Teach your child
Month: May 2021
Love one another
Quote for the Day
It’s simply much easier to look for explanations for the lack of answers than it is to seek God until there is a breakthrough. Bill Johnson
Reflection on Matthew 15:15-28
Scripture
“Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.
Observation
Jesus explains His statement that people are not defiled by what they eat, but by the attitudes of the heart that are expressed by what comes out of their mouths. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile a person.
Jesus and the disciples head north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Gentile woman pleads with Him to heal her daughter who is tormented by an evil spirit.
Jesus at first seems to refuse to help her, but as she persists, He sees her faith and tells her the child is healed.
Application
Faith in Jesus is what releases the power of God. In this passage, Jesus interacts with the woman in such a way as to provoke her faith. Then the daughter is healed.
What is the gradation between faith as small as a mustard seed that moves mountains and “great faith” that releases healing and deliverance?
In the case of this woman, it was the determination to persist despite Jesus’ apparent refusal to help her.
How many people pray one prayer for something only to give up when it didn’t happen straight away?
Many people give up praying for healing when the condition shows no immediate improvement or even gets worse.
Real faith persists and digs deeper when God seems to say “No.” Real faith holds on to God even when He seems far away.
Prayer
Lord, please help me to grow stronger in faith and to trust you even when my prayers go unanswered. Help me to cling to you until I get the breakthrough. Amen.
How Do You Use It?
Becky Dvorak: Prayer for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
I have been a witness to a mighty move of the Spirit moving throughout the entire earth. It is a wave of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The altars have been filled with people asking and receiving this empowerment of Holy Spirit. The Lord knows what is ahead of us and His desire is that we are ready for what is to come.
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for anyone who has received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is what the apostle Peter preached immediately following the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Acts 2:38-39, NKJV.
It is the Father who gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask of Him, and He always gives us good gifts.
Continue readingDon’t give up!
Never give up praying. And when you pray, keep alert and be thankful. Colossians 4:2 CEV https://bible.com/bible/392/col.4.2.CEV
Is This You?
A recent survey by the George Barna Group found that the church in the USA has been massively weakened by a heresy that is both appealing and anti-christian.
The heresy goes by the name of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). That’s a mouthful so let’s break it down a little before examining the specifics.
- Moralistic means the belief that being a “good” person is the most important virtue.
- Therapeutic means that God wants me to be happy and feel good about my life
- Deism is a philosophy that originated in the 18th Century and acknowledges there is a Creator, but He is distant from the world and not interested in our personal affairs.
We can see how this would be a common point of view amongst many people who believe that God wants us to be happy and to be good, and that He won’t judge us. In fact this is at many points the exact opposite of the gospel.
Continue readingReflection on Matthew 15:1-14
Scripture
“These people honour me with their lips
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man- made ideas as commands from God.”
Observation
Some Pharisees criticise Jesus because His disciples ignore the traditions about ceremonial hand washing prior to eating.
Jesus replies by asking them why they violate God’s law with their own traditions. He goes on to quote Isaiah who condemned people for honouring God with their lips, but having cold hearts towards Him.
Jesus tells the crowd to ignore the Pharisees. They are blind leaders of the blind. The Father will uproot them because they were not planted by Him.
Application
Hypocrisy is a real temptation for everyone who seeks to follow the Lord.
It is also very easy to accuse other people of hypocrisy, and people do make that kind of smear all the time about christians. We need to make sure that our hearts are indeed right with the Lord.
God does not judge those who sincerely love Him but don’t always get it right. That applies to all of us!
What angers God as much as anything else is self-righteous hypocrisy. This is where we pat ourselves on the back for being much better than other people, while covering up our own sins.
What God wants is a heart that is soft towards Him, a heart of love for the Lord. Such a person, He will not reject.
Prayer
Thank you Father for the assurance that I do not have to be perfect, just humble towards you and other people. Give me grace Lord to rise above hypocrisy. Amen.
Through Him we are free
New Life Narrabri 