Tag Archive | Pharisees

Acts 15 – is it all a show ?

Sep26

Good morning y’all. Today we are studying acts 15.

Be blessed 🙂

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I was particularly interested in verse 8. God knows people’s hearts. Nothing is hidden from Him. We can pretend and lie to man and ourselves but we can’t pretend to God. Bible says in Hebrews 4:13 that nothing is hidden from God….

The psalmist hit the nail on the head in Psalm 139 when he said there is no where to hide from God.

God sees our motives and knows when we are genuine or not. He won’t accept any form of lip service or show from us and that’s why in the book of John, He (Jesus) tells us that the father seeks those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.

The Pharisees in our chapter today where focusing on the outward righteousness. To them they believed the gentiles can’t be christians unless they have fulfilled all the religious rites. Not that the Pharisees in question where doing the rites anyway to please God. They were doing it more for a show off, for people to see them and think they are all that and very holy people. No wonder Jesus gave them a good telling off in Matthew 15:2-9

“Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.” Jesus replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?  You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ ” (Matthew 15:2-3, 7-9 NLT )

They tried to get the Gentile to also focus on the outward. They wanted to put the burden of the law upon them.

God is not all about you spending time on the outward. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying we shouldn’t observe whatever outward ritual but the key thing is the intent of our heart. What’s our motive when we get on the stage to sing? What’s our motive when we serve at church, when we are present at every activity? Are we doing it so we can get the praise of men, so they can see us and be like, ‘Wow! She’s on fire for God!’ If that’s why we do what we do, then we need to go back to God and repent.

Paul nicely and politely put them back in their place. He explained to them (in verses 8 – 11) that the gentiles had a genuine love for God and God approved them by filling them with the Holy Spirit. This qualifies them!!!

“God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts of the Apostles 15:8-11 NLT )

That’s the goal of the law to put a burden on the people. Thank God we are saved by grace and not by the law. The law in its own doesn’t have power to save us. If it could, then there would have been no reason for Jesus.

I pray God will remove every idol from our lives that’s standing in our way of giving him true worship, in Jesus’ Name. Amen

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed weekend 🙂

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

Matthew 21 – Words & Actions

Mar30

Good morning y’all. Happy Monday 🙂 .

Today we are studying Matthew 21. A lot to glean from this chapter but I will be focusing on verses 28 – 32

Be blessed 🙂

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“Jesus said: I will tell you a story about a man who had two sons. Then you can tell me what you think. The father went to the older son and said, “Go work in the vineyard today!” His son told him he would not do it, but later he changed his mind and went. The man then told his younger son to go work in the vineyard. The boy said he would, but he didn’t go. Which one of the sons obeyed his father? “The older one,” the chief priests and leaders answered. Then Jesus told them: You can be sure tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you ever will!  When John the Baptist showed you how to do right, you would not believe him. But these evil people did believe. And even when you saw what they did, you still would not change your minds and believe”. (Matthew 21:28-32 CEVUS06)

It’s not what we say but what we do that matters. In this parable, we see the first son say no, but eventually went ahead and did the right thing. He had a change of heart. So even though he started out wrongly by refusing to obey his father, eventually he did the right thing and obeyed. On the other hand, we have the second son who said yes, but actually didn’t do anything. There was no commitment or action to his confession. He just said yes perhaps because He felt it was what his father wanted to hear or said yes to make himself look good and better than the first son, but truly he had no intention of obeying his father.

A lot of us are like the second son. We are so religious that we have forgotten the main thing which is to serve God with all our heart and mind and soul. We are so use to our religious way of life that we just say things so as to look righteous but truly and deeply we are not living in obedience to God. Outwardly it may seem that way to people, but when God checks our heart, He sees our actions are far from the words we profess.

Jesus said in verse 31 – 32 that the prostitutes and tax collector will make heaven before the religious people do. Why? because those ones realised their sinful state and repented. They turned from their evil ways and started doing the right thing but the religious ones are fooled and believe that because they are making the right confession with their mouth, they are saved and don’t have to do any work. God is not moved by our words, it’s our actions and the intent of our heart that He is after.

Jeremiah 17:10 and 1 Samuel 16:7b says:

“But I, the lord , search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” (NLT)

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”(NIV)

It’s time to stop deceiving ourselves and start doing the right thing. Let’s truly seek Jesus, not just with our words but with our actions. Let our lives truly reflect Him.

Verse 43 says the kingdom will be taken away from those who reject who do not live in obedience to God.

“I tell you God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands”.(Matthew 21:43 CEVUS06)

Don’t let’s harden our hearts to God but lets obey him and repent from our disobedient ways so that we don’t miss out on what He has for us and we dont loose His kingdom.

Prayer:
Dear Lord thank you for today. Thank you for the priviledge to learn from you. We ask for forgiveness for all the ways we have disobeyed you. We ask you give us the grace to truly serve and obey you with our hearts, mind and soul. May our words and actions be pleasing to you. Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name we prayed. Amen.

Thanks for joining today. I believe you have been blessed 🙂

I’m blogging through the bible with Good Morning girls. Check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org

Have a blessed day 🙂

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