Matthew 12:30 observes whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me
scatters.
On occasion in the gospels, Jesus, God Who has become man, throws down the gauntlet and demands we choose sides. This passage is one of those times when Jesus invites us to separate ourselves into wheat or chaff.
What does it mean for us when God demands we choose but we refuse to even engage the discussion? (more…)
Matthew 6:19 commands ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.’
When God lived among us He said, ‘do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth.’ We need to read that again slowly, thinking carefully about His words. God said, ‘do not store up treasures on earth.’
Yet most of us ignore Him. We are like the Israelites we read about in the Bible who constantly ignore God’s commands so we find ourselves shaking our heads at their disobedience and subsequent negative consequences. (more…)
Matthew 5:3 proclaims blessed are the…
Most likely there is no one on the planet who doesn’t want to be blessed by God. There is an entire Christian industry claiming wealth and health to all those who know God and have faith in Him (and give generously to His messengers).
The thinking we associate with blessing is always around money, influence and power, not the things God identifies as blessing when He lived among us in the Man, Jesus. God has told us what it means to be blessed by Him.. (more…)
Matthew 2:11 records they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense
and myrrh.
The Christmas story ends with pagan god believers giving gifts to Him Who is the One True God.
As we prepare for a new year, what gift will we who love God offer Him?
At one level, we are free from the burden of having to come up with some sort of elaborate offering to appease our God. Our God is not so vain that He requires gold, silver or any other material thing for He Himself needs nothing from anyone. (more…)
2 Chronicles 36:13 records Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man so far as obeying the Lord God of Israel was concerned, for he refused to follow Him.
The Bible does a lot of recording of how people finished their lives.
Any of us can run a ten yard sprint. Some of us can run a 100 yard dash but very few of us could run a marathon. What’s the difference? Focus, commitment, training.
Living on earth is a marathon and not a sprint. (more…)
Revelation 2:5 Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to Me again and work as you did 
before; or else..
While we all have felt love we all know that love is doing more than feeling.
In romantic love the feelings are overwhelming and they cause us to do many acts of good toward the one we love. When those feelings diminish over time too often the acts diminish as well sometimes resulting in a termination of the relationship.
God describes love in a couple of different ways. (more…)
Luke 18:1 declares Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must 
keep praying until the answer comes.
Prayer is a mystery to most of us and therefore a difficult thing for us to consistently engage. On the one hand we think God knows everything so why should we pray?
Because God told us to pray doesn’t help us become more motivated to pray, we need a more compelling answer to our question. Because God modeled a life of prayer doesn’t help us either, we tend to dismiss some of Jesus’ activity because He is God and we don’t believe we have any chance of measuring up to Him anyway.
So why pray if God already knows everything anyway? (more…)
Luke 16.11 observes if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?
What are the true riches of heaven? Knowing God deeply and enjoying Him forever is certainly first. God is about relationship not about stuff making the true riches deep joyful relationships.
After we have accumulated a bunch of stuff and put money into our bank accounts we too realize that life is not about what we possess but about the people we love and who love us. (more…)
1 Chronicles 19:13 commands be courageous and let us act like men to save our people and the cities of our God.
Most men like a good fight and are willing to engage one as long as we can win!
There’s something of the warrior spirit deep within the male psyche. Yet we are trained to suppress, deny and eliminate this inherent nature of what it means to be male.
The Bible describes God as a warrior in certain places and many find His actions in and through Israel to be a stumbling block to their better judgment of right and wrong.
Nevertheless, the Bible paints a picture of a universe at war: first the angelic host against God, then man against God, then man against man and finally God against all those who oppose His will being done on earth as it is in heaven. (more…)
Luke 3:7 proclaims you are trying to escape hell without truly turning to God!
If we are honest this is the state of most of us, we want to go to heaven but we don’t want interference from God over how we run our lives. We take the minimalist approach to God trusting that He is loving like grandma and giving like Santa Claus.
The reason for this hypocrisy is because we really want to be god, totally in control without accountability, for everything we do, think and say. This reality says a lot about us and little about God. If we knew God better we would think more highly of Him and live more trusting of Him.
What kind of a God are we worshipping Who finds acceptable our minimalist effort at pleasing Him? (more…)
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