Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Matthew 7:21-23

The Way is not power, it is faithfulness.  The path is not promotion, it is servant-hood.  The gift is not yours, it is theirs (2 Corinthians 1:6).  The road is not wide, it is narrow.

Jesus said plainly, unless you hate father, mother, sister, brother, children, spouse, even your own life, you cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:26).  He said quite distinctly that if you love someone else more than Him, you are not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:37).

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Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.  “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

John 14:23-24

What are the teachings of Jesus?  What are the lessons that He gave us?

Have you ever stopped to consider the parables?  Do you know what they mean?

Christianity today has done a good job with the main parts.  Jesus is the Way, there is no other.  No one comes to the Father, but by Him…   But, what of the rest?

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For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,

Romans 14:17

I think that when it comes down to it, many people today miss  it today regarding the Kingdom.

Nearly all  probably do in some ways, perhaps, with some exceptions, but, primarily, we fail to recognize the King’s heart in coming.

Jesus said in language impossible to misunderstand that He was The Way.  Not that He came to show it, demonstrate it, teach it, or model it, but rather, that He Himself was The Way.  He was the Son of God, and the Son of Man, and no one came to the Father but by Him.

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Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Matthew 8:20

What does it take to dissuade someone from pursuit?  A little hardship, a little persecution?  Lack of a comfortable home?

Jesus said,

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

What you lose is only temporary, what you gain is worth it.  It is Good News.

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The cry of a generation, to cleave wholly to the Lord.

They are sick of compromise, and a church that is irrelevant.  They are confused over a teaching that on one side talks about power, but on the other hand, can’t get out of its own politics and powerlessness.

Jesus said that would know us by our love, and yet they know us by our cliches.

We have traded faith for doctrinal statements.  We have traded true understanding for a listening to sermons we really don’t believe down in the depths of our heart–not enough to be changed.

Some are sincere, but they lack tools to apply.  Many want to teach and help others out of the mire, but they fail to understand how to reach in.

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What if you had your eyes focused on just one thing?  What would it be like if you could just run after the Lord with total abandon, and seek Him with all that you are, continually?

What if you could live with your eyes fixed on the heavenly realm, and live out of the substance of faith?  What would that look like?  Where would you end up?

Brushing aside fantasy, take a step deeper…  What is it that distracts?  What is it that pulls you away?

There are two thing absolutely for certain, God will ask more of you than you want to give, AND, He can never ask you for more than you have.  So long as we keep in mind that it only, apparently, takes two loves, five fishes, and a mustard seed of faith to feed a multitude, He will never ask you to do more than what you have, when you consider everything.

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If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

Luke 14:26

The way of discipleship is the way to follow the cross.  The requirement of discipleship is to never look back.

Jesus said that the Kingdom was like a precious pearl, that, when found, a man sold all he had and bought it.  There is something about finding something that is worth it.  If you can see it, if you can recognize what you see, and correctly appraise it, it is not a hard choice to lose everything else to obtain the best. Read more…

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:15

If you’re in it, you will live a certain way.

Most Happy are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 5:3

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The Dream

Daniel 7:1-3

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying on his bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.

Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.

This is understood as the parallel to Daniel 2.  Daniel 2 was Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, this is Daniel’s.  While Nebuchadnezzar saw the kingdoms, Daniel apparently sees the spirits of the kingdoms.  The four winds church the great sea, and four distinct beasts came up out of it.

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This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Galatians 5:16

This verse is Paul’s advice on how to avoid sin.  This is the simple solution to the issue plaguing the church today.

I call it the Million Dollar Question, that is, why are new testament believers not living according to their new creation nature?  We know why the world does, because it’s in ’em.  But, why does a Christian?

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