Tag Archive | Jesus

Matthew 5 – Salt and Light

Mar8

Good morning y’all. Today I’m looking at  Matthew 5. There is so much to learn from this chapter but i’m going to focus on verse 13 -16.

Be blessed 🙂
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“You are the salt for everyone on earth. But if salt no longer tastes like salt, how can it make food salty? All it is good for is to be thrown out and walked on.    You are the light for the whole world. A city built on top of a hill cannot be hidden,  and no one lights a lamp and puts it under a clay pot. Instead, it is placed on a lampstand, where it can give light to everyone in the house.  Make your light shine, so others will see the good you do and will praise your Father in heaven”. (Matthew 5:13-16 CEVUS06)

Here, Jesus is saying we are the salt of the earth and light of the world.

Salt adds flavour and makes things taste better.

Light brings illumination where there was once darkness.

Bringing this home to our christian walk, we are called to add flavour here on earth and to bring illumination to the darkness around us in the world. There is so much darkness it’s unbelievable. We are not meant to add to the darkness, rather we are meant to bring light.

Question is are we truly loving up to this expectation from God? Do we act as salt and light everywhere we go? In our place of work or school, can people detect that we are children of God? When we go somewhere do people say after we’ve left of how we’ve made their lives better; how we have impacted them for good?

This was what Jesus lived for. Everywhere He went scripture says He was doing good.  People saw the love of the Father in Him. Even the disciples of old,  people recognised them as followers of Christ by the life they lived and how they conducted themselves both in speech and action.

Our lives should truly reflect that of our heavenly Father. People should see the love of Jesus reflected in us and that love should draw them to God. I once heard a pastor say “your lifestyle can either attract people to God or repel them from God”. I pray we are attractors and not repellants.

Some of us started out as salts and lights but somehwere along the line, we have lost our saltiness and light. I realised that the only way we can keep the saltiness and light, is to remain in constant fellowship with the Holy spirit. Completely yielding to him and offering the members of our body as instruments unto righteousness. Time with the Holy Spirit will produce the fruits of the spirit in us.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (Galatians 5:22-23 NLT)

“Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives”. (Galatians 5:25 NLT)

If we fail to walk with the Holy Spirit, we will loose our saltiness and light. We would be of no use but to be cast away. This sort of reminds me of the scripture that says any tree that doesn’t bear fruit will be cut away.

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me”. (John 15:4 NLT)

“Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned”. (John 15:6 NLT)

Let’s do a honest check today and make the words of Psalm 139: 23-24 our prayer.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. (Psalms 139:23-24 NLT)

Have a blessed Sunday 🙂

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

Matthew 1- God who Saves and God With Us

Mar2

Good evening y’all. Today we start our study of Matthew. We will be looking at Chapter 1 today.

Be blessed 🙂

Matthew 1:1-17

In the first 17 chapters we are introduced to Jesus’ Ancestors.

Two lessons I learnt from those verses that I would like to share-

1) God is a promise keeping God. He made a promise in Isaiah 11:1 and Isaiah 9:7 that the saviour would come from David’s royal line. Verse 1-16 confirms this. Jesus in human form, was a descendant of David.

This tells me that God doesn’t lie. He watches over His word to fulfil it. Whatever He has said, He surely will do. God cannot deny Himself. Be encouraged 🙂

“God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”(Numbers 23:19 NLT)

“If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is”.(2 Timothy 2:13 NLT)

2) God is gracious and merciful. I look at some of the names mentioned and I’m thinking how did they make it to this hall of fame. These were people that one would least expect to see in the lineage of Jesus. I look at Rahab, her beginning was very bad but in the end God saved her and included her in the lineage of His son. I look at Ruth, she was a foreigner. Wasn’t even meant to enjoy the blessings of God seeing as she wasn’t an Israelite, yet God extended His grace and mercy to her and now we see her included in this beautiful genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This tells me that no one is beyond redemption. No matter how bad your beginning may be, when you surrender to God and let him have His way, He can turn your life around and use you for His glory.

Matthew 1: 18 – 25

Here, we are told how Jesus was conceived. This tallies with the prophecy that was given earlier in the old testatment in Isaiah 7:14

“All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’)”. (Isaiah 7:14 NLT)

Joseph finds out that his fiance is pregnant and not by him. I was particularly struck by how he handled the situation.

Joseph didn’t act in a rash or spiteful manner towards her instead he was looking to cover her shame. He didn’t want her to be disgraced. That’s true love in action. Love doesn’t look to hurt or disgrace others. He acted in wisdom.

“The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced”. (Matthew 1:18-19 MSG)

Also, Josephs calm approach made it possible for him to get a direct message from God regards that which troubled him and immediately his anxiety was gone. All we need is a word from God and all our fears, troubles and anxieties will disappear. But we are too busy worrying and trying to solve the issue with our human mind that we can’t even hear God when He is speaking and trying to tell us what to do.

Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust in God.

“Trust in the lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take”. (Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT)

Joseph was told to name the baby Jesus.
Jesus means saviour. He is the one who saves us. Whatever situation you are in now, know that you have a saviour in Jesus. All you need to do is call on Him, and He promises to answer. 

Let’s ponder on the greatness and power of our God. This great awesome God chose to come down in Human form and dwell with us. We see him experience life just like we do yet He never sinned showing us that He is God. The God who Saves and God With Us

Thanks for joining today.

I am blogging through the bible with Good morning girls. Check us out at http://www.goodmorninggirls.org.

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