Seek First The Kingdom of God and His Righteousness

  Who are you following?     Who should you be following?   In our present day of social media followers are very important.  The term social media influencer has been coined to signify those people who have a large number of followers.  People are able to make money now off of their social media if they have a large enough number of followers. Almost every YouTube video someone puts out is asking you to like it and hit the subscribe/follow button.  Be honest, have you watched someone’s video or checked out their social media because they had a large number of followers?  Have you ever bought something or tried something out because the influencer had it posted about it and so many of their followers bought it or tried it?   So as Christians how important is it to have followers?  Who are we following?  Who should we be following?   1 Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me, just as I also  imitate  Christ.   Imitate- To follow in manners; to copy in form, color or quality. We imitate another in d

  Why we need each other as Christians. Hebrews 10:25 is most often used, by preachers, as a way to get people to church on Sunday morning. The meaning is so much more than coming to a church service. Just back up one verse and read 24 and 25 together. Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. The emphasis is on us to be loving others. To stir them up, encourage them and we best do this by make sure that we are getting together. The assembling of ourselves is speaking of anywhere and at any time. Really, we should be looking for opportunities every day in how we can get together with other believers. Our heart should be how can I love someone else today and how can I stir them up to love and good works. It is about relationship. Sadly today, in the church, we have turned

  God’s Love Is Action 1 John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Check it out. To know love is not about a feeling or emotion but an action. Jesus laying down His life for us. Knowing this love we should lay down our lives for each other. (This means more than dying for someone else. Keep reading) 1 John 3:17 But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? 1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. If we are in Christ then we are in His love. If Christ is in us then His love is in us. If we walk in the Spirit and are filled with the Spirit we are then full of love because the fruit of the Spirit is love. Galatians 5:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, Galatians 5:23 gentleness, self-control. Agai

  Guilt and Shame   A brother in the Lord reminded me of this today.  That the Roman’s in crucifying people it wasn’t just about physically killing them but also it was in shaming them as they died.  Contrary to the pictures of Jesus on the cross that most of us have seen there was nothing covering Jesus’s privates.  He hung naked on the cross.  The cross was a place for the guilty to suffer, die and be shamed.     Think on this: Jesus was made guilty. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.   Jesus was made to suffer. 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,   Jesus was shamed. Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne o

  Increase and decrease   John 3:30 He must increase, but I  must  decrease.   This morning the Lord gave me a greater understanding of this verse.  As He increases in our life so all the negative things in our lives that do us no good decrease and even go.  Think about it. As He increases in our life: Anxiety decreases Fear decreases Sin decreases Doubt decreases Hate decreases Anger decrease …. Actually, if we allow Him to increase not only will those negative things decrease but they will be driven out completely from our lives.  They become crucified and it becomes no longer we with all our junk that lives but He with all of His victory, healing and freedom that lives in us.   That is the other beautiful thing about being in Jesus and Him increasing.  When we die to ourselves and it becomes Him living in us and giving us life we get to increase as well in all the good stuff.  We get to increase in faith, hope and love and all that sprout out of these three because it is no longer o

  Borrowed from my friend Sebastian Mathews . One of the best explanations of grace and law and how they apply to believers and unbelievers and what they manifest in their lives. Law and Grace For unbelievers, following the law makes them sin less (which is why we have a constitution and rules and regulations and speed limits in this great country, it's a blessing so that the 80% of Americans who are not saved won't kill themselves and also so they leave the 20% of Christians, 1 in 5, in peace). For unbelievers, following grace makes them sin more because it's a license to sin. For when we were unbelievers, unrighteousness was our natural state and it was tough not to sin. We were always eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But for Christians, its the exact opposite. Heb 8:7, Rom 10:3. We are not under the dispensation of law but under the dispensation of grace. We have changed trees, back to the tree of life. For us, following the law makes us sin more and

Today’s Valentines Day.  For some this is a wonderful day, for some it is a horrible day and for the rest it is just another day.  The word love, in English, is so limited because it can mean so many different things and can be so abused.  We often define love by the experience that we received from those who used that word.  Many people’s definition of love has been abuse, abandonment, and mistreatment.   That is why it is so important that Christians understand love in its highest form, God’s love the agape, for themselves and for others.  Agape is not a human based or originated love it is God’s love and can ONLY be known by receiving it from Him.      Ephesians 3:17-19 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.   We are to be

  Definition   The definition we use, for example the words we use, makes a difference.  During the time I spent living in various southern states of the US I learned that “Bless your heart” meant something very different than it did in Upstate NY.  In preparing for my upcoming trip to Ireland I have been attempting to learn the difference between words we use here that have a different definition or meaning there.  In Ireland a boot is where someone may put their spare car tire where here it is something I put on my foot.  In Ireland runners are something you put on your feet while here it is people we watch in the marathon.  Definitions and how exactly we define things matter.  Now when it comes to who is right or wrong with their definitions between the Irish and Americans I really don’t care.  Yet when it comes to how God defines things or people and how we define them that is very different.  Sadly, too many people, and too many of them Christians, define themselves, circumstance

  Process   As a Christian have you ever been frustrated with yourself because you are not where you feel or even know where you should be in your walk with Christ?  You know that something needs to be changed from bad to good or, far more often, from good to best but you are just not there.  Especially in the area of faith for healing and finances many of you may have become frustrated because you are not receiving what you have asked for and you are struggling to have the faith to fully trust God in those areas.   We need to understand that growing and learning are both a process.  No one starts out fully grown nor fully having learned everything.  There is a process that we go through in growing and/or learning and everyone does this at a different pace. Stop comparing your speed of growth or learning to someone else’s. Focus on where you are and where God wants YOU to be and the process YOU are in.   Faith is supposed to grow.  If we, properly, see what Jesus says about faith we wi

  The Complete Package   Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.   I heard a story today of a woman’s wedding day.  For most, especially the bride, their wedding day can be one of the most stressful days of one’s life.  Kate’s wedding day didn’t have any stress for her because she and her husband to be had purchased a complete wedding package from the hotel that would be hosting the wedding.  The only thing that Kate and Chris needed to provide was what they were going to wear.  Kate had so much peace that when the wedding photographer came to take the before pictures, he commented that she was the most relaxed bride he had ever seen.   There were some difficulties that came up during the day BUT because they had purchased the COMPLETE PACKAGE they didn’t have to worry because the hotel took care of it.  A balloon that had deflated, it was immediately replaced. Someone was mistakenly seated in the wrong place, no

  Faith in God’s truth doesn’t deny the facts. Faith in God’s truth changes the facts.

  I have been believing for my eyes to be healed so that I no longer need glasses. Since I started wearing glasses all the time back in 1996/97 every eye exam my eyes have been worse and I needed a stronger prescription until today. Today the doctor said that there was no change so no need for a stronger prescription. So healing is happening. First thing is the stopping them forgetting worse. Next is them getting better and better till no need for glasses. Facts are that yes I still need glasses but God’s truth is changing those facts. 1 Peter 2:24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. The healing for my eyes was paid for at the cross.

Faith, Hope, Love   Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. If you live in fear of what people think of you speak this verse over yourself daily. To remind you of The Lord’s thoughts about you are. You really don’t know what other people think about you so stop stressing about that because God has clearly told you exactly what He thinks about you. Hope isn’t wishing for something. Hope is an expectation for what God’s already done and provided for you. Hope is directly connected to faith and love. You can’t truly have one of these without the other two. All three start with God and end with God and all the way in between are with God. Really you can’t know or really experience true faith, true hope or true love apart from God. What the world has apart from God that it calls faith, hope or love is just cheap, worthless imitations.