Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed, and God called it righteousness in him.  This is the basis of our justification in the cross of Christ, for it is by faith that we have access to this Grace called Calvary (Romans 5:2).  Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), for one must first believe that God is, and that He rewards those that diligently pursue Him.

This is the picture of faith.  When Abraham, then Abram, heard God speak, and God showed Him the stars in the sky and that his descendants would be like unto them in number (Genesis 15:6), he took God at His word.  Later, when Abraham was told to sacrifice his one and only true heir, Abraham believed that God could raise him back from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).  Faith saw the promise of God’s word, and grabbed a hold.

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They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it. You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it. You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you.

Exodus 25:10-16

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).  What Moses built in the wilderness was a picture of an unseen thing.  He built according to the “pattern” that he had seen on mount Sinai.  That pattern was Christ, a detailed look at who He is as the Word of God and His ministry on Earth.

The entire of the tabernacle was a walk through model of Jesus.  Every facet of the tabernacle from the ark down to the very tent pegs and number of pillars represented something of the perfect man Christ Jesus.

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Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

Christ gave His life for us, and, although we can get to heaven, it is quite apparent from scripture that we can have greater or less reward when we get there.  We are saved by Grace, yet rewarded for what we do.  This is called the doctrine of Eternal Reward.

Psalm 1:5 says, “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”  We understand that the sinners will be judged, but so too will the believers, made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

Matthew 8:23-25

The word for “save us” in the Greek here is “sozo”, the same word meaning to save from sin and hell, to heal, and to deliver.  The disciples were asking Jesus to rescue them from death.  What the disciples couldn’t see, beyond the clouds, beyond the winds and storm, was the real realm of God and destiny, over both their Teacher and themselves.

Jesus passed through crowds unharmed, simply because it was not his time to die.  Jesus found ways to hide himself at other times.  Other times, the Spirit would not permit Him to go up to Jerusalem, simply because it wasn’t His time.

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I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.

Luke 12:4

Life is more important than food, and the body more than clothes, Jesus said (Matthew 6:25).  If we can trust Him with Eternity, we can trust Him with our lives here on this Earth.

The ultimate thing in this life we can seek is Him.  The highest goal in all of Eternity is His face. We know, that if we lose everything else we have here, we still have Him.  And, if we die seeking Him, we die in Faith, and that is okay. Read more…

The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever.  The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

Psalm 19:9-10

Just one thing is valuable, and that is the anointing, the presence of God.  I can lose everything else, but if I ever am without the presence of my Lord in my life, I am the the most poverty stricken on the planet.

What is more substantive, the presence of God or the shoes on your feet?  What has more worth, all the gold of the Earth, or the words contained in the Bible?

To know the Lord, and to have Him daily in my life is more important than friends, than eating, than social standing or a good job, or any view of wordly success this life could ever afford. Read more…

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Matthew 5:6

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1).  He created it good, and filled it with things that He declared good.

He planned from the beginning there to be a man, and that he would rule over the Earth and subdue it.  He would walk through the lands, fields, valleys, forests, and hills, and be its master.  He would bring the natural Earth into the pattern of the garden.

This failed, when the man ate from the fruit.  It is said that the woman was deceived, and the man chose to disobey willingly, so as not to be separated from the woman.  Genesis 3:6 indicates that the man was not somewhere far away when the woman sinned, but was “with her”.

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A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Luke 6:40

Imagine that your job is to teach blind musicians to water-ski…  You know everything about how boats work, how the water dynamics and the waves affect you.  You know about the tow-rope, the skis, and watching out for other watercraft.  It’s really not a difficult thing for you to do, or teach.  Only now, you’re dealing with people who don’t have a clue, and don’t have even an ability to have a clue.  Yet…

Jesus said that no one could see the Kingdom unless they were born again (John 3:3).  Jesus’ ministry on Earth was to teach and preach concerning the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus was faced with the throngs of followers early in His ministry, and told so by His disciples, He simply said, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.” (Mark 1:38).  Early success and popularity did not distract Him.

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The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.

Matthew 13:33

Thoughts and beliefs are powerful things.  Jesus said that to look with lust at a woman was to commit adultery, and to be angry at someone without a cause is to murder him.  Ultimately, it is what you think and what you believe that will either deliver you or condemn you to an eternal judgement of hell.

We can tend to look at our actions primarily, in the Christian life, but the unsurrendered self is perhaps the most dangerous weapon against the Kingdom, even as a believer.  Yet one sinner can destroy much good (Ecclesiastes 9:18).

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Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

Matthew 13:12

One sad thing I see in the interpretation of Matthew 13 is a large branch of thinking that rationalizes that Jesus was saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is somehow corrupt, not holy, or not pure.  Because of lack of understanding, or partial revelation (which we all must deal with — 1 Corinthians 13:9), many have assumed the Jesus meant somehow that the Kingdom of Heaven was itself divided.

In the case of Matthew 13, most of the parables start with the phrase “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”.  The Kingdom is likened to 7 things.  Some see believe that because they cannot find a species of mustard plant that grows from a very small seed into a large tree, that Jesus must have been implying some abnormal growth.  In addition, with parables such as the leaven which a woman hid, they assume that because in MOST of the references to the leaven in the Old Covenant are a reference to sin, and that sin was outlawed in most of the sacrifices, that Jesus obviously couldn’t be saying that the Kingdom was like leaven.  However, Jesus also plainly said in John’s gospel that unless you ate His flesh and drank His blood, you would have no life in you (John 6:53), a highly detestable practice in Jewish custom.  In the course of Jesus’ teachings, the fact that the image was abhorrent because of misunderstanding did not seem to matter to Jesus.

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