Living for Jesus

I have discovered and experienced the Lord working in my life. I can tell you this, the way He reached in my life recently made me want to live more for Him. I can say this though, don't try to become like Jesus, if you do, you live under the law...

[Please read comments below too]
The whole idea is not for you to put in your effort to reach Jesus Christ, because it's almost like trying to get to the Father with our own strength (and we know we cannot, thats what living under the law was about). Jesus said that we should, instead, live under His Grace (and not abuse it) by being obedient to His laws and word (not trying to obtain your salvation from/through it) and to surrender to Him or to die from yourself.

Those who don't know what "dying from yourself mean", it's obviously not to kill yourself but to depart from every sin, giving up everything you own, even the people you know and love, to God! You won't be able to do it instantly (as the Apostle Paul mentioned) it takes time, even years.

How do I know this? Well the word of God says so of course!

It all started 2 Sundays ago when our preacher's wife had a teaching on the wedding feast featured in Matthews 22:1-14. We all know this passage, the king having a wedding feast and the invited didn't want to come, so he invites the people from the streets and one of them was kicked out because s/he didn't have the right clothes on.
We know that those who've accepted Jesus Christ are amongst those who accepted the invitation, right? But what about the one guy who got kicked out, even accepting the invitation? Now that was startling. The one L10T site talks about this too, you can find it here.
But Jesus said that those who believe in Him are saved?! How can anyone be kicked out, having Christ. One may argue that the person didn't really accept Christ, which might be a possibility. But those who accepted the invitation are the ones who are coming to Christ's wedding feast! And the fact that one accepts Christ as Lord and Saviour seems to be only the 1 half. We need to dress accordingly as well but one cannot do that beforehand. We see that there was some time that past between those who accepted the invitation and when the king came down and noticed the guy without the right clothes. Since they were people from the streets, they didn't have the right clothes, so the king must have supplied some to them to dress themselves with. If this is the case, it makes more sense. The guy refused to dress accordingly, thinking he is better than the rest and we notice that he got kicked out into the darkness.

Well from the Bible we learn a few things about dressing for something. In Romans 13:14 we find Paul telling his crowd to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the other crowd in Ephesians 4:22-24 telling them to put off the old man, and put on the new man. We also find him telling us the weaponry that we should put on in Ephesians 6:13-18. What does this all mean? It means, get rid of your old sinful nature (which is supposed to be drowning in the baptist water) and put on the new nature God wants you to have. The nature of Jesus Christ with the protective inventory to protect your new Holy life. In other words be obedient to God and His commandments!

The way we dress everyday is the way we shape our identity. Sometimes I woke up and just in some sort of way there is almost a switch inside of me that flips to live for or against Jesus. If the switch is set for Jesus, I would go off and try to be holy (before I have learned this new way of living) and when switched off, I would easily give in to my sinful desires sometimes without resisting even.
The more I lived like that, the more my identity started shifting. One moment the sins that you really hate to do, suddenly becomes something you really want to do and then you do it without even thinking, you become in bondage to it. What shift had to take place for one to start liking the rebellious actions against the one s/he wanted to serve? Immediately you can see the kind of clothes that person has on. Obviously Christ called everyone, "good and bad" (described in the Matthews passage) to come just as they are, but He didn't call everyone to stay like that (like we've seen).

After hearing that teaching I wanted to read more but then stumbled on Matthew 19:16-30.
Reading it I came across all the elements found in Matthew 22. We find that the man acknowledges that he lacks something to get into heaven and Jesus said "If you wish to be complete..." meaning, if you want to get into heaven, you need to be complete and you would do the following...
This shows something we all know, only the perfect ones can go to heaven. Hearing that His disciples said "Then who can be saved?". Jesus replied "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." This shows that only God can make us perfect enough to enter into heaven. But why was there mentioning of the rich man having it hard to enter? He was rich, he had many things. Read Matthew 19:21-24. The rich man didn't want to give up all he had. And there lies the key. To become complete, you need to surrender some things in life. Jesus's disciples did and Jesus assured them that they would get a hundred fold in heaven, all except for Judas obviously (who was going to betray Jesus).
We also can see in the different version of the wedding feast found in Luke 14:16-24, that a man was also inviting people to his feast but they were all too busy to come. Everyone made excuses and then it occurred to me, people who have many things who do not offer it to Christ will be too busy for Him, or maybe even putting those things above Him. For Jesus said that if we do not leave everything for His sake, then we are not fit for His kingdom. That started to make sense to me.

Now you see that being obedient and surrendering yourself to God is essential, not only for hereafter but for a blessed Christian life on earth. It is all about Jesus! He gives the Grace, He washes away your sins, and He should be the first love in your life! Bring your thoughts to Him to be placed under His obedience, bring your life to Him to be shaped to be complete! Jesus knows what is best for you and He'll lead you all the way. Look what the disciples had! They were with Him and they weren't asked to do extravagant things which He was not able to teach to them personally and patiently.

This was only a tip of what I discovered and learned and to write everything down would take forever (well figuratively speaking ;-) ) but I have written down that which I wanted to say. I do remember Jesus saying "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory" and I sure hope I didn't do that! ;-)

May the Lord Jesus Bless all of you and may He bring you to him like He is starting to do with me.

777

No don't worry, I am not going to talk about omens, etc. but over something I read in Genesis that really made me astounded. Go to Genesis 4:17-24.
We see that they're talking about Cain giving birth to Enoch, who gave birth to Irad, etc. untill we see Methushael giving birth to Lamech.

Then Lamech had 2 wives and 4 children. Now Lamech made a statement to his wives regarding death and curses where he mentioned that a man who injures him, he will kill and children who hurt him also gets killed and since Cain has the 7x curse for those who kill him over his head, the one who kills Lamech will receive a 77x times curse.
Then in Genesis 5:30 we see Lamech living 777 years!

Hmm... Lamech is the 7th generation from Adam and Eve, he has a family of 7 (in Genesis 4 when it was spoken of), he spoke of a 77x curse and he lived 777 years!
I just need 3 more facts to make him carry a 7 fact of 7s! He he!

I just thoaght it was interresting to share this with you guys but it does somehow make me want to think of when Jesus spoke of forgiving your neighbour 77x7 times! I mean, Lamech did speak of killing those who hurt or wound him!

Treasures in life

I don't know about you but I didn't always think why it was so important for us to gather treasures in Heaven (Mat 6:19-20 Do not lay up treasures on earth for yourselves, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up treasures in Heaven for yourselves, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal).
Sure, Jesus said that it would be worth it but I didn't think that there would be more to it than Heavenly luxuries.

Well, that was before I started exploring the concept of what we should filter out when seeing, hearing and talking. God is going to judge us by every idle word we speak, every act we do, etc. So reading through Matthew 12:35-37, I noticed two words that helped explain a lot... treasure and heart.
Mat 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings out good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings out evil things.
Also, I remembered the verse in Mat 6:21 (For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also) and that just came very clear to me. Jesus doesn't want us to gather treasures solely for Heaven, but sothat our hearts will lie with the treasures that we collect sothat further good actions can spring forth from them. We all know that gathering treasure for Heaven is all about doing good deeds that God the Father approves of.
So Jesus actually wants us to become like treasure hunters so that we would start lining up to God's point of view and become better Christians than before. I mean, Jesus did command us to gather treasure (read top scripture).

I once was part of an conversation that lead to why people find it so "wrong" to gather up treasures for themselves. I started asking them about it and they said that just being in Heaven with Jesus is reward enough for them. Then I realised that they thoaght that gathering up treasures was almost like buying their way into Heaven. I explained to them that Jesus wants us to gather treasure because He wants to give us gifts in Heaven that will promote our lifestyle there and to give Him more praise and worship and that He already gave us the gift of everlasting life, which cannot be baught at any price.
I continued with the explanation Paul gave in 1Co 3:15 (If anyone's work shall be burned up, he shall suffer loss. But he shall be saved, yet so as by fire) that those who accepted Christ as their saviour but never sought to gather treasures for themselves in Heaven (by not building on the foundation of Christ as mentioned in I Corinthians 3:12 with gold, silver, precious stones) will be like poor people in Heaven, who was pulled from the fire with only a few burnt marks after God's judgement. The rest will be rewarded by their works that remained after the fire burnt it.
So it is imperitive that we start gathering treasure for ourselves in Heaven by building on the foundation of Christ with gold, silver, precious stones which cannot be destroyed by the fire of God's judgement. One might ask how we do that. I was taught in Church that doing that which Christ instructed us to do, is the foundation of gathering such treasure. Things such as, forgiving your neighbour 77 x 7 times (in other words infinite!), helping the needy and weak, giving food to the hungry, blessing those who curse you, etc. Its not easy and it would be starteling if it was.

So I hope that you have found my discovery usefull/inspiring/etc and I hope that all of you who read this will gather many treasures for yourselves in Heaven!

Good day and God Bless!

Book of Acts

I was busy rounding up some verses featuring the Holy Spirit, but then the book of Acts caught my attention. I was using e-Sword (http://www.e-sword.net). The whole book was like a novel. I'm sorry to disturb others who already read this many times but with the God's Word translation, I just couldn't put it down. It was an amazing story!

Also the way Jesus spoke to Paul was just amazing than what I've found in the rest of the Bible. "Paul why are you prosecuting me?", "Go to Damascus, I have plans for you there.", "Paul if you don't leave this place, you're going to get killed!" (not direct quotes!).
Some parts reminded me of modern day living. Especially where the people in one village who were members of the occult just suddenly gave up all their books on magic, etc. when Paul visited them and they just opened up spontaneously to what have happened. They even mentioned the price of the amount of books burnt.
When Paul was prosecuted by the Jews for something he didn't do, he was sent to Rome. I could just see the Roman buildings and town squares, even though it wasn't fully described in the Bible.

I don't want to spoil the end of the story but it was exciting and yet disappointing. Read to find out why I say it was exciting, but it was disappointing because I never got to find out his ruling. The book just ended on Acts 28 (I dunno, maybe it was just end of story, or maybe it continued somewhere else in the New Testament, but its provably then in one of the books he wrote to the different tribes).

It showed me something different about Paul, Jesus and Christianity. Christianity can be very exciting and Paul can testify to that, but I know that it can also be very tough and bad, again reference Paul.
One would have thought that Jesus would bite off Paul's head in the beginning of Acts but did the complete opposite. It just shows how Christ has confidence in us and is willing to try and unlock the good things in us to make us better than to throw all the truthful accusations against us and judge us till doomsday comes.

This has brought a greater Love for Christ in me.

Anyone found another book in the Bible that was a hard-to-put-down book? If so, please also specify your Bible translation for the "best effect" ;)