Tag: Food For Growth

³ For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. ~ 2 Timothy 4:3-4

The King James says that, “… they will not endure sound doctrine …” People don’t want to hear sound doctrine but want their itching ears scratched. They leave the Truth of the Church and cling to a lie because they love this world and want their own lusts and passions satisfied. But friend, this world is passing away and eternity is hurdling toward us at a breakneck speed.

Now, hear me… eternity is forever. Jesus is coming back. Paul said that a crown of righteousness is laid up for all those who love His appearing and look forward to it (2 Timothy 4:8). These earthly desires (the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life) are all of the evil one, the devil, and those who are of him will cling to the fables of this world.

But as for us we are to remain sober-minded. We are to endure suffering. We are to win souls. We are to be ready to suffer for the sake of the Gospel if necessary. We must run our race with endurance and finish our course in victory. Then we will receive the crown of life that is laid up for us.

Don’t get caught up in the things of this world and miss out on all the good things God has in store for us. Greed is sweeping the pulpits and washing over the congregations. The Gospel is being twisted into a self-help, wealth-building message that reduces God merely to a means of personal gain.

I’m not preaching against prosperity. I believe in sowing and reaping, but when the blessings of the LORD are being sold from the pulpit. When the increase of wealth without repentance is trumpeted. When the promise of power without purity is condoned. We’ve corrupted the Word of God. The Church is not all about the here and now, but the here and now in preparation for eternity.

We brought nothing into this world, and we will take nothing out. All that we will have in eternity is what we send on ahead of us. And that is the reason for Jesus’ warning to us:

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Build For Eternity.

Matthew 22:37-40

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus said that all of the Law and the Prophets depend on two commandments: Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, you can do all things for God, preach and teach accurately, you can even give your life for the sake of the Gospel, but if you do not have love, you are a resounding symbol and you gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

And if we keep all the law, but we fail in the part of loving our neighbor as ourselves, what will become of us? We will be found without fruit. The LORD said that if we don’t bear fruit, we will be cut off and the thrown into the fire (John 15:1-6). So, what are we to do? Love. Love as Jesus did. He didn’t condemn. Insult. Demonize. Demean. Instead, we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others. Yes, we need to point out sin. But we have to do it without condemnation and insult.

So many of us claim to be Christians but insult and tear down others. What kind of testimony is that? If we, who are supposed to be Christ to the world, can’t do the basic foundational act of loving our neighbor (which is everyone), how can we expect the world to change? How we treat others matters. How we love matters.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Watch How You Love.

³ Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. ~ Numbers 12:3

Moses was referred to as meek. Many believe that means weak, but Moses was far from being weak. Moses was actually a powerful leader, and Israel prospered under his leadership. But to say he was weak is not a statement that can be attributed to Moses, the man of God.

For instance, Moses was up on the mountain with God for forty days and forty nights, during that time the people of Israel created for themselves a god. So, what did Moses do? He took the god that they had made, the golden calf, and burned it with fire, and then ground it to powder and scattered it on the water, and made the people drink it.

That meek man does not sound like a weak man because he wasn’t. He did not back down from confrontation. He was not skirmish about fighting battles in the time of war, nor was he timid in correcting insolence against God.

What he was meek in doing was defending himself and rising up against any and all false accusers against him. A lot of the time, we Christians spend too much time fighting the small things. We feel the need to defend ourselves because, after all, if we don’t, who will? But Moses did not have that desire.

He did not feel the need to defend himself when his sister and his brother, Miriam and Aaron, spoke against him.

But God, his defender, came down and straightened the whole thing up for him. He didn’t even have to ask or pray about it. God rose up and defended him. Because Moses was no longer his own, he was completely and totally sold out to the service of God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Learn Meekness.

Matthew 5:3 NIV

[3]  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus made the kingdom of heaven is accessible now through faith in Him as the ultimate sacrifice (1 Corinthians 5:7-8), and then will be fully realized when He returns to make all things new.

Therefore, we don’t have to wait for the physical manifestation of God’s kingdom of heaven to enjoy its royal decrees and privileges, such as:

• No weapon formed against us will prosper, and we will refute every tongue that accuses us (Isaiah 54:17)
• By His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24)
• He will never leave us nor forsake us (Deut. 31:6; Heb 13:5)
• We will renew our strength and we soar on eagles’ wings (Isaiah 40:31)

But here is the thing, Jesus only promises this kingdom to the “poor in spirit”—those who humbly acknowledge their need for God’s grace by fully submitting to His authority, as I described with the Greek term ptōchos meaning to bow down timidly and the Hebrew concept of “afflicting” one’s soul (ʿānâ with ně·p̄ěš) (Leviticus 16:29-30).

Matthew 5:3 is a promise to those who live humbly, seeking God’s forgiveness, as foreshadowed in the Day of Atonement when the high priest made atonement for Israel’s sins.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Live Humbly.

Matthew 7:13-14 NIV

[13]  “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. [14] But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

I recently went back and watched the Land Before Time movie series for the first time in over 20 years. It had been so long, it was like I was watching it for the first time. And as I watched I realized that the teachings of the Bible will always be seen in everything, whether we want them or not. For instance, these kids got separated from their parents and had to make a long journey by themselves to the meeting place.

So, as they’re going along they reach a split in the journey, if you will. One tells them they have to go one way the other says to go another way. Why the disagreement? Because the one leading was taking them through a path the rest deemed too difficult when there was a perfectly good easy path next to it. Why did he choose that path? Because that was the way his mother had told him to go.

So, what happens? They split from the leader and follow another one down the easy path. The issue? It leads them to tar. To lava. To unforeseen dangers. The path the leader was taking them was rougher. It would take more work and effort but it was the safest way. It was the most reliable. The best way to go.

The life God has called us to isn’t an easy one. It’s a rough one. It’s one of denying our flesh. Picking up our cross and carrying it. It’s one of rejection from the world. Sometimes, it’s even lonely. But it’s the only path to Christ. It’s the only path to salvation. No it Isn’t easy, but won’t lead you to destruction.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Beware The Easy Path.

“Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” ~ 1 John 2:6 (NIV)

Following Jesus isn’t just about belief—it’s about living differently. Every day presents choices: respond with patience or anger, give generously or hold back, speak truth or stay silent.

John pushes us to examine how closely our lives reflect Jesus’ example. It’s a call to intentional living, not just empty words. We aren’t to live our lives however we want. We are called to live as Christ. How will you reflect Jesus in your actions today?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Reflect The Son.

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ~ Genesis 2:24

After God created woman and brought her to man, it says that the two shall become one flesh. Jesus recites the same words in Matthew 19:5 and again in Mark 10:7. Love binds together, hate scatters apart.

A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one. And so, that is the reason why husbands must love their wives as Christ loved the Church, because they have become one flesh with us. Therefore, if we do not love our wives, we do not love ourselves.

In the same way, if we do love our wives, then it shows that we also love our own selves. It’s a win, win kind of situation. We are not in competition with each other. We are not envious of each other. When one succeeds, we both succeed. We have become one flesh. This is An Acceptable Kind of Love.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Love Each Other.

²⁴ Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. ~ Matthew 7:24-27

Tim Barton of WallBuilders.com (and if you’ve never checked out this website, I strongly encourage you to) reminds us that a staggering 34% of all Founding-era political documents, written between 1760 and 1805, contained direct quotations from the Bible.

Think about that … One-third of our formative political writings were Scripture! That’s not just a coincidence—that’s a testimony. It reveals just how deeply God’s Word shaped the thinking, language, and convictions of the men who formed our republic. It shows that the Bible wasn’t merely a book of private devotion—it was the public foundation of policy, liberty, and national purpose. It shoots down every accusation and every attempt to try to deceive us that America was not formed on biblical values. It’s just a great, big lie to deny.

A 1984 study by political scientists Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman confirmed what WallBuilders.com continues to teach: that the Bible was the single most frequently cited source in all political discourse of that era, far more than any Enlightenment philosopher like Locke, Montesquieu, or Rousseau.

This tells us something profound about our Founders: they didn’t look to France, or to the halls of academia, or to the ideologies of men to figure out how to build a just society. They turned to God’s Word.

The Bible shaped their understanding of:

• Human nature (fallen and in need of accountability),
• Law and justice (rooted in God’s character),
• Government (limited in power, answerable to God),
• Freedom (not license, but liberty under truth),
• and Morality (objective right and wrong, not relative opinions)

Concepts such as inalienable rights, checks and balances, the rule of law, and personal responsibility are not modern inventions—they are biblical principles that our Founders drew directly from Scripture. The farther we stray from these well grounded and spiritually/biblically sound beliefs held by our founding fathers, the farther we go into darkness and chaos. Many big cities look like the third world countries now. There’s no safety, hygiene, or sanity in many areas of the US today. Why? Because we push against the natural order given to us in Scripture and push forward anarchy. We as a nation cannot thrive in chaos. So, let us return to our roots. Let us once again look to Scripture as the source of justice, righteousness, and the liberty.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Return To The Roots.