ChildofGod

When I read this passage it makes me think of SOME children of privilege. They are given everything and their parents extol them and put them on pedestals, but instead of using their rank and privilege for good they squander it on worldly things of the flesh. They are only concerned about what can give them temporary happiness and not TRUE happiness. The kids (Judah) think that they are invincible because they are heirs of the King and will not have to suffer the consequences of their actions. But like human parents they can get to the point where they realize that they are not helping their children by bailing them out because they aren't learning how to live in this world and aren't prepared for the next. So God, like any loving parent gets to the point where he is tired and disgusted with the actions of his children and he knows that the only way for his children to grow is to let them suffer the consequences of their actions. These ungrateful children don't realize that if they would only sincerely apologize and change their ways that their Father has great things in store for them and that the past will be forgotten. Just as Christians today keep sinning the same sin over and over again and try to repent by doing good works, or asking forgiveness but not being sincere enough to actually want to changes their ways and not having enough faith in the Father that he can and will wipe away those sins. The wages of sin are death we know that ... is it a physical death? A spiritual death? An Emotional death or could it be the worse death of all which is a separation from God?

Its all about being like God and God is love, we are to love God first and our neighbors as ourselves... This is no greater love than to lie down your live for a friend.

I beleive that the main point of settling out of court is that you and your brother come to an agreement. This would reduce resentments and ill feelings.

We can't worship God and be angry with one of his children. We need to make things right with our brothers and then come back to the altar. We need to be willing to reconcile and forgive even if the other party is not. We need to take our amends to them. We cannot ,by ourselves, resolve the problem when one of the parties has died, but we can let the resentment die to Christ.

There are many parts of us that can be killed, our body, our self esteem, our spirituality. the thing I would fear most if we ridicule or condemn is that we have lost our effectiveness to bring the "Good News" to the lost and it could come to pass that the person would not hear the Word of God and may not find Jesus and thus not find the Kingdom of Heaven.

It has been my experience and I have been thought that the Old Testament is alive and well. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament. Leaving the prophecies of the Old Testament would leave mute the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and God's son. I see Christian legalism as people trying to earn their way into heaven and many times this was at the expense of showing God's love. To Love is the greatest commandment. I would think that a church without moral standards and no obedience would look very much like the house of Satan.

These verses all show that we are to glorify God. We are not to hide our Christianity we are to make it open and if we are persecuted it means that we are doing as Jesus told us to do.

By hiding our light we do not let the world know that we are Christians and we therefore cannot lead others to Christ.

A Christians who lose their "saltyness" have become complacent, have lost the zest that Jesus gives their lives. I feel that a believers can be shown that they are going "off-track" they don't feel like they used to, they become cold because they are moving away from the sunshine of the Lord. I believe that secular people would call the "de-salted" hypocrits. They have lost their excitment and so also their ability to witness for Christ. Yes you can "resaltify" your life by coming back to Jesus and it would be like a filtration of your life so that Christ's love can purify the woes of the world that come through you.

Perservative - Christians perserve the earth as righteous people. These people are the children of God and he won't destroy the earth for love of them. Seasoning - We are not to be bland citizens, but those with much "flavor" a kind of zeal and excitement.

We should rejoice when we are persecuted because the closer we get to God, the harder Satan tries to bring us to Him. And if he is waging a war of persecution he knows it will be very difficult for us to be taken from God. The blessing is appropriate because we are God's children and he brings us home.

The world measures success by how many toys one has. Christ measures success by how you treat people and how you love God. The kind of righteousness Christ wants for us is His Righteousness as shown in the great commisiion to Love your neighbor.... We are pormised to be brought to God and have eternal life.

Pure hearts can see God because the only way to have a pure heart is for God to enter within us and he becomes part of us. Chronic sinners cannot see God because there is no room in their hearts for him.

I belive that the righteousness that we are seeking is Jesus Christ. We want to be like him, we want to please him. The righteousness that Jesus is talking about is summed up in the first two commandments of the Old Testament and the Great Commision of the New Testament. We are to love God and our fellow man and anything that we do toward that end is righteous. The unrighteousness is fulfilling our selfish needs at the expense of others.

I once believed that a meek person was someone with no backbone, someone that was easily tread upon. I undestand now that meekness [humbleness] is a virtue. It doesn't mean that one should hide away when there is controversy, it means that they should remember their primary focus and that is God. It is the WWJD in life, if everyone would truly try to think about what Jesus would before they act, this world would surely be a better place. Folks today try to define their purpose, by what they do or what they own instead of by who they are. Jesus knows who we are, he knows our HEART. Jesus lost his temper with the money changers and I believe that if we are fighting for CHRIST instead of goods or possessions that we should use every resource we have and our No. 1 resource is the Bible. Again, if we think we know it all and can do it all ourselves, we do not need Jesus. Not only because we know Jesus, but because we love Him, we need to open and willing to do what he asks.