Category: Food For Growth

³¹ When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ And he will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. ~ Matthew 25:31-33

Two groups of people stood before Jesus. One was the sheep, and the other was the goats. Then Jesus separated the two groups. To one, He gave eternal life to the other, He gave eternal damnation. Now, here’s the thing, these two groups don’t represent the Church and the world. They are both Christians. The difference is one represents the Christians who followed Christ and lived their lives for Him, the other only said they did, but their actions spoke otherwise.

See, they accepted salvation, but they didn’t allow Christ to sanctify them because they refused to be set apart from the world and their own sin, taking up their cross and following Christ. They didn’t allow salvation to change them, instead, it became a one time event that didn’t impact the rest of their lives.

Today, don’t take your salvation for granted. Each day strive to growing in the LORD. Strive to bettering yourself. Strive to bettering the world around you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Strive For More.

²⁰ But that is not the way you learned Christ!— ²¹ assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, ²² to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. ~ Ephesians 4:20-24

Jesus saves us, but we put off our own selves by refusing to think the way we used to and by not doing the things we used to. What does that mean? Whatever is false, wrong, evil, or wicked, we must lay those things aside and cling to what is pure, right, holy, true, and just. We must not only think about these things, but we must also put them into practice as well. This is the call of the Church. This is for all of us, not just the early Church.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Refocus On Good.

Proverbs 23:13-14,
13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.
I recently saw a short (video a minute or less in length) that showed a mother taking her son to the home of a young girl he was with to confront the young girl’s father. The mother aggressively got in the father’s face telling him to not put his hands on her son again. The father tried to explain that he caught him in the bed with his daughter, but the mother kept saying it doesn’t matter. The father tried to further explain that he didn’t hit him, just roughed him up a bit and put him out.
This teenage boy is well over 6 inches taller than this father and well over the age of knowing better, but instead of taking him over there to apologize to the father for being disrespectful to him in his own house by being in bed with his daughter, she confronts the father.
There were thousands of comments. Many were in support of the father, but many were in support of the mother as well. In fact, many even went as far as to demand the young girl be put on blast too, but why? It wasn’t the father of the teenage girl that recorded the encounter to post on social media, it was the mother. Therefore, it is the mother’s son who she has placed as the focus of this video not the father’s daughter.
The only comments I saw defending the mother were women and one man (who grew up without a father in the home). It was a pattern of lack of fathers in the home that had any excuse for the this teenage boy and his mother. Fathers are crucial to society. They are needed in order for society to function orderly and properly. Why? Because mothers and fathers react differently to situations. A father disciplines, whereas a mother instructs.
When there was a group of wild young male elephants terrorizing an area, what did they do to correct the situation? They introduced strong adult male elephants. Why? Because men don’t coddle their children, especially not their sons, the way that a woman is more prone to. That is the importance of fathers in the home. Fathers perfectly balance the household so that there is both a strong and a soft arm in the household allowing our children, especially our sons, to grow up to respect others in society.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Remember Fathers Are Important.

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you”  — this is the Lord’s declaration — “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11^CSB

Each person on earth has a destiny. A call from God Himself that He has laid on each life, but we each also have a Satanic call that the Devil has tried to distract and lead us astray with. How does the Devil confuse Christians? By disguising himself as an angel of light.

His plan for your life may not seem evil, dark, or wrong. In fact, it will most likely be a plan that seems good. A plan that is helpful to you, your family, and your community. The Devil rarely ever shows up as an evil red villain with horns, a pointy tail, and a pitchfork. He disguises himself as an angel of light.

Someone once said that the greatest lie the Devil ever told was that he doesn’t exist, but I don’t I agree with this statement at all. The greatest lie isn’t that Satan doesn’t exist, but that he isn’t evil. That he’s misunderstood and actually good. That he is in fact, on our side. That is the greatest lie the Devil has ever told.

Therefore, don’t let the Devil deceive you. Seek out God and His plan. Seek Christ and His voice so that you won’t be deceived by another voice. Get to the Good Shepherd, and He will protect you from the thief that comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek Your True Destiny.

⁴ … Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ~ James 4:4b

You have to understand, the world is not for you, unless you are a part of it. That means that if you are a child of God, the world does not care about you. Why not? Because we are not a part of it, or so James tells us. Therefore, if the world has embraced you, check your Christianity, it is likely you have made yourself an enemy of God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Check Where You’re At.

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¹⁹ For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. ~ Galatians 2:19-21

Paul is referring to the law that says, the soul that sinneth it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20). The law brought awareness to sin, and with awareness came death. But through Christ, we have all been made alive, not to live for our own selves, but to live for our LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, we crucify the flesh, which is a spiritual term and not a physical one. To be crucified with Christ means that we no longer live for our own selves, but we live to please Christ.

Why? Because it was Christ who loved us so much that He was willing to come to this old dusty earth to die a horrible, horrific death so that we might live in glory with Him. So, Paul is assuring us that we are not saved through close adherence to the law, but in obedience to Jesus’ commandments to “Love the LORD our God with all of our heart and all of our soul and with all our mind” (Matthew 22:37), and to “Love our neighbor as ourself” (Matthew 22:39).

Then, the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem laid down this law for us gentile believers. They said, ²⁸ For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: ²⁹ that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell” (Acts 15:28-29).

Paul said that he did not nullify the grace of God, but rather, he lived to please the LORD. And that is the message for today. Obey these commandments that have been given to us. Love the LORD. Love your neighbor. Don’t eat what is sacrificed to idols. Don’t eat blood. Don’t eat what is strangled. And keep away from sexual immorality. We are assured that if we keep away from these things, we do well.

Father, thank You for loving us. Thank You, LORD Jesus, for dying on the cross for us. I want my flesh to be crucified with Christ so that I can live to please the LORD Jesus. Help me as I strive to live for You, my God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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