Podcasts about In Jesus

If you're like most people, the more chaotic life gets, the more you need a solution broken down in easy-to-understand concepts.   We've been discussing what happens when people move away from God, and the consequences that impact us.   Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”   Besides the soothing beauty of the language, notice that God gives us several elements to meditate on in Scripture, as we walk the road to peace.   We are clearly told here to hope in the Lord. He will then strengthen us. After this comes the fun part! Close your eyes and see yourself floating on the winds of peace, high above the chaos and troubles below. Finally, we are told that our strengths in the Lord will not wear out.   When God redeems, He does it completely—with no strings attached!    He loves us that much.   Let's pray.    Lord, you actually make it easy for us to leave the chains that confine us. God, we praise You. In Jesus' name, amen.  

Does your life feel out of control? Are you experiencing that common feeling of weaving down a busy highway, about to crash?   It's a metaphor for life that a lot of folks internalize at some point. All of a sudden, what you were sure of isn't there anymore. You might as well be behind the wheel of a fast car that's heading into oncoming traffic.   1 Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”   This isn't some nice little bit of wisdom someone put on a greeting card. This is the very Word of God. It has sustained civilization for thousands of years. And it's a proven method for getting your life under control.   It doesn't work though, unless you can see Jesus taking the wheel. Let him get you to safety and peace. He's ready and waiting to take all your worries and set you on a smooth and straight path.   Will you pray with me?   Lord, feeling out of control is not something we want anymore. Please take over and guide us, Lord, in your perfect ways. In Jesus' name, amen.  

Few of us enjoy chaos. It's just too...chaotic, right?   The human mind needs order and peace, yet we live in this messy world. Stuff is flying by all the time, and we duck.   Our relationships are a mess, and we have to schedule that root canal...while simultaneously making dinner and cleaning the house.   Is there a way out?   Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”   It's all perspective.   Yes, you might have a hundred things to do before 4 p.m. today, but remind yourself of this: sometimes we miss the best days of our lives because we don't focus on the good. God brought order out of a vast chaos long ago…formless, empty—to create a world of beauty. And He did it because He loved us.   If He can handle that, can we handle our busy day of meetings and yes, even that root canal? I think we can.   Pray with me.   Lord, our lives get so busy we forget that you made order out of chaos. Help us to slow down our brains and hearts and learn to savor the moment. In Jesus' name, amen.

As we barrel head first into December and all that comes with it, I wanted to backtrack to the moments in the Bible leading up to Jesus' appearance. I'm talking about John the Baptist. I posted a short clip a week or so back about how underrated the life of John is. I think its important to understand some background of this man and his role in preparing the way for Jesus' entry into the world! Let me begin by reading in Luke 1 about the miraculous conception of John. So, you see, John and Jesus' births not only overlap but they are parallel in the fact that both are miraculous! Talk about unexpected!  From the very moments since birth, John was prophesied over and raised KNOWING it was he who would fulfill prophecy as the one to usher in the new Testament. This is significant for many reasons: One, John is the first prophetic voice to rise up in 400 years. His birth is not only the fullfillment of prophecy but it will also become the link between the old and new testament. See, up until this very moment, the people of Israel have been practicing under the old testament law given to Moses after the great exodus out of Egypt. Under this old covenant, the people must make sacrifices and perform rituals, using appointed priests to make atonements to God on their behalf.  First is this: John was set apart. He knew he was set apart since birth. He didn't run or rebel from the idea of this; indeed, he set the course of his life on a path that HONORED this great commissioning. Guys. He literally chose to live in the wilderness. Many of the gospels document his life and share that not only did he choose to separate himself from the world but he also forsook comforts. Not only was John sure of who he was, not only did John know the role he was to play, but he was the forerunner to the salvation of the world. He laid his own comfort, he laid down opportunities for community and fellowship, and instead he boldly preached against the world. He called out religious hypocrites. And risked looking like an actual crazy person to prepare the way. It's why he was born! He never wavered from his role.  And he could have. By the time Jesus enters the scene in his adult years, John had built up quite a name and following. He had his own disciples. As Jesus approaches while John is baptizing people in the Jordan River, John's own disciples point and say who is that? John says, “ Behold, the Lamb of God!!” And his disciples left him to follow Jesus. Do you know what John didn't do? He didn't make it about himself. He didn't ask his disciples to come back and follow him. Why? Because that's not why he came. He knew his role. He knew his ministry. And his ministry wasn't about himself, but rather, about pointing the world to the Messiah.  Oh, what a stunning picture of hope. Doesn't God do fine work using the unexpected? He uses barren women to have prophet sons who live set apart. Wild (and some may even say a bit crazy). But the truth is, John wasn't crazy. He was a man who knew his role and never strayed from it. He lead the way. He becomes a link in history to the most important moments since or ever again. He users in the hope of the world. As we enter into the holiday season, my prayer is that each of you will remember, too, that God loves to use the unexpected. And in fact, He has always called you. He chose you before the beginning of time to live where you live, in the family you're in, in the city you reside, with the gifts and skills you have… to live with purpose. You know, deep down, He did. And maybe, just maybe, we'll all be brave enough to live set apart like John to point the way to Jesus. Lord knows the world needs hope. And the truth is… we have it. In Jesus.  Thank you to our sponsor! ⁠⁠⁠⁠NIV Journal the Word Bible⁠ ⁠⁠⁠published by Zondervan. Visit your local Christian bookstore or⁠⁠ journaltheword.com⁠⁠ to find a beautiful edition!

We have a great High Priest who constantly intercedes on our behalf. The Son of God and Man loves you more deeply than you can fathom. He prays for you, that you might walk in the abundant life his death affords you. And in John 17 we get a glimpse into the fullness of his desire for all those who would believe in him. As we dive deeply into the riches of Jesus' High Priestly Prayer this week, may your heart be awakened and your life be transformed by the riches of God's love. Our Scripture for today comes from John 17:1-2, and today's worship is King Jesus by Brooke Ligertwood.     Thank you so much for listening to today's devotional.    Stay tuned for the rest of the devotionals this week, as we unpack together this incredible prayer from Jesus. In Jesus' words we find a wonderful picture of God's heart, as God prays to God, a perfect prayer given on our behalf.    Have a wonderful rest of your day, and may God bless you as you seek him.  

Do you especially need the gift of peace right now? Is your life so busy, you can't find time to take a breath? There is Good News for you: Jesus already knows.   Luke 2:14 says, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!”   When Jesus ascended to heaven, He told the apostles, “My peace I leave with you.” Because He lives, we know for sure that this peace is available to us anytime, anywhere. Even in the busy part of your life, when you think you're going crazy, you can call on Him and He will answer.   This is our theme for this week: that peace is attainable. It comes from God, first and last. You might need to get away for even five minutes and close your eyes and pray. Let Him know you are beaten down and tired. Remember the verse we just read: peace is not just something for the glorious future Jesus is preparing for us. It's to us here and now.   Claim that for your busy life today!   Let's pray.    Lord, when chaos seems to rule over us, you tell us otherwise. Thank you that we can simply ask and you will settle peace over us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Salvation is Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God's rest. Having received the covenant promise by grace through faith in Jesus, there is no more work to be done. However, walking in faith as we trust in Jesus through the wilderness of this fallen world is a battle. The world, the flesh, and the devil consistently pull at our hearts and minds to draw us away from following Christ. That was happening to the Hebrew Christians to which Hebrews was written. They were suffering persecution and hardship, and the temptation to go back to the worldly safety of Judaism was strong. Hebrews 3 began with a very concise command. In Jesus, we are holy brothers with a heavenly calling; therefore, “consider Jesus.” Last week, we discussed what it means to fix our hearts and minds upon Him. As the writer continues, Hebrews 3:7-19 will bring one of the hardest warnings in the book. The readers are warned through these verses to beware of a hardening heart. The pattern of a hardening heart is given in verses (7-11) as the writer quotes Psalm 95:7-11. The Israelites who came out of Egypt show this pattern in the wilderness. Then, the readers are warned to protect themselves from a hardening heart (12-15). Finally, the reader must not presume this warning doesn't apply to us (16-19), as the author demonstrates the same people who came out of Egypt in praise, joy, and glory were the ones who rebelled and died in the wilderness. Verse 19 shows us the real problem – unbelief. Using the wilderness wanderings as an example, the author of Hebrews exhorts the Christians, saying, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (3:12). These Hebrew Christians were also traveling through the wilderness of persecution and suffering. When trial comes, will they do what the Exodus generation did and grumble, complain, and rebel? Would they wish to return to Egypt when they can't find water, as that generation did? Or would they trust the God who has spoken in His Son? The seeds of unbelief can fester in any heart, which is why we are called to “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (3:13).

Read- Proverbs 14: 30 Philippines 4:4-13 1 Timothy 6:6-12The enemy wants to rob you of now. He wants to empty today by causing you to worry about tomorrow, but a heart at peace is what we need to long for, because what we go through emotionally will affect you physically!Your pain gives you power to preach more effectively if you can learn to be content at “empty”. Because if you can't be content at the end you will never be content at full. Because it's not about being filled it's about being fulfilled.Here are four things to know about contentment:Contentment must be learned. Contentment is a choice. You can have contentment on empty Contentment is the good fight of faithThe only thing that can bring you contentment is not found here. When we leave this world we will not be taking anything with us, but a change in our focus will allow us to make it through this life.Don't beat yourself up for being discontent, but ask God to help you see the things you can be grateful for in this moment, and you can rejoice like the wordApplication - What are some areas in your life that you have envy and discontentment? What can you be thankful for instead in your life?Prayer - Father, I'm so grateful for the life you have given me. Allow me to see all that you've already set your hand to in my life because I know that everything has purpose! I discard discontentment from my life and I choose to fix my eyes on you! In Jesus name.

Readings: Isaiah 63:16–17, 19 Psalm 80:2–3, 15–16, 18–19 1 Corinthians 1:3–9 Mark 13:33–37 The new Church year begins with a plea for God's visitation. “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,” the prophet Isaiah cries in today's First Reading. In today's Psalm, too, we hear the anguished voice of Israel, imploring God to look down from His heavenly throne—to save and shepherd His people. Today's readings are relatively brief. Their language and “message” are deceptively simple. But we should take note of the serious mood and penitential aspect of the Liturgy today—as the people of Israel recognize their sinfulness, their failures to keep God's covenant, their inability to save themselves. And in this Advent season, we should see our own lives in the experience of Israel. As we examine our consciences, can't we, too, find that we often harden our hearts, refuse His rule, wander from His ways, withhold our love from Him? God is faithful, Paul reminds us in today's Epistle. He is our Father. He has hearkened to the cry of His children, coming down from heaven for Israel's sake and for ours to redeem us from our exile from God, to restore us to His love. In Jesus, we have seen the Father (see John 14:8–9). The Father has let His face shine upon us. He is the good shepherd (see John 10:11–15) come to guide us to the heavenly kingdom. No matter how far we have strayed, He will give us new life if we turn to Him, if we call upon His holy name, if we pledge anew never again to withdraw from Him. As Paul says today, He has given us every spiritual gift—especially the Eucharist and penance—to strengthen us as we await Christ's final coming. He will keep us firm to the end—if we let Him. So, in this season of repentance, we should heed the warning—repeated three times by our Lord in today's Gospel—to be watchful, for we know not the hour when the Lord of the house will return.

Malachi 4 Tells Us God Takes Care of His Own and that Those Who Wait Upon Him and “fear my {God's} name” Will Not Be Disappointed MESSAGE SUMMARY:  Isaiah, in Isaiah 64:3,8, says that God is the awesome God who created everything: “When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence . . . But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”. In Isaiah 65:11-13, Isaiah expresses God's disappointment in being snubbed by His chosen people, the Jews. However, Isaiah expresses how pleased God is with being welcomed by the Gentiles {my servants}: “'But you who forsake the LORD, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because, when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in.' Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame.'". Malachi tells us, in Malachi 4:1-3, that God will punish evildoers while sparing those who fear His name: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.". God takes care of His own, and those who fear the Lord and who wait upon the Lord will not be disappointed.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, help me to be still and to wait patiently for you in silence. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 125). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because I am in Jesus Christ, I will entrust to Him my future. I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.  From 2 Timothy 1:12 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Isaiah 64:3-10; Deuteronomy 28:58; Nehemiah 4:1-11; Malachi 4:1-6; Psalms 66b:11-20. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. — 2 Corinthians 13:14 Anthony, wearing a black bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses, paces back and forth outside my office. I'm on the phone, but he gestures repeatedly that I should “hang up the phone.” Now inside my office, he continues to pace, rips off his sunglasses, and blurts out, “I need communion. Now, Pastor. Sir. Now indeed. Indulge.” Anthony struggles with his mental health. He has no access to quality mental care, so he wanders the streets talking to voices in his head, and he self-medicates with cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. Five years ago he tested positive for HIV. His outbursts have led to his being barred from shelters around the city. He sleeps on a mattress in his cousin's garage. “Pastor, I need communion, sir, and I need it now.” Mental, physical, and emotional trauma have left him incapable of building trusting relationships. He needs to know he belongs—to God and neighbor. Felisha and Raphael, church council members at Roseland Christian Ministries, are both present. We scrounge up some bread and grape juice and gather in a circle, the four of us in my office. “Anthony, the body of Christ, broken for you; the blood of Christ, shed for you.” Anthony breathes deeply and says, “The body of Christ for me. Indeed. Amen.” Lord God, move us into relationship with you, community, and creation. In Jesus, Amen.

December 1, 2023Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily LifeExodus  25:10-11 Bible Study | Episode #560I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.If you would like to revisit today's Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. Please follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church 

May these testimonies of Glory encourage and inspire you, and cause your faith to rise. In Jesus name, Amen.

This week we're continuing the discussion we started last week concerning estate planning. Tune in and let me know what you think! In Jesus name let's get it!!

According to NASA, roughly 68 percent of the universe is made of dark energy and 27 percent is made of dark matter. That means approximately 95 percent of the universe is consumed in total darkness. That fact should make us even more thankful to God for creating the sun that gives light to the earth and the moon that reflects that light. The Apostle John opens his Gospel by explaining that the Word is One Who always existed and Who created everything (vv. 1–3). John would later explain that this Word is Jesus Christ (v. 14). In Jesus existed life, physical and spiritual. This life was and is given for all mankind (v. 4). The spiritual darkness of this world is no match for the light that Jesus illuminates (v. 5). Light has the ability to attract or repel. We see light's powerful attraction in the Nativity story. The Magi from the east came to Jerusalem drawn by the light from His star. When they arrived, they wanted to know, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matt. 2:2). The star would appear again and lead the Magi directly to Jesus (Matt. 2:9). Light doesn't leave people neutral. We see this principle again when Jesus told Nicodemus, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Jesus is the Light of the world, and He will not leave us unchanged. >> December has arrived, and as we begin our journey toward Christmas, we realize that (in the northern hemisphere) December is the darkest month of the year. In December we experience the longest night of the year. Join us in giving thanks to God for the gift of His Son, Jesus. He has brought light to the world. We are also thankful that He has chosen us to reflect His light.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's kind of fun in those moments when the kids are in bed and the dishes are done, to think about the Big Questions. You know—The List.   Why am I here?   What is the meaning of life?   A question that people from ancient times to now have asked is, why in the world, literally, did God create people? We are a handful, as past generations used to say. We mess up. Sometimes we're on our way to being smart, but then find ourselves flying down the Stupid Highway.   God must get tired of us, right?   1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”   In those terrible moments when you feel dirty and worthless, remember this verse. God says you are special to Him! You!   Begin praising Him for this incredible gift, and begin to understand that He made you to fellowship with Him, forever.   That's pretty awesome.   Let's pray.   Lord, all through your Word, You speak of us as the object of your love. Your incredible gesture of sending Jesus for us is proof of that. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Have you ever been in such a dark place that you wondered if God cares about you, or if He even exists? Maybe it's all some cosmic joke, right?   We've all been there. Humans doubt. We doubt ourselves, we doubt product labels, we doubt our kids. We question everything.   But the worst one is trying to figure out where God is in the middle of life's great difficulties. Sometimes the world is just flat-out mean, and it seems like it's an entity that's trying to break you in half.   That's the very moment God's ancient and eternal words come to us.   Isaiah 41:10 says, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”   Honestly, it doesn't get better than that! Jesus lives so that you will live forever. And in the interim, He will walk with you and carry you when necessary. He never fails and what's more, His willingness to never leave us has been proven over and over again, in a billion different ways.   If you need Him right now, don't doubt Him. Call out to Him. Your circumstances might seem impossible and impossibly unique…but don't believe it. Believe Him instead.   Let's pray.   Lord, you promised that you would never leave us. We know that's true, but help us with our faith in our weak moments. God, make us believe. In Jesus' name, amen.  

November 30, 2023Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily LifeExodus  25:8-9  Bible Study | Episode #559I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.If you would like to revisit today's Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. Please follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church 

Today's Uncertainties Call for a Deepening Personal Relationship with God Through Prayer, Fasting, and Listening MESSAGE SUMMARY: There are times when you need clarity, understanding, knowledge, and insights from the Lord about the specific issues that you are facing. The Lord will speak to you, but sometimes it takes your listening and fasting to hear Him. For example, when Joel received a Word when the land was to be destroyed, he called a fast (i.e. Joel 1:14): “Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.”. Some things you are facing in your life must be dealt with by both prayer and fasting. Fasting releases a spiritual power – in your weakness, God is made strong in your life. Daniel's prayer, from Daniel 9:3-5, provides a context for asking direction from God: “Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.'". After Jesus responded to the Apostles request of “teach us to pray” by providing the “Lord's Prayer”, Jesus instructed the Apostles and us, in Matthew 6:17-18, how to fast: “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.". Our fasting will be rewarded as a deepening link to God in our personal relationship with Him.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Father, I confess that when difficulties and trials come into my life, large or small, I mostly grumble and complain. I realize the trials James talks about are not necessarily “walls,” but they are difficult to bear, nonetheless. Fill me with such a vision of a transformed life, O God, that I might actually consider it “pure joy” when you bring trials my way. I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 94). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, Because of who I am in Jesus Christ, I will not be driven by Past Failures. Rather, I will abide in the Lord's Grace. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Joel 1:13-16; Matthew 6:16; Daniel 9:3-7; Psalms 114:1-8. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles, Part 5: Following Jesus Changes Everything in Our Families”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

As humans, we have a tendency to compartmentalize things. It's in our nature to make lists, and rank priorities, and really box certain things in. We've got our work life over here, and our family life over there, and our faith somewhere else.    This can often lead us to confusion about what we're supposed to do, and when, and where we're supposed to go. And this confusion extends to our faith. We wonder: When am I supposed to pray, and when am I supposed to take action on my faith?   Psalm 34:1 says, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”   When we get the Word deep in our hearts, we can have an answer for our personal questions. This psalm tells us that we are to always remember the great gifts the Father God bestows on us. His greatness is ever before us and in this way, we can worship Him all the time, no matter what we're doing.   Learn to bless the Lord and praise Him as you do your job, as you fellowship with others, and even as you engage with people who don't believe what you believe. They need to see the love of Christ shining through you.   Let's pray.   Lord, we bless you and praise you with our words. Thank you, Father, for never ever forgetting us. In Jesus' name, amen.

By NOT Adhering to Jesus' “Great Commission” to “go . . . and make disciples” You Are Following Jesus MESSAGE SUMMARY: God said told all Jesus Followers to “go and make disciples” not to “make decisions”. In other words, we are to bring the Gospel to others with whom we have or with whom we develop a personal relationship. Therefore, we are to leave the “conversion” or the “decision” of others to become a Christian up to the Holy Spirit. Our job, as Jesus Followers, is to “go and make disciples”. In Jesus' last instructions to His Apostles and to you, before His Ascension to Heaven from Earth, is in Mathew 28:16-20 -- Jesus' Great Commission: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”. A disciple is a student, a follower, a learner. Making a disciple is not about classes. Making a disciple it about investing yourself in the life of another person – discipling is having a personal relationship with another person so that they see the life of Christ in you. Have you been discipled, or have you made a disciple? Not “going and making disciples” is your “great omission” as a Christian.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, in order to be with you, I need you to show me how to “create a desert” in the midst of my full, active life. Cleanse me from the pressures, illusions, and pretenses that confront me today so that my life may serve as a gift to those around me. Amen.  Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 26). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that, because I am in Jesus Christ, God isn't finished with me yet (Philippians 1:6). “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”. (Philippians 4:14). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV):  Mathew 28:16-20; Mathew 9:36-38; Mathew 10:16-33; Psalms 115:1-18. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

The Science of Healing and Quantum Faith (3)   (Audio) Timelines  (Our thanks to Deb and husband Will Horton, who majored in Physics.) (David's notes in red) Wikipedia defines “quantum” as: “In physics, a quantum (the plural ‘quanta') is the minimum amount of any physical entity or physical property involved in an interaction.  The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude of the physical property can take on only discrete values consisting of integer multiples of one quantum. For example, a photon is a single quantum of light of a specific frequency (or of any other form of electromagnetic radiation). Similarly, the energy of an electron bound within an atom is quantized and can exist only in certain discrete values. (Atoms and matter in general are stable because electrons can exist only at discrete energy levels within an atom.) Quantization is one of the foundations of the much broader physics of quantum mechanics. Quantization of energy and its influence on how energy and matter interact (quantum electrodynamics) is part of the fundamental framework for understanding and describing nature.”  Willard says that an “element” (or “particle”) of time is not yet defined in science. However, the Bible does define a particle of time. It is the “twinkling of an eye” in (1Co.15:51) Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, (52) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. According to Strong's, “moment” is from átomos (from 1 /A "not" and 5114 /tomṓteros, "to cut") – properly, not able to cut (divide) because too small to be measured, like a "split second"; an "instant; an indivisible moment of time, too short to measure" (Souter).   Deb: If it's indivisible, then that means it is in a wave form.      Schrodinger's Cat:   Re: The 10/27/23 Friday UBM Live Broadcast  As David started his explanation of what the factious satanists had done to sacrifice Eve Brast and how she had been snatched out of her grave in the woods where they buried her, by an angel over the UBM angels, named Baruch.  And how she had received another body, how some of the factious died yet came back only to die again, and many other events that had occurred involving opposing timelines, I was beginning to freak out. I thought maybe David had been invaded by some New Age spirit and was going down the path of transmigration of the soul, but as he continued, I realized I was hearing "Schrodinger's Cat as described by David."  Wikipedia says:  “In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead, while it is unobserved in a closed box, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. This thought experiment was devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935[1] in a discussion with Albert Einstein[2] to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.”  So I emailed David about the broadcast and my initial concern, along with a link to an article with the best layman's explanation of the Schrodinger's Cat paradox that I could find. But when David tried the link, it came up "404 Page Not Found." After David replied to my email and I tried it again, that link came up "404 Page Not Found" for me, too.  Well, it was there for me or I couldn't have read the article and copied the link and sent it to David. Then suddenly I realized that the Lord was actually verifying the premise of Schrodinger's Cat, which is that something can be there and not be there at the same time.  Why and how is that possible?  (When the Lord first spoke to me of two opposite timelines running parallel at the same time I did not understand. As time went on I understood that the good believers timeline was actuated by our faith in believing we have received what we ask for. Mar 11:23-24 ASV  Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. (Speak to the mountains that hinder your path and remove them like unbelief.) 24  Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received (Greek) them, and ye shall have them. (So we see that everything you pray and ask for believe you have received it by order of Jesus. This is the believer's timeline. The other timeline is the unbeliever's timeline which is under the curse. What Quantum Physics or Mechanics has proven is that the whole creation is set up to answer our prayers of faith. Our experiences in this regard are parables that help us realize the necessity to know what faith is and to use it.) The least technical scientific explanation I can give you of the Schrodinger's Cat paradox is that merely by the act of observing something, the observer does indeed affect what is being observed. (We see in our minds eye what we want or need when we ask for it.) You may possibly have run across this in a Science News or Scientific American article where they discuss how those observing a complex experiment may inadvertently affect that experiment because they are looking for a specific outcome. In some cases, multiple observers may each obtain a different outcome because that was the outcome they desired to find, so multiple observers are able to cause multiple outcomes.   What is seen, or what is called "reality," actually does depend on the observer, i.e. the faith of the person to see the thing they have asked for. And that matches what Jesus said in (Mat.9:29) ... According to your faith be it done unto you.  Here are the pieces of Barry Rothman's arkcode.com write-up where the Bible describes altering timelines by reversing them.  [Beginning of copied Rothman section.] “The 37th chapter of Ezekiel calls to mind what would be seen on a film if an army were suddenly killed, fell to the ground, then started to rot and decompose. There's just one problem – Ezekiel 37 describes what would be seen if the film were run in reverse. That is, it seems to portray resurrection as a process akin to the reversal of time. But while Ezekiel is interpreted by some as metaphor, 2nd Kings 20:8 -11 is a very different matter. The incident in question is as follows:  (2Ki.20:8) And Hezekiah said to Isaiah: “What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD the third day?” (9) And Isaiah said: “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do that thing that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or back ten degrees?” (10) And Hezekiah answered “It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten degrees, nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.” (11) And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD; and he brought back the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.  The story of how Isaiah, with God's help, reversed time (or the spin of the Earth) is also found in Isaiah 38:8, which states, "Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the dial, which is gone down in the sun-dial of Ahaz, to return ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down."  The BACKWARD description mentioned earlier with respect to the film analogy can be seen in Ezekiel 37:1 to 14:  (Eze.37:1) The hand of the LORD was upon me, and the LORD carried me out in a spirit, and set me down in the midst of a valley, and it was full of dry bones; (2) and he caused me to pass by them round about, and, behold, there were very many in the open valley, and, lo, they were very dry. (3) And He said to me: ‘Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, You know.'  (Eze.37:4) Then He said to me: ‘Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: O you dry bones, hear the word of the LORD: (5) Thus says the LORD GOD unto these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. (6) And I will lay sinews on you, and you will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.'  (Eze.37:7) So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and a commotion, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. (8) And I beheld, and lo, there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them.  (Eze.37:9) Then He said to me: ‘Prophesy unto the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath: Thus says the LORD GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.' (10) So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, and they were a very great host.  (Eze.37:11) Then He said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off. (12) Therefore prophesy, and say unto them: Thus says the LORD GOD: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. (13) And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, O my people. (14) And I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land; and you shall know that I the LORD have spoken, and performed it, says the LORD.  RESURRECTION IN TORAH AND TALMUD. The picture that the Torah paints of resurrection is again one that resembles the reversal of time. In Deuteronomy 32:39 we read, "See now, that I am He - and no god is with me. I put to death and I bring life, I wound and I will heal, and there is no rescuer from My hand." The Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin (91b) discusses this verse.  It states, "Our Rabbis taught: I kill, and I make alive. I might interpret, I kill one person and give life to another, as the world goes on: therefore the Writ states, I wound, and I heal. Just as the wounding and healing [obviously] refer to the same person, so putting to death and bringing to life refer to the same person. This refutes those who maintain that resurrection is not intimated in the Torah." With respect to the arrow of time, the normal sequence would be healthy wounded still alive dead. But the sequence in Deuteronomy 32:39 is dead brought back to life living, but wounded healed. This again looks like a reversal of the arrow of time.” [End of copied Rothman section.]  Deb: Notice that if time can be stopped and then reversed, then time also has the characteristics of a particle. Also, Barry Rothman didn't include the most famous time stop ever, which is when Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still, because the sun and moon responded to the spoken words of faith.  (Jos.10:12) Then spake Joshua to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; And thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon. (13) And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. (14) And there was no day like that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened unto the voice of a man: for Jehovah fought for Israel. (Barry is quite right, a reversal of time would bring back your old body at a younger age. But this is not the case as we know from Eve's body and the gifts that came with it. This is not a resurrection of the old body but a new body given by God.)     Eve's New Body    (I believe Eve's new body shows us what the Bride will have.) Deb Horton: I couldn't sleep and just kept pondering about Eve's new body. At the Pot Blessing, I talked to David about the two verses I shared with Terri and he agreed. He also said (1) he couldn't explain everything in a 2 hour broadcast, so I fussed at him about his choice of words because people could take them the wrong way just as I initially did and (2) he said that the Lord told him Eve's body was so defiled He wouldn't resurrect it but gave her a new body instead. (2Co.5:17) Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.  I went to the Greek and it could mean a completely different body.   Terri McGinley: I asked and got a “no” (for a resurrection of the old body). I asked if Eve had a completely different body and got six heads in a row. I originally got four and asked for two more to confirm a “yes”.   (Eve was given a new younger body (This is not a glorified body. This was a resurrection to a physical life and hence it is a physical body.) Her spiritual woman was pulled out of the grave after two days of being buried and was given a young completely healthy body. Her spiritual woman is her spirit and the part of her soul that was born of God. Whereas her old carnal man was her flesh and the part of her soul that was unregenerate, which God said burned up. Her body was not taken from the ashes of her old body because God said they were defiled. Ashes are pure from disease, germs, etc. But they came from the old man so in the spirit realm they are defiled. I believe the DNA was more in line with the Lord's. When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, He said that we have His life. I have been seen in dreams in such a body, too. I believe it is the restoration of years under the curse mentioned in Joel 2 and the "restoration of all" ("things" was not in the Greek). Meaning all of the fully sanctified ones in Acts 3:21 who will be completely restored. Just as Eve typed the Bride in many dreams, I believe the Bride will all have this regenerate body when the out-resurrection comes with the spiritual resurrection of the Man-child to the throne. She has a body like she would have wanted. She looks mostly like original Eve but younger and prettier. Her hair which was died red is now naturally red. She has no hair on her legs since she hated shaving it and her legs are more slim. She also has wonderful gifts now, like Jesus had, like reading minds and seeing things in the Spirit anywhere. Her discernment is great. I was told by the Lord that she was almost unique on earth because of her physical and spiritual makeup. I asked if she ever had a symptom of sickness or pain and she said, “never”. It appears she is not under the curse. Matt's dream below shows her to have a special spiritual ministry for UBM. We have already seen some of this. For instance she is able to look in on our enemies.)  Terri McGinley asked: Is this where someone came back into a different body or am I just missing it. I received 2 tails for No. (She was given by God a completely new body that was similar in looks but without characteristics she did not like.) So I asked for a verse by random computer and received (Act.2:38) And Peter [said] unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  What do I need to repent of? I received (Php.3:20) For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: [But look at the next verse & completion of the sentence:] (21) who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.  I just don't know. The Bible says there's nothing new. (Meaning it has happened before. Melchizedek had no earthly lineage. Heb 7:3  without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. We are the body of Christ and we are being conformed to His image.     The Double Slit Experiment  Time (or the perception thereof) is also both a particle and a wave.  Example: As soon as you say, "Now," your "Now" is your past and you are in your future, so technically, everything that can/will ever happen is happening all at the same time.  Here's the link to a more layman's explanation per Willard:  https://www.space.com/double-slit-experiment-light-wave-or-particle  Excerpt: “The double-slit experiment is one of the most famous experiments in physics and definitely one of the weirdest. It demonstrates that matter and energy (such as light) can exhibit both wave and particle characteristics — known as the particle-wave duality of matter — depending on the scenario, according to the scientific communication site Interesting Engineering” (which is the site that Michael found).  “According to the University of Sussex, American physicist Richard Feynman referred to this paradox as the central mystery of quantum mechanics.   We know the quantum world is strange, but the two-slit experiment takes things to a whole new level. The experiment has perplexed scientists for over 200 years, ever since the first version was first performed by British scientist Thomas Young in 1801.”  https://interestingengineering.com/science/what-is-the-double-slit-experiment-and-why-is-it-so-important      Coming Resurrections   Eve's New Job  Matthew Stewart 11/4/23 (David's notes in red)    I had this dream the morning of November 4th.  I dreamt that we were in the middle of a regular, local meeting, and David was teaching. But then I had a vision within the dream:  It was like the time before the meeting where everybody fellowships. I saw Leon was resurrected and sitting in a chair with his usual expression on his face. And I thought, “Leon's back!” Then I looked over and saw another man that had gone to heaven sitting there as well. In the dream I knew him, but when I woke up, I didn't remember who he was. Then I looked and saw Eve sitting in a chair, very meek, reserved and humble. I remember thinking that “They're all back! They're all coming back!” (And it happened at a local meeting.) Then I turned and looked into the center of the room where there was a commotion going on. I went over there, and Amber was slowly physically materializing from the ground up. After she was fully formed, she said hi to me and I said hi back and everyone was excited.  So I went to look for Eve and she was getting ready to leave to go back to her place to do some work for the ministry. So I followed her and her work place was in outer space. (A job “in heavenly places in Christ.”) It was a big floating house in outer space (Cyber space), from which you could go there freely without a spaceship or special equipment to breathe.    So I followed her up into space to her house and she went to work on a computer to get something done for the ministry. And I thought to myself, “This is cool!”  (Notice that Eve is higher up the timeline than the rest of us because at the moment she is further into the future on the same believing timeline than the rest of us. Eve already has her new body which we will have in the future.  To prove this she was going to come to our meeting and she was late. We were already worshipping and I was guiding her in, speaking to her in the spirit, which we both have a gift to do. I told her which roads to take which were just two and what road to turn on to come to the address of the property, which was clearly marked on the front of the building. We were worshipping as I talked to her in my mind, which can also be done with words. There were many cars out front and we were pretty loud inside. She said, I am there looking at the address on the building and no one is there. I said, can't you hear the noise and see all the cars. She said there are no cars and no noise and no one is there. I walked out of the meeting in front of everybody and out the front door and saw no Eve.  She said I am here at the same address and street. What the Lord told me was that until we got our new body we would not be in the same time even though we were on the same timeline. She was ahead of us in heavenly maturity as far as her body was concerned. Also she has tried to come to my house to talk to me and Michael 3 times. I would ask her where she was because it was taking too long. She would identify things along the way showing she was getting closer. Then I would ask her “where are you now?” because she should have been here. She found herself back at her apartment vehicle and all and we both were confused. At the out-resurrection, they and us, will all be at the same time and on the same timeline because we will all have the same body at the restoration of all. Then the vision ended and David was still teaching. So I raised my hand to tell David the vision I just had, but David told me to wait until he was done with his teaching. Then I woke up. (This is showing when the teaching with the former rain anointing is over the Man-child will be resurrected spiritually to the throne to begin the latter rain anointing of the Soloman Man-child.) When speaking or thinking a conversation with people in the Spirit it is very clear even when speaking to someone on the other side of the earth or in heaven or in hell. This is the only way to speak to our missionaries in a Muslim land that is not dangerous for them because they hack their phones and emails. The angels told us they were going to give us supernatural methods to get the gospel out in the near future. It is happening. I spoke to Amber in heaven. She told me to tell Brandy she is coming soon. Only once have I seen an interruption of this gift and it was God ordained. I was trying to speak to leaders on the unbelieving cursed timeline and they couldn't hear me.  This happened with Jesus also. I found out later that the fleshly carnal men on that timeline who were traitors are strengthened when you acknowledge them. This we found out with Kevin when he came back we had to ignore and renounce him so he died as God said. The old man must die for the spiritual man on the believing timeline to live. “As the outer man is decaying the inner man is renewed day by day.” “Reckon your selves to be dead” “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body”.)     Amber's Return Flight  Anna Stewart 11/19/23 (David's notes in red)    My dream started before Amber had died. I had no knowledge in the dream that she had ever died. She was sick but still able to move around for herself. She took a flight somewhere and was now soon scheduled to return. (From heaven)  We were discussing who would pick her up from the airport. I volunteered to go but Debbie said she'd pick her up since she'd already be there (Meaning Debbie would be back home with us to pick up Amber. She just came back from her trip to see family. So Amber will be here soon with the rest of the out-resurrection.) We agreed but then I was attacked with thought that her flight might be delayed. I cast those thoughts down and thought, “No, she is going to arrive on time with no delays.” Well she definitely took a flight to heaven, but praise God she's coming back! And it appears this will be soon? If nothing else, I believe it is an encouragement that's she's coming and to cast down any thoughts of it being delayed. May we all be counted worthy to see this thing through to the end!  Deb Horton: Time also exhibits the characteristics of both a wave and a particle. Example: As soon as you say, "Now," you are in your future and your "now" is your past, so technically, everything that can ever happen in creation is happening all at the same time, which perfectly supports the concept of different timelines and holding fast by faith to the promise.  So in other words, Amber is already returned. The problem is that we have to have the eyes to see her at this time. I think Anna's dream (and many other dreams) are helping us to see this now!  May the Father multiply our faith as the stars of heaven! In Jesus' Name, amen.      “Amber IS Going to Arrive on Time”  Deb Horton  Some 50 or so years back, I simultaneously experienced two timelines running at different speeds. Here's what happened.  Our neighbors down the street, Sue and Denny, were going to give us the swing set that their children had outgrown and so Denny called to let me know that he would be coming over with it that morning. The phone rang. I picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.” I heard Denny say, “Hi, this is Deh...” and I was gone, thrown out of my body.  I found myself standing under the shadow of what I just assumed was the wing of an airplane. There was barely enough light to see more than shadows and the wind was just howling and groaning. (Yes, that's the classic description of the astral plane.) I don't know why I wasn't scared to death. Everything around me was either concrete or tarmac and I was in the middle of speaking with some man. Well, not speaking. We had to shout over the noise of the wind. There was only one other man that I knew named Dennis back from when I lived in D.C., and although I couldn't really see who this man was, that's who I thought it was.  We had to have been talking for at least three to four hours when I heard, “nee,” the second syllable of Denny's name. I was back in the kitchen with the telephone receiver in my hand like nothing had happened. Next to no time had elapsed.   As David likes to say, “God always starts on time to finish on time.”      Cutting The Python  Marie Kelton 11/20/23 (David's notes in red)  During the morning meeting, David was talking about the two timelines and that in the bad timeline the people are dead to God's ways. I had an open vision of a python with half of its body coiled up. The other half with the head was lying on the ground dying. I then saw a hand holding a cleaver knife; it cut the body connected to the head apart from the coiled part of the body. (The part of the body with the mouth and teeth is the unbelieving bad timeline who are the factious and other failed people who will eventually die off under the curse for lack of faith and good confession. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Mat 12:36 ASV  And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.)  A factious woman we know is on the bad timeline and thinks it's the only timeline until God took her to hell and showed the factious satanist leaders and their head Kevin burning in hell. She was told this was her timeline end if she didn't repent.     Alternate Time Island  Anonymous 11/20/23 (David's notes in red)  In my dream I was on this desert island with David Eells and we would somehow translate on and off the island to normal land. It was really nice having this, like a private island and freedom.   However, a couple that fell into faction were also on the island and we could see them but they couldn't see us, even if we stood next to them. Deb: (Luk.16:26) And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they that would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us.  We saw them moving around and living on the island but where they were was all dark colors and the parts of the island they moved on, was as if it were a different island with thorns and not nice colors and difficult areas; the land seemed dark and cursed and haunted. Deb: (Heb.6:7) For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: (8) but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned.  But the island we were on was colored and beautiful and not cursed, even though this was the exact same island the factious couple were on. I felt that they didn't even want to be able to see us, and they couldn't at all, but we could see them. They were not able to get off the island, they were stuck on it, but David and I could freely leave the island as we desired.  (The island had all the opportunities of Quantum Physics and if you see and believe you will receive but they can only see their cursed timeline. 2Co 4:3-4 ASV  And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish:  4  in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.) It was kind of like two different realities but as one. The two of us had the choice to see both realities as we desired, but the factious couple could only see the one they were in and they had no knowledge or understanding of anything else. (They believe they are in the only timeline but they don't know it ends in hell.)     Multiple Shifting Timelines  Deb Horton: I am not the best explainer but here goes.  If nothing is fixed/set/real/manifested (choose your word) until it is observed and believed, then all possibilities have to exist simultaneously. The cat has to be alive, and the cat has to be dead, and the cat never has to have been in the box, and the cat has to be having kittens in the box, and the cat has to be a yellow tabby, and the cat has to be a calico, and so on. Every possibility of the cat has to be there to meet the expectation of every possible observer being either positive or negative.  Interestingly, multiple timelines seem to be appearing in movies. For example, Angel Studios has released “The Shift” as “a modern-day retelling of the book of Job. Kevin Garner gets separated from Molly, the love of his life, when a mysterious adversary known as The Benefactor sends him to an alternate dystopian reality. Will hope and faith be enough to find his way back? See The Shift in theaters December 1st.” And the Deep State media has released another movie about timelines called “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” The NPR movie review says: “Multiverses are having something of a moment, popping up in recent movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and upcoming ones like Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. It's refreshing, then, to get a new multiverse movie this week that doesn't spring from the world of comic-book superheroes. It's called Everything Everywhere All at Once — an apt title for a movie that imagines the existence of thousands of alternate timelines, featuring thousands of alternate versions of ourselves.” So the Bible is (no surprise) correct. (Deu.30:19) I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, (Choose to believe the good timeline that agrees with promises in the Word.) that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; (20) to love Jehovah thy God, to obey his voice, and to cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.   (Eze.12:2) Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of the rebellious house, that have eyes to see, and see not, that have ears to hear, and hear not; for they are a rebellious house.   (Luk.8:10) And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to the rest in parables; that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.  And I think this explains, (Psa.82:6) I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High. (7) Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes. We are co-creators of our life based on what we choose to believe. 

I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God. . . .” — Revelation 19:17 My first sighting of the flight of tens of thousands of crows at dusk in East Vancouver was eerie and foreboding. But over the years, I've grown used to this cacophonous, raucous parade in the sky that takes place twice a day as these birds travel between the beaches and their rookeries. These midair birds fly higher up than songbirds but closer to the earth than soaring eagles, and they are flourishing in many cities today. They have even been dubbed the “Einstein bird” for the ways they have adjusted their behavior to human patterns. Crows have learned that threats are fewer and food is more plentiful in urban areas, so they live in abundance in protected parks, and they glean from the messes that humans leave behind. The Bible has many references to these prolific birds that God has appointed in his plan to bring justice, and in Revelation 19 they are called to devour evil rulers. Acknowledging these swarms, or murders, of crows is chilling and unpleasant, but we also have the hopeful promise that God will not allow evil to have the final word. There are things that happen in the world that break our hearts; we recognize corruption and evil. But in Christ we are assured that one day things will be made right again. God of justice and righteousness, we trust in your promise to make all things new. Let your kingdom come, and may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Jesus is always in our midst. If you feel as if you are waiting on Him, look around and realize that He is with you. Perhaps HE is waiting for YOU to recognize His presence. (Luke 17:20-37) **** Welcome to Walking in the Word, the biblical teaching arm of the Women World Leaders podcast. My name is Julie Jenkins, and I am so happy you have joined us as we spend some time in God's Word together. If you are new to the podcast, welcome! We have three weekly offerings for you. On Mondays, Kimberly Hobbs hosts Empowering Lives with Purpose – a 30-minute interview with a woman of faith whose story will encourage you to walk in your God-given purpose. On Fridays, we have a team of leaders who host Celebrating God's Grace. I love our Friday eclectic offerings – as each host shares from her own experience and in her own voice. And today, Wednesdays, we open the Bible together and ask God to show us what He wants us each to learn. And do you know what – He never disappoints us! We are currently walking through the gospels together, and our study today comes from the book of Luke, chapter 17, verses 20-37. Before we begin, let's pray… Dear Most Holy God, we offer you ourselves as we open your Word today. Our days are full as the world calls us in so many different directions, but we commit to pause for the next few minutes as we intentionally listen for your voice. Father, I ask you to keep out any distractions that may threaten our time with you. Please drown out the cares of the world with the magnificent sound of your voice. Immerse us in your presence. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. As Jesus continues to make his way to Jerusalem, He continues to teach and guide both those who are traveling with Him as well as those He encounters. I'm so glad so many of these teachings were written down for us to study, aren't you? There is no doubt that as Luke recalled and wrote these words, He was following the call of the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite verses…and maybe yours, too… is Romans 8:28…And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. That verse has a kaleidoscope of meaning that is so deep and expansive. Regarding THIS topic, I am just amazed that Jesus taught the words we are about to study, Luke wrote them down through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then they were preserved and protected and translated through God's power and provision until they ended up here, today, in our hands and in our minds to study in reference to SOMETHING that is happening in your life today…something I am NOT EVEN AWARE OF as I speak. God does indeed work ALL things together for the good of those who love Him. Is that not the most miraculous things ever?? God loves YOU THAT much! Well…if He went to ALL that trouble, you'd better believe we ought to give Him our focus as we read His Word! Let's begin in Luke 17:20 from the New Living Translation 20 One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God come?” Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs.[a] 21 You won't be able to say, ‘Here it is!' or ‘It's over there!' For the Kingdom of God is already among you.[b]” Notice that this topic is initiated by a question from the Pharisees. The Jewish people had been priming themselves for a huge, dramatic event that would change the world. As a people, they had served God for a long time, and they had seen and heard stories of fire brought down from heaven, seas splitting, walls falling, and even a cloud and a pillar of fire that went ahead of the Israelites leading them through the desert to the Promised Land. And following suit, they expected the Kingdom of God to be ushered in a spectacular display, freeing them from the tyranny of earthly government and the shackles of humanity. Jesus had preached about the kingdom of God, so the Pharisees, unashamedly and perhaps even backhandedly, asked…Ok…when is this all going to go down? And because they didn't believe that Jesus was who He said He was…the Son of the Living God…they likely scoffed at Jesus' answer…The Kingdom of God is already among you. How often do we ask for a sign FROM God when what we really need to do is stand in God's presence? This is something I have grown in, but am still guilty of. And while it's not wrong to ask God to reveal Himself to you… the fact of the matter is, God is all around you at all times. If you don't see Him, in the words of my pastor, that's a you-problem. Jesus had been born into the world, ushering in a new era – offering the most astounding change the world had ever seen and WILL ever see until we all witness His second coming. Jesus brought God's presence to earth to live continually. He was about to die for the sins of humanity, presenting a way for each of us to live with God for eternity. The Kingdom of God HAD arrived. And yet, because it didn't look as the Pharisees expected, they strummed their fingers and looked at Jesus and said…We're waiting… How often do you and I call out to God in distress, wondering why He isn't answering when, in fact, He IS answering, but His answer doesn't look like WE want it to? Faith is not just believing IN God, but it is believing God. It is believing that He is working for our good ALL – THE – TIME! It is responding to Him right where we are, doing exactly as the Holy Spirit instructs us, despite what we feel or the answers we think we want. The Pharisees had the answer to their own question standing right in front of them, but they refused to see it—to see HIM. So Jesus answered them shortly and succinctly, and then He turned and spoke to those who DID see Him and appreciated Him for who He was – His disciples. Jesus explained to them on a deeper level, saying that although He was there in their presence at that moment, things were about to change. They, by faith, accepted the basic elementary truth of Jesus' identity, and now, they were ready for the more profound teaching of what was to come. Verse 22… 22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see the day when the Son of Man returns,[c] but you won't see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘Look, there is the Son of Man,' or ‘Here he is,' but don't go out and follow them. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other, so it will be on the day[d] when the Son of Man comes. Jesus doesn't ever hold back information that we NEED to know. If you are a Christ-follower, you can trust that when you listen to Him intently and follow His call, you WILL be prepared, with His strength, to face anything that comes at you. Jesus told His disciples they WOULD be waiting for His return one day. And He also told them, and us, that when He does come, we won't miss it. Nobody will miss it. You will NEVER have to take someone else's word that Jesus has returned – you WILL know. Jesus offers an interlude to prepare the disciples for the events in their near future…verse 25…  25 But first the Son of Man must suffer terribly[e] and be rejected by this generation. And then He resumes His teaching about His return… 26 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. 27 In those days, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot. People went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building— 29 until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Yes, it will be ‘business as usual' right up to the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Each time I read Scripture, I ask God to show me with new eyes what He wants me to know, and as I read this today, I saw a broken-hearted Jesus. We hear the story of Noah and tend to think about those who were saved—Noah and his family and the animals – and that is glorious. But what about the thousands upon thousands who were destroyed by the deluge of rain that overtook their homes and their land? Water is so powerful and can be so scary – you know if you've ever spent time on or near the sea during a storm. I can't imagine the cries and screams and devastation of those who were NOT on the boat with Noah. I think we protect our minds from those thoughts because they are so gruesome. And think about the destruction of Sodom…with fire and sulphur flying out of the sky burning everything down to nothing. The stench must have been suffocating, the heat excruciating, the screams deafening, and the pain tortuous. These are NOT fun scenes to think of, yet they pale in comparison to what will happen in the end days. Alongside the glory of Jesus' return will be devastation, destruction, and death. These thoughts must have torn Jesus' heart in two even as He said these words. To bring urgency, Jesus stressed that at the moment of separation and destruction, it will be too late for anyone to turn to Him for mercy and salvation. It will be too late for anyone to recognize that He was in the midst all along. Jesus continues as recorded in Luke 17:31…  31 On that day a person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into the house to pack. A person out in the field must not return home. 32 Remember what happened to Lot's wife! 33 If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it. 34 That night two people will be asleep in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding flour together at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.[f]” The disciples, listening, wanted to be further prepared, and asked… 37 “Where will this happen, Lord?”… Jesus replied, “Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.” In other words, we won't know until we know. But when it happens, we will undoubtedly know, just as we can be assured there is a dead carcass nearby when we see vultures circling. How gracious God is NOT to give us a date for the end times. Can you even begin to imagine the stress if we knew it was tomorrow? We would all have heart attacks and be completely incapacitated. We can ALWAYS trust that when we follow God, He will give us ALL the information we need, even as He protects us from what He knows would be too much for us. Our job is recognize that Jesus IS in our midst, every moment of every day. And our job is to respond to Him in faith—because He IS in full control. We NEVER have to wait on God; in fact, He is waiting patiently for so many of US to acknowledge who He is and respond in obedience to Him. When we do, we can be assured that He will tell us what we need to know, show us where we need to go, and work all things together for our good. Let's pray… Dear Most Holy God, we say yes to you. We acknowledge and appreciate your presence as we praise you. We trust everything you say. We wholeheartedly agree to act in response to your voice. Father, forgive us for the times we've looked for you and claimed we couldn't find you. Thank you for your mercy when we don't respond in obedience. Hold us accountable even as you hold us by your side. For all eternity. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.    

November 29, 2023 Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily LifeExodus 25:7  Bible Study | Episode #558I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.If you would like to revisit today's Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. Please follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church 

God Sees a Jesus Follower as Being “In Christ”; Therefore, God Sees a Jesus Follower as His Son or Daughter MESSAGE SUMMARY: As Followers of Jesus, you are "In Christ" -- God looks at you, as a Jesus Follower, and He sees Jesus in you. Throughout the Epistles we find: "In Christ" or "In Him". In Galatians 3:14, Paul tells you that your faith in Jesus makes you “In Christ” and a recipient of God's Covenant with Abraham: “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.". Also, Paul goes even further, in Galatians 3:25-28, to tell you that, through your faith in Jesus, you no longer need any kind of intermediary because you are “In Christ” and you have a personal relationship with God, the Creator of the Universe: “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”. When God sees you, “In Christ" as a Jesus Follower, He sees Jesus, the Son. Therefore, God sees you as His son or daughter.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, everything in me resists following you into the garden of Gethsemane to fall on my face to the ground before you. Grant me the courage to follow you all the way to the cross, whatever that might mean for my life. And then, by your grace, lead me to resurrection life and power. In Jesus' name, amen.   Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 100). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, because of I am filled with the Holy Spirit, I will not be controlled by my Addictions. Rather, I will walk in the Spirit's fruit of Self-Control. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22f). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Romans 3:21-26; Romans 6:5-11; Romans 6:22-23; Psalms 63:1-11. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

November 28, 2023Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily LifeExodus  25:6  Bible Study | Episode #557I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.If you would like to revisit today's Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. Please follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church 

In this episode we're asking how knowing that ONLY God can satisfy changes things for us. How does this truth change how we think, feel, and choose? In Jesus, we have joy, contentment, satisfaction, hope. We already have it! Don't need to strive for it. From THIS place, we can choose to live a lift that leads us to thank Him. With fullness of heart! Blog post: ⁠paigeschmidt.com Join Live Brightly: ⁠paigeschmidt.com/livebrightly⁠  Download the Your Bright Life Journaling Exercise: ⁠https://www.paigeschmidt.com/bright-life/⁠ Connect with Paige: Subscribe to the podcast! Sign-up for Paige's email list: ⁠https://www.paigeschmidt.com/#SignUp⁠ Website & coaching: ⁠⁠paigeschmidt.com⁠⁠ Email her directly: ⁠⁠paige@paigeschmidt.com⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠@paigeschmidt⁠⁠

On this episode, Coach shares the important information that he provides for his daughters every day in order to be successful in school. Information he shares in a prayer and a blessing. Information that will help your child start and build friendships, show kindness in a small way that may help another child in need, be safe from harm, doing their best, and most importantly, knowing Mom and Dad are there when things go wrong. Here is the prayer/blessing Dear Lord, Please be with my child today. Protect them from all physical and emotional harm. Help (him/her) show the love of Jesus to all her friends and teachers/ Help (him/her) do what is right according to the Bible. In Jesus name, Amen. Always smile Always say "Hello" Always be kind to everyone And always do your best Daddy (or/and Mommy) loves you very much And so does Jesus. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ptcpodcast/message

Scores of people today, even many in our churches, walk around aimless. They work their jobs and take care of their families, but struggle to understand what it is that God wants them to do.   He's told us in His word!   As with every other situation, His Word speaks directly to our circumstances.   Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”   The Lord requires of us that we have the mind of Christ. That we aim for showing justice and mercy to those we encounter. And notice: we are to love doing these things, not just going through the motions! Finally, we are to remember to be humble. There's only One Who is perfect and that is the Father. In our present state, we are to emulate the qualities that caused His Son Jesus to turn the world upside down for good.   If you ever wonder what your purpose is, start with these awesome words from the prophet Micah!   Let's pray.   Lord, help us to keep in front of us at all times the simplicity that is in Christ. He shows us the way. In Jesus' name, amen.

November 27, 2023Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily LifeExodus 25:5b   Bible Study | Episode #556I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.If you would like to revisit today's Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. Please follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church 

Have you ever wondered what your place in this world is?   Of course, you have. That's the human experience. Alone with our thoughts, we wonder who we even are, and what we're meant to do. It's a mysterious journey, but the fog lifts and the way becomes clear when we get to know King Jesus.   Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”   You were made for something! You were made to do things for your Lord. The truly beautiful thing is, God created a custom plan just for you. If you aren't a famous athlete like Tim Tebow, you can still share your faith in wonderful ways. Ways that are life-changing for those you encounter.   Think of that verse again. God made you for a purpose! Created to have the mind of Christ in making this world a better place and making disciples for Him. And God prepared it all long, long ago.    You are His child. That's who you are.   Let's pray.   Lord, when we begin to understand even a little bit of your love for us, it transforms us, and it renews our minds and hearts. Thank you so much for that! In Jesus' name, amen.

Are You Ready for Your Earthly Death? Is Your Salvation Sure? If Not, Make Yourself Ready Now Through God's Grace and the Gospel MESSAGE SUMMARY: Be ready for the end of your earthly life and the return of the Lord. In 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, Paul writes to the Christians at the church in Thessalonica: “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So, then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”. Are you ready? Are you sure in your Salvation? If not, make yourself ready and keep ready! God's Grace and the Gospel of Jesus prepare you for your earthly death while providing the means for your Eternal Life!   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, you know how difficult it is for me to be in silence before you. At times it feels almost impossible, given the demands, distractions, and noise all around me. I invite you to lead me to a quiet, silent place before you — to a place where I can hear you as Elijah did. In Jesus' name, amen.     Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 123). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, Because of who I am in Jesus Christ, I will not be driven by Hatred. Rather, I will abide in the Lord's Love. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Matthew 10:37-39; 1 Corinthians 9:12-23; James 3:13-18; Hebrews 4:15-16; Psalms 65:1-13. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB  

God chose his elect before the foundation of the world to be primarily foolish in the eyes of the world, he did this specifically to shame the powerful and wealthy. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Turn in your Bibles to Mark 12. We're looking this morning at the text verses 38-44. Most of God's choice of servants throughout history have been obscure people. Their acts of service have been unnoticed by the general population. They've been unrecorded by the historians of their age, seemingly lost for all time in the hiddenness and the forgetfulness of the obscurity of history. But God never forgets. God sees everything that we do, and He never forgets any act of service. The account that we are studying this morning of the tiniest, most seemingly obscure act of giving done by an unnamed and obscure woman was recorded and celebrated by the Holy Spirit in two different places, here in this text and also in Luke 21. It was God's intention that every generation of His people since that time read this account. This account teaches us many things, but especially it teaches us that God delights in secret acts of piety and humble service that no one ever notices, but that He does. God knows His obscure servants because the overwhelming majority of His people are precisely that, obscure servants. Look at the clear declaration given us by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. He says there, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of the world and the despise things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before Him." "God delights in secret acts of piety and humble service that no one ever notices, but that He does." This text says that God specifically put His church together in His own mind. We learned from other passages, before the foundation of the world, God chose His church with a majority of people who were not wise by human standards. They're not the geniuses, they're not the intelligentsia, they're not the Nobel Prize winners, they're not the poet laureates, they're not also many influential, they're not the movers and shakers in their generation. They're actually the opposite. They are the moved and the shaken. Not many of them were nobility, not many of the aristocracy, not many of the A-listers, the Hall of Famers, the world champions. God chose His elect before the foundation of the world to be primarily foolish in the eyes of the world, weak in the eyes of the world, lowly. He did this, He says in that text specifically to shame the wise, the powerful, the wealthy, the nobility. When will that shaming occur? Certainly not for the most part in this world, but it will happen on Judgment Day and for all eternity. That's when it will be obvious that all that mattered is what Christ thought about you, your person, and your works. All that mattered is what Christ thought about you and how He evaluated you. So God loves the obscure, He loves the insignificant, He loves the works that fly perpetually below the radar of our screen that the world never noticed. I noticed this theme some years ago as I was reading through the Bible and my annual Bible reading program brought me to the book of 1 Chronicles, everybody's favorite book. I don't know if you remember what's in 1 Chronicles. It begins with a series of genealogies of the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes. There are 911 names in those first nine chapters. Yes, I counted them. Other than David's descendants, the tribe of Judah, over 90% of those names had no cross-reference at all to any other passage in the Bible. In my study Bible, there were no footnotes about those people because we know nothing about them other than what tribe they were and their name or whatever it says in the verse. The question came to my mind, why are they here at all? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire the author of 1 Chronicles to write their names down and then the Lord protected that copy throughout every generation so that all of us would read those names, people that we don't know, and recorded for all eternity. We have no further explanation of their lives, not a word about their deeds, their dreams, their hopes, their expectations, their fears, their achievements, their accomplishments, none of it. So why are they there? I don't know, but it may be to teach us that God cares about obscure people just like you and me, and that though we don't know anything about those people, God knows everything about those people, and that their lives matter to him. Most of God's people in every generation are exactly those kinds of people. They're obscure whose lives will almost be totally forgotten within three generations of their death. We're coming around to that time of year when some of us watch It's a Wonderful Life. Others can't stand it. You watched it one time and you were like, "Why is this movie on every year?" But I love that movie. The movie is about a simple guy named George Bailey who's an obscure individual, who lives an ordinary life, running the Bailey Building and Loan so that common working class people can have homes to live in. At a key moment, he makes a moving speech to the villain in the story, Mr. Potter, a wealthy man who's taking advantage of these poor people. In that speech, he basically says, "These common people that the Bailey Building and Loan cares for and provides for are the people who do most of the eating and sleeping and living and dying in this town and in this country, and though they don't matter to you, they matter to my father who started the Bailey Building and Loan, they matter to me." It's a very passionate speech, but Jesus goes infinitely beyond that sentiment. He actually uses the commonest actions of obscure people to build the city in which we will live forever, the radiant new Jerusalem whose stones were put in place by the humble actions of the kind of obscure people that we're looking at today, like this woman who gives the two copper coins. The entire new Jerusalem is built by those types of labors, those types of works. That's what this account is about in my mind, an obscure woman, a widow with no name, almost no resources, who is carefully noticed and celebrated by the only observer who really matters and that's Jesus Christ. He's the judge of all the earth. It is a strong statement that Christ notices and uses hidden acts of sacrifice to build his kingdom of glory. The context is one of stark contrast. Putting these two paragraphs together, you may say, "What do they have to do with each other?" You've got the Scribes and Pharisees, religious leaders of the day who Jesus just rips in this account with their outward displays of religion that dominated Jewish society, but were actually deeply corrupt. They were wolves in sheep's clothing, plundering poor widows like this one. Then you've got this widow who Jesus, it seems, celebrates. I put it together in terms of the concept of a foretaste of Judgment Day of what Jesus thought about this one category and what Jesus thought about the other. I. Jesus Gives a Foretaste of Judgment Day That's the unifying theme of the two paragraphs, Jesus gives us a foretaste of Judgment Day. We begin as we look at that by saying things are not what they appear. There should be a growing sense in the heart of maturing Christians. The things on earth are not as they appear to be. Many of the most powerful people on earth, the wealthiest people on earth are to be the most pitied because of their spiritual condition and the road that they're on. Many, on the other hand, are the meek and lowliest people on earth, Jesus says, who stand to inherit everything, the meek who will inherit the earth. The Judgment Day that is coming is a day of great reversals, a day in which the lowliest and most obscure of Christ's servants will be exalted to the heavens and crowned with stunning glory, and a day in which those most glorified in this world, the most outwardly powerful and wealthy and dominant will be stripped forever. There is a day coming in which all secrets will be unveiled and all works judged with a perfect eye by the judge of all the earth. That day is called Judgment Day. The Scripture reveals who that judge will be and that judge is Jesus Christ. My task as a pastor and a regular preacher of the Word is to make that Judgment Day vivid in your minds every day, that you think about that day, you get ready because that Judgment Day is most certainly coming. Jesus is presented in Scripture as the judge of all the earth. Many passages speak of him as a perfect judge. Isaiah 11, for example, speaks of this, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit that shoots from the stump of Jesse — Jesus Christ, the incarnate Lord. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him. The spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what He sees with his eyes or decide by what He hears with his ears, but with righteousness, He will judge the needy. With justice, He will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips, He will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt, and faithfulness his sash around his waist. That is Jesus portrayed as the judge of all the earth in Isaiah 11. Jesus openly made this claim for himself. In John 5, He said that the Father has given Him the honor of being the judge of every human being that ever has lived or ever will live because He's the Son of Man. John 5:22, 23, "The father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the son that all may honor the son even as they honor the Father." It's an incredible statement to make saying that the entire human race will honor Jesus the way they honor God when He sits up to judge the human race. A few verses later, John 5:26, 27, "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the son also to have life in himself and He has given him authority to judge because he is the son of man." Then in verse 30 of that same chapter, "By myself, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me." That's an open claim that Jesus makes of having an honor equal to God himself and that God has given Him the role of being judge of all the earth. He says the same thing in Matthew 25, speaking of the Second Coming, "When the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory." He'll sit in honor and glory and power judging. That's the picture. "All the nations will be gathered before him and he'll separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Jesus, the judge of all the earth. On that day, He will, it says in Proverbs 20:8, winnow out the wicked with his eyes and He will reward his faithful servants with eternal honors. Proverbs 20:8 says, "When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes." He's going to separate out the wicked, the goats, and He'll reward his faithful servant as He says in Matthew 10:42, “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, these messengers, because he is my disciple, he will never lose his reward.” That's a tiny act of service similar to the widow giving her two copper coins. You’ll never lose your reward because Jesus will see every cup of cold water given to help missionaries, to help servants of the word along. He will reward them, and they'll get the same reward as the messengers, the missionaries, the pastors, et cetera, the support system. It's an incredible statement. II. Jesus Exposes the Spiritual Predators Jesus begins in this passage by exposing the spiritual predators. This is the final week of Jesus' life. We're walking through that. Jesus is in the temple and He's teaching. He's been ministering, healings, it says in one of the other Gospels, not here in Mark, but He heals, and He does his teaching ministry. These are the final words in Mark's Gospel that He speaks to his unbelieving enemies. The Scribes and Pharisees have dogged his steps every day of his public ministry. They hate Him, they're opposed to Him, they're genuinely wicked people. But to others, they appear as righteous. The Scribes and Pharisees are the spiritual leaders of Israel. Jesus says in Matthew 23, they have a legitimate authority, they sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them. They have a legitimate authority, but they have misused that authority. They've abused that authority, and Jesus calls them out. This is their final chance to be convicted by the only perfect prophet that's ever lived, to take his fiery words, his convicting words to heart and repent of their sins and find salvation in Him. Like a surgeon cutting open the body to find the tumor, He exposes their wickedness. Mark's account here is greatly truncated compared to Matthew’s account. It's greatly reduced. Look at verses 38-40, "As he taught, Jesus said, 'Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows houses, and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.’” That's it. Just a few sentences here. But in Matthew 23, He gives the seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees in this rhythmic pattern, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, you hypocrites,. . .” a whole chapter. It's a lengthy chapter in Matthew 23. Here he just says Scribes or teaches of the law. Matthew adds Pharisees, he puts them together. Jesus warns the people to watch out for them. Earlier He had called them the blind leading the blind. Now, here He exposes their love for ostentatious displays of religiosity, flowing robes, the trappings of godliness and of piety, but there's no real spiritual power behind it, there's no life behind it, no genuine holiness. They love the horizontal honors they get from the Jewish population, they love to be greeted in the marketplaces, they love the places of honor, they love to be in the most important seats in the synagogues. They love this kind of thing. They were used to it, they expected it, they probably felt they deserved it, and it seems that the people felt so too because they gave it to them. They gave them this honor. But Jesus also exposes their hypocrisy for a show. He says here in Mark's Gospel, they make lengthy prayers. They're just putting their piety on display. But then Jesus also probes to their secret wickedness, they devour widows’ houses. They take advantage of widows who had no protection. Because of their positions of power in the society, they could go over a widow's estate and give her binding spiritual, religious, legal advice. Furthermore, they could and did demand exorbitant fees from widows for their services. If the widow couldn't pay, they had the right to confiscate their homes. It's really horrible and disgusting, especially when you consider what James says in James 1:27, "Religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress." They were taking advantage of widows in their distress. It says in Exodus 22:22-24, "Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword." Jesus's harsh words to them in Matthew 23 and his brief words here is a foretaste of the coming sword, and that sword is going to come on Judgment Day for them. He's representing a rage from God against them for this, the fact that they devour widows’ houses. He's using his words as a foretaste of the sword. Remember how in Revelation He's depicted as having a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. He has this rage and He's clearly revealing what's going to happen to these wicked religious leaders on Judgment. Look at verse 40, they will receive the greater condemnation. I believe this principle is based on one's knowledge of the Word of God. The more you know and didn't obey, the worse it's going to go for you on Judgment Day. That's why I've said before, the worst place to go to hell from is a healthy Christian family that poured the gospel into you from childhood and you never repented. I do believe the more you know and don't live up to it by faith, the worst it will be for you in Judgment Day. How about these Scribes who were pouring over every letter of the law of Moses and they weren't living it out? It's a terrifying thing. In Greek it says they'll have greater condemnation or abundant judgment, actually overwhelming judgment. "The worst place to go to hell from is a healthy Christian family that poured the gospel into you from childhood and you never repented. I do believe the more you know and don't live up to it by faith, the worst it will be for you in Judgment Day." The woeful statements, as I said, are in Matthew 23. The rhythm is seven times, a sevenfold condemnation that He uses with his words, a prophetic statement of woe, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites." He probes their hypocrisies, their outward show of inward corruption. He calls them whitewash tombs which look beautiful on the outside but inside full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. It is a terrifying chapter to read and it culminates in this statement of judgment on them, Matthew 23:33, "You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to hell?" It's a terrifying statement coming from the judge of all the earth. Then He makes the prediction of Jerusalem's destruction because they always persecute the prophets sent to them. "Therefore," Matthew 23, "I'm sending you prophets and righteous men and teachers. Some of them you'll kill and crucify, others you'll flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all this will come down on this generation." Then He says this, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling. Behold your house is left to you desolate for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" That sets up the next chapter that we're going to go to, God willing, Mark 13, the prediction of the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem, but it all comes on the tail end of his condemnation of these terrible religious leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees. III. Jesus Extols an Obscure Giver That's the condemnation He gives to those corrupt religionists. Now we turn to the widow, the obscure giver, and Jesus extols her. Look at verse 41-44, "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple Treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts, but a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on.'" It begins with Jesus's physical position. It's very significant, Jesus sitting down and watching. I want you to get a foretaste of Jesus on his Judgment seat. That's what you get the picture of. He's sitting down and He sees everything. As in Revelation 1, He has eyes of blazing fire. He's watching what's happening in the midst of all this hustle and bustles, just a busy day, people coming and going, and they're pouring money into this treasury, into this box, and He's observing it. This is a picture you should have in your mind. Jesus is seated on his Judgment throne and watching everything I do. He's evaluating me. That's what Judgment Day is all about. We're all going to come before his Judgment seat and give an account for everything we've ever done in our lives. This account gives us a picture. We can picture it in our minds. He's seated and watching and observing, and He's talking about it. All of this is going on, and the monies are coming, people are making contributions in the temple grounds. He's sitting there just watching it. Sadly, the monies that are being collected in this big box, they go to the Scribes and Pharisees, the very ones that Jesus has condemned. They're going right to those wicked people, and it's tragic. You can picture a wooden chest with a hole and a metal-like trumpet-looking thing, like a funnel. The people would come in and they would pour their money in. It was all coins, it wasn't paper money. It would be precious metals, gold, silver, copper. The larger the donation, the more money, the more sound it would make. It would just rattle and clang down the thing if you're putting in lots of amounts. Some of these people were coming in and making a big show of what they were offering. I think they have these kind of money things like at the Harris Teeter store too. Sometimes people bring huge amounts of coins and it's like... I can't imitate it, but it's just this loud noise and they're all coming and they're giving. Lots of heavy coins. The gold is the heaviest, the densest and lots of that. It's just coming down. I think it lines up somewhat with Jesus' condemnation of this kind of outward showy giving. In Matthew 6:2, He says, "When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their award in full." I don't know if there's actual trumpets, but this thing was like that. It was making a lot of noise if you gave a big amount. While all this is going on, all this racket and bustle, along comes this woman and she's got in her hand these two little copper coins. The text identifies her as a poor widow. She was at the lowest level of their society socioeconomically. There was no one to protect her. She had no resources. Again, she's completely obscure. The text tells us nothing about her. Her gift would've made almost no difference at all in the running of the temple or anything. It was just a tiny, seemingly insignificant amount. Jesus watches her carefully. I think He could only have had supernatural knowledge of what she put in. Imagine how small these coins were. She extends her hand, opens it, and walks away. How do we know it was two copper coins? It's just that supernatural knowledge the Bible gives us, but Jesus knew. He watches her carefully and He has supernatural knowledge of her condition like He does of that Samaritan woman who's had five husbands and the man she now has is not her husband. Jesus has supernatural knowledge of her circumstances and He speaks of the significance of her giving. He knows that those two coins represented everything she had in the world, all she had to live on. He speaks of that significance of the action. One could easily question her judgment in giving this amount, think that she was actually behaving foolishly. There's actually a well-known commentator that took this whole angle. He said, "These two accounts are put together where you have the victimizer and then the victim." I think it makes a certain amount of sense. However, he goes too far when he says that the text in no way presents the woman as a model of giving. That I cannot agree with. If you just read the paragraph, you'd think that Jesus is actually commending her faith-filled giving. He's talking about sacrifice, He's talking about the gift is proportional to what it meant to you. It's proportional to your sacrifice. It's not a value system on an absolute scale. It has to do with what that money meant to you. So I think that commentator went too far when he says, "Look, there is nothing commendable about what she..." Actually, he goes so far as to say, "She's somewhat foolish, but she's an example of a widow who's being plundered and being taken advantage of." That part I can agree with. But that she's not a role model, I can't go that far. As a matter of fact, I don't know if you remember that story in the Old Testament about Elijah, during the famine, during the drought, he was being fed by some ravens, and he was by the brook, but then that dried up, and then it was time for him to move. God tells Elijah, 1 King 17: 9 and following, "Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food." The thing that's funny about that is she knew nothing about that, but God says, "I've directed her." In other words, it's a done deal. She's going to take care of him. He went to Zarephath, and when he went to the town gate, the widow was there and she's gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I might have a drink?" As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread." You get the feeling in the account, "Now you've gone too far. I'll get you a little water, that's hard enough to come by during a drought. But the bread now, that's a whole different matter.” So she says, "As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don't have any bread. What I have is a handful of flour in a jar and I have a little olive oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die." She's basically saying, this is her version of the two copper coins, this is all I have to live on, this is it. But then Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you said, but first, make a small loaf of bread from me from what you have and bring it to me. And then make something for yourself and your son for this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land." He gives her a promise from the Lord. The key thing with this woman in the Elijah story is she believed that promise. She was willing to act in faith on that promise. She went away and did as Elijah had told her. There was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the Word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. I do not think we can say this widow is an example of foolishness having given too much. Think again, the rich young ruler, Jesus commanded him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. I don't think that she's negative. As a matter of fact, I want to turn around and say she is an example of sacrificial giving that will stand across all the ages and is worth celebrating. IV. God Delights in Obscure Servants and Hidden Works God delights in obscure servants and hidden works of sacrificial giving. He delights in them and Jesus notices them. As I've said, most of God's servants are obscure people who do their good deeds in a hidden way. God sees what they will do and will reward it based on His principles. Jesus said, "When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing that your giving may be in secret, then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you fast, put oil in your head and wash your face so it'll not be obvious to others that you're fasting but only to your Father in heaven and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." Those are three examples, giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting where God observes secret acts of hidden piety and rewards them on Judgment Day. Culminating all that, He talks about storing up treasure in heaven. In Matthew 6, He says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." That whole section, Matthew 6:1-21, commends a life of secret piety and giving in which your works are not being done to be observed by others, but God sees and He rewards them and He's exhorting you store up a whole lifetime of those works, that's going to be treasure for you in heaven. Later, as I mentioned, when teaching about rewards in Matthew 10, He sends out the disciples two by two and makes this amazing statement, which I alluded to a moment ago, "Whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward. Whoever welcomes a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And if anyone gives one of you messengers of the gospel, even a cup of cold water, he'll certainly not lose his reward." What is Jesus saying there? He's saying that the hidden support system people get the same rewards as the upfront famous people. The ones that supported Luther or Calvin or John Owen or whatever, the ones that no one even knows about that enabled them to live and to do their works and all that, they will be honored and rewarded with the same kind of reward that the upfront famous leaders get. That means on Judgment Day, there'll be some surprises. A lot of them as a matter of fact, because Jesus says about this widow, she gave more than anyone else gave. You see, she gave more. She gave the most. It's not something we would've seen. One of the Judgment Day principles is the gift is accepted based on what it meant to you, not based on its absolute market value. He says in 2 Corinthians 8:12, "If the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have." That means the harder it is for you to give, and I don't just mean financially, it could be in evangelism, it could be your time, your energy, it could be hospitality, it could be anything, if it's hard for you to do and you do it anyway, it's more commendable than if it comes out of a surplus. I think most of the giving we give is out of surplus. It doesn't pinch us. It's not a real sacrifice. But for this widow, it is a real sacrifice. That means Judgment Day is a great reversal. Some of the greatest servants of Christ will be Judgment Day surprises like this widow, and many, if not most of them, will be women. I've studied church history. History tends to focus on men, on great leaders, political leaders, religious leaders, military, financial, and they've generally been men. There are great men who have made great sacrifices and they will be worth getting some reward in heaven. They are what they appear to be, godly men who served. But there are also millions of hidden women whose faithful work for the kingdom was never been seen. Single women who served in obscurity, mothers who raised generations of Christians, who poured into them the Gospel from infancy. We don't know what they did, but God knows. This account, this woman, this widow with the two copper coins is like the prime witness in my whole account here that there's going to be great reversals and surprises on Judgment Day and that God honors the secret works of obscure servants including women. In the book that I wrote on heaven, The Glory Now Revealed, I focused on this woman and two copper coins. By the way, that's why I couldn't go with that commentator and his observance saying that she was no good example. I was already in print, so I couldn't back out of it. So I'm going to stick with it, but I really do, I think if you read this paragraph, I think you get commendation by Jesus, not criticism. She's the prime witness in that chapter on obscure heroes and obscure movements in history that'll be revealed on Judgment Day. But it wasn't just her or just women, there were a lot of people. My favorite obscure missionary hero that I learned about as I was working on that book was a man named James Gilmour. He was a missionary to Mongolia in the 1870s. I've carefully studied the history of missions, and I'd never heard of this guy. He labored in the most severe climate imaginable, with temperatures dropping to as low as 40 degrees below zero. He survived on handfuls of millet, trekked over 300 miles a week, over 40 miles a day to reach people in the remotest places on planet earth. He struggled with extreme loneliness. He struggled with a constant sense of total failure to his mission. Why do I say that? The Mongolians that he was reaching were not hostile to him. They were generally hospitable, they were amicable, but they just weren't interested in the Gospel. They believed in their Buddhism and their spirituality. They were fine with how they were. Though they tolerated him ministering and they didn't overtly persecute him, they had no interest in what he was saying. He recorded over 24,000 gospel presentations and only three conversions. I have never read in all the church history of anyone that was so faithful with so little return on his investment. Think about that, I mean, it's probably why you haven't heard of him. If he had saved 10% of the people, It's like, "Great missionary leader." He was a great missionary leader, but just not in the ordinary way. He was faithful. What would it be like for you? Imagine your personality. Imagine you in that place and you have shared with 3,000 people and none of them have come to Christ. You're going to share with another 3,000, still no one. What kind of perseverance does it take to keep going when you get so little return? Of those 24,000, for all we know, a larger percentage of them will actually be in heaven. You know how it says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God made it grow." Sometimes seeds are planted and you never know what happened to it. But James Gilmour is that kind of an individual. He reminds me of the heroes in Hebrews 11. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated, the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves, in holes, in the ground. That was James Gilmour. As I finish, I was thinking recently about a movie I watched, a powerful movie called A Hidden Life. It was about a farmer who lived a simple life with his wife and daughters in the Austrian Alps during World War II. His name was Franz Jägerstätter, and he would've been completely obscure had he not been one of the rare men who stood up to Adolf Hitler. He was a conscientious objector who was willing to serve in the army, but not to take the vow of personal obedience to Hitler that every soldier had to take. He would not do it, and because of that, he was severely punished and even martyred by the Nazis. The movie's called A Hidden Life, and it comes from a quote by a female author named George Eliot who wrote a book called Middlemarch, and this is the quote, "... for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might've been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." That's most of us. Within three generations if the Lord doesn't return, people will not visit your tomb. They will not know much about you. All of your works will be forgotten by everyone alive on planet Earth, but Jesus will never forget. The call for me at this end of Mark 12 is to live a life of faithful obedience to the commands of God, to trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior because without that, you can't store up any good works, only wrath, but to trust in Him and then to live a quiet and a hidden life that God will reward on Judgment Day. Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for this incredible account of this woman. We thank you Lord Jesus that you were there to see it and to comment on it and to celebrate it. And Lord, I pray that we would be faithful, that we'd be willing to live a hidden life that's not hidden to you, a life that is obscure to the hustle and bustle of the world age, but not obscure to you, a life that you'll reward on Judgment Day faithfully, not missing anything that we do by faith in service to you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians MESSAGE SUMMARY:  Series Overview: This Series has been looking at Paul's letter to the Ephesians to point out “Turkeyisms” – things by which have duped us into believing or behaving in ways which aren't what Christianity is all about. This Series has pointed out some changes in our thinking needed so that we can be like “Eagles” -- o be the people that God wants and intended for us to be. This Sermon will focus on Ephesians 6. Sermon: Turkey Thinking: “There is no real devil; the devil is just a concept to explain evil.” (The devil's best trick is to get us to believe there is no devil.); Eagle Thinking: “The devil and his cohorts never sleep.”  Ephesians 6:10 – “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”. How does one know if they are being tempted by the enemy? We know we are being tempted by the enemy when we are influenced to do something against Jesus -- the enemy wants to make us a weak Christian. However, we can't blame the temptations of our flesh on the devil. We need to always be clothed in the full armor of God to be full-time soldiers of Jesus against the devil. Turkey Thinking: “There is no spiritual warfare; Christianity is love, joy, and peace. Christianity is not about war.”; Eagle Thinking: “If I am serving the Lord, then I am always engaged in a spiritual battle.”. In this battle, we are not battling our fellow humans. One of the enemy's best strategies is to get us fighting each other, especially in the church.  The devil wants us to divide and conquer. We must put on the full armor of God so that we can stand firm against the devil. The “full armor” means we are to both seek and speak God's truth while establishing a relationship with God. We are to live a righteous life in the full awareness that God has forgiven us. In standing firm and with our relationship with God, we are to share the Gospel. We are to “take up the shield of faith” by trusting in God in our warfare with the devil. The evil one wants us to doubt our Salvation from God's Grace and our faith that ensure eternal life with Jesus. Finally, we are to “take up the sword of the Spirit” – the Word of God. In Ephesians 6, the sword is the only element, of God's full armor, that is for both offense as well as defense. Paul then tells us “to pray in the Holy Spirit” – praying while fully focused on the Lord; prayer is the most powerful weapon we have in our fight against the devil. God wants us to be strong in Him” and not wimpy Christians in our warfare with the evil one.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Lord, Sabbath rest is truly an unbelievable gift! Thank you that there is nothing I can do to earn your love; it comes without any strings attached. As I close my eyes for these few minutes before you, all I can say is, thank you! In Jesus' name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 133). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Ephesians 6:10-20; Matthew 13:19-21; 1 Peter 5:8; Ephesians 4:12. SCRIPTURE REFERENCE SEARCH: www.AWFTL.org/bible-search/ WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “For a Jesus Follower in Difficult Circumstances, God: “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster””: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

For a Jesus Follower in Difficult Circumstances, God: “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster” MESSAGE SUMMARY:  God wants to make you and your life into a “pearl of great value”. However, some of us are upset about our life difficulties or issues in our relationships. You need to allow God to use your life circumstances. If you are obedient and submissive to God, He will turn your situations into a life of beauty. Alternatively, when you encounter these negative situations in your life, often, you can become bitter. On the other hand, you can submit and obey the Lord, thereby, permitting the Lord to turn your life and life situations into pearls of beauty and into a life of great value. Also, you will have more of Jesus' presence in your life. As Paul tells us in Philippians 1:21: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.". Remember, the Prophet Joel tells us, in Joel 2:13b, about the character of God: “he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.".   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Joel 2:12-13; James 4:4-10; Isaiah 1:18-20; Psalms 61:1-8. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles – Part 6: We Don't Need to Be Wimpy Christians” at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/    DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston com.Today is exciting as is every day that we open up God's Word. We are continuing in our series Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the secrets of God's Kingdom. And today we're landing in more of the secrets of how God functions in saving people and how God matures His servants. And in fact, He shows us through the model of the way that he constructed Christ's life. And so without further ado, I'm going to start reading our passage from today. It is from Mark Chapter Six verses one through six. Mark Chapter Six, verses one through six. And this is a good Thanksgiving passage. We're talking about a homecoming. We're talking about the ordinariness of Christ, something that we sing praises about at Christmastime, the simplicity of his life and the Lord will use it as a good segue to our Christmas season. Would you please hear the preaching of God's Word."He went away from there and came to His hometown and His disciples followed him. And on Sabbath He began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard him were astonished saying, "Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to Him? How are such mighty works done by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household." And He could do no mighty work there except that he laid His hands on a few people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went about among the village's teaching." This is the word of our Lord. Let me pray.Heavenly Father, we praise you this day for your word. We thank you for assembling your saints here today. We thank you Lord for giving us your word so that we are not people who are clamoring about, walking in darkness. We thank you for your revelation of yourself to us in the life of Jesus Christ. And now in just the opening of His word, we ask, Lord that you prime our hearts to receive what you would have us hear today and let us receive with belief. We pray that our hearts would be good soil to hear your word so that we would believe it and be faithful servants in your kingdom as we go forth from this week, this day. In Jesus name I pray, amen.Well, I've learned over the years about myself that I like to learn by learning on the positive side of things. I like to be told what to do and to believe a little bit more than being told what not to do and what not to believe. But as I've gotten older, hopefully as a mark of wisdom, I've learned that those lessons that talk just as much about what not to do, what not to believe are just as valuable as those positive lessons, the positive wisdom. And today is a lesson from scripture, a text that teaches us in the negative manner. Last week, the last couple of weeks, we've talked about profound miracles and faith. And chapter five of Mark where we were the past couple of weeks might be labeled as the triumph of faith. So we talked last week a lot about the triumph of faith. Jesus healed a man and who was possessed by a legion of demons. And what does Jesus do when he sees who Jesus is properly, he sees him as the Christ, the Messiah. The Lord tells him to go and spread his faith, tell others about what the Lord has done for him and how he has saved him. Furthermore, Jesus learns of the faith of a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years and He heals her and he says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease." Furthermore, in chapter five, when Jairus, a father with a sick dying daughter comes to him and pleads with him to go and heal her, Jesus says, "Do not fear. Only believe." And he does, and he saves Jairus's daughter. He actually raises her from the dead.And so Jesus in Chapter Five, encounters faith in people. He encourages them to have it. And today, as I said, we're learning more in the negative. What do we encounter in chapter six of Mark? We encounter unbelief and in profound ways. In verse 6:6, we come across Jesus doing something that the scriptures do not capture Him doing often. Verse six says, "He marveled. The man who cast out a legion of demons, who healed a woman who was bleeding for 12 years, who raised the life of a dead child, marveled." This is only one of two areas in all the scriptures where Jesus marveled, He was amazed, He was awestruck. Here and in Matthew 8:10. In Matthew 8:10, He marvels at the extraordinary faith of the centurion who asks him to only say the word so that his servant lying at home away from him would be healed. And Jesus does. He marvels over the man's faith, the centurion's faith. But here in chapter six, Jesus marvels at the unbelief of the people of Nazareth. Verse six says, "And He marveled because of their unbelief."Furthermore, in chapter six, not in our scripture today, but later on, we encounter a profound example of unbelief in the life of Herod. Verse 14 of chapter 6 mentions that Jesus' name had spread to the courts of King Herod. King Herod heard of it, heard of Jesus and his teaching and his proclamation that the Kingdom of God was at hand for Jesus' name had become known, the ruler of the land of Israel knew about Jesus. But verse 20, he tells us, "For Herod feared John knowing that he was a righteous." John is John the Baptist, baptizer. "Knowing that he was a holy and righteous man and he kept him safe. When he heard him," heard John preach. "He was greatly perplexed and yet he heard him gladly." But what we learned is that though Herod liked to hear John preach, it stimulated his intellect. In Acts 12:20 to 23, we hear of his gruesome death and he stands as an example of what unbelief can lead to for all of us.And so today it is a sermon with a lot of gravity. We're not celebrating a happy homecoming. Jesus didn't go home and have a joyful Thanksgiving. This is a sad story. The people closest to Jesus, the people he spent his adolescence and young adulthood with reject him. But as I said, there's much to learn in this negative teaching, this text told us to not be like the people of Nazareth. And in many ways, our job is to make sure as Christians that we don't repeat the same mistakes and practice such unbelief.So I'm going to break the sermon up into two sections, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief and the second one, the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief. As I meditate upon our texts here in the first section, I'm going to bring out the characteristics of unbelief. Unbelief is a topic that we typically avoid, but it's really good to understand it, to be able to identify it. And when I speak about this, I don't want you to be thinking about all the people out there, all the people sitting around you, maybe a brother, sister in the church who you know is struggling. First and foremost, I want you to check your own heart to be listening, to hear if you have any signs of unbelief, if you are showing the tendencies of unbelief. And so as we discover unbelief, we'll talk about the fact of it, the tendencies of it, the nature of it, the consequences of it as we discuss the ordinariness of Nazareth's belief.So firstly, I emphasize the fact of unbelief. Nazareth's unbelief is something that Christ disciples will encounter regularly in their ministry. And as I said, this is not your average homecoming for Jesus and his disciples. We read in verse one, "He went away from there and came to his hometown and His disciples followed Him." And so what we find out today is that Jesus, He goes to His hometown, He's bringing his disciples, and this is a business trip. He's been back to Nazareth before a year or so ago, and He goes back to Nazareth. That time He was by himself. This time it's with His disciples and what's he doing? Last time He was at Nazareth, this was the start of His ministry. And Luke Four chronicles this and he basically goes to the synagogue and He reads a passage from Isaiah that talks about the arrival of the Messiah, the arrival of the Kingdom of God. And he says, "On this day the scripture has been fulfilled."And what do the people do? His hometown, they rejected Him then and then they take him up to the highest point in town and threaten to push Him off the cliff for his blasphemy. But now He comes back a year later after gathering a group of disciples and he comes back after developing this reputation in the land. And so first and foremost, this is a lesson, what Jesus is going through with His disciples through this experience is a lesson about discipleship. It's a lesson for them that He's preparing them for the time when He's not with them. He's given them a dose of reality for what they're going to experience as they serve Him after his death, resurrection and ascension. And I emphasize this first point, the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief. I emphasize that with the subpoint of the fact of unbelief because Jesus shows his disciples that a clear and authoritative proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ will not always be met with acceptance and joyful welcome in the hearts of an audience.In fact, we should be more liable to expect that we will encounter more unbelief than we do belief. In the Book of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53:1 the prophet writes, "Who has believed what He has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" And these are written as rhetorical questions with the implication that not many. When the arm of the Lord, when Jesus walks the earth, not many hear Him. Not many people heard God's Word and believed it and obeyed in Isaiah's day and not many when Jesus walked the earth. And so Jesus is, by talking about the fact of unbelief, He's trying to get them ready. You are going to encounter this and you need to be prepared. And I lead with this point because if you read the Gospel of Mark up to this point, it's almost as if you're reading a Marvel comic book.Jesus is this superhero where town after town, He's preaching the truth. He's destroying his enemies in debates, He's healing, He's showing limitless extent of his authority and power. And now this is just an oddity, this point in Mark Six where he goes to His hometown of all places and it says, "He could do no mighty work there." And why? Because of their unbelief. So we as disciples today need to expect that unbelief is something that we are going to encounter often. A lot of churches don't really prep people in their body for this. They tell people, evangelize, evangelize, evangelize, share the gospel.But they don't really prepare them for the challenges of unbelief. They don't prepare them for the tendencies of it, the way it expresses themself and talk about the seriousness of it. And so a lot of Christians, when they are saved, they're excited. They want to tell people, "God has saved me, he has forgiven me of my sin in Jesus Christ." And they cannot help but speak and share it and tell other people in their life, in their circles on the street of the great grace and mercy that God has shown them. But they have one or two experiences where this doesn't go as planned. They're rejected or met with coldness, hardheartedness attack, attack of them, and they go into being incognito Christians like Secret Service Christians hiding from the world and never or rarely sharing the gospel again.And so today, I just emphasize this first point, we can't be surprised by unbelief. We're going to face it over and over again in this life. And in fact, we need to see that when we face it. It's not just ... Of course it's sad, we want everybody to believe the gospel, but it's a confirmation that we're doing something right. Christ himself came and he preached the word mightily and clearly and yes praised God, some believed Him, but He also was rejected. It's an affirmation that we're doing something right. If we tell people about God and we're always getting people believing, then that's an indicator that there might be something that isn't faithful with the message that we're sharing and we really need to assess if that's real fruit coming in through our ministry.But we need to expect that the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief, it's extraordinary at this point in the course of Mark, but Jesus for his disciples has shown this is a reality you're going to face regularly going forward. And going forward, I want to talk about the tendency of unbelief. We need to realize the fact of unbelief, but we need to see the common tendencies of it. One of the things, the primary thing that unbelief does is it has a tendency to disguise itself by transferring its object of attention to something else away from the real stumbling block of Jesus Christ.And so we see here in verses two and three, the people of Nazareth, they practice this. Verse two says, "And on the Sabbath." And just little side note in other towns in Capernaum where Jesus was prior to this, before His disciples, he couldn't go anywhere without crowds gathering in His way, just stopping him in His path and forcing him to preach and perform miracles. He couldn't get a break, but now He enters into his hometown and nobody's welcomed him. He has to wait for the Sabbath to preach. "And on the Sabbath, He began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished."So the people who we know will show extreme unbelief, they actually are amazed at Jesus's teaching. He opens up the word like nobody else they ever heard. Every time Jesus preaches, it's a home run. Imagine a preacher having that kind of preacher show up, but how do they respond? They say, "where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us?" This is a deflection. It's a deflection from the central message that Jesus brought to them. The people respond to Jesus teaching by directing their attention to his ordinariness, the ordinariness of the speaker. They do this in order to hide the fact that it's the message of the gospel that their hearts were hardened against.And anyone here, anybody who's been Christian for a while and has faithfully shared the gospel, know the tendency of people to do this. People will talk about anything and go for hours and avoid the central message of the gospel. They'll avoid the elements of it that offend them, the elements of it that call them to belief, call them to repentance, and we need to be ready for it. Again, we can't be surprised by this. When we share the gospel, we should expect to face this sort of dodging. And furthermore, we should expect to face that they will attack us. One of the greatest ways they just look at Jesus, "Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this the son of Mary? Aren't his brothers and sisters here in town? Who is this guy? Who is he to call us to repentance before Him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? He's just an average guy, an ordinary Joe. He's cheese pizza. We shouldn't listen to him." And they poke. They poke at Jesus. They start pointing at his deficiencies according to earthly standards.And we as Christians, we should expect this. How far did Jesus's opponents go in His life to doing this? They sent Him, they attacked the person to the point of sending him to the cross, leading to His crucifixion and for His servants, we are no greater than our master. We are going to get the same treatment. But one thing, just when this happens, when there's this tendency for people to start questioning our character, questioning our delivery of the gospel, our maybe not so refined delivery of it, though it is full of the truth, we just have to remember the gospel ourselves in that moment.We can have security to stand before people in our weakness while proclaiming the gospel because what does the gospel say? Our identity is not built upon any good works that we've done. Our identity is not built on the sin that we've committed, the rebellion against God, the guilt and shame that marks our lives. The gospel is that when a person turns in faith, turns from their sin and turns in faith to Jesus, God applies Christ's perfect and righteous record to your account and He applies your sinful, imperfect, prideful record to Jesus. And that's what the transaction that happened on the cross and it's applied to us by faith. And when we are attacked by the world, we can't take those attacks by heart. They're predictable and we have an identity that is rooted in the rock of Jesus Christ.So we need to be steadfast in these moments when we face these tendencies and we need to redirect people lovingly, kindly, gently to the central question of belief and that is the message of the scriptures of the gospel, God's rescue plan for man and his sin that marks the whole book after Genesis Three, the fall of man. And so we need to anticipate this tendency. Unbelief is always distracting from the heart of the gospel and distract them from the fact that it's really the gospel that is offensive to a person. And so as we discuss the ordinariness Nazareth's belief, next I want to talk about the nature of unbelief. This is something that really needs to be made clear. The reason Jesus marvels at unbelief here in these verses is because it's one of the evidences of the power of sin in man's life. That's the great reason behind marveling at it.Here in the world upon God's creation, Jesus, the begotten Son of God who took on flesh is seeing firsthand the outworking of the fruit of sin in the lives of men and women that He knows and loves. Men and women who should have known the story of his mom's birth. And we get the understand it's not this Mary's son. In that day you would've never appealed to someone by their mom's name. It would be their father's and they're appealing. They have knowledge that he was born into a unique situation, whether maybe they're implying promiscuous or it was actually a miraculous birth. These people who would've known the story of his birth, who would've thought deeply about Him and His childhood. Have you ever seen a perfect child? If Jesus was in this community for 28, 29 years, a perfect child would really stand out in a community of 500 people and they would've seen him when they engaged with him as a carpenter, an honest tradesman who doesn't raise the prices. This guy would've had a righteous standing before Him.And these people who would've known Him better than anybody else who walked the earth, they hear His teaching, they hear of testimonies of his miracles in the nearby lens and He does actually heal a few people upon this visit. These people reject him and it shakes Him. And this is why He shudders an agony at unbelief when He faces death later on with his friend Lazareth, He faces the reality of sin and its impact and He marvels, He shudders, He weeps at it. And so unbelief is not something that Jesus engaged casually. It's not something that we should engage casually. What I'm trying to get us to is unbelief. It's really important in a city like ours with lots of just bright people, driven people, motivated people, unbelief it's not just a weakness of one of our friends who's really intelligent. The ultimate key to unbelief doesn't lie in the mind. It lies in the realm of the moral nature of the will of man. That's where unbelief finds its home.In our text today, the people in their response, they try to deflect from their unbelief. They try to show themselves as not gullible. "Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of men and women that we know? We're not going to be tricked by Him. Jesus, you were just one of us. You didn't get the proper education that a rabbi should get. This message sounds too good to be true. We're not going to believe you Jesus. You're not just one of us." And so unbelief in the Bible, it arises from first and foremost a hard, evil heart of unbelief, not a lack of truthfulness or sufficient appeal to the intellect. We need to understand that.And that's a lot of conversations, apologetic conversations, sharing the gospel conversations, they devolve into these long conversations about minutia, details of scripture away from the heart of the gospel that calls people to repentance and faith in Christ. And we need to treat it seriously, not let people trivialize it. Well, unbelief is one of the ways, it's described in scripture is in essence it's calling God a liar. Where every find our hearts are still an unbelief. We're calling God a liar.First John 1:5 to 10 says, "This is the message we've heard from Him and proclaimed to you. That God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar. And His word is not in us."Anybody who denies that they were created by God and His image and have rebelled against Him and do not have right standing before Him is saying, "God is a liar for telling me this, for proclaiming this, for sending His son into the world to proclaim this and be the means of reconciliation between me and Him." We need to be honest with ourselves as we process this. We need to be honest with the people with whom we share the gospel about the nature of unbelief. Unbelief, it's of a moral nature. It is rebellion against Christ's rule and reign of creation of our hearts. And so this isn't to say that they're not intellectual problems, they're not hard questions to take up with scripture, but what I want to say is that the heart of unbelief lies not in the mind but in the moral nature and the will of man. And we need to keep people to think in that area when we engage unbelief.Jesus further elaborates on this in John 16: 8 to 9. He says that, "When the Holy Spirit comes, when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me." It's a moral unbelief, it's a moral problem, not an intellectual problem. And we see this further in Mark 6 as we'll talk a little bit more about Herod next week. Herod's a perfect example of this. He loved to hear John the Baptist teach. This guy who was a prisoner in his castle or fort or property. He wants him to come up and preach to him.So he heard the good news of Jesus' coming, of the King's arrival, about how John said, "He must increase, I must decrease." But Herod had all the facts. He knew everything and he did not believe the message and so therefore ... And why? What's behind that? Herod didn't want to change his behavior. He knew that the message that Jesus Christ was the Lord, that he had a call on his life, that to believe in Him and to obey Him would mean that he has to change, he has to repent and submit to Christ and His ways. And that's behind a lot of unbelief. The nature, it's moral rebellion. We just don't want to honor God with our lives. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it. And how many of you know that? I know that that was me before I was Christian.When I grew up in the church, in eighth grade, I wrote at the end of confirmation class, it was a 100 word essay, which is like that was frighteningly intimidating at that point. And I wrote it. I was like, "I think I'm saved because God offers me a great deal here. I sin and Jesus takes the punishment. I get eternal life. I get the power of his spirit in me and it's just a good deal. I'll take it." I intellectually understood that in eighth grade and I was amazed that the pastor of 15 kids was quoting my 100 word essay for a sermon. But I was not saved until I was 23. I was not born again until I really saw that I needed to repent of my sin and give Christ the lordship over my life. I didn't have freedom from the guilt and shame of sin until I did that. I did not walk in the Lord's power and the power of the Holy Spirit until that point. And the nature of unbelief is that we need to repent of that mindset. And this goes for Christians too.We hesitate to give Christ lordship in specific areas of our lives. A lot of people talk about anxiety as if it's like a friend in their life, as if Jesus doesn't have anything to say about anxiety. He has a whole lot to say. Jesus, we've struggled to give Jesus our finances to steward them for His glory, for His kingdom. We've struggle to give Jesus over our plans for our singleness, plans for our marriage plans, for our career, and the Lord calls us to and we just go on justifying sin, justifying unrepentance. And it isn't just neutral intellectual protest,. It's a rebellious act in which we dethrone in Jesus as Lord of our lives and we call God a liar. So we need to constantly ask ourselves if we're struggling with unbelief to identify that we ask how do we respond to the Word of God? Do we hear with gladness and let it and I just hear it and say, "Well, good talk, good speech. That's clever?"Or do we hear with gladness, let it take root in our hearts and lives as the powerful of the sower discussed earlier in Mark? Do we have good soil or are we resisting it? Are we holding onto it until we have a problem believing it and applying it into our own life? To close out our discussion of the ordinariness of Nazareth's unbelief, I lastly want to discuss the consequences of unbelief. And this is building off of the last point. When we don't believe, there are great consequences. This is covered in verse five, and the scripture says, "And He could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." The emphasis here isn't on Jesus's inability. We've seen the extent of his power and authority over nature, over sickness, over death itself. He can function in any way that He wants that is consistent with His holy character.But the focus here is not on Jesus's inability but on Nazareth's foolishness, on the way that the city robbed itself of receiving more grace and power of the work of Jesus among them. This shows us that there is no greater enemy than to the work of God than unbelief. It causes God to turn away without revealing himself with further grace and power. And when you really take this in, there's something really scary about it. And if you're feeling like this is heavy, there's a lot of weight to the sermon so far, you should. I was feeling it all week as I was meditating on this.It's scary to think about what happens when God turns away from a place, turns away from a people, turns away from you. Mark 6:11 helps us understand this a little bit more. Jesus gives counsel to his disciples for how they should respond when He sends them out and they are not received with belief. Verse 11 says, "And if any place will not receive you, and they'll not listen to you when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." So Jesus in this situation, what we see after Mark Six is that Nazareth does not believe Him, His hometown, and He turns His back on them. They know they know His Word, they know who He is, they know how they should respond to it, and he walks on them.Further, Mark 6:11, He tells his disciples that when they're not received with belief to shake the dust off their feet and leave a land. This is a reference to what Jews would've done when they left a gentile, pagan, non-believing land to go back to Israel to the Holy Land. This act would symbolize the shaking off of the defilement that could have got on them in the non-believing land and more importantly, serve as a called to the judgment of God upon that land end. So we need to see there's grave consequences to unbelief. We need to see that the Lord, the gospel not only has a saving effect where it meets true faith, but that it has a judging effect where it meets unbelief. It is the proclamation of the gospel that both exposes and judges unbelief.And I love this passage in scripture that talks about for someone, the life of Christ you are called. You're not just saved. You're not just given the power of the spirit. You're called into God's profound work to spread His rule and reign on the earth, to go back to the initial mission of being fruitful and multiplying for His glory. And you are given a power and your life is a triumphant possession. You are the victor and God has given you power as a steward of the gospel. And in that power, people are going to receive you with joy and gladness when they hear the gospel and they receive it and repent and obey God. And to others, you're going to have a stench. That power goes out and being a means of judgment to those who hear the gospel and do not receive it.And this is pretty intense, but this is what the scripture says. When we share the gospel, we have to understand the responsibility that we are given. We need to stay faithful to it and we have to just keep people at the center, keep people at the central focus. We need to try to get people to honestly assess, do they believe God's Word? Do they believe He has a call in their life? He is creator, they're created. The greatest position of experience of peace, love, joy is to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ. We need to keep people there given the consequences.So now after this solemn discussion of unbelief, one can only wonder how to respond to unbelief when we face it and to get the right answer, we look at how Jesus reacted to it. Look at verse six. It says, "And He marveled because of their unbelief and He went about among the villages teaching." That last part. "And He went about among the villages teaching." How do we respond to unbelief? We keep going. We keep sharing the gospel and leading a life worthy of a child of God. This is what Jesus did and we have to revel over the fact that Jesus kept going when it was really difficult.Verse four says, "And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household." Jesus's marveling would have been filled with grievous pain. Of all the people in the world who should have believed in Him, those in His hometown, his own relatives, His own household should have believed Him, but they don't. Do you know what it's like to be rejected in your own household? My wife, when she does not joyfully receive me for five minutes, I'm a broken man and that's two become one. You do become one another and there's something good about feeling that pain, but we have to make sure we don't make idols out of our spouses and their adoration.But Jesus was rejected by His household and He did nothing. I sin, I say foolish things to my wife, to my family members. Jesus never did that. They had no reason to reject him. Can you imagine the pain He felt when people who He lived with for almost 30 years rejected him, a town of 500 residents? I'm from a town of 17,000 people and you kind of know everybody 5 years above you, 5 years below you who went and did something significant in the world. Jesus is from a town of 500 people. He should have been their poster boy, they should have been seeing how lucky they were to have Him be known as Jesus of Nazareth, put their town on the map, but they reject Him. Imagine that pain.But how does Jesus respond? He keeps going. He knew that in his walk facing unbelief would be a fact. It would be an ordinary thing. And he says, and what does he do? He continues his primary task. He went about the villages teaching, trying to save others. He's preaching the word for His first task, telling them that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and we need to do the same, and we do it because Jesus did. But we also as we talk about this, it should remind you already about the nature of the Kingdom of God. In Mark 3:26 to 29, we read and he said, "The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not hell. The earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because of the harvest that's come."And this is saying that to a degree God has ordained that His kingdom functions this way. What are his servants to do? They're to continue to scatter seed by preaching the gospel whether they are received with gladness and belief or whether they're rejected. And that's the call of all Christians. Regardless of the reception we have, we're called the faithfulness to this task and we submit to the Lord's way of building His kingdom. And this, when you share the gospel, sometimes you feel really foolish. When you are humbled by the grace of God and know your weakness more and more you say, who am I to send this? But it's maintaining that proper heart and keeping to the task that the Lord uses to save people and we keep going whether He lets us live in the day of profound harvest, of salvation of many souls or not, and we're just following the path of Christ himself.So I've spoken a lot about this topic of unbelief. I hope that you do understand the fact of it, the tendencies, the nature, the consequences, but this passage does offer a whole lot more. One of the reasons Jesus was able to face such unbelief and keep going was because he knew the fact that He would face it. However, Jesus could face such unbelief and stay faithful in ministry because of His faith in his father's chosen plan to develop Him and grow Him as a disciple. And this is a discussion of the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness. In our passage today, we see that one of the reasons the people of Nazareth showed such unbelief is because they rejected Jesus for His loneliness and poverty. They say, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of these men and women that we know." They're saying, "His ministry is presumptuous. Who is he to preach to us in this way? Tell us what to do. What did you do? Go and hide in a cave and learn all these teachings."What are they saying here? They're wrestling with tension of there's a tension between what they hear and learn from him and in all of its magnificence and glory, and what they see when they look at Him, they see an ordinary guy. You see in the minds of the minds people of Nazareth, a person in order to be listened to and heeded as a prophet of God must have gone to school to study and obtain a degree. They should have studied under the best rabbis of the day, God and formal teaching. But Jesus though, astonishing, He does not have that background and they reject him for that. They were offended at him. They're scandalized, they are revolted and they want nothing to do with Him for disobeying these manmade rules, these prejudices that they have over how their faith tradition should be stewarded regardless of what it says, how it weighs against the scripture, they disqualify his ministry. They're offended that such a man with such a background could teach them with such wisdom and power.And even though the facts say that, wow, this guy's teaching is like no other. This guy performs miracles like no other. If they studied the scriptures, they should have been inclined with all the knowledge they had of Him to say maybe this is the Christ the Messiah, but instead they're revolted by Him. And so the world, it revolts against Christ's ordinariness and the people of Nazareth do that and people still do that today. Christianity is too simple. The gospel's too simple. Christians themselves are too simple. It's been the case throughout all of history.One a great story from the Old Testament is about Syrian general called Naaman. He is essentially, Syria is the powerhouse, the force, the nation, strongest nation of the day, but he has leprosy and he's their strongest general and he wants to be healed. He hears about this prophet, this power in Israel who has his power in Israel. And he goes, where does he go first? He goes to the king's courts to find his healing. The world always thinks that the extraordinary must do extraordinary, be extraordinary by their sins and he goes to the King, the King says, "Why are you here? I don't have any authority to help you here. I can't heal you."Then he says, go to Elisha, the prophet, and he takes his horses, he takes his royal chariot and he goes to Elisha and Elisha sends out his servant. Elisha doesn't even greet him and Naaman is offended. The servant tells him, "Go to the water, jump in the Jordan and you'll be healed." And Naaman's revolted at that. He says, "Why didn't I go just jump in the mighty waters in Assyria to get healing if this is what you are offering me?" The world is revolted at the ordinary of Jesus and Christianity, but we need to actually see the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness. Our Lord doesn't look at life in the same way as us. What's important to man is not important to God. How could Jesus face such unbelief in his ministry? How did he have the character to not lash out when crowds willfully dishonored Him? The answer is that our Heavenly Father believed that it was the best possible education, occupation for his begotten son before His public ministry to be a carpenter.Jesus was 30 when his ministry started, but all the time from His early teenage years until the point of the start of ministry, He did the lowly work of a carpenter and He probably did some stone mason rework. That's what the text gets us to see here. That's why the crowd was offended at him. God has his ways of raising up His disciples to do the work of the ministry often against the standards of the world. And we need to be able to appreciate that. God's ways are different than what you and I would ever conceive. And if they were limited to what you and I conceive, would He really be a God that we can worship? And when we project expectations onto God and we say scripture doesn't align with them, we're really just forming a God in our own image. We're breaking the first commandment of practicing idolatry, but God is different.Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways," declares the Lord." We should revel in the fact that God's ways are greater than ours. When I know my prejudices, my biases, my preferences, my tendencies, I praise God that I'm not God because I know that I would just destroy people who are different than me. How many times have we seen people of power do that? Just rid the world, cancel the world, be revolted like the people of Nazareth are at those who are not like them and do not meet their standards. But you see, God is different. The object of Christian life when you're saved, it's to be more like Jesus, to grow in the character of Jesus and to tell other people about salvation they can have in Jesus. And so once saved, God starts to do new and good work on you. The object is no longer to impress people with our own strengths and wisdom, but to become like Jesus and pray that He would use us as much as He wills, use us profoundly in our weakness for His glory.And God to prepare Jesus for such work, what did He do? He didn't want His son to go to the Jewish seminaries of the day. He had another school in mind and that was being a carpenter. Philippians 2:5 to 8 describes the way that God trained up Christ for the task ahead of Him. Have this mind in 5 through 11. "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of a God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."I know a lot of you have read this, we return to this passage a lot because it is gold, but what I want you to take away today is have this mind among yourselves. We're supposed to have the mindset of Christ, the humble, the lowly mindset, the faith to believe that God the Father, can use the most trying and challenge of circumstances to save us and to raise us up, to grow our character, to prepare us for greater ministry.Verse seven, like Christ, we're to empty ourselves, make ourselves some translators say, "Make ourselves of no reputation." Jesus deliberately excluded himself from positioning himself to be of any reputable status before the world. Even going as far as being willing to take on death on the cross to fulfill his calling. Jesus didn't position himself to be great in the eyes of men with His life. He was great by humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death on the cross. While the world shames and rejects Him for this, and Jesus was the cornerstone that the Jews stumbled over. They could not believe in a God man, a messiah whose primary mark on this earth was going to the cross, the world rejection for this. We need to praise Him for this.God the Father knew that the best way for Jesus to have the mindset to carry out His task was to be a carpenter in a place of obscurity, a place of humility in a family without reputation or money. Jesus obeyed the Father. He deliberately chose obscurity in the eyes of men. And throughout His ministry, we see him especially multiple times in Mark to this point, even as ministry is launching, He intentionally tells people not to tell of His mighty works so that He doesn't get popular in the eyes of men according to the standards of men. He doesn't want to draw a following around those things. He wants to draw a following around people who worship Him as Lord and Savior.And so if we follow Christ, we need to have this mindset. We need to see that all the pain of being the carpenter and Nazareth and facing this rejection from a tiny town. It was preliminary training for Jesus's crucifixion on the wood of the cross as well as rejection from his brothers, the Jews in Jerusalem. Jesus worked with wood, but one day he would be worked upon wood and he had the strength of character and the spirit of God to carry out and endure His task because of His training, God's training program in Nazareth. In His human nature, Christ faced experience that gave him a growing obedience to the Father. And as I talk about the way God, the extraordinariness of Christ's ordinariness, how God used it all to form Jesus, to shape Him for the work that he had for Him. We need to see that this isn't something that seminary offers. This isn't something that's sitting in holy huddles and small circles doing Bible study, filling yourselves with knowledge can accomplish, can teach you.Seminary and Bible study, of course, we love scripture. I'm taking you to a really hard scripture today, the day after Thanksgiving because that's what the Lord brought us to. That's what the Bible says. We love scripture. But you can fill your head with knowledge through seminary, through bible study, through formalized discipleship programs, but it can leave you lacking in the ability to obey your heavenly Father in the face of hardship. That takes discipline, that takes hard work. It involves the development of pain tolerance, and you see, when you face hardship and the ordinary of things of life, when you're dealing with a stubborn roommate or spouse or boss, facing crazy and rebellious children, being put to the test in the face of unbelief and persecution, you can't just get the good book out and pause every time in the moment. You have to have the ability to fellowship with your heavenly Father in the moment, abide in the moment, rely upon His spirit to give you the wisdom, give you the power to handle that moment faithfully.This is what Jesus learned in his upbringing and of course he knew a lot of scripture and was quoting a lot of scripture. We want to have our hearts and words saturated with it, but we need to know how to act out our faith as he did in the moment. Jesus learned how to wisely while facing challenges as a carpenter in a household with many unbelieving family members. He learned how to not proudly put himself forward in religious debates. He learned how to respond to rejection, disappointment with grace. He learned how to do good work, careful work, wise work for the glory of God and not himself. He lived for the glory of God in all situations as all of us are called to.And these lessons are just being able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary in our day-to-day lives. This is some of the most important wisdom that any Christian can have. I mean, it just unlocks life. We read of God. He is sovereign. Jesus Christ, He has ascended to the throne of God and at his right hand of the Father, He is in control of all things. And so all circumstances we face, He has ordained them by his providence and we need to trust and His goodness. That doesn't mean we don't stand up for righteousness's sake in the face of sin and injustice. It doesn't mean that we become doormats in this life. We stand on the truth. We speak the truth in love, but we as Christians, we need to trust in His plan in every moment. And we need to see that oftentimes Christianity is lived out and worked out in the ordinary.This is important for all Christians, all people, but especially young people in Boston because so many people come to the city and they take up Christianity like any other field or trade or profession, thinking that it's something to be studied, something to be mastered through work, through effort, you reap greater benefits, through study, you ascend to higher levels of knowledge and enlightenment. It's not the same.When I became a Christian, I associated Christianity with adrenaline that I got while doing things that I was good at. You hear the word flow, the experience of flow. You feel like you're in the zone and you can go for hours and you feel unstoppable and your whole system is working in coordination with your mind. And no. Much of Christianity is going forward while your body and flesh is resisting because Jesus Christ hasn't come back to give us a new regenerated perfect body. You are called to walk forward in faithfulness and it's hard. Your body resists, your mind resists while the soul keeps going forward. And we as Bostonites, we need to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. The goal of Christianity is not to do something, step into a community and master it and get adoration from peers around us, smugly show ourselves to be more capable than others.The goal of Christianity is different. Our calling is to show ourselves approved unto God. Two Timothy 2:15 says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." You're saved by God's grace. He gives you a new identity and He is calling you to be faithful in day-to-day life with every task before you. And we need to see that we're workmen, we're carpenters, we're people who don't need to be ashamed, fearful of what people think of them as we pursue this faithfulness and we need to continue to rightly handle the truth. This is for pastors, but every Christian needs to be able to give a reason for the hope within them in a coherent manner.As Christians like Christ, as we reflect on this pastor, we're to view the world as God's workshop and see that through whatever circumstances that we face in faith, we need to be humble and obedient to His plans, even to the point that obedience brings suffering and even physical pain or death. I know some of you're thinking that this is radical and it is. It's completely radical to the message of the world that tells you to live for yourself, your comfort, your glory, but it's what Christ himself did and told us to do. Matthew 16:24. "Then Jesus told his disciples that anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."Unless a person takes up this mindset, unless they're aiming for this, they can't be a disciple of Christ and their life is going to be marked by the void of God's power. All disciples of Christ should ask regularly, am I losing my life that I might find it? If that's the case, we'll find that the people around us don't approve of us, but God does. And that is what really should please our heart, that our Father accepts us. Even in our stumblings and imperfections, He's willing to give us, clothe us with more and more grace. The world may laugh and reject and despise us for our ordinariness, but we can be okay with that because they did that to Jesus. We're in good company. Isaiah 53 says, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed Him not." The world rejects Him, but when we trust Him in faith and follow Him, we're going to face these same trials.The world might laugh at us as we try to stay humble, keep a servant's mindset in the face of adversity and persecution, but we know that we take heart knowing that the Lord proves us in Christ. Are you denying yourself to follow Jesus? The travesty of this passage, the tragedy of unbelief, is that the people of God often do not do this. They often do not deny themselves to follow Christ. That's what happened in the synagogue of Nazareth. The people of God were not denying their preferences, were not submitting their view, their religious views, their tradition, their faith to the teachings of the scriptures and the Christ himself. They weren't willing to change their preferences, their actions for Him.Furthermore, Philippians 2:20 to 22 shows us that even Christians, even in this age of the church, a lot of Christians do not deny themselves the follow of Jesus. He says, "For I have no one like Him." This is Paul writing about Timothy. "For I have no one like Him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ." So what church communities can be marked by people who are all seeking their own preferences and the way they go about things and the way that the ministry is operating and who speaks and how traditions are upheld.And Paul says that what Mark shows us in this passage is that this is a tragedy and it leads to just the power of God being put out among the people. And so we each as individuals need to check our hearts to make sure that we are dying daily to follow Christ. We need to trust that God can save us and that he can use the ordinary in extraordinary ways to grow us further into the image of Jesus, and to use us for his mighty works in this life. Jesus marveled in this passage that all of these people were seeking their own good, not the things of God, not Christ himself, not faithfulness to His plan for them. Let's make sure that we don't make the same mistake ourselves. Let's pray.Heavenly Father, we praise you for your steadfast love, your loving kindness, your long-suffering love toward your children, for we are prone to wander. We are prone to favor our preferences, our desires, our ways over yours. But praise be to God that you are patient toward us in Jesus, in the same way that you sent Jesus to Nazareth multiple times in the same way that Christ just continued to minister despite facing rejection. Lord, you just offer us forgiveness in Jesus, in our folly, in our stubbornness, in our hardheartedness, and we can have peace with you because of Christ.And Lord, we pray, grow our belief. If any of our lives are marked by unbelief, we pray, help us in our unbelief. Lord, help us to identify those areas of our lives where we are not submitting to your lordship. Show us how we can be more faithful servants of your kingdom. Help us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Help us to see your word and your power going forward in our lives while the world might say otherwise and try to quench such power. We ask, give us greater faith to trust you and honor you. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, it is the 25th of November, 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We go straight to Hebrews 12:15 in the New Testament "…looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;…" We need to be so careful that we do not allow a root of bitterness which can cause trouble in a person's life and even sickness. Don't let it grow in your heart. Confess it, pull it out by the roots so that it can have no hold over your life. I remember like yesterday, many, many years ago, after preaching, asking people who are sick in their bodies to come forward for healing. I will never forget this old lady who came forward, and she looked so down and depressed. She knelt at the altar rail and said, "I need prayer for healing". I said, "What is the problem?" She said, "I suffer from migraine headaches terribly, have done for years." I looked at her, and I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, "Don't pray for healing for the headaches. There is unforgiveness in her heart." I said, "Do you have bitterness against someone who has maybe hurt you or disappointed you in the past?" She was very angry with me. She said, "Young man, I did not come here to confess my sins. I came here to be healed from my migraine headaches." Then she just broke down and wept and she said, "Yes, I have. I have had issues of bitterness against someone for years." So, the two of us prayed together. She confessed her sin and she left. I didn't even pray for healing.The next Sunday she came to church. She was a different woman. She was so happy and totally at peace. I said, "And how are you feeling?" She said, "I haven't had one migraine headache since we prayed together last week." Totally healed by Jesus!I would like to pray for you right now. Maybe you are suffering, and there is something in your life you just cannot lay down, that person has hurt you, you have been disappointed at work, and it is forming a root of bitterness. Let's deal with it now and carry on with our lives. Pray this prayer after me please:Dear Lord Jesus,I am convicted today that I have unforgiveness and bitterness in my heart. I forgive that person for hurting me, for disappointing me and today, Lord, I tear out that bitterness by the root that it will have no more part of my life.In Jesus name, Amen!God bless you and have a wonderful Saturday,Goodbye.

In Today's Uncertainty, “Know that the Most High {God} rules the kingdom of men {earthly governance} and gives it to whom he {God} will” MESSAGE SUMMARY:  Our country is NOT about “freedom from religion”. America has “freedom of religion”. Sadly, because of our abandoning God's Laws, all of us in this country are affected – Jesus Followers and non-Christians; atheists; and followers of other religious faiths. As Jesus says in Mathew 5:45: “. . . For He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and send the rain on the just and the unjust.”. What can we do? The first thing we can do is pray and to fast – pray and ask God to turn our country around. We do want God involved, and God is involved.  In Daniel 4:24-25, God told King Nebuchadnezzar, through Daniel's interpretation of the King's dream, that God is always in control and sovereign; and that God determines those who govern us because God is the Sovereign Creator of the Universe: “this is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High {God} rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he {God} will.". God, the Creator of the Universe, responds to our prayers in all issues impacting our lives today – pray for God's will respond, especially in these times of uncertainty.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Father, I confess that when difficulties and trials come into my life, large or small, I mostly grumble and complain. I realize the trials James talks about are not necessarily “walls,” but they are difficult to bear, nonetheless. Fill me with such a vision of a transformed life, O God, that I might actually consider it “pure joy” when you bring trials my way. I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 94). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because I am in Jesus Christ, I will entrust to Him my future. I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.  From 2 Timothy 1:12 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Leviticus 26:3-12; Leviticus 26:14-29; Daniel 4:24-25; Psalms 60:1-12 A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. THIS SUNDAY'S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach's Current Sunday Sermon: “Turkeys and Eagles, Part 5: Following Jesus Changes Everything in Our Families”, at our Website: https://awordfromthelord.org/listen/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB