CONFESSING CHRIST
Matthew 10:32-33
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
Personal Challenge
This can be a fairly stark passage focus to read. It is one thing to proclaim that we are a Christian and happily go to church on a somewhat regular basis. However, what are we doing in our lives that confess Jesus Christ as our Lord? Are we being kind to those whom we come in contact with? Does that kindness extend to those who have differing political, social, or lifestyle opinions than us? Are we helping those around us who are in need? Are we demonstrating in our actions the love of Christ? If our lives are not screaming that Jesus Christ is our Lord without ever saying a word, then the second half of this passage should be troubling for us. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
Numbers 12:3
(Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men on the face of the earth.)
Encouraging Words
In our society it is considered a bad thing to be recognized as a meek person. However, God praises, and even rewards, the meek. It is in the process of being meek, or humble, that God can do His great work in our lives. Glory be to God!
DO NOT FEAR DEATH
Matthew 10:28
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Personal Challenge
It can be so easy to get our focus stuck on the things going on around us and start fearing that everything is going bad. Our God promises that He will take care of us. He will be there to meet our needs. He will be the one to receive us into His arms when we enter eternity. If we put our hope in Him then we have nothing to fear. Glory be to God!
BLESSING
Numbers 6:24-26
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be merciful to you;
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Encouraging Words
As Moses was being tasked with setting up the priesthood for the people of Israel and passing on to Aaron all that God had given him in the instructions, this passage was given as the priestly blessing that the priests were supposed to say over their flock every time they came together. God wants to bless us and wants us to bless each other. Glory be to God!
HARVEST TIME
Matthew 9:36-38
But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
Personal Challenge
A very important question that every church should be asking themselves is are they inward focused or outward focused. Jesus made it clear to His disciples that there are so many people that do not know Him and that they, as well as we, must be reaching out to those who are lost. This means that we take our eyes off of our worship services and our traditions and making them the core of our focus, and look outside our comfortable places to those who need to see and experience the love of Christ. We must be that expression of love. We must be reaching out to those who have come and gone from our flock to make sure that they are okay. We need to be working with those in need showing them the love of Christ. We need to be outward focused. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
OUR GOD
Leviticus 26:12
I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
Encouraging Words
Throughout the history of mankind, our relationship with God has been a relationship of intimacy. Even when we go of the rails and seek other gods, He has remained faithful. He does not want to be distant and removed from His children. He desires to walk with us, talk with us, hold us in His arms when we are hurting, and guide us on our journey through this temporal life. Our part of this relationship is to be obedient to Him. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!
THEY RIDICULED HIM
Matthew 9:24
He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him.
Personal Challenge
Have you ever been in a situation where you are criticized and ridiculed for your belief in Christ and your trust in God? I have. It is not enjoyable, but it is to be expected. The more that we strive to be like Christ, to walk in His footsteps, hold true to His teachings, then the more resistance we will encounter, the more we will be ridiculed. Sometimes this ridicule comes from people within our own Christian circle, people that we have worshipped and served with. Even Jesus received this behavior, so why should we expect anything different? Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
TOO MUCH
Exodus 36:3-5
They received from Moses all the offerings the children of Israel brought for all the works for making the holy place, and they continued bringing him freewill offerings every morning. Then all the wise men who were doing all the work of the holy place came, each according to the work he was doing, and they spoke to Moses, saying, “The people bring much more than enough for the work the Lord commanded us to do.”
Encouraging Words
God has a will and He created each of us with a will. He gave us freewill so that our choice to love Him and follow him would not be forced. When we choose to align our will with His, great things will happen. In this case, those building God's temple had to proclaim that the offerings needed to stop because they had too much already. We need to constantly seek God's will and be willing too adjust ours to align with His. Glory be to God!
COLLECTIVE FAITH
Matthew 9:2
Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”
Personal Challenge
What have we done to the Christianity that Jesus and His disciples spread throughout the world 2,000 years ago. Here in the USA, we have made it in the image of ourselves, rugged, independent, and standalone. Throughout many of the miracles that Jesus performed in the healing if the infirm, we see the power of the faith of others contributing to the healing process. We need each other. We need a Christian community that is striving for theosis or deification, becoming in the image of Christ. We cannot do it alone. We cannot do if by focusing on the rubrics, or the traditions, or the number of services that we are participating in. All of these things are external and informative about the church and God. We must be focusing on Christ, being like him, doing what he is asking us to do. Only this way will our churches become transformative and changing us into the image of Christ. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!
Saint of the Week
St. Gabriel (Urgebadze)
A JEALOUS GOD
Exodus 34:14
(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord God, a jealous name, is a jealous God),
Personal Challenge
This is one of those challenging verses that we find in the Old Testament. Isn't jealousy a passion? Aren't the passions what cause us to sin? God loves His children so much. He entered into multiple covenants in the Old Testament. He always wanted to protect them, and us, from those things in the world that will pull us from Him and into painful situations. As any loving father, He is jealous for the protection of His children. He knows the pain that will occur by worshipping false Gods and strives to keep us true to Him, for our own good. So, what are the false God's that we are worshipping today? Our possessions? Our political party? Anything that causes us to take our eyes off of God, is another god. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy!
CALMING THE STORMS
Matthew 8:23-27
Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
Personal Challenge
Sometimes I must ask myself, "Do I really trust Jesus?" He is always present in our lives. Sometimes it feels like He is napping over in the corner, but He is still present. The question is never whether or not He can calm the storms in our lives. It is whether or not I believe He can. If he was sleeping in the boat during the midst of the storm, He must have been confident that nothing was going to happen to Him or His disciples. It is my faith in the stormy times that weakens, not His ability to be the Lord over the storm. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on my the sinner!
A SPECIAL PEOPLE
Exodus 19:5-6
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be a special people to Me above all nations; for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a royal priesthood and a holy nation.’ These are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel.
Encouraging Words
Whenever God enters into a covenant, He designates the other party as special and set apart in His sight. He did that in this accounting of his covenant with Moses and the nation of Israel. He continued to do this throughout the old testament as He confirmed His covenant through His prophets and kings. He established a new covenant through Jesus, one that goes through the remainder of eternity. What is our part of His covenant, if we choose to be a part of it? We are to obey His voice and keep His covenant. In this new covenant, our responsibility, our covenant with him, is if we want to be called His children, then we must love Him above all, even life itself, and to love our neighbor above ourselves. These two actions are the fruit which our commitment to Him will be measured by. Lord, have merry! Lord, here mercy! Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner!
Saint of the Week
St. John Chrysostom
SYNERGY WITH GOD
Matthew 8:13
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.
Encouraging Words
Too many who profess to be Christians look to God to be their vending machine in the sky. Put a prayer in the slot and out comes whatever we asked for. God's activity in our lives is based upon our willingness to work synergistically with Him. As He tells the centurion in this passage, the level healing of the centurion's servant is commensurate with the level of the centurion's faith in what God can and will do. God wants us to be working with Him, not just asking Him to take care of our wants and needs. Glory be to God!
POWER AND WISDOM
1 Corinthians 1:22-24
For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Personal Challenge
Power and wisdom are two things that mankind has been pursuing ever since Adam and Eve chose to eat of the forbidden fruit. The end results of this pursuit are always the same, separation from God. Christ left behind the glory and power of heaven in order to become a man. He lived a lowly life instead of some princely life in order to humble himself for us. He died on a cross in order to defeat death. It is no wonder that so many see His life as a stumbling block and foolishness. It is through Him and His actions that we can find life. It is through life in Him that we receive power and wisdom to be His disciples. Glory be to God!
MY GOD, MY FATHER'S GOD
Exodus 15:2
The Lord became my helper and the shield of my salvation;
He is my God, and I will glorify Him;
My father's God, and I will exalt Him.
Encouraging Words
It is indeed encouraging to be able to look back on my life and my relationship to my God and recognize that my God is also my father's God. To have been raised in a family who loved God passionately and attempted to pass that love on to the next generations is indeed an honor and something to be thankful for. It does not have to mean that we worship our God the same way but that we all still worship God. It is my desire that someday my children and their children will be able to look back and proclaim this same thing and project their worship of our God, our helper and the shield of our salvation. Glory be to God,
NO SORROW, NO ENVY, NO ANGER
Sirach 30:21-24
Do not give yourself over to sorrow,
And do not distress yourself deliberately.
Gladness of the heart is the life of man,
And rejoicing by a man lengthens his life.
Love your soul and comfort your heart,
And put sorrow far away from you;
For sorrow has destroyed many,
And there is no profit in it.
Envy and anger will shorten your days,
And worry will bring premature old age.
Personal Challenge
Life is comprised of choices. Every thing we do or don't do, every where we go or don't go, ever thing, is boiled down to a choice. Even if something is thrown at us that is completely out of our control, we still must make a choice of how we will deal with this. Sirach points out some very important, life changing, things that we have a choice to make about. There will always be things in our lives that cause sorrow, but we must choose to not give ourselves over to that sorrow. We must choose to not deliberately distress ourselves for there is enough stress in the world already. We must choose to put sorrow away from us, to run from envy and anger, and to not let worry shorten our lives. Doing this will give us a much better life. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Level, have mercy!
DOING, NOT JUST HEARING
Matthew 7:24-25
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
Personal Challenge
Salvation is a process and not just a one time event. I know that there are many who will argue this point with me but that is fine. Jesus Christ gives us our salvation through His works of incarnation, sinless life, death and resurrection. Our faith in Him begins the journey of our salvation process, often called sanctification. As Jesus, Himself, proclaims in this passage, as well as many others, we must not stop at proclaiming Him as our Lord, but do what He tells us to do. We are to build upon that faith by doing His works.The core essence of His work is to love God and love our neighbor. The love your neighbor part is the one that is getting so abused by those who are proclaiming to be Christians. Who is my neighbor? Republicans! Democrats! Independents! Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and the rest of the current and former elected officials. Immigrants and those who have been born in this country. Those who are gay, straight, married, unmarried, you name it. And the list goes on and on. My neighbor is anyone and everyone who breathes air and has a heartbeat. We may not agree with what the believe or do, but we are still to love them as people created in the image of God. We CANNOT proclaim to be Christians in one breath and then spew hateful conspiracy theories and other harmful rhetoric in the next. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have master! Lord, have mercy!
Saint of the Week
St. Paisios
Saint of the Week
St. Macarius the Great
CHANGE OF HEART
Exodus 8:11
But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, his heart was hardened; and he did not heed them, as the Lord said.
Personal Challenge
We all have difficult times that surface in our lives. Often we will turn to God and make promises to Him that our behavior will change if He will just help us with our difficulty, one more time. We pray more. We go to more church services. We even read the scriptures. Then, when God responds and starts helping us through the challenge, our hearts change, they harden, and we renege on our deal with God. God wants us to be true to Him all the time, for He is true to us all the time. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
THE WILL OF THE FATHER
Matthew 7:21
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Personal Challenge
One of the institutions that Jesus was in conflict with was the church itself. Between the sadducees and the pharisees, the pomp and ceremony of the church became more important than the people within the church. Jesus makes it clear that many people who proclaim the name of the Lord, do not actually know Him and are therefore at risk of not entering the kingdom of God. What God wants is for us to be obedient to him, not putting on a show for him. Are we loving him and doing what He desires of us? Are we feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the widows and the orphans amongst us? Are we pursuing the lost sheep and leaving the 99 to take care of themselves while we bring the lost one home? God wants us to be Christians all the time and not just talk about being Christians. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
