Tag Archives: Gospel of Matthew

Assurance - Promise

Always and All Ways

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JESUS has said and is saying to His Followers today:

Matthew 28:20 New International Version (NIV)
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
via Matthew 28:20 NIV – and teaching them to obey everything I – Bible Gateway.

For sure. For sure we are to keep the command to teach His Teachings before us always. Yet today I am concentrating on

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Someone besides me needs to be reminded of this today.

Always.

Always.

In ALL WAYS He is with us.

ABBA, thank You for Your precious Word that is Alive that we may live. Thank You LORD JESUS that You are forever with us through You, HOLY SPIRIT. You are our AWESOME GOD.  Thank You. And thank You for each dear one who comes here to read and to pray, I ask that they be encouraged and strengthened today by Your Word. We would not forget our sick and affiliated and we ask that You heal them. And we are remembering the rebellious ones we love so much and we pray that yet will they surrender their sins to You and receive Your forgiveness and the Righteousness of JESUS to their account unto eternal life. I am reminded to  our Israel asking for their peace and for the subduing of all their enemies and for my own dear Country, ABBA, I ask that You have mercy and pour out Your Holy conviction upon we the people and I pray repentance will come.  Please forgive us and raise up Statesmen and Heroes in the Name of JESUS that will influence and stem the tide of evil that is flooding these shores. Give us holy boldness, not to be decisive but to draw people to You that they may know the truth and be rescued from hell. Thank You LORD JESUS that You are forever with us in all our times of trials and our joys.

We have the God-given Right to do right in this wrong World,
Praying (PFT)!

Christian Living, KWT Paraphrasing, Questions

SLA

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And another week has begun.

We are into our third week of Summer. A summer, I am hoping, to be packed with learning and sweet memories for my GRANDS to carry with them through their lives.

There is a skill to learning, don’t you know? A most valuable skill, wouldn’t you say? And my GRANDS are not the only ones needing to learn the skill of learning.  And I know just the Teacher!  And I believe the steps to learning have been revealed to us. THE TEACHER used them Himself. Here let me share with you what I have found.

Luke 2

Remember the account of JESUS at twelve? Joseph and Mary left Jerusalem thinking He was within the caravan with some of His cousins. And when it came time to make camp for the night, naturally they went looking for Him. And when they did not find Him they returned to Jerusalem. Can you imagine the horror of not finding Him for three days?? I mean think of it! You have been entrusted with GOD’s SON and you can’t find Him?!  Seriously, what Mother’s heart would not be in a gut-wrenching panic even for a moment of not knowing where is her child – much less THREE DAYS?!

Finally, they go to the Temple and there He is!

Learning! 

46 Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. via Luke 2 NASB – Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem – Now in – Bible Gateway.

Three words, in particular, are my focus for this message.

Sitting. Listening. Asking

The steps to learning.

SIT.
To learn anything. Scripture. Math. Science. How to cut hair. You name it. Learning requires us to POSITION ourselves. To be still. Sit! Put ourselves in an environment conducive to the art of what we wish to learn.  JESUS was in the Temple. Smart move. We could learn a lot from this 12-year-old GOD-BOY!

LISTEN.
JESUS was not sitting there checking His Facebook, or playing a game on His iPad or iPod.  He was listening. He gave the teachers His attention! He heard their words. He considered what they said. He played the words, the concepts, the ideas in His mind examining them. He listened. We have to LISTEN if we expect to learn.  JESUS did. And if GOD did. Who are we not to?

Perhaps we don’t like the concept of JESUS learning; because learning denotes there is something we do not know and didn’t JESUS know everything?  As the GOD-INFANT, GOD-TODDLER, GOD-CHILD, GOD-BOY?  No, He didn’t. HE LEARNED. He allowed Himself to be limited because we humans are limited. He learned.  So can we, following His practice – Sit. Listen.

ASK.
If we sit. If we listen. We will surely have questions. Sometimes I have questions but I don’t ask. I don’t ask because I don’t want to appear ignorant. There’s a word for that kind of ignorance – PRIDE. I need to learn better.  :)  And I will.  JESUS modeled the pattern for us. The least we could do is use it!

Sit. Listen. Ask.

Simple isn’t it? And there is no art of schooling to which we cannot apply it.

Sit. Listen. Ask.

I am glad to be learning this — aren’t you?

We have the God-given Right to do right in this wrong World,

Thank You, JESUS, for this simple and profound tool of learning; help us practice it well for Your glory and our good. Thank You, Father, for each soul who comes here to read and to pray. I am asking You to bless them for coming; whatever their needs I pray they will find You faithful today.  I pray for strength and courage, wisdom and discernment, peace and security, and for our sick and afflicted I pray You will heal them and for the wayward and rebellious I am thanking You that You will not give up on them and You are continuing to pursue them. I pray, HOLY SPIRIT, for You to help them repent.  And we remember Israel, praying for peace and safety, and for America, we pray for a great awakening unto repentance. Thank You, Father, for perfecting Your saints in JESUS’ name. Amen and amen.

Assurance - Promise, Christian Living, Forgiveness, KWT Paraphrasing, Repentance, Salvation

Hear Me

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Matthew 7: King James Version (KJV)
7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
via Matthew 7:1-3 KJV – Judge not, that ye be not judged. For – Bible Gateway.

I participated, mostly as a reader, in a Facebook conversation today (Thursday). It is that conversation that prompts me to present this verse to you for this fine Friday morning.

For sure, for sure I smell the hot breath of hell every time today’s cultural interpretation of this verse is thrown as a trump card on the conversation table. Hear me! Such usage of this verse is nothing more than a ploy from the abyss aimed to silence those who know the truth about sin, hell, and eternal life.

Great day in the morning! as my Tennessee family has said.  READ the BIBLE! All of it! In CONTEXT! The WHOLE COUNSEL of GOD warns me that I better tell folks that JUDGMENT has come already upon them if they have NOT believed the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST. 

16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He that believeth in Him is not condemned; but He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
via John 3 KJ21 – There was a man of the Pharisees named – Bible Gateway.

Hear me! I am NOT judging them. I am telling them what GOD has already judged.  This I know, any honest soul seeking GOD will be GLAD to hear that they can be forgiven and their sins can be removed from them and placed on the LORD JESUS CHRIST giving them LIFE ETERNAL! What kind of selfish, ungrateful, unloving, unkind, poor excuse for a Christian would I be if I kept quiet and did not share this glorious Gospel at every opportunity?

A quick study of the word Judge in the Greek language as it was first written in our referenced verse can be found HERE. In summary, I understand this word to mean that for me to put a soul asunder from me, to determine, resolve and decree on my own accord apart from what GOD has revealed in His Word that, that soul is worthy of condemnation and banishment from GOD, ineligible for GOD’s forgiveness upon that person’s repentance, would put me in grave danger myself – worthy of GOD’s judgment upon me. 

Are you judging when you say a soul that leaves this world without having exchanged his sin for the Righteousness of JESUS will spend eternity in hell? How could you be? That is what GOD has already said. You are only delivering the Message GOD has commanded all His children to tell.

Are you judging when you say a person engaging in sexual intercourse with a person to whom they are not married is committing sin?  Let me emphatically say to you: No, you are not! GOD has already judged that behavior as sin. Who are we to disagree with Him? 

And sin does not stop with immoral sexual behavior. There’s lying, stealing, murder, gossiping, coveting, bearing false witness, dishonoring your parents, and on and on the list goes — All these behaviors GOD has already decreed to be sin.  We are foolish indeed to disagree with Him.

But a word of caution. A strong caution. To point out the sins of another while we ourselves are failing to obey the Greatest commandments makes us the greatest of hypocrites.

Matthew 22:37-39 King James Version (KJV)
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
via Matthew 22:37-39 KJV – Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love – Bible Gateway.

We have the God-given Right to do right in this wrong World,

ABBA, this is a sobering message and an encouraging one. One to empower us to speak the truth in love; one to give us boldness to love people enough to tell them the truth. I pray that every dear one who comes to this page to read and pray we will be so emboldened with Your Love, mercy, and truth. That we will gladly be instruments in Your hands to rescue others from the danger of hell.  And, ABBA, we come with our sick and afflicted and ask that You heal them. And please rescue and save our wayward ones in JESUS name. And, ABBA, thank You for this great day of National Prayer that we have experienced today, and, ABBA, thank You for watching over Israel and I pray for Peace for them. Amen and         . 

Celebrations, Passion Week

Resurrection Sunday!

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Some time before dawn the stone was rolled away! Not so JESUS could get out but so we could see that He had!!

Matthew 28:2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.
via Matthew 28:2 NASB – And behold, a severe earthquake had – Bible Gateway.

And so the Women who loved Him so much went to the tomb while it was still dark.  Would anything  but a powerful love send a woman to a cemetery in the dark? 

John 20:1 New American Standard Bible (NASB) The Empty Tomb
1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene *came early to the tomb, while it *was still dark, and *saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.
via John 20:1 NASB – The Empty Tomb – Now on the first day – Bible Gateway.

See Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-8; John 20:1 for the details of the women’s visit to the tomb.

See Luke 24:9-12; John 20:2-10 as Mary Magdalene reported to the Disciples that JESUS’ body was missing from the tomb. Peter and John immediately ran to the tomb to see for themselves. 

There were a lot of going(s) to the tomb that Resurrection Morning and it was Mary who was first privileged to encounter JESUS after His resurrection.

Mark 16:9-11 specifically identified this Mary but it is John’s account in Chapter 20 that is my favored account. It’s the one I identify well with.

John 20:11-18 New Century Version (NCV)
11 But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she bent down and looked inside the tomb.
12 She saw two angels dressed in white, sitting where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and one at the feet.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
She answered, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have put him.”
14 When Mary said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus.
15 Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?”Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, “Did you take him away, sir? Tell me where you put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”Mary turned toward Jesus and said in the Hebrew language, “Rabboni.” (This means “Teacher.”)
17 Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, because I have not yet gone up to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
18 Mary Magdalene went and said to the followers, “I saw the Lord!” And she told them what Jesus had said to her.
via John 20:11-18 NCV – But Mary stood outside the tomb, – Bible Gateway.

As surely as Mary heard JESUS speak her name, I have heard Him speak mine.  To be sure Mary heard His audible voice with physical ears and I have not (yet). But just as assuredly the ears of my heart heard Him call, ‘Kathie’, and I answered! There have been many great days in my life but no day (so far) compares to that one!But there is a day coming that will far exceed that lovely day in November 1975! Verily, verily without this Resurrection Sunday we are remembering today there would be no great days for any of us.

JESUS also appeared to the other women: Matthew 28:9-10.  And to the two men on the Emmaus Road: Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-32. And in the evening, He ‘popped in’ on the Disciples :) : Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:25. And for 40 days JESUS at various times and places met with His disciples teaching and preparing them for His Ascension to Heaven and His Commission to them and us to carry on His work: Acts 1:3; Matthew 28:19-20.

Many passages, many happenings we have read this week, ABBA, every Word true and faithful. Thank You, LORD. Thank You, LORD, for Your mercy, Your grace and patience as You wait for souls to believe. Thank You, HOLY SPIRIT, that we are not left on our own to believe; that You call us, help us and empower us to believe You. Thank You. For without You we surely never would.  You know I am thinking particularly of one near and dear to me, You know the diagnosis, it scares us and we cling to You for peace and ask You to heal her. And there are others, many others with illness and diseases; and as scary and hard and life altering as these things are You defeated death and hell so we proclaim what our brother Paul said, “we are afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; struck down, but not destroyed by these things; we trust You and we desire first and foremost that You be glorified in us. HOLY SPIRIT, pour out upon us as we gather to worship, anoint Your Messengers in worship centers and Sunday School classrooms, exalt JESUS and draw men, women, boys and girls to worship HIM. Amen and . . .   .

We have the God-given Right to do right in this wrong World,
Praying (PFT)!