OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 19

Mathew chapter 7 verse 6 carries two injunctions from the Lord Jesus along with three consequences for failing to uphold the injuctions.

6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

The two injuctions are;

• Do not give holy things to the dogs
• Do not present pearls (precious items) to pigs

The consequences for doing so are;

• The holy and precious things are trampled
• The pigs and dogs turn against you
• The pigs and dogs tear you apart

This teaching reveals a dynamic that exists when people in the kingdom of God are interacting with those who are not.

The holy and precious things are articles that are revealed to those who frequent the corridors of the kingdom of God.

Holy things are spiritual impliments and instruments that spiritual people employ to facilitate transactions betweeen the realms of the spirit and the realms of the temporal.

Pearls represent valuable spiritual treasures that can be traded for by sacrifice and labour in the natural realm. Revealed spiritual mysteries and spiritial knowledge are examples of pearls.

Dogs represent those people who are in the household of God but have not  ascended beyond the life of the flesh and have returned to their vomit.

Pigs represent those who are dominated by demonic spirits and operate as functionaries of the kingdom of darkness.

When walking in the spirit as is the requirement of citizenship in the kingdom of God, disernment must be utilized when interacting with people to distinquish between those to whom holy and precious things can be given lest the holy things be defiled and the precious things be devalued.

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 19

The Lord, continuing in Mathew chapter 7 verses 3 - 4, teaches His followers the principles of self-awareness and self-alignment.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

The tendency for us to look askance upon those around who have issues in their lives while ignoring our own shortcomings is a very real phenomenon that stems from our familiarity with our own moral ecosystem that makes us blind to our own proclivities.

The Lord calls this hypocricy and advises us to examine our own lives objectively and endeavor to extricate harmful behaviour patterns enmeshed in us before we start looking into the lives of others to correct their foibles.

Living in the spirit requires clarity in perception to be able to assist others and thus it is imperitive that we remove obstacles and contaminants in our lives that muddy our ability to correctly perceive the issues our brothers are entangled in.

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO LOVES US

From Psalm 117

How great is our God's love for us

His faithfulness never comes to an end

Extol Him who saved us and called us His friends

All you nations and peoples, let's all Praise His Name

All you nations and peoples, Let's all praise His Name

Psalm 117

Praise the Lord, all you nations;

    extol him, all you peoples.

2 For great is his love toward us,

    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord.

OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 18

Mathew chapter 7 verses 1 - 2 record the Lord's teaching on passing judgement on other people.

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Jesus' counsel to us on this subject is to avoid judging other people altogether because of the hazards that accompany undertaking judgement over other people.

First, if we step up to judge others, we qualifyl ourselves to be judged as well.

Second, when we judge others, our own methodology of judgement will be used to judge us. If, for instance, we discriminate on how we pass judgement based on people's social standing, this bias will be used against us.

Third, the same harshness or severity that we mette out against other people when we sit in judgement over them will be used against us.

The gold standard is not to judge other people but if judgement is forced upon us, we must be as carefull and impartial as possible when examining cases we are adjudicating and we must also be as merciful as we can be.

In the kingdom of God, adherance to the guidance of the Spirit of God on matters of judgement will exempt us from being judges ourselves.

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 17

Mathew chapter 6 verses 28 - 34 continues the lessons of prioritization of the things of the kingdom of God over concerns for temporal things. The Lord Jesus tells His followers that they are far more precious than flowers of the field that God clothes in splendor.

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 

31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The Lord assures His people that worrying about the things like food, clothes and shelter would be fruitless. Instead of worrying, we should instead seek God's kingdom and His righteousness and those things that are needed will be provided along with the things of God's kingdom and righteousness. 

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 16

The Lord Jesus, in Mathew chapter 6 verses 25 - 27, continued teaching His followers about how to live as citizens of His kingdom and expounds on the previous lesson that touched on the impossibility of serving both God and mammon (money) at the same time.

He adjures His people not to expend energy worrying about how they would survive in the world. If they were to primarily concern themselves with the things of the kingdom of God, all the things they require will be provided to them by their Father in heaven;

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 

26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 

27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

This passage has tones of the verse that Jesus used to reject the temptation to turn the stones to bread in the wilderness in Mathew chapter 4 verse 4;

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

This refutation alludes to the fact that life is more than bread and the fulfilment of physical needs but is, in fact, rooted in the spiritual provision that comes from the utterances of God.

Jesus tells His followers that in the same way that our Father provides food for the birds of the air, we, who are of much greater concern to the Father, would be provided for. 

If we attend to the things of the kingdom of God, we do not need to server mammon and we need not worry about how we will nourish and clothe ourselves because our Father will take responsibility to provide the things we have need of.

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO SENT HIS SON TO DO AND TO TEACH Part 15

The Lord Jesus, in this verse, establishes the axiom of the hazards of split loyalty.

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Have two masters brings about the conflict of love and devotion versus hate and resentment.

In trying to serve two masters, inevitably, situations will arise that will result in the servant having to chose between the fulfillment of service to one master over the other.

One master will rebuke the servant even though the failure to please one master  was impossible to mitigate. Hate and resentment against that master begins to fester making life unbearable.

In the verse, the Lord gives an example of two masters who some people would try to serve concurrently but would fail at doing so: God and money.

Those who would serve God have requirements on their time and resources. Those who would serve money must render time and resources to acquire and manage it.

To try to serve both at the same time would degrade into a hopeless miasma of contrary interests and ultimately, a believer, pressured by the practicalities of survival like food and clothing, would have to decide between one or the other.

The Lord, in Mathew chapter 6 verses 31 - 33, gives us the way out of this connundrum with theses counterintuitive words; 

31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Amen.

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