14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. 15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. 1 Peter 1:14 – 16 CSB
Repentance
Enemy #1
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” – Jesus
Only Two Words
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In the days when He walked among us, it only took Jesus Christ two words to open the Kingdom of God to anyone with ears to hear. These two words continue to resound from His throne to us today, and we do well to pay attention.
Walking in the Light
Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He is the Source and Revelation of all that is true. When we observe Him we see God as He truly is. When we look at Jesus we also see man as God intended him to be. The question is, how do we walk in the light we have in Christ?
With Just Two Words…
With just two simple words Jesus Christ opened the Kingdom of God to all who would respond. These two words continue to resound from His throne to us today, and we do well to pay attention.
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The Ultimate Foolishness
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Recently, my day took an unexpected turn right at the start. I hadn’t connected with the Lord yet, but I figured I could attend to these other matters and connect with Him once I was through. After all, it was just a few quick errands: drop off something here, pick up something there, you know the drill. What’s the big deal, right?
So I did my running around and finally settled back into my office chair a couple of hours later. That’s when the question came.
“Where were you a couple of hours ago?”
Oh boy…
The Lord doesn’t ask us questions because He doesn’t know the answer. He asks to see if we will humble ourselves and admit the truth. I knew exactly where I was. I was running around thinking I could handle these few things on my own without any help from Him.
It was then that this statement hit me with resounding clarity.
“The ultimate foolishness in life is thinking we can live for even a moment without the Lord.”
The Master stated that the key to a successful Christian life was daily abiding in Him (John 15:5). And while we may mentally assent to this, we often find ourselves running back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and deciding for ourselves what is right or wrong, good or bad, what we can or can’t handle, etc. It is that human tendency within us to live independent of God that can only be relegated to death by daily submitting to the King. Brining ourselves under the rule of the King opens the door for the Ultimate Life to be lived in and through ours.
Needless to say, I had some repenting to do. I didn’t only repent for this time. I also repented for all the times I had forged ahead into “whatever” without giving the Lord a second thought. Through it all I was once again brought back to the reality that true life can only be experienced by living in the Reign.
M
Responding to the Kingdom
In last week’s post we discussed the fact that the King used stories to illustrate what the Kingdom of God looks like as it is manifested in our time and space. He did this to hide the truth from those who really didn’t care, and to preserve the truth for those who cared enough to press in to it and understand it. In today’s post we want to discuss a very popular parable and see where we fit in the picture it portrays.
