Thoughts From the Bible

Matthew 5:4- “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” There once was a belief when someone died or there was a loss of something significant in someone’s life, many felt a strong person would acknowledge the situation and move on. Jesus is telling us we need to allow ourselves to mourn a significant loss in this life.  Whether it is a spouse, a parent, a sibling or a loss o f a physical function of some type, we are given the blessing to mourn those losses.   Jesus expects us as humans to mourn. To cry, to feel sadness, to be quiet for a time in our lives. Jesus knows that is good for us because He will provide comfort. How? Through a well-placed verse of the Bible that comes to us.  A calm spirit that comes over us while in prayer concerning the loss. Remembering a previous time in our lives when the Holy Spirit provided us a measure of peace. Jesus said this knowing we would need Him.  We need to see this as Jesus’ love for us and His oppo...

Matthew 5: 1- 3- This is one of the most significant passages in the Bible because Jesus begins to teach people how to live a Christ-centered life every day.   'Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, his disciples came to Him. And he opened His mouth and taught them, saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven .’ There are so many things in our society that people want. We want good houses, good cars, good food and we work to get those things. Jesus wants us to be prepared to give those things away to others if that is what is needed.  How selfless are we? How selfish are we? Are we willing to put other people in our lives before us each day? We are challenged in this ver se to see ourselves as last in line so others can be first.  It is a mindset we need to work to acquire because it will take some time to develop that mindset.  Our society does not promote this level of selflessness, but Jesus is pr...

Matthew 4: 23- 25- ‘And He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So, His fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.’ Jesus has made Himself known to the people at this point and He did this in a way that showed all that only the Messiah could do the things He was doing.  As a people we are all so i ntrigued by great works of people.  What we need to focus on is what is listed first in the passage.   Jesus was teaching and proclaiming the gospel of God to everyone. We need to watch ourselves and listen more to what the Holy Spirit may be saying through the Bible and Jes...

Read Matthew 4: 18- 22- I think we can all agree if we saw Jesus face -to-face and heard His voice 2000 years ago, He would have immediately demanded our attention. Yes, Jesus was human, but He was human like no one had ever been.   Peter and Andrew heard this in verses 19 and 20, ‘And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.’ We have the same direction Jesus gave to Peter and Andrew. We need to understand the whole idea of immediately following Jesus’ directive. There are times in our lives when timing is everything.  We need to take the timing of what Jesus needs from us seriously as Peter and Andrew did. As we pray and listen to what the Holy Spirit ma y be telling us, we need to understand the concept of timing and we need to be ready to immediately follow Him as Peter and Andrew did.

Read Matthew 4:12- 17- One of the key points in this short passage is John the Baptist being arrested.   Another key point is Jesus beginning His ministry and how His movements at that time actually fulfilled prophecy. Then there is this verse, ‘From that time Jesus began to preach saying, "Repent , for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”’ The question I ask myself is this, would I have believed Jesus? If I lived at the time of Jesus and heard John the Baptist and saw Jesus, would I have tur ned from the traditional Jewish beliefs or, as a Gentile, would I have begun to follow Jesus. We have had people rise to positions of spiritual influence and many people followed their teaching even though their beliefs were not Bible-based. I thank God I was raised in a church that preached Biblical principles, so I had a foundation to trust in God and believe what Jesus preached. We need to be working to provide that type of foundation for others around us.  We all have a mission. ...

Read Matthew 4: 5- 11- Jesus is in a weakened physical state and Satan continues to tempt him. We need to know Satan will do the same to us.  He will tempt us and attack when we are weak so He can win in our lives and point to our failures hoping our faith in God will weaken. Again, we see Jesus living out a lesson we need to learn. In verse 10, ‘Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “’You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’” ’   We need to guard very carefully who w e actually serve but we also need to be bold, even in our weakness, and tell Satan to who we serve.  We also need to be bold enough to tell Satan to leav e in the name of Jesus. Jesus will continue preserve us in our battles against Satan just as God preserved Jesus.

Read Matthew 4: 1- 4- We have heard preached and taught how Jesus was tempted greatly by Satan before Jesus’ ministry began. Jesus was preparing Himself to begin His ministry by fasting and prayer.  Satan knew who he was confronting wh en he told Jesus to turn the stones into bread.  I think this may have been a desperate attempt by Satan to find a weakness in Jesus when Jesus was at His physical weakest. We need to learn how to stay strong in the face of the temptation s Satan brings against us and Jesus tells us how to do this.  In verse four Jesus says this , ‘ But He answered, “it is written , “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”’   This is a big reason why we as Christians must continue to read and study the Bible but more than just that, we need to meditate on what we read.  We need to give time to thinking about what we read and how we can apply the principles to our lives.  Yes, it takes time ...

Read Matthew 3: 13- 17- As we go through life, we find ourselves subject to authority. You can all it a fact of life . Whether in a family or in a professional setting , we are subject to authority. Jesus shows us through His baptism how we are all subject to spiritual authority also. Jesus saw Himself subject to God the Father’s authority .   This baptism was also a very public demonstration of who Jesus Christ was which is the purpose of baptism. God the Father also showed to the people attending the baptisms who Jesus Christ was. Vers es 16 and 17 says , ‘And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”’ Jesus became a very public figure at this point. He demonstrated submission to spiritual authority, and He also showed us the power of a ble...

Matthew 3: 11- 12- ‘” I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing fl oor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”’ This is John the Baptists’ announcement of the coming of Jesus Christ as recorded by Matthew. How startling would this have been if you had been listening to John the Baptist on this day? Would you have been one of those individuals who would have realized John the Baptist was talking about the Messiah.  I would hope I would have realized th e Messiah was soon to be known.  I would also hope I understood this part of verse 12.   Jesus came to love and to be a help to all of us but there is a level of justice for those who disregard Jesus and disregard his principles.  Contrary to what many in o...

Read Matthew 3: 4- 10 - I previously talked about how our daily lives need to reflect God’s love and His principles in living.  In this passage we see John the Baptist telling religious leaders, their actions are important.   Verses 8 through 10 say this, “ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father ”, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.  Even now the axe is laid to the roo t of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” We need to be sensitive to our daily actions and make sure our actions reflect our faith in God. There needs to be consistency betw een the two.  Our actions will not save our souls.  Only belief in Jesus Christ as Lord will do that, but our actions reflect that belief and testify to the difference that makes in our lives.  

Matthew 3: 1- 3- ‘In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, for this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness ; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’”’ What does this mean to us today ?  We have heard this story and see it as a prophecy being fulfilled and announcing the coming ministry of Jesus Christ.  What does this mean to us when John the Baptist said to mak e His paths straight? For me, this means to work as diligently as we can to live according to Jesus’ principles each day.  We are to live the principles we read in the Bible and those principles we know are there to guide our lives. In that moment, our lives become the visible testimony of our belief in Jesus Christ. People need to see it and know we mean what we believe.   With that approach to making our paths straight, we build consistency and integrity in our lives which reflects positively ...

Read Matthew 2: 19- 23- Joseph was acquainted with fear.  I know there are those who preach we as Christians should not have a spirit of fear and that Satan is the author of fear.  I am certainly not going to debate that idea, but I read in this passage Joseph was afraid to return to Egypt. In verses 22 and 23 we read, “ But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a c ity called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.” Joseph was leading quite a life. First, he wanted to marry a woman who told him she was pregnant but had never had sex with a man. Then an angel appeared to Joseph telling him Mary was tell ing him the truth, and he would be the father of the Messiah. There was the dream telling Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt because of Herod...

Matthew 2:16- 18- Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.  Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”   This passage is a clear picture of the battle between God and Satan.  Those were times of dramatic actions, and the value of life was not always high.   Many small children were killed because of one person’s insecurity.   The lesson I take from these verses in the Bible is to continue to pray for those living in societies today who persecute and kill those who believe in Jesus Christ. We cannot always control those individuals much like Herod who randomly kill people becaus...

Matthew 2: 13- 15- I have had many dreams.  There are those who will tell you we dream every night we sleep; we just may not remember the dreams.  I have never had a dream that caused me to change the direction of my life. In this passage, we have Joseph at a very young age recognizing a dream being from God and he took direction action because the dream. ‘Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise take the child and His mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy Him.” And he rose and took the child and His mother by night and departed to Egypt and rem ained there until t he death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son.” How sensitive are we to the Holy Spirit? Are we listening to hear the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit may be working to get our attention through all the no...