Romans 15:4 "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."
2 Now Naomi had [a]a kinsman of her husband, a [b]man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and [c]she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. 4 Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Boaz said to his servants: “May the LORD be with you.”
Servants’ response: “May the LORD bless you.”
In this exchange of greetings and pleasantries “in the Lord,” I truly believe the implication is that Boaz and his servants lived lives suffused in the presumption that God would be with them in every action, in every step along every path.
Think about it further: Boaz and his servants were not going to war or going on a trip; they were simply going to the fields for the ordinary work of the day. Yet, it seems automatically, begins the day of labor with a blessing on his servants.
In today’s ‘hands off, don’t talk to me don’t offend me’ culture, we increasingly compartmentalize our lives, even our spiritual lives.
With single-minded purpose, we work for some hours of the day, we take care of our daily obligations, and, hopefully, go home and we set aside time to relax.
More than likely times of devotion study and prayer are a “carved out” time and time reading scripture with family may have to be scheduled well in advance.
The alternative is to suffuse the entire day with the recognition that God is with us at every moment, and that prayer can and should be spontaneous and simple – ordinary. That we can take any moment to request God’s blessing on another.
Automatically Greeting with “The Lord Be With You!”
Ruth 2:1-4The Message
2 It so happened that Naomi had a relative by marriage, a man prominent and rich, connected with Elimelech’s family. His name was Boaz.
2 One day Ruth, the Moabite foreigner, said to Naomi, “I’m going to work; I’m going out to glean among the sheaves, following after some harvester who will treat me kindly.”
Naomi said, “Go ahead, dear daughter.”
3-4 And so she set out. She went and started gleaning in a field, following in the wake of the harvesters. Eventually she ended up in the part of the field owned by Boaz, her father-in-law Elimelech’s relative. A little later Boaz came out from Bethlehem, greeting his harvesters, “God be with you!” They replied, “And God bless you!”
Truth is you and I and the church can learn a lot about the character of a person from their simple hellos and shared greetings and exchanges of pleasantries .
When Boaz entered his field (and the book of Ruth) and greeted his workers, the enormous depth of his character and of his relationship with God became clear.
Boaz lived with the awareness of God’s presence, and it showed in his daily routines. The same was true of many saints throughout the Old Testament.
Almost naturally they saw no separation between the sacred and the secular; rather, all of life was to be naturally lived and labored before the face of God.
When you and I live with similar measure of natural devotion, we experience radical transformation and blessing in both our words and our relationships.
Notice that when Boaz showed up, he didn’t simply throw the name of the Lord around casually or profanely.
He intentionally, reverently used God’s name in his greeting, acknowledging the highest place of authority and intimacy that God had inside his whole life.
Such reverence curbs superficiality in our talk and encourages us to seek God’s blessing in every circumstance—when we lie down, get up, walk along the road, or converse with others (Deuteronomy 6:7).
Deuteronomy 6:6-9 The Message
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
Upon his daily entrance into the field, Boaz set the tone for the whole day for his workers by blessing them and praying for them.
Perhaps his example should provoke us all to ask ourselves,“What tone am I setting in my workplace, in my home, at the grocery store and in my church?”
If the blessing and contentment of the Lord attend your life, whether you are a CEO or an intern, whether your work involves balancing the books or changing countless diapers, you can return blessing with blessing by pointing the people back to Him in all you do and say and prayerfully, their response will bless you.
Ephesians 3:14-21 The Message
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
If Christ has truly come into my life, into your life, into the life of the Church, as the Only Lord and Savior, our deepest faith should echo through every moment.
For this to be across the board truth, be manifested and revealed across the whole Kingdom of God, don’t approach “our time with God” only as a fifteen-minute daily meetings, hoping that that will sustain you for the rest of the day.
Truth is you and I and the whole universal church will never be able to bring others into the sacred presence of a God in whose presence you do not live.
Speak of Him in your conversation.
Let this flow from you naturally, bring His presence, promises to mind in the small triumphs and difficulties of your day. Seek to form a single minded habit of conversing with Him throughout your waking hours. Live with an awareness of God’s presence, and it will show with God, in all your routines and reactions.
Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love Fit us for perfect rest above; And help us, this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray.[1]
1 John Keble, “New Every Morning Is the Love” (1822).
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 25 New American Standard Bible 1995
Prayer for Protection, Guidance and Pardon.
A Psalm of David.
25 To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed; [a]Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed.
4 Make me know Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. 5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, For they have been [b]from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.
8 Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the [c]humble in justice, And He teaches the [d]humble His way. 10 All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. 11 For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
12 Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. 13 His soul will abide in [e]prosperity, And his [f]descendants will inherit the [g]land. 14 The [h]secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, [i]And He will make them know His covenant. 15 My eyes are continually toward the Lord, For He will [j]pluck my feet out of the net.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted. 17 [k]The troubles of my heart are enlarged; Bring me out of my distresses. 18 Look upon my affliction and my [l]trouble, And forgive all my sins. 19 Look upon my enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with violent hatred. 20 Guard my soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You. 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
2 Now Naomi had [a]a kinsman of her husband, a [b]man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and [c]she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. 4 Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his servant who was [d]in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 The servant [e] in charge of the reapers replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. 7 And she said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now; she has been sitting in the house for a little while.”
8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “[f]Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. 9 Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the [g]water jars and drink from what the servants draw.” 10 Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” 11 Boaz replied to her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. 12 May the Lord reward your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.” 13 Then she said, “I have found favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken [h]kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
How Well are we ready to Recognize God at Work?
Ruth 2:2 New American Standard Bible 1995
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
When you don’t have food, you search for it.
Ruth is going to glean the fields to find leftover grain, and God is also at work—not only to help her discover and find leftovers but to give a harvest of blessing.
Boaz is a distant relative to Naomi—and much more.
God is about to use an ordinary person for his extraordinary purposes again.
Through the kindness of Boaz, Ruth is allowed to glean until the harvest is finished. This journey is marked by the vast generosity and hospitality Boaz demonstrates in his work life and by the way he runs his farming business.
Today many of us will return to work after a weekend.
Whether we are running a business, work at an office, job site, factory, school, or elsewhere, we will enter into the world of others as we get back to work. How we supervise, do our work, will affect how others see the God we claim to serve.
Sadly, the praise we give God on Sunday can be blemished by our words and our actions on Monday through Friday. By the example set by Boaz, A true hero of the faith is called, summoned by our God to be faithful every day of the week.
A life of consistency of character is a sacrificial life that God can use to model and shape and mentor another person’s life and faith in God for all eternity.
God used Boaz and Ruth to eventually be the great-grandfather of King David.
And this means that Ruth—a Moabite outsider—became part of the family line of Jesus. (See Ruth 4:16-22; Matthew 1.)
Ruth 4:16-22 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Line of David Began Here
16 Then Naomi took the child [a]and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse. 17 The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi!” So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
18 Now these are the generations of Perez: to Perez [b]was born Hezron, 19 and to Hezron was born Ram, and to Ram, Amminadab, 20 and to Amminadab was born Nahshon, and to Nahshon, Salmon, 21 and to Salmon was born Boaz, and to Boaz, Obed, 22 and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David.
All this took place because the author of Ruth had recognized God was at work.
Do We Recognize The Tapestry of God’s Providence?
Ruth 2:2-4 New American Standard Bible 1995
2 And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and [a]she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. 4 Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, “May the Lord be with you.” And they said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
What often appears to us to be an unworkable tangled mess of knots is just the back view of the tapestry God is busy weaving.
Naomi and Ruth had experienced their share of frayed threads in life.
They arrived in Israel widowed and penniless—a perilous position for women in a lawless society (see Judges 21:25).
In Leviticus 23:22 , the law allowed for the poor to enter the fields and pick up (glean) leftover grain as they followed the steps of the official harvesters. This law was established by God Himself and revealed His care and concern for the needy. But God’s law was not always—and not often—observed in this period.
Leviticus 23:22 New American Standard Bible 1995
22 ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’”
Yet when Ruth resolved to go into the fields, through Boaz’s generosity, God worked through this law to abundantly, tangibly, provide for her and Naomi.
Ruth’s seemingly mundane moment of decision became an illustration of God’s providential plan for the two women—and for all of redemptive history!
Ruth ended up gleaning on the land of Boaz, a distant relative of Naomi’s deceased husband and a man of means and high standing.
Ancient Israelites clearly understood the family to be the basic unit of society, with members of the wider extended family having obligations to support and protect relatives who were struggling like Naomi.
All of this gives us the clearest hints at God’s hand in providing generously for Ruth and Naomi, even in ways that would seem unremarkable at first glance.
In fact, as we read Ruth’s story, we notice that many of its details unfold as if by accident.
Ruth happened to decide to glean that day.
Naomi happened to encourage it.
Boaz happened to pick that time to harvest his field.
Ruth happened to pick his field.
But when we carefully and studiously look at the story as a whole, we can see all of these happenings were the timed, precise, instruments of God’s providential care in unfolding His purpose of redemption.
After all, out of Boaz and Ruth’s lineage would soon come King David and, eventually, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—a greater provider and protector who also “came from Bethlehem.”
As God carefully and precisely wove these threads into His beautiful story of provision, Ruth and Naomi surely would have thought they looked knotted, hopelessly tangled, disconnected, cut off, and so irreparably frayed at times.
Satan often wants us to stay focused on such seemingly jumbled, discouraging circumstances, leading us to an attitude doubting God and His good provision.
We so easily and casually forget that what appears to be an unrecoverable mess is just the back view of the tapestry God is busy weaving in all our backgrounds.
One day, though, when we get the chance to see His handiwork from the front, all of those strange, dark threads will prove to be part of His glorious pattern.
Today, as your life and workdays unfold, and even unravels, do remember that “coincidences” are no such thing, that all our uncertainties and difficulties are opportunities to trust in God, and that behind all of them He is weaving out His plans to prosper His people in faith and godliness, and to bring them all home.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Dear God, may I be a witness for you in all my words and deeds. And may I realize your providence, that you weave, use events in time to affect eternity. In Jesus, Amen.
Psalm 16 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Lord the Psalmist’s Portion in Life and Deliverer in Death.
16 Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. 2 [b]I said to the Lord, “You are [c]my Lord; I have no good besides You.” 3 As for the [d]saints who are in the earth, [e]They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. 4 The [f]sorrows of those who have [g]bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.
5 The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
7 I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my [h]mind instructs me in the night. 8 I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. 10 For You will not abandon my soul to [i]Sheol; Nor will You [j]allow Your [k]Holy One to [l]undergo decay. 11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
34 Wait for the Lord and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
35 I have seen a wicked, violent man Spreading himself like a luxuriant [a]tree in its native soil. 36 Then [b]he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found. 37 Mark the [c]blameless man, and behold the upright; For the man of peace will have a [d]posterity. 38 But transgressors will be altogether destroyed; The [e]posterity of the wicked will be cut off. 39 But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble. 40 The Lord helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, Because they take refuge in Him.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms? I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms. Text: Elisha A. Hoffman
Most of us have had frightening times during our Christian walk where we doubt our salvation and the salvation of our family members and friends.
Knowing what they believe, knowing what they think, knowing their mindset, in comparison and contrast to what I know I believe, what I think, my mindset.
In light of events from the recent General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the seismic shift of beliefs, of orthodoxy, leaves many to wonder if a whole portion of the Body of Christ has just turned their backs on Salvation.
Isaiah 53:1-6 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Suffering Servant
53 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender [a]shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should [b]be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of [c]sorrows and acquainted with [d]grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely our [e]griefs He Himself bore, And our [f]sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, [g]Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was [h]pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our [i]well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To [j]fall on Him.
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way”
Rather than feeling secure in our salvation, going astray to our own way, do we now feel somehow that we are not really saved. Maybe we feel we didn’t believe “enough” or we feel we wouldn’t doubt our salvation if we were truly saved.
If we are going through this or have gone through this, or know somebody is, or wonder if someone or a whole group of someone’s, or suddenly become aware there are others whom God sees, has compassion for where we ourselves are lacking or ignoring because of our deeply seeded biases and prejudices or self imposed legalistic “do not touch” avoidance measures, know you are not alone.
With words and phrases such as “who has believed our message, And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” and Romans 10:14 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?“ in the Word of God,
It’s probably very common for believers to doubt their salvation at least once during our lives, non believers to wonder about another Christians salvation.
Micah 6:6-8 New American Standard Bible 1995
What God Requires of Man
6 With what shall I come to the Lord And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With yearling calves? 7 Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love [a]kindness, And to walk [b]humbly with your God?
Knowing what God Requires of me, am I Really Saved?
Personally, I have faced the question of “Am I actually saved?” countless times.
Just last week I had the same question come into my mind after finishing the Gospel of Matthew.
Rather than focusing on the salvation that Jesus has given us,
I was focused on all of Jesus’ statements on hell, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, on “begone I knew you not,” the very foreboding words of Matthew 25.
All the admonishments of “always being ready, the Parables of the Talents, and the soils and always investing myself into the work of laboring, planting toiling harvesting” of the Kingdom of God but find myself too biased, too hesitant, too fearful of too many unproven self imposed prejudices and untouchable beliefs.
I started connecting salvation with works, which is never very good to do.
While Jesus does talk more about hell than any other topic during His earthly ministry, he never tells us that if we place faith in Him, we will go to hell.
There is so much irrational over rationalization coming from too many places.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms? I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms. Text: Elisha A. Hoffman
Salvation is based solely on placing faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Placing faith in Jesus means believing that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
The Lord tells us,“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17).
As Jesus tells us, the Father loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us.
Moreover, Jesus tells us that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Now, if you’re like me and have been told John 3:16-17 too many times for you to count, most likely the effect of the verse has been watered down, washed out.
Since you’ve heard it so many times, John 3:16-17 has become mindless words.
If it has become mindless words to you, the all encompassing truth of the verses have become muddied, have become an ocean of quicksand, I then challenge all of us to carefully read and pray John 3:16-17 just as I did, see how it highlights the deeper truths of God’s love, how we have eternal life by believing in Jesus.
Our heartfelt believing in Jesus is sufficient for salvation. (Romans 10:9-13)
We don’t have to follow the law in its completeness, nor are we required to be the “perfect” Christian people.
By the words of truth contained in Acts 4:8-12, rather, believing in Jesus and accepting Him as your Savior and Lord is all that is required for salvation.
8 Then Peter, [a]filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “[b]Rulers and elders of the people, 9 if we are [c]on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, [d]as to how this man has been made well, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that [e]by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—[f]by [g]this name this man stands here before you in good health. 11 [h]He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
We cannot earn salvation in any other way. Salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-10).
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [a]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
There is nothing we can do to earn salvation, and there is nothing we can do to lose it. There are many people who spread the lie that one can lose salvation, but this isn’t true. Once you have placed faith in Jesus, you are eternally saved.
Doubting Salvation
Truth is we don’t have to know the exact moment when we were saved in order to be saved. As long as we have placed our heartfelt faith in Him, we are saved.
Yet, even with this being established, we can still often doubt our salvation.
Even many strong Christians I know also have doubted their salvation at some point. I have been around Christian pastors, professors and read from Christian authors how they, have doubted their salvation at least once in their lifetime.
What of the Samaritan woman at the well who has been divorced five times?
What of the woman with the chronic years long issue of blood for whom no cure could be found no matter how much money was spent, which doctor treated her in that chronic never ending state of “hopelessly unclean and untouchable?”
If mankind wants nothing to do with me, wont talk to me, wont even touch me, ignores me, ignores my family and friends, my people, go so far and treats me like the Leper’s walling me off from society trying to separate me from my God?
Those thoughts, beliefs and actions have not disappeared in thousands of years!
No one would stand innocent of these grievous sins before the judgment of God!
Doubts are ever before me, crashing into my thoughts
Truth also is (Genesis 3) The one who plants these seeds of doubt is Satan.
The devil wants to make us unproductive for the Lord and cause us to stumble.
By planting uncountable numbers of the seeds of doubt in our minds, it is the perfect way to make us unfruitful for the Lord. Instead of going out and making disciples or growing in our own walk with Jesus, we are being plagued by the lies of Satan—that we aren’t ever saved or that we didn’t believe “enough.”
These doubts are enough to paralyze or make you question your entire beliefs.
As someone who has been there, know you are not alone.
Know also that these lies are but lies, and they are not true.
If you have placed your heartfelt faith in Jesus, you are saved.
You believe, and you believe enough.
My Pastor in my Lay Speaking and Licensing classes talked deeply about this subject as it was something he freely confessed also had struggled with during his early years of walking with the Lord and in his call into ordained ministry.
He shared his epiphany that there is no point in someone believing more than someone else.
As long as you heartfelt believe in Jesus, you are saved.
There are no differing degrees of belief, nor are there people who believed more than you or knew more than you, were older wiser that would nullify your faith.
When you believe, you believe.
You did not have “not enough” faith when you placed faith in Christ.
The devil wants to cause these doubts to rise in our minds, but we can talk back to them. Whenever you doubt your salvation, pray to God, talk back to the lies.
Tell them that Jesus saved you and that you are saved.
Nothing and nobody can take away your salvation.
Remind yourself that you are eternally saved by God, and this will never change.
Acts 4:12 tells us, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Jesus is the ONLY Name we are saved by.
We are not saved based on our works.
Rather, we are saved by the Name of Jesus.
When doubts circle your mind too much, and you find yourself paralyzed, call out to God and ask Him for His help. It’s God alone who reads all of our hearts.
1 Samuel 16:7 New American Standard Bible 1995
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for [a]God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
As Psalm 51 so rightfully teaches; Tell Him you are struggling with assurance of your salvation and that you need exactly Him to fill your heart with the blessed assurance of knowing you are completely and unconditionally saved in Him.
While these thoughts may return, you can talk back to them and ask God for His help again and then by Psalm 32, communicate the truth about His forgiveness.
32 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! 2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my [b]body wasted away Through my [c]groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My [d]vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. [e]Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the [f]guilt of my sin. Selah. 6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You [g]in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. 7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with [h]songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you. 9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, But he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him. 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones; And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.
Causing you to doubt your salvation is a common tactic of Satan because he knows it is efficient.
Don’t allow Satan the pleasure of doubting your salvation or feeding into it. If you have placed heartfelt faith in Jesus and accepted Him as your Savior and Lord, you are eternally saved. You are given forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. None of these things will ever be taken from you.
Confide in God
Matthew 11:28-30 New American Standard Bible 1995
28 “Come to Me, all [a]who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is [b]easy and My burden is light.”
Whenever you begin doubting your salvation, turn to God.
Tell Him your doubts and ask Him to help you overcome your unbelief.
He is faithful, and He will help you in your time of need.
As you continue to grow in your walk with Christ, you might have these doubts rise again, but talk back to them and return to the Bible.
Remind yourself of John 3:16-17 and how salvation is only found in the Lord.
Placing faith exclusively in Christ is the only requirement for salvation.
There is no way for someone to be saved apart from Christ.
A person cannot earn their own salvation nor do other faith systems save a person.
The Source of Salvation
Psalm 37:34-40 The Message
34 Wait passionately for God, don’t leave the path. He’ll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it.
35-36 I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense. The next time I looked there was nothing— a punctured bladder, vapid and limp.
37-38 Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There’s a future in strenuous wholeness. But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street.
39-40 The spacious, free life is from God, it’s also protected and safe. God-strengthened, we’re delivered from evil— when we run to him, he saves us.
Every person wants a life that is rich, full, abundant, and free.
These good things satisfy the deepest longings of our heart.
We receive these gifts by focusing on our creator God.
St. Augustine of Hippo, an early church leader, wrote these words to God:
“Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”
Our inner peace comes when we turn our life over to God, who made us.
By the revealed Word of God, by the revealed truth inside, We yearn for a special relationship with God, but it can be hard for us to rest in him. We don’t see God; we don’t hear, smell him or talk with him the way we do with people around us.
Our relationship with God is different from every other relationship in life.
God is absolutely unique.
How do I find and focus on God?
Where do I get faith in God?
What makes me feel that God and I belong together?
Thankfully, knowing God is a gift from him.
He reveals himself freely.
David discovered that and wrote about it in Psalm 37.
You want the great life with God?
Just ask for it. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:24).
John 16:21-24 The Message
21-23 “When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there’s no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain. The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you’ll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you. You’ll no longer be so full of questions.
23-24 “This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!
God wants us to ask for all kinds of things like this that are within his will for us (see 1 John 5:14).
1 John 5:14-15The Message
The Reality, Not the Illusion
13-15 My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.
Ask God to make himself known to you.
He did that already when his Son, Jesus, died for you.
This is the time for a right relationship with God!
Only Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected three days later.
Only Jesus is God in the flesh (John 1:14; Philippians 2:6-8).
The Lord has the victory, defeated death, and all who will place faith in Him, too, will overcome death and spend eternity with Him. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57)
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
How desperately I want a rich and right relationship with you, dear God. Thank you for giving it as a gift through the death and resurrection of your son, Jesus. Amen.
Psalm 24 The Message
24 1-2 God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it. He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders.
3-4 Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north-face? Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted; Men who won’t cheat, women who won’t seduce.
5-6 God is at their side; with God’s help they make it. This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.
7 Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
8 Who is this King-Glory? God, armed and battle-ready.
9 Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
10 Who is this King-Glory? God-of-the-Angel-Armies: he is King-Glory.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those [a]who would believe in Him for eternal life. 17 Now to the King [b]eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory [c]forever and ever. Amen.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Am I the World’s Worst, World’s Greatest Sinner?
When we think of the Apostle Paul, we think of a Saint.
Yet, here in the opening words of his letter to his protégé Timothy, in his own words, written by his own thoughts, he counted himself the very worst sinner.
But how is that even possible, because Paul wrote much of the New Testament?
Paul, more than most of us, had a deep understanding of what it means to be a sinner. He didn’t look at others around him and feel any better about himself.
He recognized the depth of sin that was born within him, and each one of us is so deep, that, without a Savior, sin taints our blood to the point of eternal death.
He understood very well that there is no difference between a little sinner and a big sinner. Without Jesus, all sin leads into the same destructive destination.
A Little Self-Examination Goes a Long Way
It’s easy to look at others and feel like we’re doing better overall. But with this type of attitude can come pride and haughtiness.
Proverbs 16:18 explains how “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
2 Corinthians 13:5 urges us to “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”
2 Corinthians 13:5-9 The Message
5-9 Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. I hope the test won’t show that we have failed. But if it comes to that, we’d rather the test showed our failure than yours. We’re rooting for the truth to win out in you. We couldn’t possibly do otherwise.
We don’t just put up with our limitations; we celebrate them, and then go on to celebrate every strength, every triumph of the truth in you. We pray hard that it will all come together in your lives.
Sometimes, we decide how we’re doing compared to another person, rather than looking at God’s word to see how we’re doing in life. Often, if we do, we’ll discover more areas of our lives where we are off-track in following God’s ways.
Worldly Effects
So many people today, some Christians included, are living their lives based on how well or poorly others seem to be doing.
With nearly continual moment by moment social media’s daily updates, many individuals, across the globe, are comparing their lives to the lives of others to see if they are succeeding or see what they need to do next to get ahead in life.
But as believers in Jesus Christ, we don’t want to follow the world’s leading but look to God for our future.
1 John 2:15 warns, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.”
1 John 2:15-17 The Message
15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.
As well, Paul in Romans 12:2 urges, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Romans 12:1-2 The Message
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Being conformed to current cultural trends, the world can be so gradual in our lives, that we don’t recognize what direction we may be taking in life. Before long, we can be miles off course without really knowing what’s taking place.
Feeding Our Faith
When it comes to matters of living into a steadfast and immovable faith, we don’t just stay in one place; we are either growing steadily in it or we’re slowly, steadily slipping back into worldly patterns and thinking without realizing it.
James 1:13-15The Message
13-15 Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.
So how do we keep the world at bay?
Paul states, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
Philippians 3:12-14 The Message
Focused on the Goal
12-14 I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.
As James 1:27 explains, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:26-27 The Message
26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
Jesus Sets Us Free from the Power of Sin
Like Paul, we want to remember that sin can so fool us, easily lead us astray.
Genesis 3:1-7 The Message
3 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
Because sin can be so insidious, so maliciously subtle. we do not want to lose sight of where our Salvation lies and where our power to resist sin comes from.
Romans 5:21 explains, “So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 5:20-21 The Message
20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
We are set free from its power, as Romans 6:14 describes, “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”
Romans 6:14The Message
12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
Psalm 139:23-24 The Message
23-24 Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong— then guide me on the road to eternal life.
Am I, are you, are we, the Body of Christ, the church, comparing ourselves to how most people in the world are living their lives for direction in your own?
If so, look to God’s Word, plumb its depths to see where we are in our faith.
119 1-8 You’re blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God. You’re blessed when you follow his directions, doing your best to find him. That’s right—you don’t go off on your own; you walk straight along the road he set. You, God, prescribed the right way to live; now you expect us to live it. Oh, that my steps might be steady, keeping to the course you set; Then I’d never have any regrets in comparing my life with your counsel. I thank you for speaking straight from your heart; I learn the pattern of your righteous ways. I’m going to do what you tell me to do; don’t ever walk off and leave me.
Ask Him to examine each one of our collectives heart and collective souls and reveal the remotest areas where we have unknowingly wandered far off track.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 119:9-16 The Message
9-16 How can a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your Word. I’m single-minded in pursuit of you; don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted. I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt. Be blessed, God; train me in your ways of wise living. I’ll transfer to my lips all the counsel that comes from your mouth; I delight far more in what you tell me about living than in gathering a pile of riches. I ponder every morsel of wisdom from you, I attentively watch how you’ve done it. I relish everything you’ve told me of life, I won’t forget a word of it.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 New American Standard Bible 1995
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
In a world filled with endless mixed messages, it’s easy to get lost in the fog and be deceived by half-truths or flat-out fabrications of God’s Word.
Just take a gander at some commonly used phrases below.
This, too, shall pass.
God helps those who help themselves.
God works in mysterious ways.
God will never give you more than you can handle.
The eyes are the window into the soul.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Spare the rod and spoil the child. And on and on.
While many of these well-known statements contain good wisdom and little nuggets of truth, some even referred to or “noted” in the Scriptures, they are often badly taken out of context to spin, weave some sort of personal narrative.
While generally shared in a purposeful and meaningful way to express a softer sentiment or extend comfort, these platitudes can undermine the words of our Savior, causing us take our eyes of the Bible and to lose sight of the real truth.
That said, now, more than ever, we need to have handheld copies of the Bible, maybe even in multiple translations, so when something doesn’t seem to add up or make sense, we can go straight to His Word and seek to find the real and absolute truth God is trying to reveal to us.
In addition, there are even more mixed messages in today’s culture about how we identify, that baffle many, including believers, about who God says we are.
For example, do we know how many total genders are there?
Besides being male and female, there are 72 other genders, which include the following: Agender: A person who does not identify themselves with or experience any gender. Agender people are also called null-gender, genderless, or gender -void or neutral gender. Abimegender: which is Associated with being profound, deep, and infinite.
About trying to sort out these identifications, still being a “good neighbor,” in the divisiveness which currently exists in the church, communicate the gospel?
Communicate, evangelize those who have been “marginalized” by these highly volatile, highly charged, highly politicized and politically motivated divisions?
Are we really precious in His sight? Priceless? Cherished? A one-of-a-kind, unique creation made on purpose? Are we really fully known and fully loved?
Who are we, exactly?
More importantly, nonjudgmentally communicating who does God say we are?
Well, my dear friend, I invite you to grab your Bible and open it up so we can discover some sweet verses that declare who God says you are.
While the list below only scratches the surface, let it prayerfully become a new, refreshed springboard to relish in His love as He proclaims who He says we are!
Then let His Words, beautiful truths, settle into your heart, reminding you that you were so intricately made with love and called to a greater purpose, setting your sights beyond this world and embracing eternity. (2 Corinthians 4:18).
1. God says we are each His beloved child.
1 John 3:1-2 New American Standard Bible 1995
Children of God Love One Another
3 See [a]how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
The very nature of our God is love, which envelops His holiness, purity, righteousness, compassion, justice, and mercy.
While God loves all His creation, when we make our heartfelt profession of faith, we each immediately become His “beloved” children (Romans 10:9-13)
Being a beloved child of God is a powerful statement that holds so much significance as no other relationship will even come close or compare (1 Corinthians 13:11-13).
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I [a]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror [b]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the [c]greatest of these is love.
When we understand the gravity of that, we learn to revere and respect God as Father.
You are the beloved child of the Creator of the universe, and He wants to have an intimate and personal relationship with you. Tuck that in your heart today!
2. God says we are each chosen.
1 Peter 2:9-10 New American Standard Bible 1995
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
God has always had a special place in His heart for the people of Israel.
We see this weaved throughout the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 7:6).
6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His [a]own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the [b]earth.
As believers, we have the honor and privilege of gaining a spiritual connection to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
In His sovereignty, God chose you (Titus 1:1-3, Ephesians 1:10-14).
I know it is naïve of me to ask; Can we each just say “Praise be to God for that?”
3. God says we are each His holy temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16-20 New American Standard Bible 1995
16 Do you not know that you are a [a]temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If any man destroys the [b]temple of God, God will destroy him, for the [c] temple of God is holy, and [d]that is what you are.
18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.”
Paul is addressing the church in Corinth, stating that as a church body, God dwells inside of us, allowing each one of us to go forth and live on a mission.
As a church, we are to honor this sacred and holy dwelling and use it to connect and reflect on the nature of God, deepening our faith while also striving to reach out to the lost and unbelievers. God says we are to live with a mission mindset.
We are the light to a lost and dark world (Matthew 5:14-16)!
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a [a]hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a [b]basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
4. God says we are each made in His image.
Genesis 1:26-27 New American Standard Bible 1995
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [a]sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
God never takes His creation lightly.
In fact, when He speaks things into existence, there is value and a grander plan far beyond what we will fully know or begin to understand.
That being said, the very specific human blueprint not only claims we differ from anything else He created but that God’s unique and distinct love for us is quite beautiful and wholly and entirely “one of a kind” unique. Psalm 139:13-18
We matter so deeply to Him that He made us with attributes that resemble His own so that we can connect with Him in a meaningful and purposeful way. Just take time to ponder the thought next time you see your reflection in the mirror.
5. God says we are each valuable.
Matthew 6:25-26 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Cure for Anxiety
25 “For this reason I say to you, [a]do not be worried about your [b]life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the [c] air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
In this teaching exchange, Jesus reminds His followers (and us) that our value is far more than that of any other creation, and therefore, if He cares for their basic needs, how much more will He care for us, His most beloved creation?
Obviously enough to ensure our salvation so that we can spend eternity with Him (1 Peter 1:17-19)!
17 If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; 18 knowing that you were not [a]redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
Yes, we are each, without exception, in the eyes of God, seen as a far beyond priceless treasure, which is why Jesus paid it all so we could each freely live.
There are more and more examples of Holy Scripture which I will continue to bring to you in future posts of this blog. So, please be anticipating, expectant.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 8 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Lord’s Glory and Man’s Dignity.
For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.
8 O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have [a]displayed Your splendor above the heavens! 2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established [b]strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
3 When I [c]consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have [d]ordained; 4 What is man that You [e]take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? 5 Yet You have made him a little lower than [f]God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! 6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 All sheep and oxen, And also the [g]beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
13-14 “That was a fool thing to do,” Samuel said to Saul. “If you had kept the appointment that your God commanded, by now God would have set a firm and lasting foundation under your kingly rule over Israel. As it is, your kingly rule is already falling to pieces. God is out looking for your replacement right now. This time he’ll do the choosing. When he finds him, he’ll appoint him leader of his people. And all because you didn’t keep your appointment with God!”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Have you ever laid your head down on top of someone’s chest and heard their heartbeat.
If you were to do that you had to be pretty close to the individual whose heart you heard.
Unless you were a Doctor or a Nurse or a related healthcare professional, You don’t just go up to someone on the street and say “May I listen to your heart?”
I can only begin to imagine the wild array and diversity of words and phrases that would come spewing out of peoples mouths in that moment of intrusion.
Many quote 1 Samuel 16:7 and say that David is a man after God’s heart but never tell us clearly what the heartbeat sounds like.
1 Samuel 16:7 The Message
7 But God told Samuel, “Looks aren’t everything. Don’t be impressed with his looks and stature. I’ve already eliminated him. God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart.”
I want to do the best I can to try and help you the reader along with laying our heads on God the Fathers Chest, trying to hear His heartbeat over our very own.
What is God’s desire, what does He really want?
What do we learn as we hear the heartbeat of God?
The heartbeat of God is the heart of man.
Mark 7:14-23 The Message
14-15 Jesus called the crowd together again and said, “Listen now, all of you—take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it’s what you vomit—that’s the real pollution.”
17 When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, “We don’t get it. Put it in plain language.”
18-19 Jesus said, “Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you see that what you swallow can’t contaminate you? It doesn’t enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed.” (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)
20-23 He went on: “It’s what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution.”
I. God desires men and women’s hearts
Why is Go so concerned with our hearts.
Is it just that God is a completely selfish tyrant that believes it belongs only to Him?
The answer is Yes and no.
As our creator our hearts belong to Him first and foremost.
It is not merely for Him that he desires our hearts.
Listen Closely to the words of Jesus.
Mark 7: 21-23“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit sensuality, envy slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceeds from within and defile the man.”
Jesus just gave the reason for evil in the World of man it is the hear t of man.
It is evil.
Jesus clearly told us why our upward, outward relationships are out of whack.
A) The Upward and Outward
Mark 12:28-34
Mark 12:28-34 The Message
The Most Important Commandment
28 One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”
29-31 Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”
32-33 The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So clear-cut and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”
34 When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”
After that, no one else dared ask a question.
If you remember the story a group of Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes were trying to trap Jesus.
Now think about this with me.
If he were a man wouldn’t it have been terribly easy for them to trip Jesus up.
I mean this was a carpenter’s son.
Don’t Forget He is the Son of God.
One man asked him what some believe to be a sincere question.
What is the foremost commandment of all?
Jesus’ answer reflected Moses’ plus Leviticus: Hear O Israel, the Lord is one God Love Him with your all. All you heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second Is this, you shall love you neighbor as yourself, there is no other commandment greater.
It is clear and has been said that Jesus summarized the ten commandments.
He clearly showed us that our upward relationship to God must be right for our outward relationships to be right.
A relationship with God does not create murder, evil thought, theft, adultery, envy, deceit, pride or foolishness.
Are you at the end of your rope in your relationship with your husband, with you wife, with you children, friends, co-workers.
Realize if they are not a Christian then you have the very great opportunity of showing them what a real God can do for relationships.
B) The Kingdom of God
The Upward is where Matthew talks of the Kingdom of God.
The phrase Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is used more than 100 times in the New Testament.
The word Kingdom comes from a Greek word that means not territory but means dominion.
So we see that the domain of God is the heart.
The throne of the King of Kings is the heart of those who believe.
Why is this so important.
He is also the wonderful counselor, professional sessions every minute of every day. He is the prince of peace. For the peace of heart and mind He must sit on the throne. He is the Mighty God. The Great Physician. On and on we could Go.
If Jesus were authentically in complete dominion of all the hearts of churches there would be no division or rancor, no chaotic competition with our culture because there is One Lord, One Baptism, one Mission, The Kingdom of God.
That is what Home for you Heart for the world is about.
John 14:15-17 The Message
The Spirit of Truth
15-17 “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
Letting God be at home within us so that our hearts will be shaped, reshaped and slowly, but inevitably transformed to care for others being our neighbors.
Romans 12:1-2 The Message
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Transformation: Hearts of Stone into Hearts of Flesh
Ezekiel 36:26-28 The Message
24-28 “‘For here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land. I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You’ll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You’ll be my people! I’ll be your God!
A Heart of Truth:
1 Timothy 2:4-7 The Message
4-7 He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth.
This is an anonymous quote,
“The relationship between truth and holiness is similar to that between light and Vision. Light cannot create an eye or give a blind eye vision, but It is essential to seeing. Wherever light penetrates, it dissipates darkness and brings everything into view.In a similar manner, truth cannot regenerate or impart spiritual life, but it is essential to the practice of holiness. Wherever truth penetrates, it dissipates error and reveals everything for what it really is.”
When we have hearts of truth we see things as God sees them.
We no longer laugh at sin we hate sin. I don’t know about you but the longer I live the more uncomfortable I become in this world.
It seems that there is enormous untruth many places we turn.
The news media, social media, politicians, religious people, and ministers too.
God desires to create in us a heart of truth so that through our lives he can use us to reveal untruth to others.
A heart that is filled with truth will know mercy and will know forgiveness.
B) A Heart of forgiveness
I would say mercy and forgiveness is the long forgotten fruit of Christians.
Jesus on the Cross “father forgive them for they do not know what they do.”
I have the secret to all the problems in the church as well as our Christian lives;
Colossians 3:12-14 The Message
12-14 So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
A man named John Oglethorpe, while talking to John Wesley, once made the comment, ‘I never forgive.”
Mr. Wesley wisely replied, “Then Sir, I hope you never sin either.”
A heart of un-forgiveness cannot know the great God of mercy and grace.
Un-forgiveness starts out as a fortress yet ultimately becomes a prison with bars of bitterness and chains of hatred.
A heart filled with forgiveness will be a heart that yearns to serve.
C) A Heart of service
Acts 13:16-22 The Message
16-20 Paul stood up, paused and took a deep breath, then said, “Fellow Israelites and friends of God, listen. God took a special interest in our ancestors, pulled our people who were beaten down in Egyptian exile to their feet, and led them out of there in grand style. He took good care of them for nearly forty years in that godforsaken wilderness and then, having wiped out seven enemies who stood in the way, gave them the land of Canaan for their very own—a span in all of about 450 years.
20-22 “Up to the time of Samuel the prophet, God provided judges to lead them. But then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, out of the tribe of Benjamin. After Saul had ruled forty years, God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: ‘I’ve searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.’
What does it mean to serve God.
What does it mean to have a heart of service.
It means no matter the cost no matter the distance we do God’s will.
The late 19th century Evangelist Reverend DL Moody once said, “The measure of a man is not how many servants he has, but how many men he serves.”
III. God desires to deploy people after His own heart
Romans 10:8-10 New American Standard Bible 1995
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” —that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 [a]that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, [b] resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, [c] resulting in salvation.
Romans 10:10 “For with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness. and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
A heart for the world begins with hearing the heart of God.
So God desires our hearts to always be ready, willing and able to serve so he can create in us a new heart of truth, true mercy forgiveness, and authentic service.
He is telling us in His word we should redeem the time for the days are evil.
Matthew 24:42-51 New American Standard Bible 1995
Be Ready for His Coming
42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 But [a]be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be [b]broken into. 44 For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
45 “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his [c]master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that slave whom his [d]master finds so doing when he comes. 47 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My [e]master [f]is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; 50 the [g]master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, 51 and will [h]cut him in pieces and [i]assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
He is saying to all of our Churches: “I have appointed you for such a time as this.”
Just as an Army Ranger is told Go before they repel or parachute out of some air craft. Just as Air Force pilots are given the go ahead , just as marines are told go as they take to the field of battle, Navies sets sails. God has clearly told us to Go!
The real heart of God is the kingdom of God. The rule of God in the hearts, minds, and lives of people. Lord’s prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Conclusion:
The heartbeat of God is the heart of man.
It was in Jesus Christ that this good news really was communicated clearly.
Mark 1:14-17 New American Standard Bible 1995
Jesus Preaches in Galilee
14 Now after John had been [a]taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, [b] preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God [c]is at hand; repent and [d]believe in the gospel.”
16 As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
Acknowledgement in our hearts to the summons from God; the Good news will come easily from your lips, when Jesus Christ reigns completely in your heart.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 61 New American Standard Bible 1995
Confidence in God’s Protection.
For the choir director; on a stringed instrument. A Psalm of David.
61 Hear my cry, O God; Give heed to my prayer. 2 From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. 3 For You have been a refuge for me, A tower of strength [a]against the enemy. 4 Let me [b]dwell in Your tent forever; Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings. [c]Selah.
5 For You have heard my vows, O God; You have given me the inheritance of those who fear Your name. 6 You will [d]prolong the king’s [e]life; His years will be as many generations. 7 He will [f]abide before God forever; Appoint lovingkindness and truth that they may preserve him. 8 So I will sing praise to Your name forever, That I may pay my vows day by day.
How is your heart today?
Why is your heart feeling like it is today?
Where is your heart today?
Why is your located where it is today?
We can never have a heart for the world if God is not home in ours!!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
Jesus loved to use stories to illustrate profound, life-transforming concepts.
He loved to use real and genuine settings, characters, and ideas that apply to all of us to reveal God’s heart of pursuit and love.
Today we’re going to spend time allowing the parables of Jesus to speak directly to our situations, mindsets, and core beliefs about who our God and neighbor is.
It is now time sit still and to open your heart and mind to be transformed by the powerful and captivating stories of Jesus, the profound truths of His Kingdom.
Matthew 13:31-32 Amplified Bible
The Mustard Seed
31 He gave them another parable [to consider], saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; 32 and of all the seeds [planted in the region] it is the smallest, but when it has grown it is the largest of the garden herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air find shelter in its branches.”
Jesus tells a beautiful parable of the kingdom of God in Matthew 12:31-32.
He teaches, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Trees are beautiful pictures of God’s ability to take what we view as weak or insignificant, a seed, and make a magnificent and life-giving creation out of it.
And Genesis 1:10-12 reveals how trees can be viewed as pictures of the very kingdom of their Creator.
Genesis 1:10-12 Amplified Bible
10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that this was good (pleasing, useful) and He affirmed and sustained it. 11 So God said, “Let the earth sprout [tender] [a]vegetation, [b] plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit according to (limited to, consistent with) their kind, whose seed is in them upon the earth”; and it was so. 12 The earth sprouted and abundantly produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good and He affirmed and sustained it.
It’s remarkable that God would begin his kingdom small and grow it by his faithful stewardship into a good and beautiful and life-giving creation.
God took the seed of the death of one man, Jesus, to create a beautiful tree of salvation for all of humanity.
John 3:17 says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Our heavenly Father’s wrath over our sin poured out on Jesus allowed God to free the rest of us from eternal condemnation.
And through the seed of Jesus’ death, planted into the ground, sprouting by His care, God has been creating a powerful and eternal global movement, bringing all people unto a restored relationship with himself across thousands of years.
Just as the mustard seed grows large enough to become a tree in which birds make their home, the kingdom of God has transferred our citizenship to a new home with him.
Philippians 3:20 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 3:20-21 Amplified Bible
20 But [we are different, because] our citizenship is in heaven. And from there we eagerly await [the coming of] the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to Himself, will [not only] transform [but completely refashion] our earthly bodies so that they will be like His glorious resurrected body.
John 15:19 says, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
John 15:19-20 Amplified Bible
19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love [you as] its own and would treat you with affection. But you are not of the world [you no longer belong to it], but I have chosen you out of the world. And because of this the world hates you. 20 Remember [and continue to remember] that I told you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
The kingdom of God established through Christ has rescued us from this world, the Kingdom has saved us from slavery to this world and ransomed us back into restored relationship with our heavenly Father, to be sustained by God’s grace.
Not only does the parable describe the incredible expanse of God’s kingdom from a few to many, it can also illustrate the seed of salvation planted within each of us that God intends to grow into a beautiful and fruit-bearing tree.
Luke 17:21 says, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Luke 17:20-21 Amplified Bible
20 Now having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He replied, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed or with a visible display; 21 nor will people say, ‘Look! Here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For the kingdom of God is among you [because of My presence].”
God’s kingdom is not built of brick and mortar, but of human hearts.
And 1 Peter 2:2 commands us, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.”
1 Peter 2:1-3 Amplified Bible
As Newborn Babes
2 So put aside every trace of malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander and hateful speech; 2 like newborn babies [you should] long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may be nurtured and grow in respect to salvation [its ultimate fulfillment], 3 if in fact you have [already] tasted [a]the goodness and gracious kindness of the Lord.
God’s desire is to water the seed of salvation he’s planted in us with the Spirit and the word. He longs to mold and shape us into the likeness of Jesus, that we might live lives that bear incredible life-giving fruit.
Hosea 14:4-7 illustrates God’s heart beautifully when it says,
“I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.”
God wants to constantly steward this gift of salvation in each of us, as he does with the global advancement of his kingdom, that we might bear the wonderful fruit of the Spirit in every area of our lives.
And God is so patient with us.
The earth illustrates his patience.
Trees grow year after year, season to season by his faithful stewardship.
Flowers never begin as beautiful as they are in full bloom.
The earth is constantly undergoing abundant transformation as God’s creation grows and changes.
You and I are no different.
God’s plan has always been to mold us into beautiful pictures of his love.
He’s always longed to fashion us until we walk in full, restored relationship with him.
And by the life and death of Christ, he’s paved the way for his desires to come to fruition.
All that’s left?
Is for us to engage fully in this wonderful process he’s created for us.
Engage in the growth he longs to birth in you by spending time in his presence and his word.
Allow his gaze to transform you into his likeness.
Live in obedience to the word, and allow it to lead you to an un-conformed life in this world.
Follow the guidance of the Spirit as he brings healing to your heart and fruit in your life.
Be a Positive Kingdom Influence
Matthew 13:33 Amplified Bible
The Leaven
33 He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like [a]leaven, which a woman took and worked into three [b]measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
Jesus invites us to imagine the amazing properties of a little bit of yeast; it can make dough rise so it bakes wonderful bread flavored in many diverse ways.
Like yeast, only a small expression of the kingdom of Jesus Christ in our lives can make an incredible impact on the lives and culture of people around us.
Christ-followers have a choice. We can withdraw and live separate lives from our surrounding communities. Or we can choose to influence and bless those communities by encouraging values and behaviors of justice, mercy, and peace.
Yeast is at first not very noticeable and even works in the dark.
And the word in our verse that says yeast is “mixed into” can also mean “hidden in.”
Our best influence is often through quiet actions of service and love by which we are not drawing attention to ourselves.
We each probably know of several new churches that have begun in many dark places such as prisons. As they quietly gather for worship and bring people into the presence of Jesus, positive influences spread out through the prison system, transforming behaviors, systems, and the dangerous culture of the entire place.
Even in this current culture of affiliation and disaffiliation, hot button, highly controversial, highly confrontational issues, highly opinionated, highly divisive polarizing and hurtful issues, it’s still possible, even desirable for Godly growth.
Yeast has a purpose of interacting with dough.
The Word of God has a way of interacting with the hearts and souls of mankind.
Prayer has a way of interacting with the hearts, minds and souls of mankind.
Hebrews 4:12-16 Amplified Bible
12 For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged [a]sword, penetrating as far as the division of the [b]soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, and revealed to the eyes of Him with whom we have to give account.
14 Inasmuch then as we [believers] have a great High Priest who has [already ascended and] passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith and cling tenaciously to our absolute trust in Him as Savior]. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin. 16 Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].
We have a purpose of living out the values of the kingdom of Jesus Christ as we interact with the people, institutions, and communities where we are. By the power of the Holy Spirit we can all have amazing influence for the glory of God.
Never give up on interacting with God, the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, because God Father, Son, Spirit, never gives up on interacting with you.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Spend time in prayer allowing God to work in your hearts and souls today.
Guided Prayer:
1. Meditate on God’s desire to grow the seed of salvation he’s planted within you.
“I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine; their fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.”Hosea 14:4-7
2. Where do you need growth in your own life?
Where do you need to bear more fruit?
3. Ask the Spirit to fill you anew today.
Be filled with the presence of God and allow his love to mold and shape you into his likeness.
Ask the Spirit to guide you into areas in where he wants to grow you today.
Find Scripture that pertains to those areas in which you need growth and live in obedience to God’s word.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18-19
How great is God’s love for us that he doesn’t leave us where we are but is always transforming us!
In the blink of an eye, God sees who we’ve been, who we are, who we will be.
He knows your form, how he’s created you, and what you were born to do.
The more time you spend allowing him to transform you, the more you will understand yourself.
May you discover and engage with all that your heavenly Father wants to do in you through his love today.
Lord, thank you for your generosity. While we offer you our service, you offer us life. You can use us to meet the needs of others around us. Grow us as you will. Amen.
Psalm 16 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Lord the Psalmist’s Portion in Life and Deliverer in Death.
16 Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. 2 [b]I said to the Lord, “You are [c]my Lord; I have no good besides You.” 3 As for the [d]saints who are in the earth, [e]They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. 4 The [f]sorrows of those who have [g]bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.
5 The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
7 I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my [h]mind instructs me in the night. 8 I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. 10 For You will not abandon my soul to [i]Sheol; Nor will You [j]allow Your [k]Holy One to [l]undergo decay. 11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
44 “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
45-46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for exquisite pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.
47-50 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
We Will All One Day Somehow End Up Worship Someone, Something, Somewhere, Anywhere
Isaiah 42:14-17 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Blindness of the People
14 “I have kept silent for a long time, I have kept still and restrained Myself. Now like a woman in labor I will groan, I will both gasp and pant. 15 “I will lay waste the mountains and hills And wither all their vegetation; I will make the rivers into coastlands And dry up the ponds. 16 “I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone.” 17 They will be turned back and be utterly put to shame, Who trust in [a]idols, Who say to molten images, “You are our gods.”
In the words of singer songwriter Bob Dylan, you gotta serve somebody.[1]
It’s true—we will all somehow end up worshiping something, somewhere.
The only question is what and where and when.
Too often in our human futility, we end up leaning on and ultimately serving crafty little creations of our own invention.
Throughout history, mankind’s fundamental problem has been that we keep creating false gods to whom we go seeking false salvation.
These idols are simply heart-level and soul deep substitutes for the real God.
Rather than single-mindedly looking to the Lord as the object of our devotion and the source of our satisfaction, we single-handedly take the good things that He created for our enjoyment and we turn them into vain replacements for Him.
C.S. Lewis puts it this way:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”[2]
2 “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Harper Collins, 2001), p 26.
Whichever heart-level substitutes we may rely on, these idols are powerless.
Whichever soul deep substitutes we may look upon in our mirrors, they will be an empty soulless reflection bearing absolutely no resemblance to God’s reality.
They cannot help us.
As Isaiah makes clear, they’ve never been able to tell us the future or even help us reflect on the past; neither can they give counsel. They meet our questions with mere silence and 100% unfulfilled expectations (Isaiah 41:22-23, 28-29).
Only the true and living God knows everything from beginning to end.
At creation He broke through the chaos, silence, foretelling what was to come.
He overwhelms darkness with His light. He replaces the “rough places” of wickedness with the “level ground” of righteousness. Although we once turned our backs on Him, He still sent His only Son, Jesus, our Wonderful Counselor.
You and I are constantly confronted by idols that call out for our attention and entice us to find fulfillment in them rather than God.
What are the ones that call out the loudest to you?
Dare to confront them, dare to challenge their faces, name them one by one.
Know that they are lying (though of course they don’t tell you that).
God’s word repeatedly warns us of the shame that lies in worshiping them and leads us on a better way: to find fulfillment in serving and being served by Him.
“You gotta serve somebody today.”
Psalm 103:13-16 New American Standard Bible 1995
13 Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the Lord has compassion on those who [a]fear Him. 14 For He Himself knows [b]our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. 16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, And its place acknowledges it no longer.
God only knows; We always gotta worship someone, something, somewhere, at some time in this, the brief temporal existence our God affords us on this earth.
Isaiah 40:7-9 New American Standard Bible 1995
7 The grass withers, the flower fades, [a]When the breath of the Lord blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.
9 Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, Lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”
Here it is because here HE IS! Be sure to make it the living, loving God.
Worshipping the Ground We, Someone Else Walks or Crawls on or Works Their Fingers To The Bone On
Matthew 13:44-50 The Message
44 “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
45-46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for exquisite pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.
47-50 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come, and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good.”
If you could only have one thing in life, what would it be?
Take an honest and serious look at your heart for a minute, even an hour today.
What do you love most?
Who or What would you quite literally give up everything else for?
Would you believe your heavenly Father’s answer to those questions is you?
That the Creator of the universe loves you most?
Would you believe he would give up everything to have relationship with you?
Because He really and actually did!
By looking at Genesis 2, God’s single greatest desire is relationship with us.
After God creates Adam in his own image, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).
God brings every created animal before Adam to see if he deems any of them suitable as a helper, and Genesis 2:20 says, “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”
Then without consulting Adam, God puts him into a deep sleep and forms a woman out of his rib.
Seeing the woman upon waking, Adam says, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).
How did God know Adam would want a woman as his helper?
How did God know she would be the desire of his heart?
God knew Adam most longed for a bride because Adam was made in God’s image, and God’s single greatest desire is for relationship with us, whom the Bible calls his Bride.
Let the truth of God’s heart sink in for a minute.
Out of everything else God has created or could have created, he most desires relationship with you.
And he so longed for you to know him fully that he sent Jesus to die to make restored relationship possible.
God calls us to himself daily with his love. He stands at the door of our heart and knocks, beckoning us with his loving-kindness to simply come and know him.
Once we truly grasp the depth of God’s desire for us, the only true response is to give up everything for him.
He laid the foundation for our commitment to him with the greatest single act of love, and he simply waits, beckoning us to respond, living our lives with him as our highest priority. And he doesn’t do so selfishly, but because the absolute best way for us to live in the fullness of our lives is in total commitment to him.
In Matthew 13:44-46, Jesus tells a parable explaining this response to God’s unending love.
He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
The kingdom of God is the greatest treasure, the pearl of greatest value.
Relationship with him is worth our entire lives.
Pursuing him with all our heart is the absolute greatest ambition we could have.
Paul described this pursuit in Philippians 3:8 when he said,
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
Philippians 3:7-11 The Message
7-9 The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.
10-11 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
So again, reflect on your own heart.
What do you value above all else? WHY?
Who do you value above all else? WHY?
God’s not angry with you if it truly isn’t him.
John 14:1-7 The Message
The Road
14 1-4 “Don’t let this rattle you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
You see, the way, the truth and also the life is that our single-minded pursuit of God will only ever match our over zealous longing, revelation of his goodness.
God knows that if he isn’t truly the greatest desire of your heart, it’s because you don’t fully know how good he is.
If you had the full revelation of his love for you, living totally for him wouldn’t even be a choice. So undeniably great is the worth of knowing Jesus that as you see the real Gospel him, you’ll naturally give up everything to know him more.
So, today as you enter into prayer, know the first baby steps in growing in your pursuit of God is acknowledging the posture of your own heart and your soul.
How strongly do you desire deeper relationship with him?
How much would you 100% give up to know him?
What do you seek fulfillment in during your free time?
The second step is receiving a fresh revelation of his incredible love for you.
Spend time daily simply encountering his heart.
Meditate on the truth that he desires relationship with you above all else.
He so greatly enjoys you that he pursues you with all of his focus and energy.
Last, respond to a revelation of his love with your own love.
Worship him, adore him, and live for him with your life.
John 4:21-24 The Message
21-23 “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.
23-24 “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”
You will encounter him in anything you truthfully do as worship.
He will pour out his presence, favor, and blessing in any area you live out of love for him.
Colossians 1:13-14 says, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
And Luke 12:31 promises us, “Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”
Pursue a deeper relationship with your heavenly Father today through prayer.
Pursue a truthful relationship with your heavenly Father today through study.
As you single-mindedly live for him, seek his kingdom first, you’ll inevitably discover all the fullness and all the abundance he has longed to add to your life.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Psalm 46 The Message
46 1-3 God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city, this sacred haunt of the Most High. God lives here, the streets are safe, God at your service from crack of dawn. Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
Guided Prayer:
1. Reflect on your own life.
How strongly do you desire deeper relationship with him? How much would you give up to know him? What do you seek fulfillment in during your free time?
“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” Psalm 14:2
2. Meditate on the depth of God’s love for you.
Receive a fresh revelation of how greatly he enjoys you. Think about the story in Genesis of how God’s greatest desire was relationship with his Bride.
“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Hebrews 12:2-3
“O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” Song of Solomon 2:14
3. Respond to God’s love with your own.
Spend time simply adoring him.
Spend time in solitude sitting with him, encountering his heart, and giving him your own because He single-mindedly paid the highest price for you just to be able have a relationship with him. So take time, be the reward of his sacrifice.
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
May we answer the call to live for love with our lives today.
May we live in response to this benediction found in Hebrews 12:28:
“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
25 “Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him. 29 But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never [a]neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; 30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your [b] wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you [c]have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Overlooked No More – Eyeing A Different Kind of Lost
Romans 3:21-26 The Message
God Has Set Things Right
21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
Let’s take time today to think about the older son in this parable.
This “GOOD OBEDIENT” son never leaves the family farm or breaks any rules, but he here breaks the father’s heart. While the father celebrates the restoration of his younger son, the older son’s heart simmers with anger and bitterness.
The father leaves the celebration for the return of the Prodigal Son and goes out to his older son and tries to reason with him – to join the party – but he refuses.
Ask yourself if our view of sin can be too limited!
We always label the younger son as the sinner while the older son strikes us as a obedient deserving saint, the kind of hardworking person God would be pleased with and would want us to be like – but why else might Dr. Luke mention him?
What lesson or lessons does Dr. Luke have on his spirit that we should observe?
That was Jesus’ second main point in this story.
Everyone thought that God wanted people to be like the teachers of the law and Pharisees—“good,” “obedient” “lawful” “conscientious” hardworking people.
But grace is unearned favor.
The Pharisees lived often graceless lives, so focused on obeying the rules and minding the traditions of man they no longer experienced the Father’s love.
They kept all kinds of rules, preached about all kinds of rules, lived and walked by all kinds of rules, but too broke God’s heart in their judgmentalism of others.
Do we observe the older son is just as much a sinner as the younger, and the prodigal Father offers him the same grace? Jesus died for all kinds of sinners?
If you are obediently slaving away for God’s favor, cone inside, accept the gift of Christ, party and celebrate grace. There’s plenty of room at God’s banquet table!
Shifting our “Obedient” Gaze – Respectable and Lost
Luke 15:28-32 The Message
28-30 “The older brother stomped off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’
31-32 “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we just had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and now he’s found!’”
Can we say the older brother is being a wee bit selfish, obstinate and stubborn?
We all know this type of attitude … we have all seen this type of attitude … we have lived with someone with this type of attitude and sometimes he/she is us!
Well, now, regardless of your intellects, philosophies, ideologies and theologies we are each confronted by the events and outcomes of our General Conference.
If your ideologies and theologies are more left leaning, in your spirit perhaps you’re the one’s being wildly celebrated by the Father with the “fattened calf.”
“God has finally welcomed you home and is celebrating the events of Charlotte.
Those of us whose ideologies and theologies are more right leaning are being seen, if not accused as the obstinate stubborn perhaps sulking older brother.
Refusing to acknowledge the works, wonders of God, the Father because the events of Charlotte did not meet your expectations, did not reward you with what you felt you deserved for your always being obedient and being loyal.
We all can identify with the rebellious son who went into the far country.
In all likelihood, we were once that zealous, rebellious son God celebrated.
But now some, if not most of us find ourselves standing and walking in the shoes of this obstinate sulking elder brother – outside of God’s celebration.
There is not one among us who has at sometime, including exactly right now not felt what this brother felt when he found himself gripped by jealous rage.
Perhaps it would help to analyze this a bit, to more clearly recognize the symptoms of this reaction.
Three characteristics are always present when this attitude is expressed.
The first one is a sense of being treated unfairly, of being ignored, forgotten or disregarded.
This feeling of unfair treatment is always the initial mark of a self-centered attitude.
It is the sign of crushed pride — a wounded ego — revealing the centrality of self.
The second mark is that of an over-inflated view of self.
Notice how the older brother distinctly describes his own moral superiorities.
Self-righteousness is always full of self-praise:
“Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you.“
There is no recognition whatsoever of what he has learned through these many years, or exactly how much he has profited by the relationship with his father.
In his view it is all one way.
“And I never disobeyed your orders.”
Certainly that is not true.
No one has ever or will ever live up to that kind of a standard. Romans 3:23-24,
1 John 1:8-9 New American Standard Bible 1995
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It is remarkable how conveniently he forgets the many times the father has forgiven him. Yet his view of himself is that of being completely and wholly and obediently and loyally in the right. That is always a mark of self-righteousness.
The third mark is his blame of and contempt for others.
“This son of yours…”
Can you hear and feel the deep cutting edge of contempt in that?
He does not call him his brother, and there is no gladness at his return.
He views him as someone vile and contemptible.
Also there is no love or respect for his father.
Oddly enough, the father ends up with all the blame.
“You never gave me a goat, that I might make merry with my friends; but you killed the fatted calf for this son of yours, …”
Do we right now just want to jump into the face of this contemptible wretch!
How many times have we heard that reaction expressed?
How many times have we taken no small amount of offense at that reaction?
These are the three marks of self-righteousness — the world’s most deadly sin.
Our Lord spoke of this more frequently and dealt with it more severely than of any other sin.
He could be tender and gracious toward those who were involved in adultery or drunkenness, but when he faced those self-righteous Pharisees in their smug complacency, his face reddened, his eyes widened, his words burn and scorch.
This sin is so insidious, so deadly because it is so easily disguised as justifiable.
It reveals that this older son is actually far more lost than the other was.
He, too, is in a far country — a far country of the spirit — far far removed from the father’s heart. He has never learned to share the same spirit his Father has.
As we mull over and stew over and gloat over, lament over General Conference,
Have I seen in my “older brother” self this feeling of being treated unfairly?
Of an overly obedient and loyal inflated view of myself? Of contempt for others?
Can I find even one reason, however tiny, and however insignificant, however dangerous to self, to join my Father and my brothers and sisters in celebration?
Isaiah 55:1-7 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Free Offer of Mercy
55 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no [a]money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. 2 “Why do you [b]spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance. 3 “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that [c]you may live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful mercies [d]shown to David. 4 “Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, A leader and commander for the peoples. 5 “Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, And a nation which knows you not will run to you, Because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you.”
6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
God’s invitation to celebrate Him as much as He celebrates us is always open!
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Forgive us, Lord, when we, like the older brother, turn religion into rules instead of a relationship with you. Search us, Fill us with your forgiveness and love for everyone.
1 O Lord, I give my life to you. 2 I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat. 3 No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.
4 Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. 5 Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. 6 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love, which you have shown from long ages past. 7 Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.
8 The Lord is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray. 9 He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way. 10 The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands.
11 For the honor of your name, O Lord, forgive my many, many sins. 12 Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose. 13 They will live in prosperity, and their children will inherit the land. 14 The Lord is a friend to those who fear him. He teaches them his covenant. 15 My eyes are always on the Lord, for he rescues me from the traps of my enemies.
16 Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress. 17 My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all! 18 Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins. 19 See how many enemies I have and how viciously they hate me! 20 Protect me! Rescue my life from them! Do not let me be disgraced, for in you I take refuge. 21 May integrity and honesty protect me, for I put my hope in you.
22 O God, ransom Israel from all its troubles.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; 16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a [a] place of business.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us [b]as your authority for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this [c]temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this [d]temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21 But He was speaking of the [e]temple of His body. 22 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Seismic Sight: An Angry Crowd and a Zealous Jesus
John 2:20-22 The Message
20-22 They were indignant: “It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days?” But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said.
In our Scripture for today, John portrays an angry Jesus.
If you’ve dealt with angry people, or your own anger, you know how unpleasant it can be.
The apostle Paul warns, “In your anger do not sin”(Ephesians 4:26).
Jesus got angry when he saw what was happening in the temple courts.
And yet he did not sin.
Jesus was upset about local vendors providing worshipers something for a fee.
But not just any fee – an exorbitantly high fee which most people could not pay.
He called it all – “den of thieves.”
Mark 11:15-17 New American Standard Bible 1995
Jesus Drives Money Changers from the Temple
15 Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling [a]doves; 16 and He would not permit anyone to carry [b]merchandise through the temple. 17 And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a robbers’ [c]den.”
He was zealous that God’s temple should foremost be a place of worship. and a house of prayer.
There wasn’t room for people to pray.
There wasn’t a place for them to worship.
“Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” he said.
Only later did the disciples connect his zeal with Psalm 69:9“Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Psalm 69:9 The Message
9 I love you more than I can say. Because I’m madly in love with you, They blame me for everything they dislike about you.
Christ’s passion for God’s holiness made him exceptionally zealous to save us.
We are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27).
Genesis 1:26-28The Message
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
And in Christ we are the new temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 The Message
16-17 You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.
Christ’s exceptionally zealous passion carried him to the cross to make us “living stones,” drawn together by His blood as God’s temple (1 Peter 2:5).
1 Peter 2:4-10 The Message
The Stone
4-8 Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God. The Scriptures provide precedent:
Look! I’m setting a stone in Zion, a cornerstone in the place of honor. Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation will never have cause to regret it.
To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him,
The stone the workmen threw out is now the chief foundation stone.
For the untrusting it’s
. . . a stone to trip over, a boulder blocking the way.
They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.
9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
Jesus was undeterred.
He was heading for the cross to fulfill God’s mission. God’s image would be restored in us only through the work of his Son (Philippians 1:6; Colossians 3:10).
If Jesus is so zealous to restore the holiness of God in us, shouldn’t we be also?
As much as he was undeterred, ought we not too become as equally undeterred?
Another Seismic Event – Restoring the Temple
John 2:15-17 The Message
15-17 Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” That’s when his disciples remembered the Scripture, “Zeal for your house consumes me.”
It is quite clear that the 2020/2024 General Conference of the United Methodist Church has caused seismic shifts of orthodoxy within the mission of the church.
And people are right to be both zealous and angry about it.
And people are also right to be both zealous and exuberant for it.
It is only human to have these feelings and responses to what has happened.
Have them – own them – pick up your Bibles – read – study – pray over them.
But, for God’s sake, let us not beat each’s soul to to a pulp – Philippians 2:1-4
Philippians 2:1-4 The Message
He Took on the Status of a Slave
2 1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
There is enough mission and ministry in the World for everyone to engage in.
How God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will bring forth fruit from this seismic event in the life of His Church is yet to be seen or known.
But whether we are zealous and angry or zealous and happy, we must strive to set ourselves aside in the face of God’s sovereignty to remember this one truth;
Ecclesiastes 3:9-13 The Message
9-13 But in the end, does it really make a difference what anyone does? I’ve had a good look at what God has given us to do—busywork, mostly. True, God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time—but he’s left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he’s coming or going. I’ve decided that there’s nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life. That’s it—eat, drink, and make the most of your job. It’s God’s gift.
Because in the end of it all, God is the One with the only plan that will work.
Because in the end of it all, God is only One with authority to make it happen.
Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 The Message
The Final Word
9-10 Besides being wise himself, the Quester also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs. The Quester did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth.
11 The words of the wise prod us to live well. They’re like nails hammered home, holding life together. They are given by God, the one Shepherd.
12-13 But regarding anything beyond this, dear friend, go easy. There’s no end to the publishing of books, and constant study wears you out so you’re no good for anything else. The last and final word is this:
Fear God. Do what he tells you.
14 And that’s it. Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s good or evil.
And through prayer and discernment, I’ll offer this insight and observation;
Isaiah 54:1-6 The Message
Spread Out! Think Big!
54 1-6 “Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby. Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth! You’re ending up with far more children than all those childbearing women.” God says so! “Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep. You’re going to need lots of elbow room for your growing family. You’re going to take over whole nations; you’re going to resettle abandoned cities. Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed. Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short. You’ll forget all about the humiliations of your youth, and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory. For your Maker is your bridegroom, his name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel, known as God of the whole earth. You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief, and God welcomed you back, Like a woman married young and then left,” says your God.
A father would understandably burn with a righteous anger if he saw drugs wreaking destruction in the life of his child.
We wouldn’t expect him to flippantly dismiss such devastation.
No, we would expect him to do everything necessary to drive that evil out and see restoration take place.
When Jesus, the Son of God, entered His Father’s house on earth—the temple in Jerusalem—and looked round at the scene, it was painful to Him.
A place intended for the worship of God had become a place given over to the worship of money.
A place intended to beckon the world to meet the living God had become one that kept the nations at arm’s length.
He found it intolerable that the name of God, the glory of God, was being besmirched and tarnished.
There is no reason for us to stand back and try to mitigate Jesus’ actions.
The holy righteous and zealous anger of Christ burned with red hot zeal and purity. This moment in John 2:13-22 was not the time for polite conversation.
Jesus knew exactly why the temple was there.
It was the place of meeting God.
It was meant to be the joy of the whole earth.
What He found instead was completely opposed to its purpose—and in His words and actions, By the actions of his whip He made that abundantly clear.
Interestingly, when the Pharisees confronted Jesus afterwards, they didn’t challenge His actions; they challenged His authority.
Jesus responded to this challenge with a puzzling statement: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).
The temple He referred to, John explains, was Himself (v 21).
One day, Jesus would come to Jerusalem not to visit the temple complex but to give His own body and blood as the full and final sacrifice for sins, and then to rise to new life and to reign forever.
It was on that authority that He was making clear the difference between what God had intended the temple to be, what it had been made to become by man.
Here, then, we are confronted by a Jesus who is radical—who responds with zeal and protectiveness to the issue of God’s glory.
This Jesus is not meek and mild, always affirming and never challenging.
He is the only Great High Priest, who came not only to cleanse the temple precincts but also to cleanse our hearts, zealously deal with our alienation.
In Him, the true temple, God has built “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).
Isaiah 56:7-8 The Message
6-8 “And as for the outsiders who now follow me, working for me, loving my name, and wanting to be my servants— All who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it, holding fast to my covenant— I’ll bring them to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. They’ll be welcome to worship the same as the ‘insiders,’ to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar. Oh yes, my house of worship will be known as a house of prayer for all people.” The Decree of the Master, God himself, who gathers in the exiles of Israel: “I will gather others also, gather them in with those already gathered.”
Let the truth be revealed through prayer and the courage to be honest with God;
Whether you are zealous angry, or zealous exuberant, over General Conference,
Just sit down with God and let Him do all sorting out that He knows is required:
Psalm 139:23-24 The Message
23-24 Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong— then guide me on the road to eternal life.
If Jesus were to walk into the Courtyards of the Temple men called the United Methodist Church the same way he entered the Temple in Jerusalem, would his actions have been any different or any less zealous to get HIS church in order?
So step back and look afresh at Jesus, who brooked no compromise in pursuing the glory of God through enabling the nations to pray, to worship Him rightly.
Pray, look afresh at Jesus, who used His authority and perfections willingly to take our place and bear our punishment in His body so we could be restored.
Pray, look afresh at Jesus, of whose amazing grace we are each a beneficiary.
For the sake of His Kingdom alone -let His zeal for God’s glory also be yours.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Holy God, the passion of your Son both inspires and scares us. May his zeal for your holiness inspire us to be his disciplined followers, your faithful people. In his name.
Psalm 24 The Message
24 1-2 God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it. He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders.
3-4 Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north-face? Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted; Men who won’t cheat, women who won’t seduce.
5-6 God is at their side; with God’s help they make it. This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.
7 Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
8 Who is this King-Glory? God, armed and battle-ready.
9 Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
10 Who is this King-Glory? God-of-the-Angel-Armies: he is King-Glory.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 