God of Mercy

Matthew 5:43-48

You have heard that it was said, “you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy”. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, “then you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what rewards have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than the others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Even when we hated him, he loved us and died for us. He gives, “good” even though we didn't deserve it or earn it. Good things sometimes happen to bad people, because of the goodness of God. That I know will drive some people nuts. Sometimes in our own self-righteousness, we want other people to pay for what they've done.

I mean, how come some people who could care less about God and other people seem to prosper sometimes. It is simply because of God's goodness and mercy. The same mercy, that was and is directed toward us, is also directed towards them, because the truth is, neither one of us deserved it. The wages of sin is death, and that I know is what I had on. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I praise God that he doesn't just give us what we deserve or are. Don't get me wrong, you cannot just live how you want to live and never expect judgment, but God is a long-suffering God. His mercy endures forever, which is a common theme throughout the Psalms. God is not sitting in heaven with the club just waiting for you to make the mistakes we can whack upside the head.

It is because of that goodness that we as Christians, as his children are called to love even in the very midst of hate. This is not very easy to do, I know, I am challenged, in my faith, every time I read of what others have endured for the cross of Christ, and still offered love to their enemies. It was that love offered to the ones who were torturing them, that drew others to Christ.

I like that phrase that was read above for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. I find it very comforting that the Father would offer me goodness when I don't deserve it. We serve a very good and faithful God, who is even faithful, when we are unfaithful.

In this passage of scripture it is because of God's mercy that he demonstrates towards us, that he wants us to demonstrate that same mercy to others. I find it is much easier to receive mercy than to give mercy. Most of us if we are honest would say the same! We need to change that as Christians, and we have an ability to change that because of the gift that we have been given through Jesus Christ.

Thank you Lord for your mercy, that you've shown me and others around me. Thank you for extending grace when we need it most. Thank you for your abundant blessing. Help us to remember the sacrifice that you made for each and every one of us. Even for those who we would consider our enemies.

Until next time,

May, “the Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance, and give you peace

False Promises

Matt. 4:1-11
Satan showed Him all the land as far as the eye could see and promised to give Jesus ruler ship over it all, if he would just bow down and worship him. Satan promised temporary ownership of the world in exchange for worship.

Many people have fallen into this trap. Satan shows us the world, and says you can have it all, just follow me. He promises us fame, fortune, or anything else that would appeal to us, but it all ends in death.

All of the promises he makes are empty. Sin always leads to death. I think of the verse where Paul is talking about the internal war that wages within him. It is a war that is going on inside all of us, and the only victory we have is in Jesus.

How many of us, have sought after other things, that in the end meant nothing? How many have just had to have that new device, only to discard it months or even years later, without even taking it out of the box? How many have been addicted and trapped in sin, not being able to find your way out? Not wanting to do something, but never seeming to be able to resist, at the slightest temptation when it presents itself.

The thing that maybe felt so good for so short a time in the long term never lasted. You always needed more or the next hit one was just not good enough. The never ending cycle of trying to feed the beast that was on the inside of you, but never being fully satisfied, ever! The more you get, the more you want.

Sin always leads to death!

I believe that most sin seems good at first, it always appeals to some part of us, but sin’s end is always destruction. Jesus knew this; everything that this world may have to offer is only temporary and really not that good. God is always good; he always wants what is truly best for us!

For Jesus the answer was settled, what His Father had to offer, was far better than anything anyone else could ever offer. Jesus answered, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” As Christians we have the same ability.

James 4:7 tells us, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” In verse 6 he encourages us that God, “gives grace to the humble.” Everything we need to live a victorious Christian life is provided to us by our Father.

We just need to know deep within our hearts…

• that God is a good Father
• that He has good plans for us
• that His thoughts toward us are always good

Because of all that we submit to the One, Who first loved us, and then tell the devil to take a hike, in the name of Jesus, our Savior. I know this seems easy to say and write, but not always easy to do. That is why I am so very grateful that God gives grace to the humble.

Until next time,

May, "The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace."

Trusting in God

Matthew 4:1-11 Temptations continued...


Again notice that Satan comes with the same attack, “IF you are the son of God…then.” I think as believers we really need to have a greater understanding of who we are in Christ. The second time you can almost picture Satan spitting his accusation at Jesus, trying to throw in his little seed of doubt.

He goes on to basically trying to make Jesus question whether God was truly good and if He would honor His word. Put God to a test like the children of Israel had done in Exodus 17:1-7.

In Exodus 17:7 we are told that they, the children of Israel, had tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” They were faced with a circumstance that they did not understand. They were in a desert area and they had no water readily available. They seemed to have quickly forgotten how God had just done some pretty amazing things for them.

He parted the sea so they could escape Egypt, at Marah He made the bitter water sweet so they could drink it, and He had provided Bread from Heaven in the Wilderness of Sin. Instead of contending with Moses they should have been turning and trusting in God. Why do we as people can so easily forget God when we are faced with difficulties?

We need to be a people who remember the testimonies of God. We need to be rehearsing them over and over again, telling them to anyone who will listen. Reminding ourselves of what God did in the past for others and us personally. God did many good things in the Bible and the Good News is that He is still doing good things for us.

Jesus passed this test, because He already knew how Good God is and He didn’t need to test His Father. There was no question in His mind about His Father. He knew He was good He didn’t need to jump off a building to prove it.

I know that many of us are going through hard times. Unemployment is high, some are sick from different diseases, others have lost people who they loved we need to encourage one another. Remember how God provided for us in the past, share testimonies of when you were healed; listen to missionaries or others as they share stories of other people being healed; take the time to just listen and grieve with others who are hurting.

God is good and He really and wants to do good for us. He is the perfect Father.


May, "The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace."

Knowing and Trusting

Matthew 4:1-11

This passage of scripture deals with trust and identity.  Jesus, in this passage, was lead into the wilderness, by the Holy Spirit, after being baptized by John in the river.  On a side note, from a human perspective, after a voice speaks from Heaven and a dove landing on your shoulder would seem to be the perfect time to launch out into ministry.  Jesus chose to follow the leading of the Spirit and head into the wilderness.

Once he arrived He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.  This would have been difficult for His human body.  Most of us struggle with fasting for a day or two, much less going for 40 days and nights without eating.  I can imagine His physical body would have been screaming for food.  After not eating for that long of a time His physical body would also be tired.

He was tired and hungry, two conditions that are not always conducive with rational thought or right decisions.  How many times have we used the excuse of just being too tired, when we do something we know we should not have done?  This is the backdrop for Jesus' temptation in the desert, by the devil.

I want to look at each temptation separately, with two possibly three different posts, so that we can learn to reject temptation when it comes.  The first temptation in vs. 3 was trying to make Jesus question His identity.  Satan starts out with the big IF, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread."  Notice he is challenging Jesus' identity, after all if Jesus were really God's son then commanding stones to become bread so that He could eat should be really easy. 

At the same time it also tempts Jesus to eat now instead of being obedient to God.  If Jesus was lead by the Spirit, then fasting must have been what He knew He was supposed to be doing.  Satan was also telling Jesus to take matters into His own hands, instead of trusting in His Father, and then eat.

First of all, Jesus knew exactly who He was.  He knew He had the ability to do what satan was asking, Jesus does not even address that question in His answer.  Just like Jesus, we need to know who we are in Christ.  The Bible tells us we are God's children, the bride of Christ, His friend, His beloved, His chosen, and too many other things to list here.  God loves us, His thoughts toward us are more than the sand in all the seas.  Our identity as believers is wrapped up in Christ and what He did for us.

Do not let anyone tell you differently!  The second issue was a matter of trusting God enough to obey,   knowing that His Father had His best interests at heart.  Jesus said, "It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."  Obedience to God was more important than food.  He already knew that God knew he would need food to survive.

In fact later on in scripture Jesus told His disciples not to worry about what they would eat, drink, or wear, because God already understood that they needed those things to survive.  He also pointed out several examples in nature that God provided for and that we were more important than any of those things.

Through this first temptation we learn that we must know who we are, in Christ.  We also have to bury the knowledge of who God is deep down inside of us.  God really is a good God.  He really does have what is best for us.  Many times we may not understand why things happen, but we can trust in who God is.

For now that is enough to really chew on.  Thank you for reading, and may your knowledge of God grow deeper.

May,


"The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace."

Works vs. Faith!

Most religions in the world like to complicate things. We like to make it difficult, just so that we can let people look at us and say how good we are. Look at what I accomplished. The simple gospel is too simple for most people. We want to throw works into the system, because it sometimes makes us feel better about ourselves. We don’t really enjoy charity or rather we don’t enjoy really needing charity.


But the truth is we cannot save ourselves. We are completely powerless to save ourselves. No amount of good we could do would ever make up for the bad we have done. The only thing we are worthy of is death. The wages of sin is death; death is what we have earned. Thank God for the gift of eternal life. I could not survive if it were not for that gift. Pride stands in the way of the gospel.

Pride in thinking that we can do it all on our own. We have pride in thinking that we don’t ever need any help from anyone or anything. The simple truth is that Jesus paid the price for us. We have to simply accept His payment on our behalf. Pride would keep us from doing that. Pride would hold us back from His abundance.

Many of you reading this might have gotten past that particular pride, already accepted the gift that can only be accepted never earned. We are sometimes more like the Galatians, in Galatians 3:3 he asks the simple question are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?

In this passage he was talking about the people picking back up circumcision which represented the Old Testament law. They had freely accepted the gift of salvation but then they started teaching that to maintain your salvation you had to perform. In other words Jesus your sacrifice was good enough to start me off, thank you for that, now it is time for me to take back over. We also might demonstrate this by doing things to please God or get Him to do something good for us based on our good works. Instead of acting from a position, that I am already accepted by God, any good that I do is because of God and His goodness to me.

A few years ago (close to 10 years ago) I was talking with someone at the hotel in a hot tub. As strange a place as it may seem to have this kind of conversation, I’ve actually had several conversations like it, in hot tubs. I actually joked one time that we should start a hot tub ministry. We were actually talking about, the whole, “all roads lead to heaven” teaching. I was sharing how Christianity, at its core, is different than all the other religions out there. As a Christian we do good works not as a way of earning our way into heaven, but because of what God has done for us, it creates in us a desire to do well. He is a Good God who wants what is best for us and it is because of that we do what is right. We only love Him because He first loved us.

This other person felt that since we all ended up at the same place of doing good that it really didn’t matter how we got there. After all, either way we end up doing what is right anyway, right? One of the problems, not the only one, is that it puts a burden on us that we cannot bear. We find ourselves exhausted from always trying to do our best, and especially when things are not going well, striving even harder and still coming up short. We end up frustrated and hating ourselves, because we always keep coming up short. It is completely freeing to work from a position where I know that I am loved by a merciful God, who will not just strike me down the very first time I make a mistake. We operate from a position of love not out of, “I have to or else.”

Which position are you working from?

Waiting on the Lord

Psalm 27:14


Wait on the LORD; be of good courage,
and He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!  (NKJV)

If you are anything like me, waiting is never an easy task. I recently ordered a headset so that I could get better sound quality for my videos and so that my Dragon Naturally Speaking would work a little better. I could get the headset cheaper online, but I would have to wait for it to be shipped to me.


Waiting seems to be much harder when it is a life and death type of situation. David was faced with very difficult situations throughout his life. He understood that the Lord was his refuge when things weren’t working out in his favor. People did things to him that he didn’t deserve and he had learned to trust in the Lord.


There is always a cost to not waiting. I would have had to pay quite a bit more for the exact headphones I wanted if I would have went to the store and purchased them, instead of purchasing them online. The alternative to not waiting or trusting in the Lord is to try doing it with our own strength, talent, or abilities, placing our trust in ourselves or others.


The Lord is gracious and may even help us when we do this, but we just create a lot of extra unneeded stress. He wants us to place our trust in Him and rest in His presence. In life this is not always easy to do, after all we like to be independent. Even though there are many things we are absolutely powerless to do anything about or change.


Matthew chapter 6:25-34 speaks to us about all the things that we are not to worry about, but to simply put our trust in Him. I mean like major things, like what am I going to wear, or eat, drink. These are some of our most basic needs, after all you cannot live if you do not eat or drink.


The main point is that God, who created us, knows that we need those things to survive and he will take care of us as we learn to trust in Him. It will not always be easy, especially if you lose your job, like I did, but God is always faithful. Learning to trust is a fantastic journey that has some ups and downs. Trust is not always something that we want to do, but it is something that we must learn to do.


On a final note to close this post I would encourage you to read Matthew 6:25-34 and be encouraged. Better yet begin memorizing this verse and bury it deep within your heart.

May,

"The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace."

Opening Prayer post

My very first post on here is going to be a prayer request to the Lord. Lord, give me the creativity that I need to say and do whatever would be glorifying unto you. I am doing this, because I believe it is what you want me to do and I just want to bring glory to Your, Holy and Precious Name.


Thank you Father for Your Grace and Mercy towards me and all those who read, listen, and watch all the things that are posted to this blog. May you bless us all with your presence; this is what I desire more than anything in this world. Let everything that is said and done through this blog glorify You Lord and encourage others.

May, "The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace."