Matthew 15

Hey guys!
Trying to kick start my devotions thing again since im starting work next week and want to set the routines straight!

Scripture:
Matthew 15:1-21

Observation:
This passage is primarily focused on the hyopcritical and legalistic nature of the Pharisees, and how Jesus publicly rebukes them. The pharisees were seen as the religious teachers of the day, and were supposed to epitomize and embody holiness. Jesus makes it clear what true holiness is: it's about the condition of our heart; not by how technically good we are about keeping the "law".
The pharisees were known to be so legalistic that they tried to stop Jesus from healing a blind man because it was the Sabbath; something which makes us grimace at how they could be so blinded by legalism not to allow an obvious act of love and kindness.

In verse 8 and 9, the words of the prophet Isaiah are sadly true:

"These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men".

How sad would it be for this description to be true about our own lives. It's easy to scoff at the pharisees and express our disgust about their hypocrisy, but it's very easy to fall into the same trap as them and be Christians that know the law and give the right answers, yet live a life that is just missing the point of the gospel, which is to love God and people.

Verse 18 mentions that the things that come out of our mouths come from our hearts, and what comes out from our mouths make us unclean (11). It is out of the heart that evil thoughts and wrongful actions are birthed from (19).
That being said, what kind of heart do we have? What kind of fruit are we producing in our lives? Where does all the bad fruit come from, such as jealousy, unforgiveness and pride? Whenever we notice bad fruit in our lives, we should not let it slip by, but address it and bring it before God and ask him to prune us, because it is not possible for a good tree to produce bad fruit and vice versa.

Application:
Sometimes i know that something isnt right in my life and i may have bad fruit, but i dont know how to address the issue. It reminds me of the passage where jesus talks about us having "childlike faith" and that if we dont become like little children, we can never inherit the kingdom of god.

Going back to the basics of Christianity, how I believe that we stay close to god and grow is:
1. Spend quality time praying/talking to god each day (give our first fruit)
2. Reading his word regularly and meditating on it (our daily bread)
3. Applying his word to our lives

If we are missing any of these components, i reckon our christian life wont be thriving

prayer:
Thank you jesus for the gift of life. Help me use this life to glorify you because you created me for that purpose. It would be foolish of me to try and live life for myself. Strip me of my pride and let me not take you for granted. I pray i would seek you and be desperate and hungry for you.
amen



We dont have to wait for something bad to happen before we start to get desperate for god.

Alright guys laters!

Wassup :D

Hey guys im in queensland at the moment so am kinda doing a rushed blog. Been on daydream island since friday with my dad. I'm loving the time we have together and i hope I can get closer to him because we dont get to spend much time together in melbourne. There's a saying that your time is the best gift you can give to someone. I've never really been that close to my dad and havent really been able to connect and open up to him. That's something I'm praying for and also working on in my own life. So often we wait for someone to open up to us, but maybe we should be the one opening up to them first. I heard a sermon in church a while back about us being the initiators. We dont need to wait for someone to show love to us before we show love to them. We dont need to wait for our parents to open up to us before we open up to them.
Our family is god's gift to us. We are with them for the rest of our lives. We might as well make our relationships be treasured and make them count.

Anyway enough of that, time to get to my devotions :D

Matthew 6

This chapter is huge! Something I love about the gospels is the amount of practical life lessons that are in them.

Matthew 6:1-4: Giving to the needy
Verse 1 warns us not to "practice your righteousness in front of others". Sometimes in serving God, I can fall into the trap of hoping people would see the "good works" that I do, when it shouldn't be about me or my ego at all, but all about Jesus and the glory of his name.

5-14: prayer
I've always been passionate about prayer and can't stand when it is neglected. The importance of prayer in a christian's life cant be denied. It's awesome that God already knows our requests before we even ask him (v8). The passage gives us an example of how to structure our prayers (v9-14)
- thanking god (9)
- His will to be done (10)
- Giving us our daily bread (the bible) (11)
- To forgive us and that we forgive others (12)
- Not to fall into temptation (13)



Observation

A recurring theme in this chapter is that we shouldnt live our lives to please others; we should live to please God. He sees our heart and what we do in secret, and that should be what matters most. Verse 1 warns us not to "practice righteousness in front of others to be seen by them". God is the one that rewards us. 
It reminds of me of the time when we used to set up the chairs after Fungus in the auditorium for the main service on sundays. That was just a background job that noone really took notice of, but God sees the heart behind it and rewards those who are faithful over little to be faithful over much. It all comes down to the servant-heart attitude. 

Another thing that strikes me is the passage about prayer. Verse 7 tells us not to "babble like pagans who think they will be heard for their many words". Sometimes we try to complicate our prayers and make it fancy, but I think that makes is less sincere because we're trying to put up a show. Something which I've learnt is to imagine we were having a conversation with Jesus in person, because thats essentially what prayer is; talking to God.

Verse 33 tells us to "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well". This is talking in the context of not worrying about our needs such as food/clothes etc. God knows that we need these things but our primary focus should be on seeking God's kingdom and will to be done. It ties with verse 20 which tells us to store our treasures in heaven. 
Humanity tends to build their kingdom here on earth, in the form of wealth, talent, power etc. 
There's nothing wrong with these things, as long as we know it is more important to set our eyes on heavenly treasures. So what are heavenly treasures? I'd imagine it to be things such as:
- Building our relationship with god
- Sharing love to others (sowing eternal seeds)
- Spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth

Application:
- constantly assess my motives/heart for any pride. I want to be someone that leads in humility and with a servant heart, not seeking to build my own ego but to build god's kingdom
-  simplify my prayers! and pray more of course
- Build up treasures in heaven. Invest in things which are eternal: (god, family, friends, people)


Prayer
dear jesus thanks for being my loving god. I dont deserve any of your love, and thats why its called grace. Sorry for my shortfalls and help me to grow in character and godliness. Help me love others like you love me, not being judgemental or proud, but being humble just like you are. Help this time with my dad be worthwhile and cherished, and help us get closer 
in jesus' name amen


There isnt any request that is too insignificant for god, because he loves us so much. He loves our brokenness, because it is an area he can mend

Devotions

I'm doing my devotions on blogspot now cause it's the best way that works for me at the moment :)
I'm attempting to read the bible back to back at the moment and I've been at it for about 4 months now. At this rate it'll take me about 2 years or so becuase im reading about 2 chapters a day. the plan is to read through 1 old testament and 1 new testament book each day

Here's a passage from Matthew 3 that I was reading today

"⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
¹¹ “I baptize you with^[b] water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

It's interesting from this passage that John the baptist described the Pharisees as a "brood of vipers". The pharisees were people that the bible describes as hypocrites; not because they fell short of the very laws which they taught, but because they didn't truly believe what they were teaching. They taught the gospel of Jesus yet had no love inside their hearts. They were too blinded by legalism to see the crux of the gospel. I think of that passage where Jesus healed a sick man on the Sabbath, yet they criticized him, despite a man's life being transformed.
He goes on to say in verse 8 that their area of lack was repentance. Let's be honest and admit that we are at times like the Pharisees too, but the key as John points out is repentance, which they did not exhibit.

Verse 10 is an absolutely critical verse that is a core principle of Christianity. The "fruit" that it refers to is the fruit of the spirit: 
(Galatians 5:22-23) "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Against such fruit there is no law of judgement and death. Are we producing this fruit in our life? I think the key is that we may struggle with certain of these areas, but is it growing and are we committing these flaws to god? The fruit may still be semi-mature, and not fully ripe, but it is critical that we are working on these areas of our life.

Verse 11 mentions that John the baptist baptizes people so they are able to repent. Later on in the chapter Jesus is baptised by John. You might wonder why Jesus had to be baptised if he is without sin. His baptism marked his presentation to israel (John 1:31) and a picture of his "baptism" on the cross when "all the waves and billows" of judgement were passed upon him (matt 20:22, Ps 42:7)

Verse 11 goes on to mention that God will baptise us with the Holy Spirit and fire. That is speaking of the other type of baptism of the spirit.

Application

What i've learnt from this passage is to keep my life in check to see if i am a tree that is producing fruit. Am i watering the tree by reading the bible abd spending time with jesus? Is the fruit growing? Is the harvest still producing fruit season after season?

Prayer: (TSP)

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of life and the gift of jesus. Without you there is no life. I pray that you would forgive me for the season in my life when i was not producing fruit and putting other priorities ahead of you. I ask that you will give me the discipline to keep this devotions up and also make real decisions and hard choices to follow you through my actions and words. In Jesus' name Amen!

Hey guys!

Today is a very special day in history because it is Easter Sunday. This morning at church, Pastor Roland spoke about the Easter story. Although I've heard it many times and am quite familiar with it, it still astounds me every single time i hear it.
Jesus endured suffering and punishment for our sins so that we wouldn't have to.
All the sin of humanity was stacked upon his shoulders when he hung upon the cross, and he endured the cup of God's wrath on our behalf.

I was sitting in my car the other night just gazing at the stars and the moon. The sheer vastness and glory of the universe is simply indescribable. How much greater and more glorious is the creator of all these things! To think that Jesus, the creator of the universe, would lay down his life to die for sinners just baffles me. That is what love is.

I felt like I touched heaven; just sitting down and talking to God. I think everybody needs to experience that on a regular basis; meeting with their maker.

To think that the tiny Earth is surrounded by the vastness of the universe; all the planets and trillions of stars, purely that humans could marvel at its splendor and give glory to God is a thought that leaves me speechless.

I'm convinced that Earth is the only planet that sustains human life. That's what the bible tells us. We might question the necessity for the almost infinite universe; star after star, galaxy after galaxy when all of humanity is confined to such a tiny place. Our God is all powerful and indeed limitless.


I pray that you would have an encounter with the true and living God.
Happy easter guys!