Category Archives: Gospel of Matthew

2023, Acts, Christian Living, Gospel of John, Gospel of Matthew, Holy Soap Box, Questions, Repentance, Salvation

Wrong, Following

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Hello Friends, What a lovely Tuesday it is here in Lower Alabama and I hope it stays lovely to the end of the day and this post.
With that said, I offer this caveat: if this post goes as I suspect it will it shall not be a favored one for persons easily offended.
Blunt and to the point is on its way to this page I think.

Every day, day after day and night after night the people of this world shout with clenched fits thrust upward that GOD is wrong, and they are right.

How do the peoples of Earth do this?
Sin.

Every act of adultery says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of fornication says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of homosexuality says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of gender confusion (as it is termed) says GOD, You are wrong!

Every lie, every theft, every covetous thought, every murder, every rape, every malicious word, every calloused action, every unholy thought we entertain, and every ungodly act we perform says GOD, You are wrong!

GOD, You are wrong!

How could we?!

How could HE?!!
How could He not immediately drop us all into Everlasting Torment?
Do you ever wonder that or are you still of the mind that your sins are not that bad?

That was me for many years.
So I can’t fault you for it,  but I can tell you it is wrong and deadly.

What’s the answer?
Repentance and FOLLOW JESUS.

And that my Friends brings me to another convicting string of thoughts.

The Disciples of The Gospel, found in Scripture, FOLLOWED JESUS. Even when they were not physically in His Presence, they followed Him because they did what He instructed them to do. Read the Gospels and you will see what I mean.

What Would JESUS Do? Do you remember that saying? It was written on bracelets, plastered on billboards, and voiced from pulpits. Even today we are told to “love like JESUS”.
But are we given practical steps to do that?
And how could “man” give us practical steps to love like JESUS anyway?
What does man know about loving like JESUS?

The Disciples FOLLOWED JESUS.
Are we getting that? They FOLLOWED.
What does follow mean?

Let’s look at this:  1.a. To come or go after; proceed behind: b. To go after in pursuit c. To keep under surveillance
2. a. To move along the course of; take b. To move in the direction of; be guided by

What do you take away from this?
I see the Disciples literally following JESUS around all over Judea, wherever He went they went.
featured-upper-room-jesus-riding-donkeyAnd when He gave them instructions to go and do they went and did.  i.e. get the colt. Prepare the upper room.

And we might say, Well, we don’t have JESUS physically here with us, we can’t follow Him around.

Is that true?
Do we have HOLY SPIRIT living within us?
Can we not follow HIM? Can we not be guided by Him?
John 14:26 and Acts 1:8

It’s a NEW picture playing on the screen of my mind too.
But I like it!
I am eager to see how He helps me consistently FOLLOW JESUS.
I figure it will take some time to get this revelation seated and consistently operating but I want it!

That’s it. That’s what I came to say.

Oh wait, I need to tie these two points together, don’t I?
In SIN we say, GOD, You are wrong. This means one thing: we are NOT following JESUS.

Terribly offensive, isn’t it?
BUT GOD has made a way —

Until next time ~~~ Shalom, Kathie

2023, Christian Living, For What It's Worth To You, Gospel of Matthew, It's a Bonus Post, Questions

Come Along

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Matthew 28 18 Yeshua came and talked with them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore, go and make people from all nations into talmidim, immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of the age.”   source 

First thing I noticed this time reading these verses. 

immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh, 

Other translations say: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  And I don’t dispute that. Baptism after conversion is a command, unless, of course, you are the thief on the cross or some other reason beyond your control. But baptism is more than being lowered under a body of water and brought up again and I believe JESUS was saying more than we are generally taught here. 

Let us remember from the verses that He said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And does not ALL mean all? All authority is given to Him. We will come back to this.

Hang with me.

What are we commanded to do in this passage? immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh,
Just what does this mean? What is immersing?

im·merse

  (ĭ-mûrs′)
tr.v. im·mersed, im·mers·ing, im·mers·es
1. To cover completely in a liquid; submerge.
2. To baptize by submerging in water.
3. To engage wholly or deeply; absorb:
 
For purposes here let’s take number 3. 
To engage wholly or deeply; absorb. This I believe describes what we are to do. 
All people. All Nations. Anyone who will believe and come along we are to aid in engaging them wholly, deeply; so they can absorb the ways of GOD. 
We introduce them to JESUS and then we keep on with them, discipling them,  or making sure there is someone else to come alongside them to teach them the Ways of GOD. 
And what do we teach them?
We teach them to OBEY GOD per the Scriptures. 
 
NOTHING IN THIS LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OBEYING GOD.
 
Let’s go back now. 
 
All Authority in heaven and on earth is given to JESUS.
This is BIG, Y’all! 
JESUS has all authority! All authority! 
 
And some may say, so. What does that mean for me? 
The best news ever!
It means as we are immersed in GOD, we are taught the ways of GOD and we obey Him we too have authority. We have the authority and the power to forsake and overcome SIN. 
 
We do NOT have to live defeated lives. 
We can and must be overcomers. 
When we are immersed in GOD all power and authority that we need to command the flesh and the enemy, we have. We CAN live victoriously. news-clipart-k11232926We do not have to be slaves to sin anymore! 

Now why would we not want to proclaim this to people everywhere? 

It’s Good News! The Best News! 
 

Until next time — Shalom, Kathie 

2023, Christian Living, Gospel of Matthew, Questions, Repentance, Salvation

The Word Knew – Who Knew?

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I am eager to share with you this late morning what I believe. 

Are you familiar with this passage of Scripture? Matthew 7: 21-23.

It’s important. It’s strong. 

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’  source 

This Scripture tapped on my thoughts last night and settled in with what I am about to share with you.

Here YESHUA tells that in the times to come people are going to recite to Him reasons they should be allowed into Heaven. However, they will be denied entry. 
Why will they be denied? 
Hear His Words: 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ 

I never KNEW you, He said and will say. 

How could GOD, who knows ALL not know them? 

This KNEW is not the knew you and I use in our everyday English; it’s not the knew we use when we say oh yeah I knew them. 

It’s the knew of the Hebrews.  Here are two links. I invite you to compare.
yâdaʻ    ginṓskō

The knew JESUS used here is from the knew in Genesis 4:1.

This KNEW means intimacy. It means covenant. It means these people even though they had done some good works, their good works produced NO intimacy with JESUS. Blood CovenantThere was no BLOOD COVENANT applied to them. 
HE did not KNOW them.
He never KNEW them.
They never came to Him in surrender.
They never came seeking His Righteousness — they figured they had their own righteousness.
They figured WRONG. 
And the road to hell they began on? They stayed on.
They remained the Workers of Lawlessness. They never came to Him for rebirth.
Again I say, there was no intimacy. No communion. No Family Gatherings.

But this is not the case for us; for we who are KNOWN by Him. 
We are in covenant with Him (we know Him, He knows us) and because of the blood covenant, we will enter in. Heaven is our eternal home. BloodCovenant

Do you know people whose lives give no evidence that they have a blood covenant with JESUS? 
I do too. Keep praying. Keep proclaiming. Keep praying they will yet be KNOWN by Him. 

Until next time — Shalom, Kathie

2 Peter, 2023, Gospel of Matthew, Guests

With a Capital A

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GOD is love.
We hear it and hear it.

It’s about all we do hear about GOD.

And yet hearing only GOD is love, instead of drawing people to Him, I believe, has emboldened people to sin without remorse and indeed not repentance.
No, remorse and repentance are not synonymous.

The preaching of GOD is love alone has given the world a license to sin, not only a license to sin but to applaud and flaunt their sins and the sins of their peers.
There is no fear of GOD preached and most people in and out of professing Christianity are not afraid to practice sin.

I can tell you, I did not come to GOD for salvation because I heard GOD is love.
I came because I didn’t want to go to hell and I heard He would save me from it – if I turned from my sin TO HIM.
And, of course, that meant He loved me — why else would He save me, other than loving me?

What am I saying?
That we must preach the truth  — He is love but He is Angry with a capital A.
Yes, angry.
There was a sermon preached on July 8, 1741, by Johnathan Edwards.
Ever heard of it?

Allow me to offer you (in part) a modern-day opinion of this sermon written by Josh Moody:

“On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish. Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon. Instead, the pastors went down among the people and prayed with them in groups. Many came to a saving knowledge of Christ that day.

What can we learn from Edwards’s preaching of “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?”

We Should Not Be Afraid to Preach Hell

Edwards is unfairly tarnished as only a hell-fire preacher. Read Charity and Its Fruits. Read many of his other sermons that discourse upon the beauty of Christ. Preaching on hell was not unusual in 18th-century New England. What made Edwards’s sermon impactful was not that he preached on hell, but how he preached on hell. By contrast, we rarely (if ever) even mention hell from our pulpits today. Surely in the future, the church will look back on our age and recount it as the strangest fashion that we preached on God’s love without preaching God’s justice or wrath. There is little biblical balance in our preaching today.”     Josh Moody. (2018)

https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-jonathan-edwards-preaches-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

Now, if you want to read the preserved sermon, here are two links:

https://enfieldhistoricalsociety.org/old-town-hall/jonathan-edwards-and-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/he_is_risen/jonathan_edwards/sinners.cfm

Yes, GOD is love.
Not that He loves but He Himself IS love.

Because He is love, He has no alternative but to be Angry, at all that falls short of LOVE.

Click HERE for some verses about this Wrath of GOD. 

What does that mean?
It means we must be perfect like GOD is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Are you saying, You can’t do it?
Neither can I.

BUT JESUS DID!

Yes. Love and anger go hand in hand.

08ab3b9e01210f8ab815e1ac8329c080GOD is indeed love but do not be deceived, He is also perfectly and justly angry.

How fortunate for us that He is slow to pour out his anger and is patient and is not willing that anyone perish. 


But obviously, people do perish EVERY DAY so . . . 

We got to preach this! 

Love, Kathie