Tag: Salt

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There Was an Almost

OCTOBER 15

MATTHEW 7:11_If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children…

God loves everyone—the entire world. So much, He let His Son suffer and die for the world. 

God wants righteousness and goodness to reign supreme as it did for a brief time in the Garden of Eden. Pure perfection not only in people, but in all nature. But there was an almost in that perfection. When the almost won the battle over free will, everything changed—but God didn’t. He’s still just. He still has all power. He’s still God of the Impossible.

I believe Jesus in His infinite power and unsurpassed love works every day to restore as much of the Garden experience as possible in our fallen world. Every time He transforms a heart and gives it the ability to become salt and light, He’s made some restoration. It will take a new heaven and a new earth to bring full restoration.

When God uses evil people in ways that result in good for His children, He is exercising His fatherly powers. God wants fathers to do good to and for their children. Unfortunately, there are those whose fathers genuinely neglect, abuse, and abandon them.

God has a plan for those children as well, Psalm 27:10 (KJV), “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.”

PRAYER

Jesus Lord, Only You can transform—we all need it. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.                                                                                                          

Christ’s love is perfection—I want to love like that!

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Knock!

MATTHEW 7:7_knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Before your knock is answered be sure to answer the ultimate knock!

Remember your heart has a door. Jesus knocks on it. Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I [Jesus] stand at the door [of your heart], and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup [fellowship] with him, and he with me.”

It is impossible to become a disciple without answering the ultimate knock. And certainly if you desire to become a salty-lit-up disciple!

Jesus’ sermon in Matthew chapters five, six, and seven is an instruction manual on how to live once you’ve opened that door. Don’t forget the Salvation Post on August 29. You printed a page to record your Door Opening event.

Now you have become the knocker. The doors of life stand before you. The Holy Spirit dwells inside faithfully giving visions to accomplish and fulfill. All the visions fit according to the design and purpose God has for your life.

Knock on the doors which will bring fulfillment of your visions. Don’t give up. 

Knock!

PRAYER

King of Kings, I choose to answer Your knock—You choose to answer mine. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.                                                             

Christ knows when I answer His knock—He hears mine!

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A Changed Man

SEPTEMBER 13

MATTHEW 7:3_And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Had the wicked servant dwelt on the unbelievable mercy rendered to him by the king, he would have bestowed mercy on his fellow servant. However, non-believers can’t be expected to respond to life as believers. That’s why there is such a need for salty-lit-up disciples—lifestyles that shine to draw captives to freedom—a lighthouse to a ship lost in a raging storm.

Light sends a ray of hope. Once the ship makes it to the safety of the harbor, it is time to preserve it with the salt of mercy which flows from unconditional love.

In the case of the apostle Paul, the light that shone on him blinded him. When he was healed, and his sight restored three days later, he was a changed man. The light blinded him to the hate that his hard heart had toward Jesus’ followers. It also blinded him to the lies (that Jesus was demonic and his followers would be the destruction of the Jewish religion) with which the devil deceived him.

The light set Paul free to become the Jesus follower who wrote a large portion of the New Testament. 

He was salty and lit-up!

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I want Your kind of light—that blinds, but heals. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.   

Christ’s light can blind me—It can also heal me!

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They Could Say the Same About You

SEPTEMBER 3

MATTHEW 7:1_Judge not…

Jesus says plainly not to judge. It is one of the Sermon on the Mount principles. All salty-lit-up disciples would call this a good principle and agree it is wrong to judge others. No one wants to be judged.  

More times than not when you say “Don’t judge me,” you judged the person you accused of being judgmental. You just judged someone by your standard of judgment when you called them judgmental. They could say the same about you.

Romans 2:1-3 (KJV), “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. 2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.3 And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?”

There just isn’t any place for Christians to judge each other, or to judge unbelievers. God is the judge according to Psalm 75:7 (KJV), “But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and setteth up another.”

God judges according to what He sees inside a heart, and according to what He knows will bring freedom. 

PRAYER

Holy Father, Help me not to be judgmental of others. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.                            

Christ does not want me to judge others—He helps me!

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Powerful!

SEPTEMBER 2

MATTHEW 7:1_Judge not…

Mercy sakes, if there is any phrase that is overplayed in our time it is, “Don’t judge me!”

Judging was not a part of Jesus’ agenda. John 12:47-48 (KJV), “47And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Judgment was a part of the old covenant. When Jesus taught this sermon He taught Law transformation. He transformed the Law with mercy. Jesus’ presence in the world is how mercy was added. This is how Jesus became the perfect balance of judgment and mercy.

Jesus did not take away judgment, He just added mercy. “48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”

When Jesus went back to heaven He had dramatically changed the world. He did it in a radical salty-lit-up fashion. His disciples should keep that world-changing alive in the same way. So, if Jesus was more mercy than judgment, that’s the life for salty-lit-up disciples.

In the short amount of time Jesus spent on the earth, He affected the world in a way no one ever had.

John 12:19 (KJV), “The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him [Jesus].”

Powerful!

PRAYER

Almighty God, I want to follow Your example of mercy, not judgment. In the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.      

Christ changed the world—He calls me to!