The Pharisees Were Offended

 

Matthew 15:7-14

You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. they worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.  Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Ego, who really is ego-disease free when there is obedience to the sinful nature of the Devil in them, instead of obedience to God the Holy Spirit? God the Holy Spirit reminds us everything about the divine nature of Christ and how it can be formed in us. He encourages us so that Christ's divine nature is fully formed in us. How many of us fully obey His leading towards full Christformation in us? What we sow, will be what we will reap out of our obedience to Him. There are no short-cuts but only a "narrow door" to enter the kingdom of God through Christformation. Believing in Christ should see the end-result of Christformation in you through the help of God the Holy Spirit.

Masquerade As Servants of Righteousness

2 Corinthians 11:12-15

And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

Pretension is everywhere. Falsehood is practised with pride. People are asking: what's behind that mask? "Who is he" or, "what are his or her real motives"? The world places importance on impressing others in whichever way they can. Hence, giving a false impression of oneself to the world. It is not in impressing others with what you have. If you trying to impress others with what you have, you are a selfish person. You have been operating through devilish wisdom. This wisdom does not come from God. It originates from the Devil. what happens to you in the end will show what kind of life you had lived. Selfish or selfless? Anyway, you do not be selfless to make a show of it also. If you do, you are no different from the one who is selfish. You are doing everything centred around you. This should not be the case if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not have a nature of pretension.So, where did this come from in you? Yes, it  comes from the sinful nature of the Devil in you. How come? You said you belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ but how come you still obey the sinful nature of the Devil in you, when you should be obeying God's Spirit in you towards full Christformation in you?

Disillusioned About Your Christian Faith?

Psalm 12:1-3

New International Version (NIV)

Help, LORD, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts.

May the LORD silence all flattering lips and every boastful tongue—

Do you feel that you have been cheated with lies all these years. Has truth been stolen from you? Has someone treated you as dirt and not respected who you are in the LORD? Has someone "pushed down your throat" what you always knew something that they had served was inedible? You had no choice but to accept lies. For some human reasons you were bound to these lies. The time is  up for you to break free from these destructive lies.

The father of all lies has been around for the past six thousand years or so. He has been crafting these lies that has sounded almost like the truth but it isn't the truth. You could judge it by its fruit. There isn't any fruit of repentance following that confession of faith. Obeying the sinful nature of the Devil in them continues. There isn't the formation of the divine nature of Christ in them. How do we know this? Because, both the divine nature of Christ and the sinful nature of the Devil cannot grow in God's garden at the same time. How come they still obey the sinful nature of the Devil in them? How can you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ but yet at the same time live conforming to the standards of the sinful nature of the Devil in you?

Disillusioned about your Christian faith? You are not the only one! You must always remember that the "father of all lies" has not been removed from this earth yet. He will soon be removed by the Lord Jesus Christ. The Devil who is the "father of lies" will be cast into the lake of fire with his minions following him into eternal condemnation. For the time being, the Truth will set you free. When the Truth is formed in you, (which is Christ Himself) you will be freed from these lies. You will not be bound by these lies any more.

Psalm 1:1-3

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.

Do you notice something important in the Psalms above. In the end what matters to God most is your individual faith and obedience to God's word. That would mean; obedience to Christ our Lord, for He is the revealed Word of God. "Blessed is the one"  and "that person" is referred to individuals who choose to "delight in His law" meaning those who  obey God through Christ and all that He had commanded.For, He is that Word of God.

Seeking the Glory of the One Who Sent Me

John 7:17-19
New International Version (NIV) Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”

The Lord Jesus only sought the glory of God the Father all the time while He was on earth. Even now at the exalted right hand of God, He does the same. He does not change. Abased or abound, He is always the same. He seeks the glory of God forever and ever. He seeks that the Father in heaven be glorified before men and all His creation through Him and His completed work on the cross.

Colossians 1:19-20New International Version (NIV)
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God the Father's fulness dwells in Christ and if Christ is formed in you, you too will have the fulness of God in you eternally. but, how will this occur if you give the glory to the Devil by pleasing and obeying the sinful nature of the Devil in you? You have to put to death all the misdeeds of the sinful nature of the Devil in you, first.

Who Gave You This Authority?

Luke 20:1-8 New International Version (NIV)
One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?” He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me: John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

When the Lord Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission in Matthew 2817-20, he had said first that; "all authority has been given to Him by the Father in Heaven. He commanded us to "go" out into the world with this authority that remains in His disciples as long as they are with Him.That, He has been given the highest authority on earth, in heaven and even underneath the earth. Tell me, who ever was given such authority. He said this after He had risen from the dead and was about to be seated at God's right hand. Can anyone challenge that authority ever? We should fear such righteous authority. We have this promise, that one day everyone will bow before His righteous authority, even unrepenting sinners!

When we talk about authority, we have two kinds of it. Godly authority which means God's authority and evil authority which means that which operates from the sinful nature of the Devil in men who are in authority. We know about this evil authority because we have been wrestling with this evil authority ever since we were revealed about this by the greatest and highest authority that is God and His Christ. He knows who these evil authorities are, where they hide and what they do in hiding. These are real demons we wrestle with daily.They are very evil by nature and are only waitng for their destruction in the hands of Christ forever.

Ephesians 6:10-12

New International Version (NIV)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

True Fasting Starts Now

Isaiah 58:6
New International Version (NIV)
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

What is fasting in the first place? No one must know that you have fasted. Not even your family members. It must be done in secret with God. Why must you fast? To show you are serious about what you are asking God for. Not for selfish reasons but for the needs of others. What kinds of need? Needs that are impossible to be met by you to show that nothing is impossible for Him to demonstrate on earth. When it comes to fighting with demons whom you cannot see with your natural pair of eyes, it will be necessary to fast. Like many problems in this world are the works of the Devil and his minions.It may appear like we are fighting with men but we are not. We are wrestling with evil authorities, evil rulers, evil powers and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We can fight them by being serious with our prayer life through fasting. But, make it a secret between you and God. Don't blow the trumpet to the whole about this.

Matthew 6:5-18

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

The Destructive Against The Indestructible

Hebrews 7:15-17New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. For it is declared: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

2 Peter 2:1-3
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

Destructive behaviour,policies,attitude,mind,actions,desires,motives, intentions of the heart,practices,urges,cravings,pleasures,thoughts,inclinations of the hearts,mood swings,anger, fury,rage,emotions,ways,habits,weaknesses, teachings, heresies,self-will,stand,beliefs,ideas,imaginations,planning, stirrings and so forth have been deployed against the indestructible but to no avail. The one who will be destroyed in the end will be the destructive not the indestructible.

From the start, not many knew that the Lord Jesus Christ was indestructible. When the Lord Jesus Christ was born into this world as an infant not many understood that He is indestructible. Herod did not understand this truth so he tried to kill the Lord Jesus Christ when He was still a baby. But, the three wise men who tracked the Star that stood above Him knew that He is indestructible. The gifts they brought along with them showed what they had believed about Him. Their gifts to Him spoke about durability, eternity and everlasting life. God's angels that sang at His birth on earth knew He is indestructible. The shepherds at that scene knew too. But, Herod and his evil men did not! The Destructive would never be able to recognize The Indestructible. The Roman soldiers could not. The Sanhedrin, the pharisees, the saducees, the priests and the chief priests could not.The world could not. Judas Iscariot, the son of perdition could not. Only a few could recognize The Indestructible.

The Devil and the demons that were thrown out of heaven unto this earth like lightning are destructive. This same Devil who appeared and deceived Adam and Eve was he not destructive? Wasn't the wisdom that came from him destructive? Didn't he seek to destroy mankind with that devilish wisdom? He did by deceptively sowing his sinful nature into mankind that we still struggle with today. He still holds the world in bondage to this sinful nature of his that is destructive. The children of the devil are destructive. But, those in whom the divine nature of The Indestructible is being formed will become indestructible too. Christformation in you is indestructible. When you have successfully destroyed the sinful nature of the Devil in you, you will become indestructible like your Saviour, Lord and Master of your life. His indestructible life would be formed in you fully if you fully obey all that He had commanded. Are you already doing this? If you are, good! If not, wake up now before it is too late.