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Tag: Christ

  • Is Your Heart Pure?

    Is Your Heart Pure?

    You know the story of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount.  He preaches to the crowds on a mountainside near Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee.

    Jesus begins with nine compassionate proverbs – not the Proverbs of the Old Testament, but wisdom of His own.

    Matthew 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

    Do you see God? (I don’t.)  What does that tell us?

    Many feel-good sermons have encouraged our hearts in these beatitudes – our hearts which are not even close to pure.  We hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but we do not receive it in our hearts which are not pure.  The heart is deceitful, because it is not pure.

     

    I once inadvertently poked myself in the eye.  I saw a great flash of light with intense distortion of my suddenly excruciating painful poke. I didn’t see God; but I couldn’t see anything else, either.

    Sometimes it takes a sudden poke to get my heart refocused. It takes a pouring off of the dross from my cold hardened heart to purify my soul nearer to the pureness of God.

    Jesus does NOT have fond and ‘happy’ memories of the crowds who sat on the Capernaum hillside.  The Son of God rebukes the “blessed” of Capernaum… those who did not accept his nice little Sermon on the Mount.

    He later delivers these same ‘blessed’ an unexpected poke in the eye.

    Matthew 11: 23 “And you people of Capernaum, will you be honored in heaven?  No, you will go down to the place of the dead.[a] For if the miracles I did for you had been done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today. 24 I tell you, even Sodom will be better off on judgment day than you.”

    The nice people of Capernaum have not had ears to hear the nine nice proverbs of blessing by Jesus. Here He sounds more like the Prophets who warned of curse which would come on the land and God’s ‘blessed.’

    Zechariah 13:9  And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

     “The choice is clear: BLESSING OR CURSE – Heaven OR Hell – Jesus OR a heart not quite pure enough for Heaven.

    It seems we have two choices: the eternal fire of Hell

    OR a refining fire of the Holy Spirit.

    Look at the picture of God refining the heart:

    Psalm 119:119 NKJV says:

    You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross;
    Therefore I love Your testimonies.

    The wisdom of Proverbs 25:4 tells us:

    Take away the dross from silver,
    And it will go to the silversmith for jewelry.

    “IF you want to see God, allow the Holy Spirit to take away the dross, the impurities of your heart and its cold deceptive hardness.

    Jesus gave us the fire of the Spirit to refine our souls to see God.  By the blood of Jesus and the fire of the Holy Spirit we will be 100% pure.

    John 14: 15 “If you love me, obey[d] my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,[e] who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”

    How pure is your heart?

    Pray for the ‘blessed’ refining fire of the Spirit, before the ‘cursed’ punishing fire of Hell.

     

     

  • Many of His Disciples Left Him – John 6:66

    Many of His Disciples Left Him – John 6:66

    Updated August 21, 2023

    At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him.

    John 6:66  

    Walking away from Christ

    Here is a Gospel commentary you might not consider Good News.

    It looks like the church is walking away from Jesus Christ. And church leaders do very little to take the ‘controversial Gospel’ of Christ Jesus into a world which has long ago walked away from God.

    “Many christians walk away from the church.  Biblical preaching is too confrontational for our daily lives.

    Roger@talkofJesus.com

    Many churches accommodate worldly sin as accepted doctrine.  Such preaching and failure to separate the Holiness of Christ’s Church from the sins of the flesh is NOT Biblical.  The atheist pulpits expect no miracles; nor will they be prepared for the Last Day.

    “The Bible is confrontational. Religious institutions as Temples of tradition will be torn down by the same crowds they once accommodated.

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com – August 20, 2013 A.D. (soon to become the ‘common era’)

    a Challenge of the Gospel of John

    Yet what happened to Jesus?  

    The crowds rejected Him.  

    The Religious establishment remained for a time, then the Temple fell [A.D. 70], as had its religious leaders long before.  

    Jesus did not strike down the Pharisees (as political Caesars do each other). Or did the Son of the Most High God take over the Temple.

    Rather, He became our Sacrifice on its Altar.

    the Chaff of ‘christian’ Unbelievers

    What would cause the unthinkable thing of disciples turning away from Jesus — the so-called faithful to turn away and desert our Lord Jesus?

     To back up a little in John’s Gospel, Jesus said:

    63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

    64 But some of you do not believe me.”

    Men and women followed JESUS when it was 'the thing to do.' The number of Jesus' disciples multiplied again and again. But when their KING would not seize their imagined National Throne for the country of God most looked for another savior.

    Do you believe Christ Jesus? 

    He does not say that is doesn’t matter what you do.  What we do as witnesses of Jesus as Lord of our life matters greatly.  However, nothing we do – no acts which merit praises of men – can accomplish anything to save our soul from hell.

    Remember the miracle of feeding the 5000?  

    They would have made Jesus King right there on the spot.  But our Lord fled.

    Most leaders of a 21st c. church (unlike the Lord Jesus) would taken credit for their miracle, make certain to collect the offering and most likely fail to mention God, the Bible or Jesus Christ.

    The crowds of disciples found and followed Jesus.  

    “Give us more miracles – show more of  this Kingly power” —

    Isn’t that is our typical human response (rather than thankfulness for God’s provision and blessing)?  

    No more miracles; no more disciples.

    We'll find another religious leader for our kingly church vision.

    Is the Christ of the Cross GOOD NEWS?

    John 6;

    41 Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said,

    “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

    51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

    52 Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant.

    “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

    53 So Jesus said again,

    “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day.

    Gospel of John 6:53b-54 ASV

    Do you, dear believer, murmur and complain that Jesus isn’t doing much for Christians in these last days?

    “Lord, to whom would we go?

    67 Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked,

    “Are you also going to leave?”

    68 Simon Peter replied,

    “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

  • And Walk in Love

    And Walk in Love

    Some may be familiar with the song: Footprints in the Sand.   Many of us are familiar with the comfort of the poem: Footprints in the Sand.  The poem speaks of the comfort of our Lord, Christ Jesus, during those most difficult times when we thought that we were walking alone. The poem was likely inspired by a sermon of Charles Haddon Spurgeon –  THE EDUCATION OF SONS OF GOD. (The link to it’s opening paragraph is well worth your consideration and prayer.)

    The test of Spurgeon’s sermon is Hebrews 5:8 KJV

     “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered

    Yes, we are all comforted at times from this application of the letter of Hebrews to our personal suffering.  We may wipe away a tear of loneliness and defeat in eventual memory and thankfulness that Christ Jesus IS always with us.

    Yet lately, not only was I finally comforted by this thought, but through conviction of the Spirit I have thanked the Lord for small ways He might use me to comfort others.

    Worse, I realized that I often thought that I walked alone because I never reached out to hardly anyone with this same love of our Lord, the One always carrying me and leaving footprints in the sand of many lonely places.

    I’ve sat with hundreds of my neighbors at almost every football game for the last two years.  I have lived in this small PA town for six years.  I see many nameless faces in the grocery store, at our community food bank, at the Borough Hall shelter after a last year’s hurricane,  and even almost every week at church.  

    “Who is my neighbor?  I have no idea.  

    After walking just a little in Jesus’ love, as if He were using me to walk with another, I became convicted even more.

    I am no different than someone who does NOT know Jesus.  I have not bothered to engage their souls in relationship in the same loving way as our Lord did for so many on every unexpected occasion. 

    Ephesians 4:17-5:2 excerpts:  17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

    18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

    19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

    20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!—

    30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

    32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

    “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

    Dear Lord,
    Forgive me. 
    I have not imitated God.
    I have not imitated the example of God’s Son.
    Most of all I have NOT walked in love — agape — as Christ Jesus loved me.
    I have not sacrificed time for hardly any neighbor.
    ..
    “I have not sacrificed my love for others as a sacrifice to God — the same God who did sacrifice his Son on the Cross for me.
    Dear brother or sister in the Lord,
    How are you doing with that?

    When was the last time you reached out to your neighbor to help carry their hurting soul?  Are you also convicted?

    Matthew 25 excerpt:
    40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’  41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
    ..
    Show your thankfulness.
    ..
    “Leave some footprints on the heart of someone walking alone — someone much in need Christ Jesus to walk with them through the sands of this brief time.