Matthew 17:4

Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Peter, along with James and John, experience the mountain top transfiguration with Jesus. It was clearly an incredible, supernatural event. Have you ever experienced anything like that? A mountain top experience?

Their response to this epic encounter with God was to fall to the ground, overwhelmed and overcome by what they’ve just witnessed.

But Peter’s next response is interesting. Peter’s next response is entirely in keeping with what we expect of our human intellect and reasoning. He said, “let’s build a monument here!”

So moved was Peter, he didn’t want to lose what he was experiencing and so saw an opportunity to enshrine the encounter by building three tabernacles in it’s honour.

There is a danger in our lives that we romanticise certain high points in our Christian walk and see everything else as lesser in comparison to “how it was then”. We can tend to view everything in present through a filter of our past experiences, always looking back for a gauge and means to judge and understand the future.

Unfortunately, this works at cross purposes with the ways of God. During the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land, God sent a cloud by day and fire by night to guide the people. He gave them manna each day for their food. Each day had it’s own provision and God himself would lead and guide them day by day.

God is not interested in us using past experiences as a guide and marker point for walking into our future. God’s way is not to leave us self-sufficient, and able to draw all we need from our own resources and reasoning. No, He wants a people who are reliant on Him daily. That’s why He teaches us to pray “give us today our DAILY bread”. We need to be fed by Him day in and day out.

The human understanding says if something good happens, bottle some of it for tomorrow. God says, don’t worry about tomorrow, it will have enough trouble of its own, instead let me lead you and sustain you today and each day after it.

PRAYER: Lord, I want to move with your presence and take in the highs when they comes but also to stay close to you in the low times as well. Thank you you are with me and sustain me each and every day, and that in you I have hope in the future, In Jesus name, Amen.

Matthew 16:11b says:

…But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus calls us to His Kingdom and to be His disciples. This is a radical call and it is rooted on the foundation of a revelation of WHO Jesus is – the Son of God (Matthew 16:16).

To follow Jesus is to disregard and ditch the old ways of your life and embrace His ways. This includes the old religious systems we were a part of or ascribed to.

These old religious systems are embodied by the Pharisees (Legalism) and the Sadducees (Liberalism).

• The Pharisees appeal to strict adherence to outward conformity, through the addition of extra rules and law to their faith, and then burden the people with these expectations to perform, where God does not.
• The Sadducees are rationalists. In their intellectual pride the Sadducees denied the resurrection, and so also deny any part of the faith that is potentially offensive to the mind or to worldly wisdom.

Jesus warms us against the leaven of each of these.

There is a danger to your faith in each of these because each appeals to the carnal nature and is contrary and in opposition to the ways of the Spirit of God. Both are rooted in pride – pride of external performance and pride of intellectual superiority. And pride is offensive to God (James 4:6).

And Jesus says it is like leaven or yeast. In the same way that a small pinch of yeast causes the whole bread to rise, it only takes a pinch of pride before your whole life is puffed up and you are living in opposition to God.

As always with the words of Jesus, it is a warning we would do well to heed.

PRAYER: Father I ask you to forgive me for the sin of pride. I humble myself before you today and ask that you enable to see the areas of potential pride in my life. Thank you for your enabling grace through Jesus your Son, Amen.

Matthews 15:8 says

This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.

One of the scariest thoughts as a Christian is that this statement could sum up how God views me.

Just stop. And think on that for a moment.

Do I just do the outward actions for the sake of it? Supposing that the outward action, on it’s own, is enough?

If I do, then I am in trouble.

The alternative is that my heart is genuinely changed and moved by God.

The heart is what matters. Where your heart is, is a true indicator of where your life is with God.

• Is your heart, and therefore your life, where God wants it to be, or not?
• Is there a desire within to know Jesus, to walk with Him?
• Is there a willingness to submit to Him and put Him and His will first?

Summed up, these are the critical questions we all need to ask.

If our heart is not in the right place before God, then we have two choices. 1) To get our hearts right before God or 2) quit the outward activity altogether. It is easy to just quit, but if you do that, the problem still remains. God doesn’t have your heart and it’s your heart that He wants!

Give Him your heart and life today.

PRAYER: Father God, I want to give you my heart and life again today. I choose to put you first and follow you. Help me to do all I do our of a pure motivation to please you and express my love to you. Thank you Lord, Amen.

As you read and re-read the gospels you realise just how often Jesus healed the sick.

Matthew 14:14 says:

When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.

Healing the sick was a huge part of Jesus’ ministry.

Here Jesus returns from prayer and a large crowd had gathered to him. Interestingly it says he had COMPASSION on them.

On seeing the crowd, there was obviously something about their condition that moved Jesus’ heart. They were in need. Jesus had compassion.

What is compassion? It is “suffering with another, mixed with love”. Jesus’ heart was moved by love for the people. When He saw them hurt, He was hurt.

And they weren’t all “His people”, they weren’t all believers or followers of Him. But they were in need and it was this that moved the heart of God.

It was this compassion, this love for people, that moved His heart and drove His healing ministry. Simple need, and having what they needed; the power of heal, make whole and make new.

Does Jesus still heal today? Yes. Jesus still heals today because He still sees our need, He still is moved by compassion and He still has the power to meet that need. The answer is unanimously YES!

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for your heart full of love. I ask you to fill me today with your love, that I might see with eyes of compassion and be used by you to bring healing to those around me. In Jesus name I ask, Amen.

Three Signs of Legalism

Matthew 12:1-2 says:

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.”

Jesus and his disciples walk leisurely through a field and are picking the heads of some grain to chew on as they go. But to the Pharisees this is considered a terrible sin!

Today, that’s not a sin, it’s a vacation!

What is does show however, is how tightly bound in religious performance the Pharisees were in their view of God. Their warped way of relating to God had created legalistically warped lives that had squeezed the life out of the simplest of pleasures; a walk through a field on a sunny afternoon.

Legalism is certainly still around today. It might not sound exactly like this, but it is still a trap believers can fall into.

Are you a legalist? What are the signs of legalism?

A legalist:

• Creates New, Absolute Rules – Beyond what the bible is clear on, there is nothing wrong with rules per se (there are many good uses for them). Many Christians carry personal convictions that are universal to all believers. However, legalists go wrong when they over-reach personal liberty by creating an absolute rule where the bible does not.
• Compares their Moral Performance – The legalist is prone to living their life by comparing their morality with others around them. This produces pride in the individual comparing their moral virtue against other, more carnal individuals. By making oneself as the moral standard, the legalist loses sight of both the holiness of God and the mercy of God by which He relates to us.
• Conforms, rather than Transforms – Legalism demands outward compliance to their expected set of behaviours and norms. How you appear to be is more important than how you actually are. This requirement to conform to external appearances comes at the cost of the pursuit of true transformation by the Spirit of God.

Jesus came to release you from the trap of legalism. His standard for you is not your performance, but your relationship with Him. He will guide you into all truth, and empower you to live rightly before Him (not others).

PRAYER: Father, forgive me of my legalism. I ask you for a revelation of where I have relied on my own moral goodness rather than your empowering grace to live pleasing to you. I take my eyes off others and set them upon you Lord. Thank you for loving me, In Jesus name, Amen.