Tag: Jesus Speaks

Leaven

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

       “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God?  It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” (Luke 13: 20-21.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

      What is leaven?  Leaven is a microscopic organism, sometimes known as yeast.   The yeast produces small bubbles of carbon dioxide, which are kneaded through a measure of dough.  When the bread is cooked the micro-organisms are killed, causing the gas bubbles to expand and give the bread its size and soft feel (unleavened bread remains hard and flat.)  Cooking bread without using a leavening agent wasn’t uncommon in the first century, especially among the Jews who were forbidden to eat leavened bread during the Passover week.  So according to Jesus, what do leaven, and the Kingdom of God have in common?  The kingdom of God is something that is hidden away inside of a person’s heart, just as leaven is hidden away and cannot be seen in an unheated loaf of bread.  A tiny bit of leaven will eventually move through an entire loaf until its completely saturated.  Similarly, the kingdom of God often has a small beginning in the heart of every believer; just a little bit of God’s kingdom is enough to eventually saturate the entire heart and life of the person who receives it.

       Today, millions of people around the world use I-phones; many also own Apple Computers.  Given its size, it wouldn’t be difficult to envision that this company was born in some huge office building somewhere, backed by a handful of the most powerful investors on the planet.  We might even think there was a national advertising campaign and literary buzz surrounding the start of Apple Computers.  Although this would be easy to imagine, it would also be incorrect.  Apple Computers was started by two teenagers in a garage (Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.)  Steve’s dad had to clear out the garage, so the boys had enough room to begin manufacturing their first personal computers.  Something that two adolescents began in a home, today spans the entire globe and affects the lives of millions of people.

       Often our understanding of faith is skewed.  We believe that strong faith in the Lord is something that a person just has, and there is no way acquire it.  This is an unfortunate belief.  Faith is not necessarily something that explodes immediately in a person’s life (it can, but not always.)  Faith in Christ can have meager beginnings from which it may grow to affect every area of the believer’s life.  Someone may start by professing a faith in Christ during a bible study, and before they know it, they’ve begun to pray, to serve, and to spread the message.  Eventually a person’s love life, business life, personal life, recreational life, and every other area of their life may be taken over by the Spirit of God.  The Lord wants every area of our lives. This truth can be a scary prospect for a lot of people, and this is why many often harden their hearts and refuse to receive the gospel.  Those who do allow the kingdom of God into their hearts are transformed from the inside out.  Allow God to change you; allow Him to fill every area of your life, and you will know peace, and you will know God.  The areas we hold back from God, are the areas which cause us the most pain; so, let Him invade the areas you struggle with, and you will suffer no longer.

       “Lord Heavenly Father, You are an awesome and amazing God.  We come before You today and we pray that You would continue to grow within us; fill up our hearts and lives completely Lord.  We ask You now to grow, and to enter into the areas that we are holding back from You.  Lord give us more of Your Spirit, more of Your Truth, and increase our faith.  Consume our hearts, our minds, and our lives by the power of Your Holy Spirit.  We love You Lord, we praise You, and we thank You, and we ask and pray all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you!

Daily Bible Reading

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

      ‘Now Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry.  Now when the tempter came to him, he said, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”  But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Mathew 4: 1-4.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

      After being baptized, Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, where Satan tried to tempt and control him through manipulation.  He called into question Jesus’ deity, and appealed to his bodily desires for food.  The Lord replied by quoting a single scripture, saying “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  There are bodily needs and there are spiritual needs; the stomach requires food, but the heart (spirit) requires the word of God.

      Some years ago, I had been ministering to a woman who was almost spiritually dead.  She couldn’t stop doing drugs but continued to profess her faith in God.  When asked if she was reading the bible every day, she replied, “No.”  Oddly enough, when told that daily bible reading would bring about a transformation in her life, she didn’t seem to believe what I was saying.  When asked what had occurred when she did practice daily bible reading in the past, she roughly replied, “I would read it for a while, and then my life would get better, and then I’d stop reading it, and I’d go out and revert back to my old ways.”  She, like many others had failed to understand the truth of what is revealed in this scripture; that the spirit needs to be fed with the bible every day; not two days a week, or one week out of a month, but daily.  The spirit controls the body, and when the sprit is starved, it becomes weak; permitting the fleshly desires take control.  Human beings are then guided by their immediate appetites for food, for sex, for drugs and alcohol, etc.  Regaining control simply requires an adequate dose of daily bible reading.

      Today, we all need to be feeding ourselves with the word of God.  How much time does it take to read a proverb, or to go through a portion of scripture?  Every day we spend a half an hour or more eating food; does opening the bible for ten minutes and consuming the word of God seem too difficult?  Give God’s word a chance in your life.  Make it a part of who you are, and you will find a strength to overcome and endure anything that may come your way.

      “Lord Heavenly Father, we come before You today and we ask and pray that You would give us a hunger for Your word.   Give us a desire to feed our spirits with Your divine power.  Provide for us new insights as we read, that we might be excited by every new truth we uncover.  We love you Father, we praise You, and we thank You; and we ask and pray all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen!”  God bless all of you.

Priorities

~ servantone1

JESUS SPEAKING

      Jesus had just finished speaking to a rich man who had come to ask him a question; “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  The rich man claimed he had been faithful in keeping each of the ten commandments; still, Jesus told him he lacked one thing; he needed to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor; only then could he come and follow The Lord.  This proposition was too much for the rich man to concede; causing him to leave under a cloud of sadness.  The scripture below is what followed.  Then Peter said, “See, we have left all and followed you.”  So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom  of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18: 29.)

INSPIRED THOUGHTS

      Peter draws attention to the fact that he and his fellow believers had left everything to follow Jesus.  Jesus responded by promising to replace what they had sacrificed, but in even greater abundance.  And yet there was one stipulation placed upon the rewards; just giving things up wasn’t enough; the sacrifices had to be made for the sake of the kingdom of God.  Jesus also identifies two kinds of rewards; those provided for them in the present time; during their lives upon the earth; and the rewards coming to them after their deaths (eternal life with God.)

      Jesus presents us with a list of things that people commonly put before God.  Some who were called, refused to sell their homes and go out into the ministry field with Jesus; their homes were the most important thing in their lives; for some it was their parents; for some, their brothers; for some, their wives, and for still others, it was their children.  Life is full of priorities; and everyone has something in the top spot; and whatever is in that top spot set’s the limitations on every other valuable thing.  Without fail, everyone serves the number one priority in their lives.  [I once asked a man who claimed to be a believe in Jesus, how much time he spent brushing his teeth in the morning and the evening.  Apparently, his daily tooth care comprised about 4-5 minutes.  Then I asked him how much time he spent reading the bible; his response was “0.”  I said, “Then it’s safe to say, that in your life, your teeth are more important than God?”  Without coercion, he recognized the truthfulness of my statement.  A person who spends a lifetime putting God off will, in the end, be put off by God.

      Today, in our daily lives, God must come first.  He has too become the number one priority, and everything must come in second.  Yes, sacrifices are necessary to make this happen.  Selling all our possessions is not necessarily what he is asking us to do; but he is asking us to put Him ahead of those possessions.  If a man puts wealth into the place where God should be, he has too sacrifice his love for money; choosing instead, to replace it with a love for God.  And yet, not everyone has placed wealth above God.  Many have placed family, loved ones, children, time, possessions, freedom, recreation, sleep, drugs or alcohol, a job, a car, a house, land, education, etc.  We can place God first if we are willing to release our grip on whatever it is we’re serving; only then can we truly serve Him.

  “Lord Heavenly Father, help us to sacrifice those things that are preventing us from serving you.  Give us the strength to place You first; and may we not be afraid to make changes in our lives.  Please be the number one priority in our hearts; be the thing we love the most.  We love You Father, and we look forward to Your coming Kingdom.  We praise You, we thank You, and we love You, and we ask all of these things, according to Your will, in Jesus Christ’s name.  Amen.”  God bless all of you!