Old Jerry

I think that the things that besmirches God’s name is our everyday use of the word. We use the word when we are surprised, when we cuss, and to help us add an explanation point to whatever we say. We should “hallow” the Father when we begin to pray by kneeling down to Him, or bowing to Him, or raising our hands to Him. Anything to show Him how much we reverence his name.

Yes, Jesus does require us to obey him. There can’t be a true Christian who believes, but does not obey. Jesus gave us salvation because it was a gift and we did not have to work for it all we have to do is accept it. But saying that, because we know that we have been saved we want to do what Jesus commands us to do. That is the heart of a true Christian.

It is possible to be deceived by going to church and helping in the church but that isn’t the only thing that God wants us to be doing. He want us to be proclaiming his word and to go out into the community and help our there also. I guess that it might be possible to prophesy, drive out demons, and perform miracles in Jesus’ name if you are doing it for the wrong reason. If you doing it for yourself gratification then that is for the wrong reason.

I think that some of the kinds of “fruit” that might be a clue to a false prophet is seeing a person trying to draw others to themselves and not helping others. They will try to take control of every situation and be talking against the leadership of the church.

I believe that the gate is narrow and the road to life is narrow and the changes that I made was to follow Jesus. This means that I have put away all the bad language that I use to speak and that I help others whenever I can. I study the Bible so I can find the narrow road. I have never accepted Universalism because the Bible tells me the way to heaven.

The law and the prophets all talk about how we should respect others. If we would respect others then I don’t think that we would have the problems that we have today. The summary of the law and the prophets in Matthew 22 are the same because we are to love the Lord with all our heart and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That is saying the same thing as the Golden Rule.

These verses teach us that God loves us very much. He loves us more than we could ever love our children. We are children of God and when we ask him for something we will get an answer and it will be in our best interest. If we understand that God has our back then we have the most powerful force in the universe with us.

The lesson that is taught by both the Parables of the Friend at Midnight and the Widow and Unjust Judge is that if we are persistent in prayer that God will give us what we need. That doesn’t mean that He will give us everything that we want. These parables relate directly to “ask,” “seek,” and “knock” because the parables are telling us to prayer continually.

The things that the words “ask,” “seek,” and “knock” have in common is that they are all looking for something. The thing that distinguishes them from each other the action that is required to perform them. The significance of the present, continuous, imperative tenses is that we are to keep on doing the action that is required to accomplish the task.

In Jesus’ day dogs and pigs were not clean. The thing that holy food and pearls have in common was that they were both cherished. The circumstances that believers may turn away from a continued sharing of the gospel is when the people continually reject the truth. The ones that we should continue to witness to are those that are ready to listen to the gospel.

The parable is humorous because it is taking the small and comparing to the biggest thing that he could compare it to. I think that Jesus compares the speck of sawdust with a plank because he wanted the listener to look very carefully at is life and make sure that he wasn’t doing the same thing but in a much greater deed. The plank represents what is happening our life that we are to think about. In this parable we can remove the speck form the other eye examined our own lives.

If we measure out big heaps of judgment with a critical spirit that same judgment will be measured out to us. According to Luke’s account what we measure out to give generously that same giving measurement will extended to a greater gift then we had expected. We should measure out the great things of this world and not the judgmental.

I have caught myself severely criticizing other Christians behind their backs but mostly in my mind. The attitude that underlined by censoriousness was the legalistic teaching that I had at the time. If the other person wasn’t doing what I thought they should be doing then they were sinning. We Christians must show live in the face of our brother’s or sister’s failing because more than likely they know that they are failing and they deed our support to help them recover.

There is humor intended in verse 34 but the point of the joke is that we don’t need to worry about what tomorrow is going to bring. There is nothing that we can do about it anyway. So the command is to take care of today and tomorrow He will help you take care that also.

We are to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. We are to be looking to God for everything. If we do what He has asked us to do then He will take care of all our needs. We don’t need to be hording or trying to accumulate a lot of wealth. If we are keeping Him first the He will take care of us. The promise in this verse is that all these things will be given to us as well.

The emotional and faith effect that the phrase “your heavenly Father knows that you need them”, makes me able to do the things that He wants me to be doing. I don’t have to worry about tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t plan for tomorrow it just means I don’t have to worry about it.

I think that it is four times that the passage used the phrase “do not worry”. The way that excessive worry is a sin is that it keeps your mind occupied and there is nothing that we can do about it anyway. Anyway worry and trust are exactly opposites.

The point that Jesus is making with the twin Parables of the Birds of the air and the Flowers of the Field is that we don’t have to worry about the cares of this world. He will take care of us if we just listen to Him. This point is valid of we don’t take it so far that we don’t do our part in obtaining this things.

I can remember a time when I deceived about this but I can’t remember when the light came on and I repented of my ways. It was in one of the churches that I attended that brought the light to me. But since I don’t keep money as my number one priority and have put God in charge a lot of things have changed in my life.

I don’t think that Jesus is saying that we can’t seek wealth and God simultaneously. He is saying that if we start to trust in our money then it will be our God. But if we are generous with the money that He has entrusted to us and put God first then we can seek both. Wealthy people can serve God if they choose to.

We “store up treasures in heaven” by doing good deeds and by giving to the needy and by staying in touch with God. The advantage of storing up treasures in heaven is that we get to take it with us. All earthly possessions are left behind. I think that the reason that we are uncomfortable with rewards in heaven is that sometimes we think of it as being able to saves ourselves. This has nothing to do about salvation it has all to do with rewards once we get there.

Jesus is speaking figuratively because He is saying that we should be keeping God first in our lives. We are the right attitude about God then we should be storing up things that we need to depend on to live. This saying is an old saying

Jesus condemn him because he was rich and he didn’t want to share it. He had his heart set on the goods that he had and didn’t want to depart from them. The key verse in passage is 21 which tells him that this is the way it will be for those who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. The context of this parable is that we need to be rich toward God.

We must continually ask forgiveness because we have usually sinned. We do consciously and unconsciously. I know that there isn’t a day that I haven’t sinned. But if we don’t forgive others their minor sins then God can’t forgive us our major sins. Usually if a person has sinned against you then they have probably sinned against God so we must forgive them. If we have not forgiven them, then it is always on our conscious and therefore block God’s forgiveness.

We think that it a weakness if we can’t be independent and have to ask somebody else for help. We seek to be independent of God because of our arrogance. We don’t want to ask anybody for anything. We should always be asking God for our daily bread so that we will be able to earn a living for ourselves.