our God in prayer, and yes we can make supplications as well, but we have to do so knowing that our God understands, our God knows, our God is all powerful, our God is merciful, loving, kind and our God wants our heart love, He wants our worship and devotion in selflessness- all through Him, all made possible by His love for us.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Selfless as He is Selfless
Mat 6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Selflessness not selfishness. Self-less.
We are NOT to promote self. If anything is becoming more and more clear about Jesus' teachings is that we are to be self-less. We are NOT to draw attention to ourselves. We are NOT to do good so that we can get credit for doing good. If we do good in front of others with the intention of being seen by them so they can note our good deed we have NO reward whatsoever, why? Does someone seeing a good deed negate its goodness? The good that comes from the deed still gets done. What's being talked about here is motive. What is our motive for doing good? If we only do good so that we can get praise from others then we are seeking to be honored and ONLY our Savior deserves honor! We have to take the focus off ourselves we are to give all glory to God. Our lives are candles pointing the lesser light to the greatest Light of all.
Mat 6:2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Hypocrites will make a huge show of their good deeds and the reward they have isn't the reward that the Father in heaven will give them - they will NOT receive the reward of eternal life in Christ- the only reward we should seek.
Mat 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
Mat 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
While some believe that it gives God glory to do their good deeds and point people towards God we have to really seek to understand what our Savior is saying to us.
Do not let our LEFT hand know what our RIGHT hand is doing.
This is NOT possible. Right? What we do is in our mind and what's in our mind is known. There is NO way our hands know anything anyways, period. Some might argue that a typist's hands automatically know where the keys are- or a gamer's hands know where the control buttons are on their controllers. The truth is…ONLY our brains know. Our brains control the actions of our hands - always. No one can slap someone and jump back defending themselves by saying their hand did it all on its own. No one would believe them- the person's mind controlled the person's actions. So what is our Savior telling us? He's telling us that we are to be SO incredibly secretive about doing good deeds for others that we don't even THINK about doing them to garner credit from others. God sees ALL we do, NOTHING is a secret from God. God knows every good deed we commit we don't need others to know. We don't need to brag about our goodness. We don't need to surround ourselves with accolades and praise. We need to be so careful about letting good deeds that are seen be given praise that goes to our heads. Praise and honor are addictive. That feeling of doing good and of having others know about that good we've done is something that is truly addictive and Satan will encourage us to seek it even just a little bit pleases him. We truly have to shun acknowledgement for the good we do. When it happens that the good we do is acknowledged by other we have to immediately give ALL glory to God. By the grace of God we are able to do any good and only by His grace. We have to realize that ALL good comes from God, ALL good.
Jesus wants to teach us selflessness as He is selfless. We MUST learn selflessness and learn it over and over and over again- learning it daily because at any opportunity our selfish natures will rear up taking over trying to destroy any selflessness we might possess through our Savior. Satan knows selfishness is a key towards gaining us as His trophies. We HAVE to be aware of this! We can't let this slip past us as unimportant, as something trivial. Nothing our Savior tries to teach us is trivial, nothing!
By the grace of God may we become so fully His we are selfless as He is selfless.
In His love!
Selflessness not selfishness. Self-less.
We are NOT to promote self. If anything is becoming more and more clear about Jesus' teachings is that we are to be self-less. We are NOT to draw attention to ourselves. We are NOT to do good so that we can get credit for doing good. If we do good in front of others with the intention of being seen by them so they can note our good deed we have NO reward whatsoever, why? Does someone seeing a good deed negate its goodness? The good that comes from the deed still gets done. What's being talked about here is motive. What is our motive for doing good? If we only do good so that we can get praise from others then we are seeking to be honored and ONLY our Savior deserves honor! We have to take the focus off ourselves we are to give all glory to God. Our lives are candles pointing the lesser light to the greatest Light of all.
Mat 6:2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Hypocrites will make a huge show of their good deeds and the reward they have isn't the reward that the Father in heaven will give them - they will NOT receive the reward of eternal life in Christ- the only reward we should seek.
Mat 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
Mat 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
While some believe that it gives God glory to do their good deeds and point people towards God we have to really seek to understand what our Savior is saying to us.
Do not let our LEFT hand know what our RIGHT hand is doing.
This is NOT possible. Right? What we do is in our mind and what's in our mind is known. There is NO way our hands know anything anyways, period. Some might argue that a typist's hands automatically know where the keys are- or a gamer's hands know where the control buttons are on their controllers. The truth is…ONLY our brains know. Our brains control the actions of our hands - always. No one can slap someone and jump back defending themselves by saying their hand did it all on its own. No one would believe them- the person's mind controlled the person's actions. So what is our Savior telling us? He's telling us that we are to be SO incredibly secretive about doing good deeds for others that we don't even THINK about doing them to garner credit from others. God sees ALL we do, NOTHING is a secret from God. God knows every good deed we commit we don't need others to know. We don't need to brag about our goodness. We don't need to surround ourselves with accolades and praise. We need to be so careful about letting good deeds that are seen be given praise that goes to our heads. Praise and honor are addictive. That feeling of doing good and of having others know about that good we've done is something that is truly addictive and Satan will encourage us to seek it even just a little bit pleases him. We truly have to shun acknowledgement for the good we do. When it happens that the good we do is acknowledged by other we have to immediately give ALL glory to God. By the grace of God we are able to do any good and only by His grace. We have to realize that ALL good comes from God, ALL good.
Jesus wants to teach us selflessness as He is selfless. We MUST learn selflessness and learn it over and over and over again- learning it daily because at any opportunity our selfish natures will rear up taking over trying to destroy any selflessness we might possess through our Savior. Satan knows selfishness is a key towards gaining us as His trophies. We HAVE to be aware of this! We can't let this slip past us as unimportant, as something trivial. Nothing our Savior tries to teach us is trivial, nothing!
By the grace of God may we become so fully His we are selfless as He is selfless.
In His love!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Love your enemies
Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Hate thine enemy.
Hate definition--
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μισέω
miseō
mis-eh'-o
From a primary word μῖσος misos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension to love less: - hate (-ful).
Hate- to detest, to persecute, to love less.
We have no doubt what loving our neighbor means- not really, right? Loving others- treating them with respect, forgiving them any ill will, tending to their needs, revealing the love of Jesus to them. When Jesus says that is has been said - thou shalt love they neighbor there is no mistake about where that comes from.
Lev 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Thy neighbor here meaning - children of thy people- those children being members of the family of Israel.
It was said in times past to LOVE thy neighbor - those who were of your own people. This is why the question had to be asked--
Luk 10:29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Who is my neighbor? This is a very valid question and one that needed clarification because based on the old ways that were twisted and warped into anything but love- a neighbor was those of your own people, it wasn't a non-Jew. To clarify what a neighbor really meant Jesus gave this little, but very powerful story-
Luk 10:30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Luk 10:31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
Luk 10:34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Luk 10:35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Luk 10:36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
Luk 10:37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Which of the men was a neighbor to the wounded? The priest, a Jew? No. The Levite, a Jew? No. A Samaritan, one the Jews had NO dealings with? YES! The wounded man was obviously a Jew- coming down from Jerusalem and going to Jericho and the priest and the Levite just passed him by leaving him for dead- a fellowman- one of their own people. Then a Samaritan, one that had NOTHING to do with the Jews saw the wounded man and showed Him compassion. This is truly telling in so many ways!
It doesn't matter if the fellow human being is a hated foe and rightly so- when they're in need you help. Where compassion is needed- it should be shown.
When we show compassion, when we show love we reveal Christ in us. Undeserved love!
Our entire existence is not about you and I as individually being important. Our entire existence is about our Creator, without our Creator we would NOT exist. Man has forgotten this, man has chosen to ignore this, man has taken credit for something they can never take credit for. Man has talked themselves out of believing in the ONLY truth that matters. GOD!
As long as we are more concerned with ourselves, the more our minds are solely focused on self and others as extensions of ourselves, and taken off God we lose the whole reason for our existence. When we lose that reason for our existence we try to fill it with all sorts of things that Satan has handily made available to keep us blinded.
Christ in us is all that matters. By having Christ in us we acknowledge fully that God the Father and God the Word created us, we are theirs, we belong to them- we belong to the oneness that is shared by God our Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit- we are one with them in purpose, in life, in love.
As being one in purpose with Jesus we want to emulate Him- emulate the perfection He is as God who became man. Jesus wants us to learn from Him and He is teaching us that we are NOT the center of our existence. That ALL mankind has been created, ALL mankind - those of our own families, those of our own people, those who aren't of our people, those who are our enemies (by definition not those of our people), those who persecute us, curse us, revile us- they are ALL creatures created by our Creator and because they are ALL created they ALL deserve to find life in the sacrifice of God who became man- God with us, our Savior Jesus Christ.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you
Love your enemies.
God loves His enemies- we have all gone astray.
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Bless them that curse you.
God blesses those that curse Him.
Do good to them that hate you.
God does good to them that hate Him- by the very act of salvation this is proven, by the opportunity of repentance this proven.
Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.
God does this.
Luk 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mat 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Mat 5:47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Mat 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Be God's.
Reveal God.
Show a living example of a forgiven child of the king to the entire world, to ALL- friend or foe- to all of those you come in contact with.
We ARE children of GOD, we need to BE children of GOD in ALL we do.
We are not to be taken out of this world and all it's horrors of sin and the unrepentant sinful.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
We are to be kept from evil. We are to be kept from leaving our God and becoming one with the world for that is true evil- being God-less.
*******
Empty Me- Jeremy Camp
Holy Fire burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me.
I want more of you and less of me.
Holy Fire burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me,
I want more of you and less of me, yeah.
Empty me,
Empty me, yeah,
Fill, won't you fill me,
With you, with you, yeah.
Holy Fire, burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me.
I want more of you and less of me, yeah.
Empty me,
Empty me, yeah.
Fill, won't you fill me, with you, with you, empty me now.
Well won't you empty me, well won't you empty me now. repeat x2
I want more, I want more, I want more of you, Jesus.
I want more, I want more, oh.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Jesus, oh yeah,
Thank you, Jesus, yeah.
Holy Fire, Holy Fire, Holy Fire, Holy Fire.
Pasted from
*******
By the grace and mercy of our loving Savior, now and forever!
Amen.
Hate thine enemy.
Hate definition--
G3404
μισέω
miseō
mis-eh'-o
From a primary word μῖσος misos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension to love less: - hate (-ful).
Hate- to detest, to persecute, to love less.
We have no doubt what loving our neighbor means- not really, right? Loving others- treating them with respect, forgiving them any ill will, tending to their needs, revealing the love of Jesus to them. When Jesus says that is has been said - thou shalt love they neighbor there is no mistake about where that comes from.
Lev 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Thy neighbor here meaning - children of thy people- those children being members of the family of Israel.
It was said in times past to LOVE thy neighbor - those who were of your own people. This is why the question had to be asked--
Luk 10:29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Who is my neighbor? This is a very valid question and one that needed clarification because based on the old ways that were twisted and warped into anything but love- a neighbor was those of your own people, it wasn't a non-Jew. To clarify what a neighbor really meant Jesus gave this little, but very powerful story-
Luk 10:30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Luk 10:31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
Luk 10:34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Luk 10:35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Luk 10:36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
Luk 10:37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Which of the men was a neighbor to the wounded? The priest, a Jew? No. The Levite, a Jew? No. A Samaritan, one the Jews had NO dealings with? YES! The wounded man was obviously a Jew- coming down from Jerusalem and going to Jericho and the priest and the Levite just passed him by leaving him for dead- a fellowman- one of their own people. Then a Samaritan, one that had NOTHING to do with the Jews saw the wounded man and showed Him compassion. This is truly telling in so many ways!
It doesn't matter if the fellow human being is a hated foe and rightly so- when they're in need you help. Where compassion is needed- it should be shown.
When we show compassion, when we show love we reveal Christ in us. Undeserved love!
Our entire existence is not about you and I as individually being important. Our entire existence is about our Creator, without our Creator we would NOT exist. Man has forgotten this, man has chosen to ignore this, man has taken credit for something they can never take credit for. Man has talked themselves out of believing in the ONLY truth that matters. GOD!
As long as we are more concerned with ourselves, the more our minds are solely focused on self and others as extensions of ourselves, and taken off God we lose the whole reason for our existence. When we lose that reason for our existence we try to fill it with all sorts of things that Satan has handily made available to keep us blinded.
Christ in us is all that matters. By having Christ in us we acknowledge fully that God the Father and God the Word created us, we are theirs, we belong to them- we belong to the oneness that is shared by God our Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit- we are one with them in purpose, in life, in love.
As being one in purpose with Jesus we want to emulate Him- emulate the perfection He is as God who became man. Jesus wants us to learn from Him and He is teaching us that we are NOT the center of our existence. That ALL mankind has been created, ALL mankind - those of our own families, those of our own people, those who aren't of our people, those who are our enemies (by definition not those of our people), those who persecute us, curse us, revile us- they are ALL creatures created by our Creator and because they are ALL created they ALL deserve to find life in the sacrifice of God who became man- God with us, our Savior Jesus Christ.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you
Love your enemies.
God loves His enemies- we have all gone astray.
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Bless them that curse you.
God blesses those that curse Him.
Do good to them that hate you.
God does good to them that hate Him- by the very act of salvation this is proven, by the opportunity of repentance this proven.
Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.
God does this.
Luk 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mat 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Mat 5:47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Mat 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Be God's.
Reveal God.
Show a living example of a forgiven child of the king to the entire world, to ALL- friend or foe- to all of those you come in contact with.
We ARE children of GOD, we need to BE children of GOD in ALL we do.
We are not to be taken out of this world and all it's horrors of sin and the unrepentant sinful.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
We are to be kept from evil. We are to be kept from leaving our God and becoming one with the world for that is true evil- being God-less.
*******
Empty Me- Jeremy Camp
Holy Fire burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me.
I want more of you and less of me.
Holy Fire burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me,
I want more of you and less of me, yeah.
Empty me,
Empty me, yeah,
Fill, won't you fill me,
With you, with you, yeah.
Holy Fire, burn away,
My desire for anything
That is not of you and is of me.
I want more of you and less of me, yeah.
Empty me,
Empty me, yeah.
Fill, won't you fill me, with you, with you, empty me now.
Well won't you empty me, well won't you empty me now. repeat x2
I want more, I want more, I want more of you, Jesus.
I want more, I want more, oh.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Jesus, oh yeah,
Thank you, Jesus, yeah.
Holy Fire, Holy Fire, Holy Fire, Holy Fire.
Pasted from
*******
By the grace and mercy of our loving Savior, now and forever!
Amen.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Givers
Mat 5:42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Give.
Mat 10:8 … freely ye have received, freely give.
Mat 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
Mar 9:41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
Mar 10:44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
Mar 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Luk 6:30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
Luk 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Give.
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Rom 12:20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Rom 12:21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
1Ti 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
1Ti 6:18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
1Ti 6:19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
1Jn 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
1Jn 3:17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
1Jn 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Love NOT in word.
Love NOT in tongue.
But in DEED and in TRUTH.
We can profess our love all we want. We can talk of our love until our throats are dry and we can scarcely speak another word. We can write of our love until our fingers bleed. We can boast of love until people believe it's all we talk about and can't talk of anything else and guess what? All that talk, all that professing of love means absolutely NOTHING! We can say the words 'I love you' a million times and it's worth NOTHING! We can be the world's utmost authority on love and it will mean NOTHING! We are NOT to talk of love, we are to love.
The saying- 'talk is cheap' is very, very true. Talk means very little if our lives don't reflect what we talk about. We call people liars when they talk and talk and talk but never do any of what they talk about. Liars. When our mouths profess love and our actions say otherwise we are LIARS! Why do people think talking about love is good enough? Why do people think that 'people know I love them' when in truth if you are NEVER loving towards them they know no such thing! People want others to believe the love them just because they say they do. People want others to believe they really care with in truth they are anything but caring towards them. People want others to believe they love them when they hug them and kiss them, and yet do little else for them. The showing of affection while never providing for someone's needs means little- hollow affection- words without substance, actions void of truth.
Loving in deed and truth.
Deed-
G2041
ergon
Thayer Definition:
1) business, employment, that which any one is occupied
1a) that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking
2) any product whatever, any thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind
3) an act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is emphasised in opp. to that which is less than work
Part of Speech: noun neuter
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from a primary (but obsolete) ergo (to work)
Loving in action. Loving in what we DO. Loving in how we live.
Loving in truth- really, really loving as Jesus would have us love, loving as HE loved.
Mar 10:44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
Mar 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Jesus came NOT to be ministered unto, but to minister!
We shall be servants!
Mat 5:42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Minister- give.
Love in deed- give.
Luk 6:30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
Give.
We can profess Christ and never be Christ's. Christ will not know those who profess him in word but not in deed, they will be complete strangers to the greatest Giver of all.
One who naturally gives has a gift, a blessing, because so many of us are takers more than givers. Those natural givers have something in common with our Savior in a very special way. Is it any wonder Satan will attack the natural givers so horrifically? Being able to give freely is something very, very special.
Jesus would have us LEARN to give because not everyone is a natural giver. Over and over Jesus is revealing Himself to us in His lessons. We are to treat others as Jesus treated us. We are to reveal Jesus through our lives in all ways, not just on the written page, not just by speaking. Don't get me wrong- some people give of themselves in their words I would never say otherwise but those giving in their words need to live giving. We need to be givers in all aspects of our lives and by the grace of God we will be! By the power of the Holy Spirit we will be givers, we will love in deed and in truth!
Givers.
Because He gave.
In His love!
Give.
Mat 10:8 … freely ye have received, freely give.
Mat 19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
Mar 9:41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
Mar 10:44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
Mar 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Luk 6:30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
Luk 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Give.
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Rom 12:20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Rom 12:21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
1Ti 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
1Ti 6:18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
1Ti 6:19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
1Jn 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
1Jn 3:17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
1Jn 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Love NOT in word.
Love NOT in tongue.
But in DEED and in TRUTH.
We can profess our love all we want. We can talk of our love until our throats are dry and we can scarcely speak another word. We can write of our love until our fingers bleed. We can boast of love until people believe it's all we talk about and can't talk of anything else and guess what? All that talk, all that professing of love means absolutely NOTHING! We can say the words 'I love you' a million times and it's worth NOTHING! We can be the world's utmost authority on love and it will mean NOTHING! We are NOT to talk of love, we are to love.
The saying- 'talk is cheap' is very, very true. Talk means very little if our lives don't reflect what we talk about. We call people liars when they talk and talk and talk but never do any of what they talk about. Liars. When our mouths profess love and our actions say otherwise we are LIARS! Why do people think talking about love is good enough? Why do people think that 'people know I love them' when in truth if you are NEVER loving towards them they know no such thing! People want others to believe the love them just because they say they do. People want others to believe they really care with in truth they are anything but caring towards them. People want others to believe they love them when they hug them and kiss them, and yet do little else for them. The showing of affection while never providing for someone's needs means little- hollow affection- words without substance, actions void of truth.
Loving in deed and truth.
Deed-
G2041
ergon
Thayer Definition:
1) business, employment, that which any one is occupied
1a) that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking
2) any product whatever, any thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind
3) an act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is emphasised in opp. to that which is less than work
Part of Speech: noun neuter
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from a primary (but obsolete) ergo (to work)
Loving in action. Loving in what we DO. Loving in how we live.
Loving in truth- really, really loving as Jesus would have us love, loving as HE loved.
Mar 10:44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.
Mar 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Jesus came NOT to be ministered unto, but to minister!
We shall be servants!
Mat 5:42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Minister- give.
Love in deed- give.
Luk 6:30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
Give.
We can profess Christ and never be Christ's. Christ will not know those who profess him in word but not in deed, they will be complete strangers to the greatest Giver of all.
One who naturally gives has a gift, a blessing, because so many of us are takers more than givers. Those natural givers have something in common with our Savior in a very special way. Is it any wonder Satan will attack the natural givers so horrifically? Being able to give freely is something very, very special.
Jesus would have us LEARN to give because not everyone is a natural giver. Over and over Jesus is revealing Himself to us in His lessons. We are to treat others as Jesus treated us. We are to reveal Jesus through our lives in all ways, not just on the written page, not just by speaking. Don't get me wrong- some people give of themselves in their words I would never say otherwise but those giving in their words need to live giving. We need to be givers in all aspects of our lives and by the grace of God we will be! By the power of the Holy Spirit we will be givers, we will love in deed and in truth!
Givers.
Because He gave.
In His love!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Christ Centered
Mat 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Giving up of self.
Jesus is teaching us, trying to teach us to give up our selfishness. We cling to it so desperately. The world revolves around…us. How could it be any different? Seriously, how can we take ourselves out of the center of our own existence. We've heard often the saying about somebody 'being their whole world'. A mother for a child- that child being the mother's whole world. A husband for a wife- that wife being the center of the husband's whole world. Or we hear that someone's job is their life. Of course we've ALL heard that we need to have a WELL BALANCED life without anyone becoming another's whole world. Well balanced meaning that instead of having your life revolve around anyone's or anything's world you have time for yourself, time for others, time for work, time for play- balance. What does Jesus want us to have? A well balanced life? I don't think so. Seriously, I think Jesus would have us have our life revolve around Him, because ONLY in Him can we find real life, real love. If our Savior is the center of ALL we do we are not in any danger of putting ourselves, anyone else, or anything else before our God. The only way our life is ever really balanced is in Christ. With Christ as the center of our lives then others will come first before ourselves and these words…
Mat 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
… will be understood.
Giving to others. If someone asks you to do something, doing that and more for them without their asking is truly us revealing Christ in us.
Do some people take advantage of those who are *good* to them, knowing they'll give more of themselves than asked? Yes. Can you feel taken advantage of if you are giving from your Christ-centered heart? Seriously? Can you? Doesn't selfishness demand we feel resentful, that we feel taken advantage of when someone truly does take advantage of us? This is why we TURN THE OTHER CHEEK. This is why we go TWO miles when we are only asked to go one. This is Christ, this is selflessness. We can NEVER feel taken advantage of if Christ is our center, never. He wants us to give, give, give even to the undeserving, or those we perceive as undeserving. We can never be deserving of Christ, He gives us undeserved love and forgiveness. We have to live our lives the same way towards others, not questioning whether anyone is deserving of our giving, of our love.
We are NOT the way. We are NOT the truth. We are NOT the life.
Christ is the way, the truth and the life!
These words of Christ are OTHER centered. Jesus came to SAVE us. Jesus' life was OTHER centered- God the Father first and others second. Never was Jesus to teach us to be self centered. Never were we commanded to love only ourselves, never. God and others- this should be our focus. God always first! It's wonderful to be other centered but only if we are God centered first, pulling in others to that center where God lives in us.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory
Christ in us!
By His grace!
Amen!
Giving up of self.
Jesus is teaching us, trying to teach us to give up our selfishness. We cling to it so desperately. The world revolves around…us. How could it be any different? Seriously, how can we take ourselves out of the center of our own existence. We've heard often the saying about somebody 'being their whole world'. A mother for a child- that child being the mother's whole world. A husband for a wife- that wife being the center of the husband's whole world. Or we hear that someone's job is their life. Of course we've ALL heard that we need to have a WELL BALANCED life without anyone becoming another's whole world. Well balanced meaning that instead of having your life revolve around anyone's or anything's world you have time for yourself, time for others, time for work, time for play- balance. What does Jesus want us to have? A well balanced life? I don't think so. Seriously, I think Jesus would have us have our life revolve around Him, because ONLY in Him can we find real life, real love. If our Savior is the center of ALL we do we are not in any danger of putting ourselves, anyone else, or anything else before our God. The only way our life is ever really balanced is in Christ. With Christ as the center of our lives then others will come first before ourselves and these words…
Mat 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
… will be understood.
Giving to others. If someone asks you to do something, doing that and more for them without their asking is truly us revealing Christ in us.
Do some people take advantage of those who are *good* to them, knowing they'll give more of themselves than asked? Yes. Can you feel taken advantage of if you are giving from your Christ-centered heart? Seriously? Can you? Doesn't selfishness demand we feel resentful, that we feel taken advantage of when someone truly does take advantage of us? This is why we TURN THE OTHER CHEEK. This is why we go TWO miles when we are only asked to go one. This is Christ, this is selflessness. We can NEVER feel taken advantage of if Christ is our center, never. He wants us to give, give, give even to the undeserving, or those we perceive as undeserving. We can never be deserving of Christ, He gives us undeserved love and forgiveness. We have to live our lives the same way towards others, not questioning whether anyone is deserving of our giving, of our love.
We are NOT the way. We are NOT the truth. We are NOT the life.
Christ is the way, the truth and the life!
These words of Christ are OTHER centered. Jesus came to SAVE us. Jesus' life was OTHER centered- God the Father first and others second. Never was Jesus to teach us to be self centered. Never were we commanded to love only ourselves, never. God and others- this should be our focus. God always first! It's wonderful to be other centered but only if we are God centered first, pulling in others to that center where God lives in us.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory
Christ in us!
By His grace!
Amen!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Jesus' love- not our love
Mat 5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
Mat 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
I didn't touch on this so much yesterday but it does need to be touched on especially in our day and age when we think nothing of suing people. It's true, we sue for anything nowadays. We cannot fathom being sued by someone and NOT trying to get away from having to pay them, or trying to get away with paying them the least amount possible. It's always considered a 'good deal', a 'win', when a person gets sued and they don't have to pay a lot of money. You won! You only have to give them a 100 dollars! It could have been much worse, you might have had to pay them 1000 dollars! Do you see the thrill? The thrill is with getting away without having to pay- it doesn't matter if it's due the person or not if we can get away without having to pay much we will and call it wonderful, call it good.
So here is our Savior and He says- if any man sues us and takes our coat- we give him our cloke too. WHAT?! Time to do a double take, right? If we're sued and someone *wins* and gets our coat we are not to only give him our coat but MORE! We are to give more than is rewarded, how can we possibly get our heads around this? Seriously. Being sued is horrible. I wouldn't want to be sued. You know, Jesus doesn't specify whether or not this is a justifiable suing- that we deserve to be sued, but in truth most people never believe they deserve to be sued, they'd rather work things out without involving the justice system. Not all believe that way, there are some that understand things happen - like an accident on their property- and they know they should be sued. Not everyone fights being sued.
There are a lot of different scenarios but the fact is - Jesus simply said if any man sues us.
Does this mean we are to give more to someone who is already taking us for something? Can you imagine being sued and having to pay 1000 dollars and then giving the person suing you 2000 dollars? Giving more, giving perhaps undeservedly. Giving. This does go hand in hand with turning the other cheek it really does and the same principle applies. Compassion. Revealing Christ not revealing ourselves. Our nature is completely selfish. It really is because so often those who do give and think themselves unselfish are even more selfish than the takers because they lament no one appreciating them enough-- SELFISH. We are selfish…are carnal nature will constantly try to rule us and it does a good job. Turning the other cheek, giving more than we are required to someone taking from us, deserved or not, these things are not common.
Jesus is not common.
Jesus wants HIS love to be revealed, love we embrace and let shine through us, not our love, not love that we give in order to get, not love that is corrupted by selfishness. Jesus' love! JESUS' LOVE!
By His grace me His love be revealed through us now and always!
His LOVE, not our love, HIS LOVE!
In Him forever!
Amen.
Mat 5:41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
I didn't touch on this so much yesterday but it does need to be touched on especially in our day and age when we think nothing of suing people. It's true, we sue for anything nowadays. We cannot fathom being sued by someone and NOT trying to get away from having to pay them, or trying to get away with paying them the least amount possible. It's always considered a 'good deal', a 'win', when a person gets sued and they don't have to pay a lot of money. You won! You only have to give them a 100 dollars! It could have been much worse, you might have had to pay them 1000 dollars! Do you see the thrill? The thrill is with getting away without having to pay- it doesn't matter if it's due the person or not if we can get away without having to pay much we will and call it wonderful, call it good.
So here is our Savior and He says- if any man sues us and takes our coat- we give him our cloke too. WHAT?! Time to do a double take, right? If we're sued and someone *wins* and gets our coat we are not to only give him our coat but MORE! We are to give more than is rewarded, how can we possibly get our heads around this? Seriously. Being sued is horrible. I wouldn't want to be sued. You know, Jesus doesn't specify whether or not this is a justifiable suing- that we deserve to be sued, but in truth most people never believe they deserve to be sued, they'd rather work things out without involving the justice system. Not all believe that way, there are some that understand things happen - like an accident on their property- and they know they should be sued. Not everyone fights being sued.
There are a lot of different scenarios but the fact is - Jesus simply said if any man sues us.
Does this mean we are to give more to someone who is already taking us for something? Can you imagine being sued and having to pay 1000 dollars and then giving the person suing you 2000 dollars? Giving more, giving perhaps undeservedly. Giving. This does go hand in hand with turning the other cheek it really does and the same principle applies. Compassion. Revealing Christ not revealing ourselves. Our nature is completely selfish. It really is because so often those who do give and think themselves unselfish are even more selfish than the takers because they lament no one appreciating them enough-- SELFISH. We are selfish…are carnal nature will constantly try to rule us and it does a good job. Turning the other cheek, giving more than we are required to someone taking from us, deserved or not, these things are not common.
Jesus is not common.
Jesus wants HIS love to be revealed, love we embrace and let shine through us, not our love, not love that we give in order to get, not love that is corrupted by selfishness. Jesus' love! JESUS' LOVE!
By His grace me His love be revealed through us now and always!
His LOVE, not our love, HIS LOVE!
In Him forever!
Amen.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Compassion for evil doers
Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Mat 5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
*******
Exo 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exo 21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Lev 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
Deu 19:21 And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
*******
It had been said, in fact it was a common practice for criminal matters to be handled this way- an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you did something bad to a person and were caught- you paid with a *like* action. It sounds like fairness doesn't it? More than one person would easily say that a person who steals deserves to have their things taken from them, a person who maims another deserves to be maimed, a person who murders deserves to be killed, and so on. It's only fair, right? Those who intentionally hurt others deserve to be hurt- justice needs to be served, vengeance needs to be had.
We've thought it, we've felt it, we've wanted justice, we've wanted others to get their just reward, we're guilty of this - none of us are exempt. Now with that in mind ask yourself this question… did you ever want *more* than justice for some wrong done to you or a loved one of yours? Did you ever want them to suffer more than they really deserved? Did you want that simply because that person had the audacity, the evil in them to commit the evil act? Do we want a person to pay double, triple because they had NO right to do what they did? Do we sometimes want their death even if they did not commit murder- simply because of the horrifying pain they caused? Do we in our finite judgment really believe we have a right to take life from anyone?
I'll be the first to admit that evil, true, real evil exists- that there are people who have embraced evil to its fullest and their lives reflect that. Evil deserves to be wipe out, but we aren't the ones who are to do that wiping out.
We were given an instruction on how to deal with the wrong doing others would inflict upon us and we weren't satisfied with getting just and eye for an eye- we wanted two eyes for one eye. We weren't happy with getting a tooth for a tooth we wanted a whole mouthful of teeth for a single tooth. We couldn't be trusted to err on the side of good because inevitably we would err on the side of evil. Our own evil nature would take over and we don't mete out justice fairly but allow our judgment to be colored by all that makes us who we are. Who hasn't heard about a judge being harsh because he/she was having a bad day? We can try our hardest to be fair and that's a good thing- as far as it goes- but we are very imperfect and the imperfect judging the imperfect is never very good.
Does this mean I think all evil should be simply ignored? No.
But I believe ANY evil person we judge needs to be judged with compassion.
Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Mat 5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
Those who would hurt us need to get compassion from us- not returned evil. What's this doing? What's this compassion all about? It does what? It REVEALS JESUS.
The salvation each of us can have is given to us freely and totally undeserved. The compassion that is within us through the love of our Savior can be freely given to those undeserving. This is the message we are to hear from these words of our Savior, this is the lesson we need to learn. Not to do unto others as they've done to us, no… but do what our Savior would have us do unto them… reveal undeserved compassion and in doing so we reveal the love of God.
By His amazing love and grace may we seek Him and His wisdom whenever we are in a situation needing compassion over justice or revenge.
In His love!
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Mat 5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
*******
Exo 21:24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Exo 21:25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Lev 24:20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
Deu 19:21 And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
*******
It had been said, in fact it was a common practice for criminal matters to be handled this way- an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you did something bad to a person and were caught- you paid with a *like* action. It sounds like fairness doesn't it? More than one person would easily say that a person who steals deserves to have their things taken from them, a person who maims another deserves to be maimed, a person who murders deserves to be killed, and so on. It's only fair, right? Those who intentionally hurt others deserve to be hurt- justice needs to be served, vengeance needs to be had.
We've thought it, we've felt it, we've wanted justice, we've wanted others to get their just reward, we're guilty of this - none of us are exempt. Now with that in mind ask yourself this question… did you ever want *more* than justice for some wrong done to you or a loved one of yours? Did you ever want them to suffer more than they really deserved? Did you want that simply because that person had the audacity, the evil in them to commit the evil act? Do we want a person to pay double, triple because they had NO right to do what they did? Do we sometimes want their death even if they did not commit murder- simply because of the horrifying pain they caused? Do we in our finite judgment really believe we have a right to take life from anyone?
I'll be the first to admit that evil, true, real evil exists- that there are people who have embraced evil to its fullest and their lives reflect that. Evil deserves to be wipe out, but we aren't the ones who are to do that wiping out.
We were given an instruction on how to deal with the wrong doing others would inflict upon us and we weren't satisfied with getting just and eye for an eye- we wanted two eyes for one eye. We weren't happy with getting a tooth for a tooth we wanted a whole mouthful of teeth for a single tooth. We couldn't be trusted to err on the side of good because inevitably we would err on the side of evil. Our own evil nature would take over and we don't mete out justice fairly but allow our judgment to be colored by all that makes us who we are. Who hasn't heard about a judge being harsh because he/she was having a bad day? We can try our hardest to be fair and that's a good thing- as far as it goes- but we are very imperfect and the imperfect judging the imperfect is never very good.
Does this mean I think all evil should be simply ignored? No.
But I believe ANY evil person we judge needs to be judged with compassion.
Mat 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Mat 5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Mat 5:40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
Those who would hurt us need to get compassion from us- not returned evil. What's this doing? What's this compassion all about? It does what? It REVEALS JESUS.
The salvation each of us can have is given to us freely and totally undeserved. The compassion that is within us through the love of our Savior can be freely given to those undeserving. This is the message we are to hear from these words of our Savior, this is the lesson we need to learn. Not to do unto others as they've done to us, no… but do what our Savior would have us do unto them… reveal undeserved compassion and in doing so we reveal the love of God.
By His amazing love and grace may we seek Him and His wisdom whenever we are in a situation needing compassion over justice or revenge.
In His love!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Swear not at all
Mat 5:33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Let your communication be Yes or No- whatsoever is more than these comes from evil.
When we use 'Maybe', what are we really doing? Seriously, think about it for a moment. We've ALL used the word maybe when someone wanted us to say yes or no, haven't we? Ask a question and someone says maybe… you get that gut feeling their real desire is to say no, but when we want them to say yes, or yes when we want them to say no. Maybe is used when a decision isn't ready to be made and that's not such a bad thing. But this isn't really talking about saying maybe it's talking about swearing an oath. We need to understand something- historians of the day tell us that it was common for people before Christ to swear and oath to someone but NOT feel obligated to truly keep that oath believing that God would understand the reasoning- the performing unto the Lord the oaths and NOT the people to whom you've made them was a way to appease the guilt of not keeping your word- and THIS wasn't right. Just as God allowed people to divorce for petty reasons until Jesus came to set them free with the truth because of the people heart hardness- people were allowed to appease their guilt of being unable to complete an oath by claiming God's understanding.
No more! This would be allowed NO longer! People who were genuine in their needing God's help, God's forgiveness when they failed to keep an oath were overshadowed by those abusing the situation. How easy it became for them to make an oath and then know that they NEVER really had to keep that oath- they LIED. Just as people used the allowable reason for divorce and abused that reason, they abused this too.
No reason was good enough to lie! No reason was good enough to make an oath and then NOT keep it! People have DIED to stand by their oaths, but for some reason others think absolutely nothing of lying to a person. Some think nothing of making an oath all the while they know even as they are making that oath that they won't keep it. LIARS!
God cannot abide a liar, and is it any wonder???
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The devil is a LIAR. The devil is the Father of LYING!
Is it any wonder Jesus said this--
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Swear NOT at all.
Swear by NOTHING!
Don't even swear by yourself, not even a HAIR on your head!
If you don't swear - if you don't make any oaths- if you don't make any promises especially if you don't know if you can keep them- then you won't be lying. An oath, a promise, is important. We are NOT to make any oath lightly. In the third commandment God states we are not to take His name in vain. We do take it in vain when we swear by God, when we perform our oaths to God while lying to others. Jesus would have us understand that sin separates us from Him. Lies separate us from God. Every time we lie we sin. People don't want to believe that, they just plain don't want to believe that it's true. They love their lying, they love their cherished white lies, they love the ease with which they can tell untruths and deceive others and they pacify themselves by telling themselves that it isn't hurting anyone. Wrong. It hurts God. It hurts us and we don't even realize it because we don't feel physical pain when we lie. We don't feel physical pain when we are being separated from God. If we felt the pain we wouldn't believe that lying hurts no one. Spiritual pain, agonizing spiritual pain… if we could only realize. God realizes, God knows. Jesus knows and anything that separates us from Him is not acceptable to Him. Love, this is love- God and God with us.
By His grace may we keep from swearing any oaths. By His grace may we keep from lying. By His love now and forever and ever!
Amen.
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Let your communication be Yes or No- whatsoever is more than these comes from evil.
When we use 'Maybe', what are we really doing? Seriously, think about it for a moment. We've ALL used the word maybe when someone wanted us to say yes or no, haven't we? Ask a question and someone says maybe… you get that gut feeling their real desire is to say no, but when we want them to say yes, or yes when we want them to say no. Maybe is used when a decision isn't ready to be made and that's not such a bad thing. But this isn't really talking about saying maybe it's talking about swearing an oath. We need to understand something- historians of the day tell us that it was common for people before Christ to swear and oath to someone but NOT feel obligated to truly keep that oath believing that God would understand the reasoning- the performing unto the Lord the oaths and NOT the people to whom you've made them was a way to appease the guilt of not keeping your word- and THIS wasn't right. Just as God allowed people to divorce for petty reasons until Jesus came to set them free with the truth because of the people heart hardness- people were allowed to appease their guilt of being unable to complete an oath by claiming God's understanding.
No more! This would be allowed NO longer! People who were genuine in their needing God's help, God's forgiveness when they failed to keep an oath were overshadowed by those abusing the situation. How easy it became for them to make an oath and then know that they NEVER really had to keep that oath- they LIED. Just as people used the allowable reason for divorce and abused that reason, they abused this too.
No reason was good enough to lie! No reason was good enough to make an oath and then NOT keep it! People have DIED to stand by their oaths, but for some reason others think absolutely nothing of lying to a person. Some think nothing of making an oath all the while they know even as they are making that oath that they won't keep it. LIARS!
God cannot abide a liar, and is it any wonder???
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The devil is a LIAR. The devil is the Father of LYING!
Is it any wonder Jesus said this--
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Swear NOT at all.
Swear by NOTHING!
Don't even swear by yourself, not even a HAIR on your head!
If you don't swear - if you don't make any oaths- if you don't make any promises especially if you don't know if you can keep them- then you won't be lying. An oath, a promise, is important. We are NOT to make any oath lightly. In the third commandment God states we are not to take His name in vain. We do take it in vain when we swear by God, when we perform our oaths to God while lying to others. Jesus would have us understand that sin separates us from Him. Lies separate us from God. Every time we lie we sin. People don't want to believe that, they just plain don't want to believe that it's true. They love their lying, they love their cherished white lies, they love the ease with which they can tell untruths and deceive others and they pacify themselves by telling themselves that it isn't hurting anyone. Wrong. It hurts God. It hurts us and we don't even realize it because we don't feel physical pain when we lie. We don't feel physical pain when we are being separated from God. If we felt the pain we wouldn't believe that lying hurts no one. Spiritual pain, agonizing spiritual pain… if we could only realize. God realizes, God knows. Jesus knows and anything that separates us from Him is not acceptable to Him. Love, this is love- God and God with us.
By His grace may we keep from swearing any oaths. By His grace may we keep from lying. By His love now and forever and ever!
Amen.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Two As One
Mat 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
The cause of fornication.
Fornication-
FORNICA'TION, n. [L. fornicatio.]
1. The incontinence or lewdness of unmarried persons, male or female; also, the criminal conversation of a married man with an unmarried woman.
2. Adultery. Mat 5.
3. Incest. 1 Cor 5.
4. Idolatry; a forsaking of the true God, and worshipping of idols. 2 Chr 21. Rev 19.
*******
Save for the cause of fornication. If a married man or woman commits adultery then they may be divorced- but other than this there is NO cause for divorce. Simple NOT enjoying the company of your married partner any longer is not a reason for divorce. Let's read the OLD law of divorcement-
Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Deu 24:2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
Deu 24:3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;
Deu 24:4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
Some uncleanness- the world here for uncleanness is…
From H6168; nudity, literally (especially the pudenda) or figuratively (disgrace, blemish): - nakedness, shame, unclean (-ness).
1. pudendaplural of pu·den·dum
Noun: A person's external genitals, esp. a woman's
If a husband found uncleanness in his wife- obviously it can't be nakedness because a husband and wife are allowed this privilege- so figuratively if they found some disgrace, some blemish the man could divorce his wife. This left it open to so many possibilities for divorce. A blemish… can you even imagine. A woman gets a freckle that the husband doesn't like- he could divorce her! You know that's not much different than it is today. We can divorce a person for any reason we like- we just have to say we're incompatible and what exactly does that mean? It means we just don't get along with each other any more. That could be ONE person not getting along with the other even if the other does everything in their power to please them. We have NO real binding contract any more, none whatsoever. And guess what, they didn't in the Old Testament times, the times before Christ, either. Is it any wonder at all that Jesus once again explained the TRUE meaning of God's word? This all goes so much deeper than just marriage between a man and a woman. This symbolizes God and His church, God and His people!
Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
God's people committed adultery! God's people can choose to worship other gods and when they do they are committing adultery! There is NO way God would frivolously divorce His people, no way!!! This was a SERIOUS offense. To believe that God would use fickleness as a reason to divorce His people is to misunderstand God completely! Is it any wonder we as married people should NEVER divorce save for adultery? If we believe it's fine to divorce each other for any little reason, then we have to believe it's fine for God to divorce Himself from us for any little reason.
Let's read more...
Mar 10:2 And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.
Mar 10:3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
Mar 10:4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
Mar 10:5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mar 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
Mar 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
For the hardness of your heart- this was the reason that they had been allowed to divorce so frivolously because they didn't have their hearts right! There hearts were hard, and a hard heart is a heart that isn't fully open to our Savior's love. When we harden our hearts we are pushing God out of our lives.
These words- hardness of your heart- means this:
sklērokardia
sklay-rok-ar-dee'-ah
Feminine of a compound of G4642 and G2588; hard heartedness, that is, (specifically) destitution of (spiritual) perception: - hardness of heart.
Destitute of spiritual perception! Being UNABLE to perceive GOD! People hardened their hearts and in doing so they can no longer perceive God's love! Unable to perceive God in His full truth God allowed the people to have their way to because they were too HARD hearted to perceive what marriage between a man and woman really meant.
No longer would our Savior accept a hard heart- no longer would divorce for frivolous reasons be allowed.
From the beginning God made man and woman- a pair that would procreate, a pair that would stay together as one, a pair that would LEAVE their parents to join with one another. Two that would become ONE joined by GOD. A spiritual joining that if God joins NO man can separate.
The idea that we can be separated from God is very frightening! Separated from our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer! Loving God- longing to be ONE with God through the grace of our Lord and Savior who makes the ONENESS possible (makes ATONEMENT for us), this is LIFE. We only have real LIFE in our God, in our Savior, in the Holy Spirit!
Is it any wonder at all that God wants married couples to stay together as one?!
If God's people separate themselves from God they are committing spiritual adultery.
If a man or a woman separates themselves from their husband or wife by taking ANOTHER husband or wife, they are committing adultery.
Separation- something together coming apart. Something that is two becoming one and then becoming two once again.
We don't ever want to be separated from God!
And we should never want to be separated from our marriage partner.
Yes, divorce is allowed when there is fornication, why? Because God will NOT join with a people who have separated themselves from Him and gone with other gods. God does not force people to stay with Him. People are allowed to choose to separate themselves from Him, Satan chose to separated Himself from God. The price that is paid for those who choose to apostatize from their Creator, their Sustainer, their Redeemer, their God is very high- eternal death, it will be as if you never were. Why? Because the truth is, we CANNOT survive eternally without God, it's just not possible. We can try all we want to come up with our own plan to be saved and live eternally but nothing we do will work, nothing. We cannot LIVE without God. People think they can because they really believe this life here and now is real living, they don't understand this is just a stepping stone. This isn't REAL life, we are living under the weight of sin, suffocating under sin and people call this life. Life is in Jesus! Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Mat 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
By the grace of God may we never leave our Savior, may we NEVER leave our God, may we stay true to Him now and always!
In Him always and forever!
Amen.
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
The cause of fornication.
Fornication-
FORNICA'TION, n. [L. fornicatio.]
1. The incontinence or lewdness of unmarried persons, male or female; also, the criminal conversation of a married man with an unmarried woman.
2. Adultery. Mat 5.
3. Incest. 1 Cor 5.
4. Idolatry; a forsaking of the true God, and worshipping of idols. 2 Chr 21. Rev 19.
*******
Save for the cause of fornication. If a married man or woman commits adultery then they may be divorced- but other than this there is NO cause for divorce. Simple NOT enjoying the company of your married partner any longer is not a reason for divorce. Let's read the OLD law of divorcement-
Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Deu 24:2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
Deu 24:3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;
Deu 24:4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
Some uncleanness- the world here for uncleanness is…
From H6168; nudity, literally (especially the pudenda) or figuratively (disgrace, blemish): - nakedness, shame, unclean (-ness).
1. pudendaplural of pu·den·dum
Noun: A person's external genitals, esp. a woman's
If a husband found uncleanness in his wife- obviously it can't be nakedness because a husband and wife are allowed this privilege- so figuratively if they found some disgrace, some blemish the man could divorce his wife. This left it open to so many possibilities for divorce. A blemish… can you even imagine. A woman gets a freckle that the husband doesn't like- he could divorce her! You know that's not much different than it is today. We can divorce a person for any reason we like- we just have to say we're incompatible and what exactly does that mean? It means we just don't get along with each other any more. That could be ONE person not getting along with the other even if the other does everything in their power to please them. We have NO real binding contract any more, none whatsoever. And guess what, they didn't in the Old Testament times, the times before Christ, either. Is it any wonder at all that Jesus once again explained the TRUE meaning of God's word? This all goes so much deeper than just marriage between a man and a woman. This symbolizes God and His church, God and His people!
Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
God's people committed adultery! God's people can choose to worship other gods and when they do they are committing adultery! There is NO way God would frivolously divorce His people, no way!!! This was a SERIOUS offense. To believe that God would use fickleness as a reason to divorce His people is to misunderstand God completely! Is it any wonder we as married people should NEVER divorce save for adultery? If we believe it's fine to divorce each other for any little reason, then we have to believe it's fine for God to divorce Himself from us for any little reason.
Let's read more...
Mar 10:2 And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.
Mar 10:3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
Mar 10:4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
Mar 10:5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Mar 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
Mar 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
For the hardness of your heart- this was the reason that they had been allowed to divorce so frivolously because they didn't have their hearts right! There hearts were hard, and a hard heart is a heart that isn't fully open to our Savior's love. When we harden our hearts we are pushing God out of our lives.
These words- hardness of your heart- means this:
sklērokardia
sklay-rok-ar-dee'-ah
Feminine of a compound of G4642 and G2588; hard heartedness, that is, (specifically) destitution of (spiritual) perception: - hardness of heart.
Destitute of spiritual perception! Being UNABLE to perceive GOD! People hardened their hearts and in doing so they can no longer perceive God's love! Unable to perceive God in His full truth God allowed the people to have their way to because they were too HARD hearted to perceive what marriage between a man and woman really meant.
No longer would our Savior accept a hard heart- no longer would divorce for frivolous reasons be allowed.
From the beginning God made man and woman- a pair that would procreate, a pair that would stay together as one, a pair that would LEAVE their parents to join with one another. Two that would become ONE joined by GOD. A spiritual joining that if God joins NO man can separate.
The idea that we can be separated from God is very frightening! Separated from our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer! Loving God- longing to be ONE with God through the grace of our Lord and Savior who makes the ONENESS possible (makes ATONEMENT for us), this is LIFE. We only have real LIFE in our God, in our Savior, in the Holy Spirit!
Is it any wonder at all that God wants married couples to stay together as one?!
If God's people separate themselves from God they are committing spiritual adultery.
If a man or a woman separates themselves from their husband or wife by taking ANOTHER husband or wife, they are committing adultery.
Separation- something together coming apart. Something that is two becoming one and then becoming two once again.
We don't ever want to be separated from God!
And we should never want to be separated from our marriage partner.
Yes, divorce is allowed when there is fornication, why? Because God will NOT join with a people who have separated themselves from Him and gone with other gods. God does not force people to stay with Him. People are allowed to choose to separate themselves from Him, Satan chose to separated Himself from God. The price that is paid for those who choose to apostatize from their Creator, their Sustainer, their Redeemer, their God is very high- eternal death, it will be as if you never were. Why? Because the truth is, we CANNOT survive eternally without God, it's just not possible. We can try all we want to come up with our own plan to be saved and live eternally but nothing we do will work, nothing. We cannot LIVE without God. People think they can because they really believe this life here and now is real living, they don't understand this is just a stepping stone. This isn't REAL life, we are living under the weight of sin, suffocating under sin and people call this life. Life is in Jesus! Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Mat 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
By the grace of God may we never leave our Savior, may we NEVER leave our God, may we stay true to Him now and always!
In Him always and forever!
Amen.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Horror of Sin
Mat 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Mat 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Do you think for ONE moment that plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand would stop a sinner from sinning? Seriously. How wondrous it would be to think that all we had to do was sacrifice and eye and we would no longer sin through the things we look on to lust for. And our hand, is it truly the hand that is sinning? Think about it. If we could lose a hand and gain salvation why we'd have whole churches filled with one-handed, one-eyed people guaranteed salvation. Sin is in our hearts and we can't pluck or cut those out.
Jesus knew that the actuality of us plucking out our eyes and chopping off our hands wasn't what He was trying to teach us. Using such GRAPHIC depictions allows us to realize just how important it is that we don't accept sin in any form in our lives. We cannot condone sin. It's better for us to do all we can not to sin, to rid our hearts of sin through Him than it is to die eternally. It's better for us to SUFFER the agonies of denying ourselves our sinful desires than to burn in the lake of fire.
Remember our study on Hell? Maybe not, let's just recap a bit of it…
We talk of hell and there are different meanings for that word throughout our Bibles. Geenna is one of those words--and the particular word used here in Matthew 5:29,30
G1067
γέεννα
geenna
Thayer Definition:
1) Hell is the place of the future punishment call “Gehenna” or “Gehenna of fire”. This was originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned; a fit symbol of the wicked and their future destruction.
Originally the valley of Hinnom- a place that had a fire continually burning to burn the constant refuse brought to be destroyed- much like a garbage dump only this dump destroyed the garbage turning it into ash rather than let the garbage just simply accumulate. The fire there in the valley never went out - day and night it burned having a constant, steady stream of refuse to feed it.
Using this word for hell here in Matthew 5:29,30 refers to the body being cast in the 'lake of fire' the lake of permanent punishment that all wicked will be burned in.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Obviously Jesus is telling us that it's better to SUFFER whatever we need to suffer in order not to sin than to give into sin and make it part of our lives- accepting sin, indulging in the perversities of sinning rather that risk being among the wicked not found in the book of life.
THESE are Jesus' words! These aren't my words! I'm not telling you it's better to pluck out your own eye, or cut off your hand than be burned to the point of total annihilation in the lake of fire reserved for the wicked.
I can already hear the cries- WE CAN'T SAVE OURSELVES! You're telling us by our actions we are saved! You're telling us if we don't sin then we are saved! You're telling us if we mortify the flesh we have salvation! It's not me, it's not my words, it's the word of Inspiration! It's the word of GOD!
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Don't you see? It's better for US to realize that we are NOT the same people after we accept Christ as our Savior. We have HIM on our side. We have the Holy Spirit to lead us! We HAVE to put off sinning. We HAVE to mortify our members. We HAVE to mortify the deed of the body. We have to live after the Spirit, not the flesh at all costs! And don't make the mistake of thinking that it's not hard, or that you must not be right with God if it's hard. Such a HUGE mistake. Jesus is telling us to CUT OFF OUR HANDS! Jesus is telling us to PLUCK OUT OUR EYES! Just for one moment imagine doing it…go on, IMAGINE IT!
Visualize yourself bringing your hand up to your face, your thumb and forefinger heading towards your eye… touching your eye…pressing inwards… are you shuddering at the thought yet? Can you truly imagine plucking your own eye out? How about raising a butcher knife over your wrist getting ready to slam it down and hack your own hand off? SICK! Disgusting! Horrifying thoughts! We NEED to understand how horrific sin is. You and I will suffer when we war against the cherished sins in our lives. You and I will agonize over the hold sin has on us as we weep at the feet of our Savior begging forgiveness. We must constantly seek forgiveness and we must constantly place our salvation in the hands of our Savior who alone has the power to save us. We must never forget the horror of sin and Satan would have us do just that, Satan wants us to trivialize sin and make it of little consequence. We can't do that, we mustn't do that! We have to recognize sin and fight it, mortify our flesh, resisting sin, striving unto blood against sin!
Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Never minimalize sin, never ever think that it is of no importance, it is sin that brings eternal death, it is sin that reserves for us a place in the lake of fire, it is sin that will make us as if we never were one day, it is sin that killed our innocent Savior!
Jesus was talking to a group of people who had a sacrificial system in place- they knew all about sin and what they needed to do to find atonement - to be one with God again. They had daily sacrifices, yearly sacrifices- they knew that sin cost the life of an animal that symbolized the coming Messiah. They knew blood had to be shed for the remission of sins. These people understood, but they'd grown complacent, they'd become immune to the horrors of sinning. This had become a way of life for them- they sin- they sought forgiveness through a sacrifice the priests made for them. Sin had lost a lot of it's horror, much as it has today for so many people - in fact for the majority of people.
Here Jesus was teaching that what they knew to be sin was even more sinful than they'd imagined, that their thoughts could be sin, that their hearts could be corrupted by sin and that sin was so horrific they needed to understand that it would be better to maim themselves than sin and warrant everlasting destruction. And we understand just as our Savior wanted us to understand that to rip out our own eyes, to cut off our own hands are very graphic reminders of the horrors of sinning going unchecked within us.
By His grace through the Holy Spirit may we keep from sinning, may we be found in the Book of Life! In His amazing love now and forever!
Amen.
Mat 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Do you think for ONE moment that plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand would stop a sinner from sinning? Seriously. How wondrous it would be to think that all we had to do was sacrifice and eye and we would no longer sin through the things we look on to lust for. And our hand, is it truly the hand that is sinning? Think about it. If we could lose a hand and gain salvation why we'd have whole churches filled with one-handed, one-eyed people guaranteed salvation. Sin is in our hearts and we can't pluck or cut those out.
Jesus knew that the actuality of us plucking out our eyes and chopping off our hands wasn't what He was trying to teach us. Using such GRAPHIC depictions allows us to realize just how important it is that we don't accept sin in any form in our lives. We cannot condone sin. It's better for us to do all we can not to sin, to rid our hearts of sin through Him than it is to die eternally. It's better for us to SUFFER the agonies of denying ourselves our sinful desires than to burn in the lake of fire.
Remember our study on Hell? Maybe not, let's just recap a bit of it…
We talk of hell and there are different meanings for that word throughout our Bibles. Geenna is one of those words--and the particular word used here in Matthew 5:29,30
G1067
γέεννα
geenna
Thayer Definition:
1) Hell is the place of the future punishment call “Gehenna” or “Gehenna of fire”. This was originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned; a fit symbol of the wicked and their future destruction.
Originally the valley of Hinnom- a place that had a fire continually burning to burn the constant refuse brought to be destroyed- much like a garbage dump only this dump destroyed the garbage turning it into ash rather than let the garbage just simply accumulate. The fire there in the valley never went out - day and night it burned having a constant, steady stream of refuse to feed it.
Using this word for hell here in Matthew 5:29,30 refers to the body being cast in the 'lake of fire' the lake of permanent punishment that all wicked will be burned in.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Obviously Jesus is telling us that it's better to SUFFER whatever we need to suffer in order not to sin than to give into sin and make it part of our lives- accepting sin, indulging in the perversities of sinning rather that risk being among the wicked not found in the book of life.
THESE are Jesus' words! These aren't my words! I'm not telling you it's better to pluck out your own eye, or cut off your hand than be burned to the point of total annihilation in the lake of fire reserved for the wicked.
I can already hear the cries- WE CAN'T SAVE OURSELVES! You're telling us by our actions we are saved! You're telling us if we don't sin then we are saved! You're telling us if we mortify the flesh we have salvation! It's not me, it's not my words, it's the word of Inspiration! It's the word of GOD!
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Don't you see? It's better for US to realize that we are NOT the same people after we accept Christ as our Savior. We have HIM on our side. We have the Holy Spirit to lead us! We HAVE to put off sinning. We HAVE to mortify our members. We HAVE to mortify the deed of the body. We have to live after the Spirit, not the flesh at all costs! And don't make the mistake of thinking that it's not hard, or that you must not be right with God if it's hard. Such a HUGE mistake. Jesus is telling us to CUT OFF OUR HANDS! Jesus is telling us to PLUCK OUT OUR EYES! Just for one moment imagine doing it…go on, IMAGINE IT!
Visualize yourself bringing your hand up to your face, your thumb and forefinger heading towards your eye… touching your eye…pressing inwards… are you shuddering at the thought yet? Can you truly imagine plucking your own eye out? How about raising a butcher knife over your wrist getting ready to slam it down and hack your own hand off? SICK! Disgusting! Horrifying thoughts! We NEED to understand how horrific sin is. You and I will suffer when we war against the cherished sins in our lives. You and I will agonize over the hold sin has on us as we weep at the feet of our Savior begging forgiveness. We must constantly seek forgiveness and we must constantly place our salvation in the hands of our Savior who alone has the power to save us. We must never forget the horror of sin and Satan would have us do just that, Satan wants us to trivialize sin and make it of little consequence. We can't do that, we mustn't do that! We have to recognize sin and fight it, mortify our flesh, resisting sin, striving unto blood against sin!
Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Never minimalize sin, never ever think that it is of no importance, it is sin that brings eternal death, it is sin that reserves for us a place in the lake of fire, it is sin that will make us as if we never were one day, it is sin that killed our innocent Savior!
Jesus was talking to a group of people who had a sacrificial system in place- they knew all about sin and what they needed to do to find atonement - to be one with God again. They had daily sacrifices, yearly sacrifices- they knew that sin cost the life of an animal that symbolized the coming Messiah. They knew blood had to be shed for the remission of sins. These people understood, but they'd grown complacent, they'd become immune to the horrors of sinning. This had become a way of life for them- they sin- they sought forgiveness through a sacrifice the priests made for them. Sin had lost a lot of it's horror, much as it has today for so many people - in fact for the majority of people.
Here Jesus was teaching that what they knew to be sin was even more sinful than they'd imagined, that their thoughts could be sin, that their hearts could be corrupted by sin and that sin was so horrific they needed to understand that it would be better to maim themselves than sin and warrant everlasting destruction. And we understand just as our Savior wanted us to understand that to rip out our own eyes, to cut off our own hands are very graphic reminders of the horrors of sinning going unchecked within us.
By His grace through the Holy Spirit may we keep from sinning, may we be found in the Book of Life! In His amazing love now and forever!
Amen.
Friday, March 25, 2011
In our heart
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
From OLD times, from LONG AGO, in AGES PAST the word came- 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'
Then man decided this meant simply the act of adultery and not the thought of it. The thought was okay, but was it ever okay? We know this...
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Temptation begins in the thoughts, in the mind. Seriously, temptation begins when we allow our thoughts of temptation to take over. Jesus was tempted but He did not succumb to temptation, He NEVER let His thoughts take over. He didn't stand on the highest pinnacle and begin to contemplate what it would be like to have all mankind right then and there bow down to Him. He didn't allow His mind to dwell on thoughts of how good a piece of bread would taste, how filling it would be to his fast starved body. He didn't stop for a few moments and think about how wonderful it would be to show off to Satan by falling and letting angels bear Him up. Our Savior didn't allow any thought of the temptation to take over Him. When tempted He was QUICK with a rebuke to that temptation. His first thought was REBUKE.
re·buke
1.
to express sharp, stern disapproval of; reprove; reprimand.
–noun
2.
sharp, stern disapproval; reproof; reprimand.
Pasted from
What is our first thought when we are tempted? Seriously, lets consider this for a moment and be frank about our answers. We all know of times we've given into temptation and sinned. The moment the temptation came did we rebuke it? We may have recognized it as temptation but recognizing temptation IS NOT rebuking temptation. Recognition is good but after the first moment of recognition that we are facing temptation we need to be instant in our rebuking of that temptation.
All too often we recognize that we are being tempted but then something else comes into play- our lust to give into that temptation. We feel a rush of desire towards that temptation. That IS what temptation is, isn't it? Being face to face with the opportunity to give into a desire, a lust we hold. I'm not talking uniquely sexual desire or sexual lust, but a desire or lust for anything that is sin. You can desire an object, you can lust after gold. When the desire is for something forbidden- another man's wife, a treasure of gold belonging to another- you are tempted wrongly, tempted towards sin. When you indulge that temptation in your thoughts you are imagining yourself committing the sin, you are entertaining sin as being something good- allowing it to fill your mind crowding out truth, crowding out God because God cannot dwell where sin dwells.
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
'Whosoever LOOKETH on a woman to LUST after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'
It's not enough to just keep ourselves from the act of outward sin- we MUST keep our hearts and minds pure, we must keep our hearts and minds on our Savior, not self and self desires, self lusts.
We must REBUKE temptation instantly! We must not look upon our temptation and lust for it in our heart. We must not come face to face with temptation and embrace it. We must not think about our temptation and continue to think upon it. The more lust after our temptation the more likely we are to give into that temptation, the more we lust after our temptation in becomes sin right there in our minds even if we never act upon that lust.
Lust--
epithumeō
ep-ee-thoo-meh'-o
From G1909 and G2372; to set the heart upon, that is, long for (rightfully or otherwise): - covet, desire, would fain, lust (after).
If our hearts are SET upon, if we are coveting in our hearts ANY SIN we are guilty of that sin. May God keep us from coveting any sin whatsoever! Sin is to be abhorred, not just - not physically committed. How many, many people do not commit the physical act of sin yet in their hearts they sin continuously all the while patting themselves on the back for NOT actually sinning. Is it any wonder our Savior is going to say to so many people that He never knew them, when there they'll be thinking they should be saved. Sin begins in the heart. When our hearts desire is to sin we are sinning. Our Lord must be our all in all. Our treasures MUST be in heaven. Our hearts desire must be towards God, towards His love and not towards self. We have resist the pull to self and that pull is soooooooooo great because we have people on all sides wanting to help us indulge self, and we have a GREAT adversary who wants nothing more than for us to put self first, we have a flesh nature that wars against the spiritual nature.
The path is narrow, few will find it, please God we pray that we are among the few! We pray we are known by You! We pray for the ability to rebuke temptation, to rebuke even thoughts of temptation. By Your grace! By Your will! In Your love!
Amen!
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
From OLD times, from LONG AGO, in AGES PAST the word came- 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'
Then man decided this meant simply the act of adultery and not the thought of it. The thought was okay, but was it ever okay? We know this...
Jas 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Temptation begins in the thoughts, in the mind. Seriously, temptation begins when we allow our thoughts of temptation to take over. Jesus was tempted but He did not succumb to temptation, He NEVER let His thoughts take over. He didn't stand on the highest pinnacle and begin to contemplate what it would be like to have all mankind right then and there bow down to Him. He didn't allow His mind to dwell on thoughts of how good a piece of bread would taste, how filling it would be to his fast starved body. He didn't stop for a few moments and think about how wonderful it would be to show off to Satan by falling and letting angels bear Him up. Our Savior didn't allow any thought of the temptation to take over Him. When tempted He was QUICK with a rebuke to that temptation. His first thought was REBUKE.
re·buke
1.
to express sharp, stern disapproval of; reprove; reprimand.
–noun
2.
sharp, stern disapproval; reproof; reprimand.
Pasted from
What is our first thought when we are tempted? Seriously, lets consider this for a moment and be frank about our answers. We all know of times we've given into temptation and sinned. The moment the temptation came did we rebuke it? We may have recognized it as temptation but recognizing temptation IS NOT rebuking temptation. Recognition is good but after the first moment of recognition that we are facing temptation we need to be instant in our rebuking of that temptation.
All too often we recognize that we are being tempted but then something else comes into play- our lust to give into that temptation. We feel a rush of desire towards that temptation. That IS what temptation is, isn't it? Being face to face with the opportunity to give into a desire, a lust we hold. I'm not talking uniquely sexual desire or sexual lust, but a desire or lust for anything that is sin. You can desire an object, you can lust after gold. When the desire is for something forbidden- another man's wife, a treasure of gold belonging to another- you are tempted wrongly, tempted towards sin. When you indulge that temptation in your thoughts you are imagining yourself committing the sin, you are entertaining sin as being something good- allowing it to fill your mind crowding out truth, crowding out God because God cannot dwell where sin dwells.
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
'Whosoever LOOKETH on a woman to LUST after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'
It's not enough to just keep ourselves from the act of outward sin- we MUST keep our hearts and minds pure, we must keep our hearts and minds on our Savior, not self and self desires, self lusts.
We must REBUKE temptation instantly! We must not look upon our temptation and lust for it in our heart. We must not come face to face with temptation and embrace it. We must not think about our temptation and continue to think upon it. The more lust after our temptation the more likely we are to give into that temptation, the more we lust after our temptation in becomes sin right there in our minds even if we never act upon that lust.
Lust--
epithumeō
ep-ee-thoo-meh'-o
From G1909 and G2372; to set the heart upon, that is, long for (rightfully or otherwise): - covet, desire, would fain, lust (after).
If our hearts are SET upon, if we are coveting in our hearts ANY SIN we are guilty of that sin. May God keep us from coveting any sin whatsoever! Sin is to be abhorred, not just - not physically committed. How many, many people do not commit the physical act of sin yet in their hearts they sin continuously all the while patting themselves on the back for NOT actually sinning. Is it any wonder our Savior is going to say to so many people that He never knew them, when there they'll be thinking they should be saved. Sin begins in the heart. When our hearts desire is to sin we are sinning. Our Lord must be our all in all. Our treasures MUST be in heaven. Our hearts desire must be towards God, towards His love and not towards self. We have resist the pull to self and that pull is soooooooooo great because we have people on all sides wanting to help us indulge self, and we have a GREAT adversary who wants nothing more than for us to put self first, we have a flesh nature that wars against the spiritual nature.
The path is narrow, few will find it, please God we pray that we are among the few! We pray we are known by You! We pray for the ability to rebuke temptation, to rebuke even thoughts of temptation. By Your grace! By Your will! In Your love!
Amen!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Agree with thine adversary quickly
Mat 5:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Mat 5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Agree- reconcile with
Adversary- enemy, opponent
This seems strange doesn't it? Agreeing with one you don't agree with on principle. To have an enemy, to have an opponent means not agreeing with that person- they are your enemy, you obviously don't agree. Can you think of a person who is or has been your adversary in the past, or even currently? In thinking about them what makes them your adversary? You could say something as simple as ' "I just don't like them." and that could be true, we don't instantly like everyone, some people are very abrasive to our personalities and seem very incompatible. So we just don't like them and they just don't like us and in not liking each other we aren't inclined to want to be agreeable with each other. However, and this is a big HOWEVER, Jesus would have us LOVE our enemies and adversaries.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies...
Just in the previous verses Jesus is teaching us the importance of loving our fellowman. How we aren't to treat others badly, we can't judge another's eternal life, we can't KNOW another as God can know them.
So when Jesus tells us to agree with our adversaries He's NOT telling us to BE LIKE our adversaries. Jesus is NOT telling us to agree to their evil and commit evil with them. Jesus is really telling us to LOVE our adversary. We can LOVE our enemies, we can love our adversaries because GOD loves us! If we are loveable to God, then our enemies are loveable to God, and if our enemies are loveable to God they are loveable to us. Do we have to like them? No. Do we have to like what they do? No. Can we judge their actions? We HAVE to judge their actions because the actions people make reveal right and wrong and by judging an action we decide whether or not we're going to do right or wrong ourselves. We must love but commit no sin in doing so. Agreeing with our adversaries does not mean going along with their sins, their crimes, their wrongs. If we were asked by our adversary to commit sin we should NOT commit sin- it's not that sort of agreeing!
Agree- G2468 G2132
G2468
??´s??
isthi
is'-thee
Second person imperative present of G1510; be thou: - + agree, be, X give thyself wholly to.
e????´e?
eunoeo¯
yoo-no-eh'-o
From a compound of G2095 and G3563; to be well minded, that is, reconcile: - agree.
Be well minded, be reconciled-
Webster--
Reconciled
RECONCI'LED, pp. Brought into friendship from a state of disagreement or enmity; made consistent; adjusted.
Webster--
Agree
AGREE', v.i.[L. gratia. the primary sense is advancing, from the same root as L. gradior.]
5. To come to a compromise of differences; to be reconciled.
AGREE', v.t. To admit, or come to one mind concerning; as, to agree the fact. Also, to reconcile or make friends; to put an end to variance; but these senses are unusual and hardly legitimate. Let the parties agree the fact, is really elliptical; let them agree on the fact.
I like this definition- to come to a compromise of differences- to be reconciled.
When we are with our adversaries and there are intense disagreements, resolving things is very important. When two people usually buckle down and don't *agree to disagree* they are digging their heels in and that refusal to PUT SELF aside is where Jesus would have us emulate Him and shove self totally aside and when that happens more often than not there is a reconciliation.
Self is often unwilling to agree to disagree. Self is right there wanting victory. Self wants to be proven right at all costs. Self wants earthly justice which is often missing in many, many trials between adversaries. I've found out personally dealing with the courts and my ex-husband for child support issues that fairness, justice is RARE! That's just my experience there but I'm sure there are a lot of instances where justice seems absent and the guilty win over and over again. We see a whole lot of *proven innocent years later through DNA evidence* going on and for every case that is proven you know there have to be so many more that are as well but they're not proven. Satan loves when the innocent suffer and if he can get an innocent put in jail he has an easy situation in which to corrupt that person. They might not have been guilty before but the incarceration experience changes all that. Is it any wonder we should not be eager to get involved in situations that lead to adversarial disagreements that could have us end up in jail?
Brotherly love, selflessness, these are things Jesus wants to teach us, things we should all be learning and building on that learning experience daily. We have countless opportunities to love, to show the love of our Savior.
Mat 5:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Mat 5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
We should show brotherly love and selflessness when we are with our adversaries, having a willingness to agree to disagree, having a willingness to be cheated, abused, face injustices without seeking vengeance. Jesus is our example in ALL things and there were many adversaries He faced that wanted to do Him harm. He didn't provoke them. He didn't taunt them. He didn't seek earthly justice. He spoke truthfully in all things but He did not egg on His adversaries hoping they'd drag Him to court. The Apostles were the same. They did NOT provoke their adversaries, they did stand up for the truth in all things and they were judged and killed for their faith. Does this mean they didn't listen to Jesus? That they didn't *agree* with their adversaries? No. They did listen to Jesus. They NEVER senselessly sought to provoke their adversaries, never.
Jesus would have us love one another selflessly. When we find ourselves in-- let's call them *tense* situations, when we face adversarial encounters , let's remember Jesus' words. It's not important that we garner justice here on earth no matter how much we desire that justice. Allowing others to seek our pain and use the government court system to increase that pain tenfold- or to the *uttermost farthing* isn't what Jesus would have us do. We must do as He would have us do, we must learn what Jesus wants to teach us and by His grace we will!
In His love!
Amen.
Mat 5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Agree- reconcile with
Adversary- enemy, opponent
This seems strange doesn't it? Agreeing with one you don't agree with on principle. To have an enemy, to have an opponent means not agreeing with that person- they are your enemy, you obviously don't agree. Can you think of a person who is or has been your adversary in the past, or even currently? In thinking about them what makes them your adversary? You could say something as simple as ' "I just don't like them." and that could be true, we don't instantly like everyone, some people are very abrasive to our personalities and seem very incompatible. So we just don't like them and they just don't like us and in not liking each other we aren't inclined to want to be agreeable with each other. However, and this is a big HOWEVER, Jesus would have us LOVE our enemies and adversaries.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies...
Just in the previous verses Jesus is teaching us the importance of loving our fellowman. How we aren't to treat others badly, we can't judge another's eternal life, we can't KNOW another as God can know them.
So when Jesus tells us to agree with our adversaries He's NOT telling us to BE LIKE our adversaries. Jesus is NOT telling us to agree to their evil and commit evil with them. Jesus is really telling us to LOVE our adversary. We can LOVE our enemies, we can love our adversaries because GOD loves us! If we are loveable to God, then our enemies are loveable to God, and if our enemies are loveable to God they are loveable to us. Do we have to like them? No. Do we have to like what they do? No. Can we judge their actions? We HAVE to judge their actions because the actions people make reveal right and wrong and by judging an action we decide whether or not we're going to do right or wrong ourselves. We must love but commit no sin in doing so. Agreeing with our adversaries does not mean going along with their sins, their crimes, their wrongs. If we were asked by our adversary to commit sin we should NOT commit sin- it's not that sort of agreeing!
Agree- G2468 G2132
G2468
??´s??
isthi
is'-thee
Second person imperative present of G1510; be thou: - + agree, be, X give thyself wholly to.
e????´e?
eunoeo¯
yoo-no-eh'-o
From a compound of G2095 and G3563; to be well minded, that is, reconcile: - agree.
Be well minded, be reconciled-
Webster--
Reconciled
RECONCI'LED, pp. Brought into friendship from a state of disagreement or enmity; made consistent; adjusted.
Webster--
Agree
AGREE', v.i.[L. gratia. the primary sense is advancing, from the same root as L. gradior.]
5. To come to a compromise of differences; to be reconciled.
AGREE', v.t. To admit, or come to one mind concerning; as, to agree the fact. Also, to reconcile or make friends; to put an end to variance; but these senses are unusual and hardly legitimate. Let the parties agree the fact, is really elliptical; let them agree on the fact.
I like this definition- to come to a compromise of differences- to be reconciled.
When we are with our adversaries and there are intense disagreements, resolving things is very important. When two people usually buckle down and don't *agree to disagree* they are digging their heels in and that refusal to PUT SELF aside is where Jesus would have us emulate Him and shove self totally aside and when that happens more often than not there is a reconciliation.
Self is often unwilling to agree to disagree. Self is right there wanting victory. Self wants to be proven right at all costs. Self wants earthly justice which is often missing in many, many trials between adversaries. I've found out personally dealing with the courts and my ex-husband for child support issues that fairness, justice is RARE! That's just my experience there but I'm sure there are a lot of instances where justice seems absent and the guilty win over and over again. We see a whole lot of *proven innocent years later through DNA evidence* going on and for every case that is proven you know there have to be so many more that are as well but they're not proven. Satan loves when the innocent suffer and if he can get an innocent put in jail he has an easy situation in which to corrupt that person. They might not have been guilty before but the incarceration experience changes all that. Is it any wonder we should not be eager to get involved in situations that lead to adversarial disagreements that could have us end up in jail?
Brotherly love, selflessness, these are things Jesus wants to teach us, things we should all be learning and building on that learning experience daily. We have countless opportunities to love, to show the love of our Savior.
Mat 5:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Mat 5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
We should show brotherly love and selflessness when we are with our adversaries, having a willingness to agree to disagree, having a willingness to be cheated, abused, face injustices without seeking vengeance. Jesus is our example in ALL things and there were many adversaries He faced that wanted to do Him harm. He didn't provoke them. He didn't taunt them. He didn't seek earthly justice. He spoke truthfully in all things but He did not egg on His adversaries hoping they'd drag Him to court. The Apostles were the same. They did NOT provoke their adversaries, they did stand up for the truth in all things and they were judged and killed for their faith. Does this mean they didn't listen to Jesus? That they didn't *agree* with their adversaries? No. They did listen to Jesus. They NEVER senselessly sought to provoke their adversaries, never.
Jesus would have us love one another selflessly. When we find ourselves in-- let's call them *tense* situations, when we face adversarial encounters , let's remember Jesus' words. It's not important that we garner justice here on earth no matter how much we desire that justice. Allowing others to seek our pain and use the government court system to increase that pain tenfold- or to the *uttermost farthing* isn't what Jesus would have us do. We must do as He would have us do, we must learn what Jesus wants to teach us and by His grace we will!
In His love!
Amen.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Merciful love
Mat 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
What exactly is our Savior teaching us here? Brotherly love? How important is it that we not even get angry with each other? Seriously. We so easily get angry with each other that it's become common place and we've minimalized it into being something of non-importance. To hear someone say that another person made them so angry- means nothing, we're not shocked by it at all, in fact we expect that people will anger each other. Controlling our anger has become something people have made jobs out of. Anger management is something a court will sentence a person to in an effort to rid them of destructive anger. We have doctors prescribing pills to relax people and keep them from allowing their natural tendency for anger to get the best of them. We teach our children that anger is punishable all the while they witness our anger in our every day lives- on the drive to the store, as we rant about being short changed, when we yell at them and get angry with them for some misbehavior. I've seen babies - yes, babies throwing tantrums, we all know about the 'terrible twos'. A two year old throwing a fit of anger. How about a one year old screaming and turning red in the face, little bodies shaking because they've been denied something they want?
Anger is another trait of our flesh- just as lust is, just as so many detrimental attributes we are born with. These flesh traits are not something we can ignore and just say oh well, that's just how it is. These flesh traits can and will dominate us if we simply let them, submitting to the flesh, embracing the natural. Many will say that because something is natural it has to be acceptable and fine. It's natural but we only allow that up to a point as an excuse for naturally bad behavior. People *born* that way, born with the natural tendency towards evil we've locked up and even put to death.
There is a line WE - in our world-wide civilized society - draw. We draw the lines and make them into our laws that must be followed and if not followed then there is a penalty for breaking those laws.
God's laws coincide a lot with our supposed man-made laws. We have laws against murder and God has a law against murder. We have laws against stealing and God has a law against stealing. And so on…
Yet God's laws start to differ from ours when God says- 'Thou shalt have no other God before me', 'Thou shalt not worship any graven image.', 'Thou shalt not take God's name in vain.' , 'Thou shalt not covet.' Do you see… God's laws differ and become what people consider religious laws- not civil, not government laws. This allows those who choose NOT to follow God's law freedom from having to obey them. While people in our society generally have NO problem keeping government law the majority do have a problem with keeping God's laws, even the most staunch civil law keepers in existence, the most upright citizens- those who have been rewarded for their honesty - even they will think nothing of breaking God's laws, thinking they don't matter at all.
People have tried to do away with God's laws, people have tried to change God's laws, but God's laws do not change and they can't be done away with- remember this…
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
When Jesus tells us this…
Mat 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
… we must listen!
Jesus isn't giving us a NEW law, Jesus is explaining an OLD law, the real meaning of the law, undistorted. The law of love, and that law is for the love of God and our fellow man. LOVE. MERCIFUL LOVE.
And merciful love demands we go beyond what has been deemed acceptable- to what is truly acceptable by our Lord and Savior.
We are not to be angry without cause- true cause- not trumped up causes of selfishness, not petulant causes. We are not to call others worthless, to God none are worthless, all are worth saving not all however choose to be saved. We should not call others foolish, stupid again because we are to be judged by God. Yes, we judge actions and the actions a person makes may be stupid and foolish, but that doesn't mean that they are stupid and foolish. Labeling another human being tends to make it so they are judged and to judge so that we look down upon another person is NOT our right- only God's. The worst of the worst can only truly be judged by our Lord who knows the end from the beginning, who knows the heart inside and out, who knows a person like no other can ever possibly know them. We might THINK we know people, especially those we live with and those we love, but we don't. We do NOT know the heart, we do not know the spirit of a man, be hardly know ourselves let alone any others.
We need to know that what we say and what we do has an affect on others and if we demean another human being it puts us in danger and we cannot be right with our Lord until we do all we can to make things right with that person we've demeaned.
People joke about the 12 Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous when it comes to the part about having to go to all those you've hurt and make amends, there have been numerous comedies that have included this step- that's not to say there haven't been drama's and based on true story movies as well with this included. The point I'm trying to make with mentioning the amendment step in the 12 steps of AA is that this program uses this principle of making amends with our fellowman and that's something very important for ALL mankind not just those in AA.
Our great teacher wants us to learn from Him that we are to be like Him in any way we can. No, we aren't perfect and any perfection we ever do hope for comes from Him. We need to love like Jesus loves and treat others as Jesus would treat them. We have to forget about what our society thinks because the world is not of Jesus, another is in control of this world and governs the majority of the people. With that knowledge we have to realize that the only source of truth comes from our Savior. Not that other people can't be honest and such, but Jesus was honest and truthful in ALL things, in ALL ways.
Our Savior would have us love and we need to learn to love, and love through Him.
By His grace!
Amen.
Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
What exactly is our Savior teaching us here? Brotherly love? How important is it that we not even get angry with each other? Seriously. We so easily get angry with each other that it's become common place and we've minimalized it into being something of non-importance. To hear someone say that another person made them so angry- means nothing, we're not shocked by it at all, in fact we expect that people will anger each other. Controlling our anger has become something people have made jobs out of. Anger management is something a court will sentence a person to in an effort to rid them of destructive anger. We have doctors prescribing pills to relax people and keep them from allowing their natural tendency for anger to get the best of them. We teach our children that anger is punishable all the while they witness our anger in our every day lives- on the drive to the store, as we rant about being short changed, when we yell at them and get angry with them for some misbehavior. I've seen babies - yes, babies throwing tantrums, we all know about the 'terrible twos'. A two year old throwing a fit of anger. How about a one year old screaming and turning red in the face, little bodies shaking because they've been denied something they want?
Anger is another trait of our flesh- just as lust is, just as so many detrimental attributes we are born with. These flesh traits are not something we can ignore and just say oh well, that's just how it is. These flesh traits can and will dominate us if we simply let them, submitting to the flesh, embracing the natural. Many will say that because something is natural it has to be acceptable and fine. It's natural but we only allow that up to a point as an excuse for naturally bad behavior. People *born* that way, born with the natural tendency towards evil we've locked up and even put to death.
There is a line WE - in our world-wide civilized society - draw. We draw the lines and make them into our laws that must be followed and if not followed then there is a penalty for breaking those laws.
God's laws coincide a lot with our supposed man-made laws. We have laws against murder and God has a law against murder. We have laws against stealing and God has a law against stealing. And so on…
Yet God's laws start to differ from ours when God says- 'Thou shalt have no other God before me', 'Thou shalt not worship any graven image.', 'Thou shalt not take God's name in vain.' , 'Thou shalt not covet.' Do you see… God's laws differ and become what people consider religious laws- not civil, not government laws. This allows those who choose NOT to follow God's law freedom from having to obey them. While people in our society generally have NO problem keeping government law the majority do have a problem with keeping God's laws, even the most staunch civil law keepers in existence, the most upright citizens- those who have been rewarded for their honesty - even they will think nothing of breaking God's laws, thinking they don't matter at all.
People have tried to do away with God's laws, people have tried to change God's laws, but God's laws do not change and they can't be done away with- remember this…
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
When Jesus tells us this…
Mat 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mat 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Mat 5:23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Mat 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
… we must listen!
Jesus isn't giving us a NEW law, Jesus is explaining an OLD law, the real meaning of the law, undistorted. The law of love, and that law is for the love of God and our fellow man. LOVE. MERCIFUL LOVE.
And merciful love demands we go beyond what has been deemed acceptable- to what is truly acceptable by our Lord and Savior.
We are not to be angry without cause- true cause- not trumped up causes of selfishness, not petulant causes. We are not to call others worthless, to God none are worthless, all are worth saving not all however choose to be saved. We should not call others foolish, stupid again because we are to be judged by God. Yes, we judge actions and the actions a person makes may be stupid and foolish, but that doesn't mean that they are stupid and foolish. Labeling another human being tends to make it so they are judged and to judge so that we look down upon another person is NOT our right- only God's. The worst of the worst can only truly be judged by our Lord who knows the end from the beginning, who knows the heart inside and out, who knows a person like no other can ever possibly know them. We might THINK we know people, especially those we live with and those we love, but we don't. We do NOT know the heart, we do not know the spirit of a man, be hardly know ourselves let alone any others.
We need to know that what we say and what we do has an affect on others and if we demean another human being it puts us in danger and we cannot be right with our Lord until we do all we can to make things right with that person we've demeaned.
People joke about the 12 Steps in Alcoholics Anonymous when it comes to the part about having to go to all those you've hurt and make amends, there have been numerous comedies that have included this step- that's not to say there haven't been drama's and based on true story movies as well with this included. The point I'm trying to make with mentioning the amendment step in the 12 steps of AA is that this program uses this principle of making amends with our fellowman and that's something very important for ALL mankind not just those in AA.
Our great teacher wants us to learn from Him that we are to be like Him in any way we can. No, we aren't perfect and any perfection we ever do hope for comes from Him. We need to love like Jesus loves and treat others as Jesus would treat them. We have to forget about what our society thinks because the world is not of Jesus, another is in control of this world and governs the majority of the people. With that knowledge we have to realize that the only source of truth comes from our Savior. Not that other people can't be honest and such, but Jesus was honest and truthful in ALL things, in ALL ways.
Our Savior would have us love and we need to learn to love, and love through Him.
By His grace!
Amen.
Except your righteousness shall exceed...
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Remember this… Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
We talked about this verse before and the fact that Jesus taught as one with authority and NOT as the scribes. We discovered that the scribes were proud men who wanted adoration, who wanted to be thought of as being very important. These were men that were more interested in their status than in their relationship with God. These men believed themselves to be the 'greatest' among other men and so is it any wonder that Jesus taught NOT as the scribes. Is it any wonder these words of Jesus come to us?
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
OUR righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
We already know that it is our Savior's righteousness that saves us not our own- yet we read these words- except our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees we will NOT enter the kingdom of heaven. This clearly states *our* righteousness. And you know what? From all we've learned so far OUR righteousness is CHRIST'S righteousness. We have to RELY on His righteousness and NO scribe, and NO Pharisee was willing to accept Christ's righteousness.
Those who are UNWILLING to accept Christ's righteousness will NOT be saved, they will NOT enter the kingdom of heaven, they CAN'T enter the kingdom of heaven because our Savior has reserved the kingdom of heaven for those who are HIS.
Our righteousness, if we accept Jesus as our Savior, is HIS righteousness. We cannot forget this! We have to live with this as our reality.
Psa 71:2 Deliver me in thy righteousness
We are delivered in GOD'S righteousness.
The scribes and Pharisees believed their own righteousness was a righteous as you could get, never believing their righteousness meant absolutely nothing. They believed they could save themselves because they were after all Scribes, the were the elite Pharisees of God's chosen people. Obviously they didn't learn the lesson their revered Moses had to learn. We are to take NO glory to ourselves, none. It's by the grace of God alone we live. It is God's power, not ours that saves us. It is God's power not ours that all good things come from. God's glory is everything, we have NO glory except in Him. We HAVE TO LEARN THIS! This is the lesson our Savior needs for us to understand. This is the lesson our great Teacher is bringing to us. In the flesh He is bringing to life all that we need to know all that God has desired we know, that we learn of Him. He is our all in all. Our very breath comes from Him, our lives come from Him, our eternal life will come from Him.
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
By the grace of our Savior we will have His righteousness as ours, the only righteousness that will deliver us.
Amen!
Remember this… Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
We talked about this verse before and the fact that Jesus taught as one with authority and NOT as the scribes. We discovered that the scribes were proud men who wanted adoration, who wanted to be thought of as being very important. These were men that were more interested in their status than in their relationship with God. These men believed themselves to be the 'greatest' among other men and so is it any wonder that Jesus taught NOT as the scribes. Is it any wonder these words of Jesus come to us?
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
OUR righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
We already know that it is our Savior's righteousness that saves us not our own- yet we read these words- except our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees we will NOT enter the kingdom of heaven. This clearly states *our* righteousness. And you know what? From all we've learned so far OUR righteousness is CHRIST'S righteousness. We have to RELY on His righteousness and NO scribe, and NO Pharisee was willing to accept Christ's righteousness.
Those who are UNWILLING to accept Christ's righteousness will NOT be saved, they will NOT enter the kingdom of heaven, they CAN'T enter the kingdom of heaven because our Savior has reserved the kingdom of heaven for those who are HIS.
Our righteousness, if we accept Jesus as our Savior, is HIS righteousness. We cannot forget this! We have to live with this as our reality.
Psa 71:2 Deliver me in thy righteousness
We are delivered in GOD'S righteousness.
The scribes and Pharisees believed their own righteousness was a righteous as you could get, never believing their righteousness meant absolutely nothing. They believed they could save themselves because they were after all Scribes, the were the elite Pharisees of God's chosen people. Obviously they didn't learn the lesson their revered Moses had to learn. We are to take NO glory to ourselves, none. It's by the grace of God alone we live. It is God's power, not ours that saves us. It is God's power not ours that all good things come from. God's glory is everything, we have NO glory except in Him. We HAVE TO LEARN THIS! This is the lesson our Savior needs for us to understand. This is the lesson our great Teacher is bringing to us. In the flesh He is bringing to life all that we need to know all that God has desired we know, that we learn of Him. He is our all in all. Our very breath comes from Him, our lives come from Him, our eternal life will come from Him.
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
By the grace of our Savior we will have His righteousness as ours, the only righteousness that will deliver us.
Amen!
Monday, March 21, 2011
To obey- to love.
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
No one is to think that Jesus came to destroy the law or the prophets.
Obviously some would think that Jesus came to do away with the law and prophets. What would that mean? Let's think about it in relation to our laws for a moment. What would we think about someone who wanted to do away with our laws? Some people would be thrilled to have certain laws done away with. In fact our history here in America shows we've made many laws we've later done away with. However there are certain laws we have no one in their *right* mind would want to be done away with, right? Who wants to live in a lawless society? Who wants to live where no one is accountable for their actions? That's just it… we are accountable to our God. There was NO way at all whatsoever that Jesus could have come to destroy the law. Jesus could not take away our individual accountability, it's just not possible. And where there is accountability there is something you are accountable for. Jesus - one in agreement with the Father in all things- would NEVER do away with the commandments that God gave to His people etched in stone, put into the ark of God's covenant, sacred forever- the basis of all of them the Love of God and the Love of our Fellowman. Jesus did not come to destroy LOVE.
Jesus came to fulfill the law- He NEVER broke the law- He kept it fully.
Jesus was emphatic when He taught us- 'Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' I say He was emphatic because He had to say- 'For verily…' Truly He says unto us. Truly. He prefaced His words - the words that could only be spoken in truth by emphasizing He was speaking truly. You don't get a more sure word than this.
The law would NOT be done away with, period.
There would be a price to pay if the law was broken, if the law was set aside, if the law was taught to be done away with.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Even what we perceive to be the *least* of the commandments should NOT be broken. I have to note here that we should look the commandments - or maybe you have looked at them- and now the question has to be asked. Which do you think is the least? Do you think murder is greater than stealing? Is that a foolish question to ask? Most would say it's obvious that stealing isn't as bad as murdering. If we are thinking about our lives here and now and not our eternal life it is true. When we look at the commandments with eternal life in view we have to understand that breaking the least of God's commandments costs us eternal life, and our breaking those commandments also cost Jesus His life.
Accountability. We are accountable and we will be held accountable, and ONLY if we have Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior standing there before God the Father saying our name when He is asked who among us have accepted His salvation, will we be saved. Jesus will have PAID for our sins, Jesus will ACCOUNT for us. Every commandment we've ever broken will be paid for by His innocent blood.
Every commandment from the first to the tenth is still in effect, still to be kept, still vital.
May we keep God's law and teach others to keep God's law as well. We desire to be His and He desires us to obey- to love.
Amen.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
No one is to think that Jesus came to destroy the law or the prophets.
Obviously some would think that Jesus came to do away with the law and prophets. What would that mean? Let's think about it in relation to our laws for a moment. What would we think about someone who wanted to do away with our laws? Some people would be thrilled to have certain laws done away with. In fact our history here in America shows we've made many laws we've later done away with. However there are certain laws we have no one in their *right* mind would want to be done away with, right? Who wants to live in a lawless society? Who wants to live where no one is accountable for their actions? That's just it… we are accountable to our God. There was NO way at all whatsoever that Jesus could have come to destroy the law. Jesus could not take away our individual accountability, it's just not possible. And where there is accountability there is something you are accountable for. Jesus - one in agreement with the Father in all things- would NEVER do away with the commandments that God gave to His people etched in stone, put into the ark of God's covenant, sacred forever- the basis of all of them the Love of God and the Love of our Fellowman. Jesus did not come to destroy LOVE.
Jesus came to fulfill the law- He NEVER broke the law- He kept it fully.
Jesus was emphatic when He taught us- 'Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' I say He was emphatic because He had to say- 'For verily…' Truly He says unto us. Truly. He prefaced His words - the words that could only be spoken in truth by emphasizing He was speaking truly. You don't get a more sure word than this.
The law would NOT be done away with, period.
There would be a price to pay if the law was broken, if the law was set aside, if the law was taught to be done away with.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Even what we perceive to be the *least* of the commandments should NOT be broken. I have to note here that we should look the commandments - or maybe you have looked at them- and now the question has to be asked. Which do you think is the least? Do you think murder is greater than stealing? Is that a foolish question to ask? Most would say it's obvious that stealing isn't as bad as murdering. If we are thinking about our lives here and now and not our eternal life it is true. When we look at the commandments with eternal life in view we have to understand that breaking the least of God's commandments costs us eternal life, and our breaking those commandments also cost Jesus His life.
Accountability. We are accountable and we will be held accountable, and ONLY if we have Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior standing there before God the Father saying our name when He is asked who among us have accepted His salvation, will we be saved. Jesus will have PAID for our sins, Jesus will ACCOUNT for us. Every commandment we've ever broken will be paid for by His innocent blood.
Every commandment from the first to the tenth is still in effect, still to be kept, still vital.
May we keep God's law and teach others to keep God's law as well. We desire to be His and He desires us to obey- to love.
Amen.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
You are the light of the world
Mat 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
A city on a hill. Have you ever seen one? I've seen mansions built on a hilltop and littering the hillside other homes. The mansion most assuredly could not be hidden.
Balestrino, Italy
Craco, Italy
Monteriggioni, Italy
Gangtok, India
Kirkuk, Iraq
These are just a few cities on a hill.
When you place something on a hill top it's in a position of prominence, it is MEANT to be seen. WE are meant to be seen. We are the light of the world. The ONLY way we are the light of the world is if the light in us is of Jesus, He is the light of the world.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Jesus has been teaching us this whole time that life is found in HIM and only in HIM. In Jesus we are blessed not in ourselves and not in any other. When Jesus tells us we are the light of the world He is talking to the same people He has taught about being blessed. They aren't the elite of the world, these are ordinary people who place their trust wholly in the Lord. We are ONLY blessed in the Lord there is no other way whatsoever to be blessed. We ARE the light of the world when we live in Jesus. Unfortunately there are many pretend lights, many false lights in our world too.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Jesus wants us to learn that we are the light of the world and because we are the light of the world we have a purpose as that light. We are to SHINE brightly before all men.
Mat 5:15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Mat 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
We are to let our light shine- we are to let our Jesus be seen in us!
Anything good that is in us we cannot lay claim to, Christ in us lives and any good *work* we do is done to glorify God the Father, NOT us!
Satan would have us desire to be given pats on the back for doing good. We grow up learning that we supposedly deserve rewards when we excel at things. We think we deserve recognition for jobs well done. You know what… it is good to be recognized for doing good but ONLY when we shine the light upon our Savior, the Savior in us that enables us to do the least bit of good to the greatest bit of good. All the recognition we can garner is wonderful as long as the true recognition goes to God.
Do people automatically glorify God our Father in heaven?
That's an easy answer isn't it? No, they don't.
You hear an occasionally- 'Thank God.' And sometimes you might hear a huge- 'Thank God!' from sports players or tv contest winners and even then it's good to hear because it's not common.
All glory is to go to God the Father! We are to Glorify our Father in Heaven. Glorifying the Father in heaven must be something we do all the time! Our light which is Jesus in us and visible to others must be such a reality that people KNOW we are Jesus'. Jesus is our light, our life! We must be recognized as belonging to Jesus. These are Jesus' words--
' Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. '
People say we are not to worry about 'good works' because we are saved by grace not works but they have to realize that a NATURAL result of being saved by grace is accepting Jesus into your life and Him becoming the light in you that will shine through in your good works. Is it any wonder why people will make fun of *Jesus freaks*, or make jokes about someone refraining from questionable behavior by calling them *saint*. People try to make us feel bad for being good. People try to make us feel as if we don't fit in quite right or that we are taking on airs, thinking we are better than they are. They want us to do things questionable to prove to them we aren't taking on airs. We have to be so incredibly careful because when we worry at all about fitting in we leave ourselves wide open for evil-spirit attacks. We have to worry about fitting in HEAVEN and NO where else. Our good works must be seen and in being seen glorify the Father in heaven. We have no clue whatsoever how our actions affect other peoples lives. We can't know that someone might see our good works and be led to the Lord, led to glorify the Father in heaven.
Jesus wants us to live for Him. Jesus wants to live in us.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jesus would have our lights shine!
By His grace may our light forever shine and shine and shine!
Amen.
A city on a hill. Have you ever seen one? I've seen mansions built on a hilltop and littering the hillside other homes. The mansion most assuredly could not be hidden.
Balestrino, Italy
Craco, Italy
Monteriggioni, Italy
Gangtok, India
Kirkuk, Iraq
These are just a few cities on a hill.
When you place something on a hill top it's in a position of prominence, it is MEANT to be seen. WE are meant to be seen. We are the light of the world. The ONLY way we are the light of the world is if the light in us is of Jesus, He is the light of the world.
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Jesus has been teaching us this whole time that life is found in HIM and only in HIM. In Jesus we are blessed not in ourselves and not in any other. When Jesus tells us we are the light of the world He is talking to the same people He has taught about being blessed. They aren't the elite of the world, these are ordinary people who place their trust wholly in the Lord. We are ONLY blessed in the Lord there is no other way whatsoever to be blessed. We ARE the light of the world when we live in Jesus. Unfortunately there are many pretend lights, many false lights in our world too.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Jesus wants us to learn that we are the light of the world and because we are the light of the world we have a purpose as that light. We are to SHINE brightly before all men.
Mat 5:15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Mat 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
We are to let our light shine- we are to let our Jesus be seen in us!
Anything good that is in us we cannot lay claim to, Christ in us lives and any good *work* we do is done to glorify God the Father, NOT us!
Satan would have us desire to be given pats on the back for doing good. We grow up learning that we supposedly deserve rewards when we excel at things. We think we deserve recognition for jobs well done. You know what… it is good to be recognized for doing good but ONLY when we shine the light upon our Savior, the Savior in us that enables us to do the least bit of good to the greatest bit of good. All the recognition we can garner is wonderful as long as the true recognition goes to God.
Do people automatically glorify God our Father in heaven?
That's an easy answer isn't it? No, they don't.
You hear an occasionally- 'Thank God.' And sometimes you might hear a huge- 'Thank God!' from sports players or tv contest winners and even then it's good to hear because it's not common.
All glory is to go to God the Father! We are to Glorify our Father in Heaven. Glorifying the Father in heaven must be something we do all the time! Our light which is Jesus in us and visible to others must be such a reality that people KNOW we are Jesus'. Jesus is our light, our life! We must be recognized as belonging to Jesus. These are Jesus' words--
' Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. '
People say we are not to worry about 'good works' because we are saved by grace not works but they have to realize that a NATURAL result of being saved by grace is accepting Jesus into your life and Him becoming the light in you that will shine through in your good works. Is it any wonder why people will make fun of *Jesus freaks*, or make jokes about someone refraining from questionable behavior by calling them *saint*
Jesus wants us to live for Him. Jesus wants to live in us.
Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jesus would have our lights shine!
By His grace may our light forever shine and shine and shine!
Amen.
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