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Q5. (Matthew 19:9) Does a person who has remarried after a divorce that wasn't caused by marital unfaithfulness, live in a perpetual state of adultery? Should that person divorce or separate in order to get back into God's will? How can he or she get back into God's will, or is that no longer possible? I for one certainly hope not with that being one of my many sins but in now way the worst as I see it. I like pastor suggested prayed that the Lord forgive my sin and grant forgiveness for any wrongs that I have committed against others. No, I have found as pastor stated a loving caring devoted,wife in my second marriage and believe she is truly a blessing from God. I thank Him every day for the way she continues to love me in spite of myself, can only be a blessing from God. I believe that it is like any other sin, we must first confess it as sin and then ask the Father to forgive that sin and seek to live a righteous life for Him afterwards.

Q4. (Matthew 19:10) Why do you think Jesus' disciples reacted so negatively to his teaching on marriage and divorce? Did they misunderstand it? They may have misunderstood but I can see where they may have been of the same attitude as the rest of the people wanting that escape hatch. I would think that they may well have had the same hardness of heart.

Q3. (Matthew 19:7-8) According to Jesus, does the Mosaic law command divorce? Does it allow or regulate it? Why does it allow divorce at all? What was God's original intention ("from the beginning") for marriage and divorce, according to Jesus? No, Moses never commanded divorce he only allowed it. He gave in to the desires of the people their hard hearts as Jesus called it. God's orginal intention was that one man and one woman be joined togeather to stay togeather as one for life. God commanded that they leave their mother's and father's and become one flesh, no longer two but one.

Q2. (Matthew 19:4-6 quoting Genesis 2:24) Do people need to be Christians to be joined as one flesh? Is this making into "one flesh" accomplished by a religious ceremony or by natural law? Of those who have entered into a first marriage, what percentage do you think have been "joined together" by God, according to Jesus' statement in Matthew 19:6? Matt 19:4 'Haven't you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female," 5 and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.' Gen 2:24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. It says nothing about religion at all just that they be one male and one female. I see no religious cermony being need to bring about a marriage just the natural law of God and them coming togeather. All those joined in a first marriage are joined by God, but not all last of which I am one marrying young allows for mistakes along with sins of the flesh only through God can a marriage hope to survive. Christ must be the center of a marriage for it to last and be complete.

Q1. (Matthew 5:27-32; 19:1-12) With whom did Jesus side: Rabbi Hillel or Rabbi Shammai? What exception does Jesus give to his prohibition of divorce? How does this exception relate to Deuteronomy 24:1-4? I don't believe that Jesus agreed with either one of them, He agreed with the Father when He said that,Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.'" None, He says that what the Father has joined together let no man seperate. In marriage man and woman becomeone in the eyes of God and He does not allow any kind of seperation and neither does Christ. Jesus says that God meant for the law to be their guide but that Moses changed it because of the hardened hearts of the people. So Jesus was none giving an exception but stating the word of God.

Q5. (Matthew 5:27-30) The spirit of our age is very accepting and approving of lus+ According to Jesus' words, how seriously are we to take lus+? How does agape love help us combat lus+? **** like all sinful desires are to be taken very seriously, any sin that seperates us from the Father of true life is serious indeed. Agape love is the love of God poured out to each one of us as we seek Him and the Saviour He sent us. We are to love in the same way and not allow the sinful desire of the flesh to corrupt that love. A love that comes from God is pure and Holy. It is to shared with everyone not just immediate family but our church family and friends it is a forgiving love that holds no grudges and shares all that we have as the first church in Acts had all things in common weto through the love of God must do likewise and not let the **** of the world contaminate it.

Q4. (Matthew 5:28) Sex is very closely tied to our core sense of person. This means that as we are healed in our view towards sex, it goes a long way toward making us whole inside. How would you counsel a brother who shared with you that he had trouble with pornogr*phy? How can you protect yourself against temptation over the Internet? At the beach or poolside? With your TV? First you must not condemn him but reassure him that He is not alone Jesus loves him inspite of his sin and wants to save him. Let him know that you are therefor him when he needs you and that you will pray with and for him on a daily basis and more if he desires. You can protect your self with filters from you security system that stops windows from opening up for youself as well as for your children. You can have your keep the place where you use your computor out in the open where you will be aware that others can see what you are doing when doing searches. At the beach or pool side you shouldalways be with someone that will help you and that you feel free in sharing the concerns that you have. Let the word of God dwell in you richly will remind you that to look on another can be **** and will let you know through the Spirit that you are needing repenance and will keep your mind from wandering. On your t.v. cancel all channels that can lead you to stray. Most t.v's nodays have a feature call favorites use these to select only family channels for viewing.

Q3. (Matthew 5:28) What is wrong with pornogr*phy? What is wrong with going to prostitutes? Who are the victims of this "victimless" activity? Everything, It leads to all kinds of immorality and I can atest to that as fact. Anyone who says that they are uneffected by viewing *********** is either a liar or just to nieve to beaware of the damage they are doing to their selves. Going to a prostitute cause all kinds of unseen damage from the harm you do to your self respect to the harm done to your family when they find out what you are doing. It harms the community where it take place because eventually other thing much worse start to happen there. Everyone you know will be a victim, friends, family, people you associate with at work or other places. There areno one that will not come to harm if you support such a life stile. Jesus says a husband is to leave mother and father and cling to his wife, you can't cling to a wife and hold a prostitute.

Q2. God purposely created us with a good and natural sexual desire. How do we distinguish between that God-given sexual desire and forbidden lus+? The God given desire will only come when we are joined to a partner in marriage as God has intented. **** come when we let imagination of another go to extremes and sin grows. **** leads us from God, and sex in marriage fulfills His instruction to us to reproduce.

Q1. (Matthew 5:27-30; Exodus 20:17) What is the point of similarity between adultery and lus+? What is the difference? How does lus+ break the Tenth Commandment? The point of similarity is that the one leads to the other when allowed to grow and permagate in the heart. The diffearance is that when **** is placed in the heart by satin we have the opprotunity of giving it up to God and allowing Him to cleanse our hearts and save us from unrighteousness. ******* breaks the Tenth Commandment when we allow it to grow in our hearts and it leads to sin and then death. We are told by Christ to **** is sin and we must seek His strength through prayer and our Christian family to over come it. Anyone can be drawn into lustful sin including our own leaders and pastors if they aren't prayed for and help to overcome the devils stumbling block. We are to seek Christ and His righteousness and in doing that we can learn to over comethe devil's traps of ****.

Q5. (Matthew 5:21-26) Verses 21-22 are about murder, anger, and insult. Verses 23-24 discuss some fault against one's brother. Verses 25- 26 discuss settling a civil suit before going to court. What is the overarching theme of Jesus' teaching in our entire passage, verses 21-26? I believe that Jesus is teaching us that we need to have pure hearts to come to and worship the Father and the only way we can have clean hearts is to not beholding any thing against another and to not be causing anyone to be holding anything against us. We must learn and practice forgiveness and not keep our brother from doing the same thing.

Q4. (Matthew 5:25-26) What is the point of Jesus' parable of settling out of court? Who are we supposed to settle with, according to this parable? What does "settling" entail? What are the reasons that we should settle? Settling out of court means that their is no mediator, or judge who gets final say. To settle out of court the two parties must agree on the settlement and allow it to please both of them. We are suppose to settle with anyone that we sin against, we must seek forgiveness for our sin and be willing to forgive those who sin against us or the Father will not forgive us. Settleing entail seeking and agreeable outcome to a problem cause by one of two parties against the other. We must settle because Jesus said that for our worship to be effective wemust not hold anything against another or allow a sin we commit against them to go unresolved. We must seek their forgiveness and then the Father can forgive our sin through the pardon of the blood of Christ.

Q3. (Matthew 5:23-24) What's wrong with worshipping while a brother has something against us (or us against a brother, Mark 11:25)? What is the appropriate action for us to take? How far should we go to bring about reconciliation with someone whom we have offended? Are there any situations that we shouldn't try to resolve? Or that we can't resolve? We are trying to worship with unclean hearts, we need to seek forgiveness for any sin inour hearts before trying to worship a pure and Holy God. We should first seek God in prayer asking forgivness for any sin in our hearts, then we should seek to bereconciled to whomever we have sinned against. We should go as for as it takes to seek them out and offer our humbleness and heart fealt offering of reconcilation. We are to purify our hearts and that comes as we seek forgiveness from anyone we sin against and then a heart felt seeking of the forgiveness of God. There are some that we can't resolve these must beleft for Godto deal with inHis time He aloneis our creater. He alone directs the steps of men andin His timing reeconcilation will come about. We can't change someone's heart who is angry with us and refuses to accept our apoligy but God in His time can soften the hardest of hearts if it be His will for them.

Q2. (Matthew 5:21-22) Why does Jesus treat calling someone a fool in the same classification as murder? Does this mean that murder is no worse than an angry insult in God's eyes? How would we act differently if we actually believed that angry attitudes towards others are viewed by God as murder Because He know where the real reason for murder comes from, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. He knew that angey could quickly lead to harming someone because it grows and takes control of the whole sole. It is not worse than murder but can often lead to things that are worse. We would try to find control of our hearts and try to stay in a peaceful frame of mind and pray for strength that anger never over comes us or cause us to lose control.

Q1. (Matthew 5:17-20) Can you see any tendencies in the church today to effectively "abolish" the Old Testament from our Christian faith? What does a "Christian" legalism look like in a church? What does it look like in a church where there are no moral standards and no obedience expected of Christians? Yes, today so many pastors teach and preach only using the New Testament and most know very little of the Old Testament scriptures. Some pastor even try to justify their sins by disavowing the Old Testament. Christian legalism allows for people professing to be pastors to teach while living in sin men living with men and women living with women, justifing a life style that even Jesus condemned. Church that have no moral standards allow so-called christians to do as they please and pastors to do the same. Where there is no morals in the church there is no faith just a worldly creed of its ok to do what I want. When there is no obedience there can be no prayer life or love for neighbor and certainly not God.

Q4. (Matthew 5:13-15) How do verses 13-16 relate to verses 10-12? How does hiding our light affect the glory of God? Why must glory and suffering go hand in hand? Was Jesus' suffering necessary? Is ours? What does this have to do with Romans 12:2? 10Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. 13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. 14Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Romans 12: 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. The first are the blessings of Godfor doing His will and the last are the things that keep uw from doing the will of the Father. If we lose our saltiness, or do not let our light shine then God will withhold the blessings of heaven from us. It is up to us,we are given free will to chose to let our light shine so that others will wish to glorify the Father in heaven. Hiding our light keeps the glory that we are to give to the Father from manifesting it's self, it can't shine unless we do. To give God His glory we must seek to do His will in reconciling others to Him and that means trying everyday to keep His commandments and let our light shine. Glory and suffering go hand in hand because there is still sin in the world and untill it is removed when Jesus comes to make us His own their will be non-believers who will persecute those who spread God's word and lead others to Christ. Jesus's suffering as well as ours was and is necessary becuse it is the will of the Father, Jesus asked the Father to let this cup pass from me but not my will but your will be done that should be our wish today as we go through life we need to keep God first place in our lives and always formost His will before ours even in the mist of suffering. Romans 2 tell us the same thing in differant words, we are to live our differant after becoming followers of Christ, our minds are to be renewed coming to obedience and seeking the perfect will of God.

Q3. (Matthew 5:14-15) In the parable of "the light of the world," Jesus notes the stupidity of lights being hidden under bowls. Concerning what danger in the life of a Christian disciple does Jesus warn us in this parable? 16.Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. the danger of not letting your light shine, if it doesn't shine you will be in danger of letting it go out and if it goes out you would be lost to the darkness of the world. But if your light shines, if it stands out in your life where others can see it then the Father will see and be glorified and you will be blessed.

Q2. (Matthew 5:13) What might be the symptoms of a Christian who has lost his "saltiness"? Is it possible for a believer to detect such symptoms in himself or herself? What do secular people notice about a "de-saltified" Christian? What do other Christians notice about you? Is it possible to "resaltify" your life? It would be like many people who claim to be christian but would rather live the way of the world, what's in it for me, so to speak. I believe a true believer will know because he will be convicted by the Holy Spirit living in his heart. They notice everything that he does that is against what he claims to be a christian. Christians notice that you are not walking the walk just talking the talk. I believe that you can always repent and ask God to use you to His benefit and He will forgive you and make you whole if you do it with a pure heart other wise you continue to lose faith and the Holy Spirit leaves you to all your worldly desires.

Q1. (Matthew 5:13) In what sense are Christians the "salt of the earth" using the preservation analogy? In what sense are Christians the "salt of the earth" using the seasoning analogy? We are the salt of the earth when we share the Good News and keep spreading it throught out the world. We preserve it by passing it to our sons and daughters who pass it to theirs. The chance to share Gods word with other is our responsibility and we should never take it litely. We us it as seasoning when we allow it into our hearts and begin to show changes in our lives. As we live for Christ we grow in faith and become stronger in the Lord and are able to resist the every day temptations better. We come to knoow our limitaions and seek out the Father through study and prayer as we continue to fight the good fight of faith.

Q6. (Matthew 5:10-11) Why should we rejoice when we are persecuted? What keeps this from being some kind of sick masochism, or finding pleasure in pain? Why is the blessing "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" appropriate for the persecuted? Because Jesus said that we should be persecuted like the prophets before us. If we are persecuted then we are standing up for Christ and being seen sharing His message with others. Being filled with the Spirit, sharing because we want to share jesus with others and not just share but to convience other that they need the joy of knowing Him as their Lord and Saviour. When persecuted for Christ what better blessing than to know that at the wnd you will be with Him sharing the Love of God and living and praising Him forever.

Q5. (Matthew 5:8) Why can people with a pure heart see, know, and discern God? Why can't "chronic" sinners see God? How do we obtain the pure or clean heart that Jesus describes? Because Jesus sent His Spirit to live in their hearts the first time they cried out to Him, as the Spirit enters their heart they are given an unquenchable thirst for more of the knowledge of Christ and the Father this thirst purifies their heart and draws them near their God who blesses them with mercy and grace that only He can give. Chronic sinners are caught up in their desire for the world and the things that it deems important lost to the need to love and come to the knowledge of the all powerful God who created them. The clean heart that Jesus describes is only given by the Spirit of Christ as we seek and search after His righteousness. He come to live in our hearts and gives us the strength to grow and come to a fuller understanding of the things that should be important in our lives replacing the desires of the world. He forgives our sin and purifies us from all unrighteousness.

Q4. (Matthew 5:6) How can an intense desire for righteousness put you at odds with the world? What sort of righteousness is Jesus talking about, do you think? What promise are we given in this Beatitude? "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (5:6) It is the total reversal of worldly thinking, the world it what is in it for me, but Jesus says that we are to seek only righteous living. That take what is init for me out of the picture and says what canIdo for others even though they may not be my friend but my enemy. I must seek their good, I must live the life of Christ shareind a love that the world does not understand and seek after the Holy Spirit toget that done, always professing and seeking a knowledge of Christ that leads to righteousness. The promise is that if we seek and keep seeking we will be filled, it time when we come before the thrown of God He will say well done and we will be filled with the righteousness of Christ our Lord and live only with the faithful.

Q3. (Matthew 5:5) How does this sort of gentleness contrast with the world's ideal? How is humility important to Christlikeness? It is a complete opposite of world thinking,the world would have you over look your neighbor when he is in need but Jesus says you must loveyour neighbor and help him even when he is n't kind to you and doesn't show you the same mercy. Being humble is an act of love that Jesus had for all people even the one who put Him on the cross,when He said Father forgive them. Humble is being loving when it hurts not just when we feel like it. It isn't a family love either it isa out pouring of fairness and giving to all without prejudice, love your enemies what kind of humble love does it take to do that.

Q2. (Matthew 5:3-4) Why is it necessary to be aware of your spiritual poverty before you can become a Christian? What kind of mourning is necessary for a person to become a Christian? What kind of mourning is a common experience of Christians? (See Isaiah 61:2-3; Ezekiel 9:4.) 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. How can you seek Christ un less you first come to understand how lost and hopeless you are and this alone can only lead you to morn for the peace that only the Lord can bring. Only true morning that leads to repentance can bring one to Christ and make you a seeker of God and His Mercy. Morning of a true christian comes in many forms one being for their weakness and failure in living holy lives for the Christ that died for them when we stumble we should be repantant and this bring morning. We should also morn for the lost sould around us knowing that without Christ they have nothing. We morn for the weak and the hungry that they might be fed a strong helping of the Holy Spirit so that they can be stronger in the Lord and His service.

Q1. (Matthew 5:3-11) Each Beatitude consists of two parts. What are these parts? Why do you think Jesus made each Beatitude a paradox? What is the relationship of the Beatitudes to the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)? The first part is comprised of a group of people,the poor in spirit,those who morn,the meek, those who hunger and thirst,the merciful,the pure in heart and the peacemakers. The second is what God will bless each one with as the follow His instruction. He was speaking in the way that the people were use to hearing things put to them, He also was keeping understanding from the ones that the Father chose not to send His message to. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the things that Jesus says you will be rewarded if you pocess.