MDWJ

This morning in my connection time with God I read Matthew 17:24 - 18:20. This is a collection of a few of the teachings and experiences the disciples have with Jesus. This passage starts out with a fishing miracle where Peter fishes with a pole and a hook (only time in New Testament) and pulls a single fish out opens it mouth and there is a silver coin that will pay both Peter and Jesus’ temple tax. Then we are taken to a conversation that the disciples are having Jesus about who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven and He tells them those who become like little children. He continues the conversation with a parable about lost sheep and God’s desire than none shall perish. And this section of scripture finishes out with a command to go to a brother that sins against you and the correct course of action that you take to lovingly correct them and bring them back to God.

Today Matthew 17:26-27, Jesus teaches us that we [Christians] are to pay our taxes so that we do not offend or bring judgment on the church or Christians.

And in Mathew 18:3, Jesus is talking about how unless you become like a child you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Mark Moore says, “Kids don’t look at clothes and skin tone to decide who they are going to play with. Their not judgmental but often good judges of character. The only approval they seek is from their parents. If we were to act only for the approval and recognition of our Heavenly Father, how much different our homes and ministries would be!” Children rely on their parents for everything and in the same way I have to completely rely on God to provide for me and my family, to give me strength to complete the tasks He calls me to and I have to be praying and in my Bible to get His ways for dealing with what the world throws and me.

This morning I read Mark 9: 14-32. I pray that God will use the Holy Spirit to point out a few verses that I can focus my attention on and look to for application in my life.

Today Mark 9: 19 stuck out to me. Jesus has just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration and found 9 of the disciples arguing with religious leaders about them not being able to heal a demon possessed man. Jesus is disturbed by the lack of faith of the 9 disciples that didn’t go up the mountain with Him and He asks them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you?” There are probably many times that Jesus has looked down at me and the problems I face and my lack of faith and reliance on Him to solve my them and has said the same to me.

In Mark 9: 29, Jesus has just healed the man from the demon possession and then said to all the disciples, “This kind [demon possession] can be cast out by prayer”. I wanted to know a little more about this and looked in a book that I have by Mark Moore on the Life of Christ and he suggests that its not so much prayer for healing but prayer that we are equipped for Spiritual Warfare. How equipped am I do deal with the Devil’s flaming arrows?

Today I read from Luke 9: 18-27 and Luke 17:1-8. An interesting selection of scripture that happened to be exactly what I need to hear today.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a term I heard this summer at a conference I went to in DC. The speaker talked to us about “Practical Deism”, belief in a god but not interacting with it at all during our life. A lot of time I’ve lived my life without acknowledging God at all during my day, no time in my bible, no prayer, nothing. As I look around I see a lot of people who live that way. In Luke 9:20, Peter has just been asked who he thinks Jesus is and Peter says, “the Messiah” (anointed one, Christ). And as I read it I thought, what would it be like if I called Jesus the Messiah of my life? I think that if I did things would be very different. If I trusted Jesus all the time with my life, more of my life would look like Him and reflect the things that He teaches.

So how is that done…

In the next section of scripture that stuck out to me is verse 23, it says that if I want to follow Jesus I must die to myself everyday. What does that mean? It means that if my desires don’t line up with Christ’s, I must change what I desire. If my attitude isn’t Christ’s attitude, my attitude has to change. If the stuff I let into my mind doesn’t line up with the teachings from the Bible, then I must find stuff that does.

I went on to read Luke 17 and in verses 3 - 5, Jesus is telling the disciples one of the most difficult tasks we have as believers and that is even though I don’t naturally want to tell someone that they are sinning we must to try to reconcile that brother or sister in Christ back to God. Like the disciples in verse 5, I beg for more faith to do this.

And I finished my time with God I was thinking about Luke 17:10, Jesus tells a parable about a slaves duties to their master. All the work the slave does for the master is to repay a debt and the same way when we serve God are we waiting for a pat on the back or an applause for what you’ve done? Jesus says we should say, “We are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty”. I need to make sure as I serve God that I’m not looking for recognition but just simply paying back a debt I couldn’t pay on my own.

So what are you reading about in time with God? What is He saying to you when you pray? What are you leaning about God that you want to share with others?

This morning I read John 6:1-14. It is the story of Jesus being followed by a very large crowd around a meal time. The scriptures say that there were 5,000 men which means there we somewhere in the ball park of 15,000 people when you count women and children.

In John 6:5, I was challenged by what Jesus said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” John writes in verse 6 that Jesus was testing Philip because He already knew how He was going to handle it. When faced with problems of any size who do we turn to? Do we expect for God to be able to come through and feed these 15,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish? How is my faith that God will work out the problems that I face in my life?

This morning I read Mark 5: 1-43.

In the beginning of these verses it describes Jesus encounter with a man with many demons living inside of him. His name was legion, Israel being a Roman Colony at the time they would have know what a legion was and that as many as 3,000 to 6,000 Roman Soldiers were in a legion.

Mk 5:18 -19 stood out to me more this morning. In these two verse a man’s life had been transformed and his immediate reaction was to follow Jesus. But Jesus tells the to, “go tell you family everything that the Lord has done for you.” As I read this I thought to myself that we need not only encouraging new people that experience Jesus’ transforming power but also in our own lives we need telling our family, friends and those we come into contact everyday what the Lord is doing for us.

In the next section I read about a woman that had been bleed for 12 years and tried everything and paid lots of doctors and did not get any better put all of her hope and faith in what she heard that this man named Jesus could heal her.

I thought to myself as I read this that we face problems all the time and we search the world over looking for answers but find none then we turn to Jesus for help. Why is that? And when we do turn to Him, do we do it with such faith as this woman that even if we can only get to the fringe of Jesus clothes our problems will be taken care of.

My prayer this morning is that as we go through this month connecting daily with God through His word and in prayer that we will have the faith that this woman had that God can more than handle the problems we are facing and that we would go to Him knowing that He will take care of them.