Archive | March 2015

Matthew 18 – The forgiving heart

Mar25

Hello y’all. Happy midweek 🙂

Today we are looking at Matthew 18.

There is so much to learn from this chapter but I’m gonna focus on a few of the verses that spoke to me as I read the chapter.

Be blessed 🙂

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Verse 3 – 4 :

“Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven”. (Matthew 18: 3- 4 NLT)

Being the greatest in God’s kingdom is all about humility and sincerity of heart. We can’t approach or serve God with pride in our hearts.  Rather we have to approach and serve him with humility. Let’s be careful not to get carried away by earthly status bestowed on us by men. Jesus has specifically told us what will qualify us to be the greatest in His kingdom. We must humble ourselves and be sincere in our walk with Him just like a little child is. 

Verses 8 – 9:

“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away! You would be better off to go into life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the fire that never goes out.  If your eye causes you to sin, poke it out and get rid of it. You would be better off to go into life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fires of hell.(Matthew 18 :8 -9 CEV)

God wants to give us the best of the best but there are distractions along our way that distract us from Him and what He has for us.The enemy doesn’t want us to enter into God’s rest. He will do whatever he can to make sure we are distracted and miss out on what God has for us. John 10:10 tells us His mission – steal and kill and destroy. Therefore according to verses 8 -9, we need to get rid of anything that will stand in the way of God in our lives. I love the way message version puts this.

“If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.(Matthew 18:8-9 MSG)

Let’s examine our lives and get rid of anything that is not pleasing to God and standing in the way of us fully surrendering to Him and letting him have His way. Those things we are clinging to are not worth us losing our souls over.

Verses 21 – 35:
Basically, we need to forgive at all times. The truth is, offence is inevitable. People are bound to hurt us whether intentionally or unintentionally and we probably will do the same as well. We have to be prepared and make up our mind with the help of the Holy Spirit to forgive no matter the offence.

It’s easy to say we have forgiven with our lips but if we are honest with ourselves in our hearts we know we haven’t really forgiven the person. When we see them, we become angry and probably don’t want to have anything to do with them. You know you have truly forgiven when you see the person and it doesn’t stir up any bad emotions in you.

When we choose not to forgive, we give power to those who have offended us and we become prisoners to the offence. Funny thing is, the person who offended us has probably moved on with enjoying life and here we are moody, angry, letting them steal our joy and causing our prayers to go unanswered. No one is worth giving that kind of power to.

Forgiveness is crucial for us as Christians because if we don’t forgive others, God can’t forgive us as well. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray in this manner: “and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us”.(Matthew 6: 12 TLB). Also Unforgiveness hinders our prayer from being answered (Mark 11:25)

Forgiveness could be very difficult but I know that Jesus won’t ask us to do this if it was impossible. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can learn to forgive those who have offended us. He can help us begin to see them through the eyes of Christ and fill us with compassion towards them. It’s possible that the person who offended us is also hurting. I often hear Joyce Meyers say “Hurting People, hurt others”

I pray the Holy Spirit helps us to forgive those who have offended us, and fill us with compassion towards them.

Thanks for joining today.

Have a lovely evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Matthew 17 – Nothing will be impossible to you

Mar24

Good evening y’all. Today we are looking at Matthew 17.

I will be focusing the blog on verse 20

Be Blessed 🙂

We see a situation in verses 14 – 20 where Jesus’s disciples couldn’t heal a boy of his illness. The boy’s parent brought the boy to Jesus and Jesus healed the boy. Later on, His disciples asked why they couldn’t heal the boy and Jesus response to them in verse 20 was astonishing.

“It was because you do not have enough faith,” answered Jesus. “I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, ‘Go from here to there!’ and it will go. You could do anything!” (GNT)

“He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you”. (AMP)

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Faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains and that’s all we need. Jesus said if we have faith that small, nothing will be impossible to us.

To have faith in someone means to put your absolute trust or confidence in them. I believe for this to be possible you must have a relationship or at least know the person you are putting your trust in to some extent.

Perhaps, the reason why we struggle with our faith is because we don’t really know Jesus that well. By this I mean understanding His person and nature. We need to know that it is His will to give us the best (Romans 8: 32); He is a good, kind, compassionate God who delights in us (Psalms 103: 8, Psalms 149:4); He is all powerful (Psalms 62:11) and is able to do what He says He will do (Numbers 23:19 , 2 Tim 2:13).

Our relationship with Jesus will grow when we spend time with Him through prayer and studying His word thereby increasing our Faith in Him. Romans 10:17 tells us faith comes by hearing the word of God. God is His word. John 1:1 says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (ESV). 

“Nothing will be impossible to you”. I am still amazed by this statement. Jesus has given us the key. We just need to have faith that when we ask for anything in His name and according to His will, He will hear us and grant our request.

James 1: 6-8 tells us we must not doubt when we ask God for something but must fully trust and believe that He is able to answer our request.

“But when you ask for something, you must have faith and not doubt. Anyone who doubts is like an ocean wave tossed around in a storm. If you are that kind of person, you can’t make up your mind, and you surely can’t be trusted. So don’t expect the Lord to give you anything at all”. (CEV)

Let’s build up our faith in God and indeed nothing will be impossible to us

Prayer:

Dear Lord, we thank You for today. We thank You for your love towards us. We ask for Your forgiveness for all the times we have doubted You and worried about our problems instead of having faith that you can meet those needs. We ask for the grace to truly trust You and believe in Your ability to meet our needs; no matter how small or big they may seem. We ask you increase our faith in you. Thank you Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

Thanks for joining today

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***