Salty Saints

Matthew 5:13

Jesus calls the believer “sheep”, “light”, a “city” and in Matthew 5, “salt”. Salt has healing properties, cleaning out the wound that it is applied to. It also adds flavor to that which is bland, giving it a good taste. Jesus calls this usage of salt, “savour”. Without the “savour” or the flavoring, Jesus says that the salt is “good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men”.

Jesus is not threatening to cast out His people, for we know that if any man comes to Jesus he, “will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). He is, however, saying that the believer that has no flavoring is of no use to the world. His descriptions of us are in context of how much we affect the world. In verse 14, we are the light, “of the world”. In verse 15 we are a candlestick that “gives light unto all that are in the house”. In verse 16 we are to let our light shine in a way so that the world may glorify God. All of these descriptions are told to show how we are to make a difference to those around us.

One of the chief characteristics of flavorful salt is the effect that it has on those who consume it. When you eat something salty, you need something to drink in order to remove the taste from your mouth. The saltier that a food is, the more that your body demands something to drink. If believers are to be salt with lots of savour, then we are to be a great force in the lives of those whom we meet.

Our passion for life, our joy during adversity and our love against all odds should make the world around us thirsty for a taste of what we have. Believers should live in such a way that it makes sinners want to be near them, for their infectious spirit. Too often, many Christians look so sour and miserable that people of the world would not only never want to live like them, they don’t even want to be around them. Some Christians think that this is holy and a sign that they are doing something right, but Jesus basically says, “If you aren’t making a sinner thirsty once in a while, what good are you?”

Perhaps many believers feel that they are being trampled under the foot of men because they really are. If you are not causing them to want the Jesus that you have then you are probably turning them off to the Jesus that you have. Their attacks will come quick and steady and much of our Christianity then gets reduced to “attack and defend”. We go after all of those who sin and rebel and who we disagree with doctrinally, and then we hedge up our spiritual defenses and fast and pray all of the “demons of opposition” away.

Believer, you have the greatest gift inside of you that the world could ever want. Let the Jesus of the Bible show up in your every word and deed. Minister grace to the ears of your co-workers. Let your family see Christ’s love and mercy in action. You will marvel as you see those around you turn interested in this same Jesus, and when they find themselves thirsty, give them the water of life freely.

Go be salty, saint!

 

Love One Another

2 John 1:5, 6

The commandment which was from the beginning is that we love each other. Jesus called it a commandment on which all of the law and prophets depended (Matthew 22:40). John says that we have heard it from the beginning and that we ought to walk in it (verse 6).

The command to love one another is part of the law of Christ, and it springs from a divine love, placed in the heart of a believer by the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). The New Covenant saint has God’s desires and laws written into their heart and in their mind (Hebrews 10:16). If God is love, then the believer will love also (1 John 4:7).

The law of Christ is what James called, “the law of liberty” (James 1:25; 2:12). This law is from the inside out, while Moses’ law was from the outside in. While Christ’s finished work brings goodness out of the believer, Moses’ law tried to force goodness onto the believer, but it offered no helping hand. In other words, you could know the law and that knowledge would give you no assistance in keeping the law.

As it regards love, the law demanded it. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). This was a straight-forward command. There was no room for wiggle or interpretation. You must love others with the same passion and fervor that you love yourself. Of course the law does not tell you how to do that, so the adherent is left frustrated and condemned.

Christ’s law of liberty and love fulfills all other law (Romans 13:10). When one does love their neighbor as themselves, they have taken all other law and wrapped them into one. While the Old Covenant of law and works simply told you to love, the New Covenant of grace and goodness loves you first, empowering you to love others.

There is no limit to the amount of love that will spring out of the heart of the believer who knows that God loves them. Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness with the knowledge that He was God’s “beloved” Son. The “beloved” know that they are loved and they rest assured in it. Out of this knowledge, they love naturally, not by obligation, for no obligation can make you love. The believer loves because they can’t help it!

Do you have someone in your life, be it at work or your neighbor, who is making it difficult to love them? We all have encountered someone like this in our lives. Instead of focusing on loving them every day, placing yourself under the work of love, simply feed yourself on the knowledge that you are loved. As you become convinced of how much He loves you, you will automatically, though often slowly, begin to have a love for that unlovable person.

What do you have to lose? Know how loved that you are, and watch that love spill over.

 

Know That You Are God’s Beloved

Matthew 3:17-4:1

Satan’s attacks against your place as a member of God’s family, is not unique. He attacked Jesus in the same way in the wilderness. God had just spoken from heaven, with Jesus standing in the Jordan River, and the Spirit like a dove, descended on Him. The proclamation that God made was the stamp of approval on all of the years that Jesus had lived in quiet, and it was the ammunition that Jesus would need to face the wilderness, the world and the cross. The knowledge that He was the “beloved Son” would guard him against everything.

The enemy went after Jesus’ place as Son immediately, tempting Him to turn the stones to bread, “If thou be the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3). When that didn’t work, he tried it again, telling Jesus to cast himself off of the cliff so that angels would catch him, “If thou be the Son of God” (verse 6). Again, Jesus overcame.

Finally, Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world, if Jesus will bow down and worship him. While Satan makes no overt reference to the son ship of Jesus here, he knows that no Son of the Creator of the universe will bow down to get what is rightfully His, so this is also an attack on the Son. As you know, Jesus does not bow.

While these are important temptations to study, it is even more important to emphasize not only what Satan said, but what he did not say. God said that Jesus was His, “beloved Son”. The word “beloved” shows us that Jesus was not only Son by rights but He was greatly blessed and highly favored of His Father. Satan drops “beloved” because he wants to take no chance in reminding Jesus that He is beloved. It may be left out of the conversation, but it is deep within Jesus’ heart.

There is great power in the believer knowing just how loved that they are. The church culture often chides Christians for not loving the Lord enough, saying “You should love the Lord more”, and they point to doing things to show that love. No one can love the Lord more by simply trying to. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord with “all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…” (Mark 12:30). Honestly, do you love God that way? The truth is “No”, we do not love Him like this, at least not every moment of the day, but He DOES LOVE US that way. The Law tells us to do it, but doesn’t show us how. God’s grace shows us how:

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 19).

Know that you are God’s beloved and you too will overcome the temptations of the enemy. Know that you are God’s beloved, and you will walk in His goodness and kindness. Know that you are God’s beloved my friend, and that He is well pleased, not because of you, but because of Jesus who has delivered you!

 

No Relief for Jesus; All Relief for You

Matthew 27:34, 48

When Jesus hung at Calvary, He did so as the substitute for all of the sinners in the world, you and I included. He took the wrath of the Father so that we would be spared God’s anger. Thank God that Jesus was a worthy vessel in which God could pour out His holy justice.

We are well aware that just before He cried, “It is finished”, Jesus received vinegar and drank it (John 19:30). The word ‘vinegar’ is “sour wine”, fulfilling God’s prophecy of Jeremiah 31:29 in which He promised that the time would come that men would no longer have the right to say, “The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”. When Jesus drank the sour wine, He did it so that your teeth would never be set on edge. Jesus freed you from the sins of your fathers!

With that event in mind, we find that Jesus’ drinking of the vinegar just before His death was not the first time that He was offered something to drink at the cross. Matthew’s gospel records both instances in which the soldiers offered Jesus vinegar; once on the ground at the foot of the cross, and once while hanging on the cross. The one in which He accepts is found in Matthew 27:48 where we see them giving Him vinegar to drink followed by His crying with a loud voice (verse 50). Though the text does not say that He drank, we know that according to John 19 that He did, and the crying out with a loud voice was Him crying, “It is finished”.

The first offer came earlier in that same chapter, just after Jesus’ arrival at Golgotha. The beating put on Him by the soldiers of Pontius Pilate, followed by the carrying of His own cross must have had a heavy effect on the soldiers assigned to the actual crucifixion. They saw this bloody mass of a man approach the hill and they felt an uncommon compassion on Him. “They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall” (Matthew 27:34). The Greek word for ‘gall’ is often “myrrh” which was often used to bring comfort or relief. The soldiers had mingled some myrrh with the vinegar to provide Jesus with a bit of relief in His state of pain.

“And when He had tasted, He would not drink” (Matthew 27:34). Notice that when Jesus tastes what they have done to the vinegar, He refuses to drink. You can almost see this moment of Jesus spitting the vinegar out, refusing to put any comfort or medicine into His body. Jesus took no relief from the pains of the cross so that He could fully bear the brunt of all that was supposed to happen to us. In short, Jesus took no relief so that you could take all relief!

When you think of Jesus hanging on the cross at Calvary, don’t think of how pitiful that you are in light of how much that He did for you. Instead, think of how punished that Jesus was so that you could always go free. See the sacrifice of Christ as a finished work; one in which Jesus drank the cup of judgment and wrath so that you could drink from the free flowing blessings of heaven. Drink up saint, for you are henceforth and forever free!

 

A Revelation of Jesus Christ

Matthew 16:13-19

I am convinced that what we need now more than ever before is a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ. When John saw Jesus on the Isle of Patmos, it put him on his face and pushed his pen to write (Revelation 1:17). There is nothing worth bragging about that is not started by a revelation of the loveliness of Jesus. Paul had a revelation of the New Covenant and concluded, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Jesus took His disciples to the headwaters of the Jordan near the village of Caesarea Philippi, a city named for Philip, son of Caesar. This city was notorious for sacrificing children to their false god, and the blood of the sacrificial offerings would run into the waters, turning them red. The disciples are watching this red blood float past when Jesus asks them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13) The disciples have a myriad of answers, but Peter states, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (verse 16).

Jesus proclaims a blessing on Peter, “For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (verse 17). The kind of revelation that Peter had was one that could not be had by hearing people talk about the healings and the miracles. No man can be convinced of the power and presence of God without feeling Him for themselves. We are all Thomas at heart; we must thrust our own hand into the Master’s spear pierced side before we will ever believe.

I have preached to countless thousands of people about the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many have come to know Jesus through this preaching of grace and favor but many have walked away, content to live in their sins. I wish that all would be fully persuaded in their own mind and heart that Jesus was exactly what I preach to them that He is, but that is simply not the case. Without a desire to see God loving them, they will relegate God’s love as a big blanket for the whole world, never seeing themselves as anything special. Millions spend day and night with knowledge no greater than this; all the while gaining more and more earthly intelligence. No degree of higher education; and no life experience can ever fill the void and thirst for knowledge like a heart open to the love of God.

When man hungers and thirsts for the righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ, God is happy to fill that heart. Commission will follow revelation, just as God empowered Peter to preach the first sermon under the New Covenant (Acts 2:14). As we have more of Jesus revealed to us, our commission in this world becomes equally clear.

Jesus is the rock of verse 18 upon which the church is built as this verse is a bit of a play on words. Peter means “stone” in Greek, and Jesus is of course “the Rock”. Though we are but stones, Jesus remains the rock and His church is powerful enough to take on hell, thus the reference to gates. Peter holds no higher place than any believer does today. You are built on the same Rock that He was, and in Christ, you have the same revelation.

 

The Unpardonable Sin

Matthew 12:31, 32

The phrase “unpardonable sin” has struck fear into the hearts of so many believers, causing some to doubt whether or not they are still saved or even if they can be forgiven. Such fear and concern has risen over a phrase that never appears in the Bible.Did you realize that? The phrase “unpardonable sin” is a church phrase, not a Bible phrase. If this be the case, why do we use it, and more importantly, what does it mean?

First, let’s remember what the Holy Spirit is here to do: He comes to guide believers into truth and show us things to come (John 16:13) and to glorify Jesus (verse 14). That last one is crucial because it solidifies the first two; if Jesus is not glorified then it cannot be the Holy Ghost. This includes our doctrine, our teachings and our emotional responses. If Jesus gets no glory then what we think or feel or believe is of little consequence.

The other very important role of the Spirit is to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8). The conviction of sin is aimed at non-believers for their rejection of Christ (verse 9); the conviction of righteousness is aimed at believers because they can no longer see Jesus and they are quick to forget who they are in Christ (verse 10); and the conviction of judgment is aimed at the devil, for He has been judged (verse 11).

When you are dealt with for salvation, it is the Holy Spirit that is doing the dealing, for that is His function as it relates to the unsaved. You reject that conviction and you feel a release from it for a time, only to find that it comes back again at another time and place and sometimes stronger than ever. This is the Holy Spirit knocking on the door of your heart, offering you love and grace if you will only believe. Continue to reject this knocking and He will eventually leave you alone, and salvation cannot be found.

Believers need not fear blaspheming the Holy Spirit, for no born-again believer is going to consistently reject the calling of the Spirit in their life. The mark that they are born-again is their ability to be led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14); so they can’t possibly live a life of constantly rejecting His callings.

If you have mocked the gifts of the Spirit such as tongues or healings, those things were done in ignorance, before you understood what the special role of the Holy Spirit is within the church. I have ministered to many people who felt disqualified from God’s good things because they had been brought up in a church that did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit and they said disparaging things about them. God knows your heart, and He knows the speed with which you develop.

The reason that we call it the “unpardonable sin” is because Jesus said that that person “hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29). When you reject the call of the Holy Spirit for salvation, there is no forgiveness and you are in danger of eternal damnation. This warning cannot be for believers who are sealed with the Spirit “unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

Never forget that Matthew 12:31 contains a glorious promise; that all manner of sin will be forgiven.To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to reject the crucified and resurrected Jesus of which the Holy Ghost always speaks. As a believer, you have nothing to fear in this regard.You are completely pardoned and completely free.

 

The Easy Yoke

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus spoke these words to the Jewish people, who were students of the Law of Moses. Laden down with the burden of keeping the Law in its perfection, the people had grown weary and tired. The Law of God is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12), but man is none of those things, thus he becomes heavy-laden when he tries to live beneath its demands.

When you live beneath the demands of the law, sin will dominate you (Romans 6:14). Weariness ensues when you are always trying to live up to a standard that cannot be achieved through human effort. The Law was never given to be lived perfectly, for that is an impossible task. Instead, the Law was given to show man his sin, so that he would know his need for grace (Romans 5:20).

Some have tried to explain Law as being anything that you do to achieve righteousness, and while that definition is true; it is the weakest example of the Law. Paul described the Law as the 10 Commandments (2 Corinthians 3:7) and the ordinances written by hand (Colossians 2:14). Concentrating on everything that is Law is a form of telling you what to avoid and what to do. Within itself, that is a form of the Law! Let us concentrate on the grace and favor of God in order to be free from the dominion of sin. If we focus our attention on Jesus and His grace then we are finished with trying to figure out what is Law.

The Jews that Jesus spoke to are a type of the believer and the sinner who think that their works give them some standing with God. Believers are saved by grace, but many go on working the Law in order to achieve standing or goodness with God, though these things are unnecessary. Sinners do good works for the same reasons, hoping to earn heaven with their actions. Jesus came to set all of us free from our lifestyle of good works. The believer can rest from their deeds seeing as they are the righteousness of God in Christ; and sinners can be saved by accepting Jesus, whether they understand the Law or not.

When you lay down the yoke of the Law, Jesus gives you the yoke of His grace. While religion takes the yoke of sin and replaces it with the yoke of the Law (which unwittingly brings power back to the sin); Jesus takes off the yoke of the Law and replaces it with grace. We are not above grace, but under it, with Jesus protecting us from the cares of this life (Romans 6:14).

Christianity is a day-to-day learning experience of who Jesus is. Notice that Jesus tells us to “learn of me”, not “learn how to live”. When we learn of Jesus we are learning how to let Him live through us. Unfortunately, many of us are concentrating on how to live right, while Jesus in His mercy and grace wants to live His life through us. Learn of Him and His finished work; the price that He paid for your health, wholeness and salvation, and you will know how to live. True relationship will bring His righteousness out in your lifestyle, and you will never even think about it.

When your Christianity begins to feel hard and heavy, reevaluate your relationship with the Lord. Jesus said that the yoke of grace is “easy” and His burden is “light”. If you are told that Christianity is hard, that message is being presented to you by those who are still viewing their works as the basis for their blessings. You are free in Jesus and His lifestyle is easy and His burden is light. In Jesus, “find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

 

Give Your Peace

Matthew 10:13
Just before He went to the cross, Jesus made this powerful statement to His disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 15:27). What a moment this must have been! The disciples had never seen Jesus stressed out or overwhelmed. He was the model of perfect peace and harmony, and He is now giving that same peace to mere man. He has also attached the promise that His peace is given in a different manner than the world gives. Peace on this earth is found only with the absence of conflict. Peace from Jesus is constant; conflict or not.Armed with this peace, the disciples were equipped to face a world that would not always accept them or their message. In fact, on another occasion, Jesus told them that they would be hated of all men for His name’s sake (Matthew 10:22). Knowing that the world would reject them, they are now armed with the one thing that will help them through that rejection.

Christ’s finished work at the cross bought peace for the believer. Since we are justified by our faith in Jesus, we have been given peace with God through the finished work of Christ (Romans 5:1). Calvary bought our peace because it took the brunt of God’s wrath and anger against the sin of the world and it poured it onto and into Jesus. Now that God’s wrath has been appeased, we are able to come boldly before the Father due to the precious blood of the Son.

This peace is so tangible and so real, that it is literally a commodity that the believer has at his or her disposal. When Jesus gave instructions to the disciples about how they were to minister, He instructed them to salute the house that they enter (Matthew 10:12). This salute was more than a gesture and a few words, but was frequently a prolonged event characterized by embracing and kissing. It was Jesus’ way of telling the disciples to pour love onto those who opened their homes to them.

Once the minister was settled into a home, he would begin to share the good news of Jesus, which would either be accepted by the residents or rejected in turn. If the message was accepted then that was great news for both the minister and his audience. That house was deemed “worthy” of such a disciple and he was to “let your peace come upon it” (Matthew 10:13). If they rejected the message, he was to “let your peace return to you”.

The disciple was not to rise up in anger against the house and pronounce some sort of curse of doom against it. This is unnecessary, since the curse of the law will fall squarely on those who reject Jesus as their Savior. You need not add to the worst curse of all just because your message has been cast aside. Besides, New Covenant preachers will bless and curse not (Romans 12:14).

You can give of your peace to someone else today. You are a helper of their joy (2 Corinthians 1:24), so follow after the things which make for peace in their life (Romans 14:19). Give your peace to those who will accept it, for freely has His peace been given to you!

 

The Will of the Father

Matthew 7:21-23

I once heard two preachers talking about another, older minister who had experienced some very rough times in his ministry. He had fallen into sin and failure but had continued on and was being used of God. The one commented that he wondered what kept the older minister going in spite of all that had happened to him, and the other minister said, “Because if he quits, he will go to hell. He has to keep preaching, it’s his call”. The first minister nodded in agreement, citing Matthew 7:21.

These ministers believed that “He that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” meant that if God tells you to do something and you don’t do it then you will be rejected at the judgment, because you did not obey God’s will. This thinking is usually held by those who also believe that you can be in God’s perfect will or God’s permissive will. They say His perfect will is what He wants, while His permissive will is what He allows. What He “allows”? Doesn’t He “allow” anything? If there are two wills of God for man, which one must you do to “get to heaven”?

In order to properly understand verse 21 we should read further to find the context. In verse 23, Jesus makes it clear that those to whom He is speaking were never believers in the first place; “I never knew you”. This tells us that someone who knows the Lord but fails to do everything that He tells them to do has no fear that they will be rejected at heaven’s gates, for they have known Jesus.

Jesus states in verse 21 that those who get to enter into the kingdom of heaven are those that “do the will of my Father”. There cannot be two wills of the Father; one perfect and the other permissive, for that would make one path of God less than perfect. God’s will and plan for your life is always perfect and anything that you do other than that is always permissive. Even living in sin is “permissive” since God doesn’t strike you down dead, but no believer wants to live under the power of that (Romans 6:14; 1 Corinthians 6:12).

The will of God must be universal for every man so that salvation is the same everywhere. We know that the “will” that Jesus is speaking about is not the 10 Commandments, for Paul calls these the “ministry of death” and “condemnation” (2 Corinthians 3:7, 9). What might this will be? Jesus was asked as much following His feeding of the 5,000, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent’” (John 6:28, 29). Jesus defines God’s will as man placing faith in Jesus Christ. Only faith placed in Jesus Christ and His finished work will produce the kind of works that every believer desires.

If that older preacher mentioned at the beginning were to quit preaching, he would not go to hell because he stopped walking in his call. He would be miserable because he would not be using the gift that God gave him to minister to souls, but he would not have to fear being rejected at the judgment day. If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, you have fulfilled the will of the Father and you will not be rejected as if He never knew you for “he cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

 

The Twig and the Beam

Matthew 7:1-6

This is one of those straight-forward, easy to understand but hard to apply scriptures that we all need to remember. “Judge not, that ye be not judged” means very simply, don’t judge other people because you won’t like it if they do that to you. The next verse states that the manner in which you judge is the manner in which you will be judged in return. So, if you like to gossip about people or comment on rumors or condemn them upon first sight without all of the facts, be prepared for all of those little gems to come your way.

Jesus puts forth a pair of questions in verses 3 and 4 regarding motes and beams. The mote is a dry stalk, or straw, commonly referred to by the word, “twig”. It is contrasted in both size and constitution by a large piece of wood like a beam. He asks how you can spot the twig in your brother’s eye but ignore the beam hanging out of your own eye. The visual of this is quite humorous, and of course, impossible. Jesus is giving this extreme example on purpose, to illustrate the foolishness of trying to clean up those around you. Note that Jesus is speaking to us about our “brother” which denotes Christians judging Christians.

The second question by Jesus regards not only the recognition of a beam in your brother’s eye, but the pseudo-spiritual practice of being there to “help them”. I have seen many Christian’s involve themselves in others lives, in areas that was none of their business, because they say they want to help. This desire to help is often a mask for a greater desire to point out errors and problems and to talk and gossip about things better left unsaid. We must be certain that the twig in their eye doesn’t look bigger than it is because our own eyes are so messed up by the beam protruding from them.

Jesus goes so far as to call this attitude hypocritical (Matthew 7:5). He does not condemn the helping of a fellow believer with their issues, but only after we have taken an accurate inventory of our own problems.

In verse six, Jesus gives a token statement, found only in this passage, which appears at first glance to stand separate from the preceding verses, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you”. When you do help your brother with their issues, be sure that it is a brother. When you offer the same help and concern to the apostate unbeliever, you are throwing priceless pearls into a pen of hogs, and the end result will be unconcern and mockery.

This should not stop us from giving genuine love and grace to the sinner. Not all sinners can be categorized as swine and dogs, for many are simply wandering in the world without Christ. Allow the Holy Spirit in you to lead you in all three areas: knowing when there are issues in your own life; knowing how to help a brother with their issues; and knowing when to keep your thoughts to yourself if you are dealing with a swine or a dog spiritually.

These are simple and practical pieces of advice, but they will save us all much heartache.