Simply Jesus

Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest! Matthew 21:9

The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone This was the LORD'S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:22-24 

The last words of this psalm are: we will rejoice and be glad in it.  As God's people, we are to be glad and rejoice. Read and consider the calls to rejoice in the psalms:

Psalm 9:2 I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.

Psalm 31:7 I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities,

Psalm 32:11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Psalm 40:16 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, "The LORD be magnified!"

Psalm 48:11  Let Mount Zion rejoice, Let the daughters of Judah be glad, Because of Your judgments.

Psalm 68:3  But let the righteous be glad; Let them rejoice before God; Yes, let them rejoice exceedingly.

Psalm 70:4 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your salvation say continually, "Let God be magnified!"




David often used the words I will.  Rejoicing and gladness is a choice.  Rejoicing and gladness is visible to others.  Notice the reasons for rejoicing (I underlined them).  What do you reserve your rejoicing for?  That's just a question to challenge us.  Please feel free to post whatever spoke to you about the day the Lord made to declare His Son as king.

My Blood of the New Covenant

Pastor Dale shared that it is possible that Jesus and His disciples, at the close of His Passover meal with them, sang the words of Psalm 136.  He encouraged us to follow the pattern of the psalm and write a few lines of our own.  Once I got started, I didn't want to stop, as my thoughts were flooded with the Lord's goodness.  Here's just a few of them.  I'm going to write more after I post this.  Oh, how He loves it when we praise Him.  Please join me by writing your Psalm 136 thoughts and when you are done, consider posting them.  But, whether you post or not, take a few minutes and give thanks to Him.

It will be well worth your time.

Oh, give thanks to the LORD for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who forgives all my sin.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And rescued me from me.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who calls back the wayward ones. For His mercy endures forever.
  And loves me unconditionally.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who is coming again.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And has reserved a place for me.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who calls me that is faithful.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And equips me to walk in His ways.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who transforms the sinner.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And makes all things new.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who puts a song in my heart.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And rejoices over me with singing.  For His mercy endures forever.
To Him who inhabits my praises.  For His mercy endures forever.
  And records my meditations of Him in a book.  For His mercy endures forever.
Oh give thanks to the God of heaven! For His mercy endures forever.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Matthew 16:15-16
¹⁵  He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
¹⁶  Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."


Paul expanded Peter's answer.  He wrote these things about Him in  Colossians 1:15-20.  Jesus is:
the image of the invisible God
the firstborn over all creation
the one through whom all things were created
before all things
the one in whom all things consist
the head of the church
the beginning
the firstborn from the dead
the one who has preeminence
the one in whom all the fullness dwells
the one by whom God reconciled all things
the one who made peace through the blood of His cross

One of our worship songs this morning also said it well - "Jesus You're My Everything"

Let's  use this post to personally answer the questions, using Scripture or personal thoughts.  Who do you say Jesus is?

Take Heed and Beware

Matthew 15:7-9 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' "

Matthew 16:6 Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." 

Take heed.  Beware.  Strong words of warning.  We might think at first that we are to take heed/beware of the Phariseees and Sadducees.  True.  But, we should all the more beware of their leaven.  

The effect of their leaven was worship in vain.  I'd call it an unreal or ineffective connection or relationship with the Lord.  

So, for us - anything that keeps us from a "heart" relationship with the Lord is leaven.  As Pastor Dale said, "Leaven spreads unseen until the whole loaf is changed.  It takes very little leaven to do that."

There is much leaven in our world today.  We must take heed of it.  We must beware of it.  Hypocrites concern themselves with the outward impression.  God is interested in the inward.  So, is Satan.  If he can permeate the inward, the outward will reflect that.  Take heed.  Beware.  Leaven was designed to permeate the inside, so as to affect the outside.  Is there leaven in your life that you are viewing as small and not really a threat to your relationship with the Lord?  Take heed.  Jesus' warning came from a heart of love, concern, and an acute awareness of the effectiveness of a "little" leaven.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  Galatians 5:9

It Is I

Matthew 14:22-33

This morning's message provoked many thoughts in me.  I'd like to post two of them.

First, the conclusion of the story ends with the concluding thoughts of the disciples.  Their conclusion about Jesus based on watching Jesus walk on water and based on His enabling Peter to walk on water.  The stated or recorded conclusion - Truly, You are the Son of God.

We often arrive at conclusions after seeing God work in a trial, don't we?  I have been thinking about the conclusions I have arrived at based on watching God work in a trial.  I think a lot of my conclusion, or the depth of my conclusion is related to how personally invested I was in the trial.

In this trial, this storm at sea, I think the other disciples would have concluded "Jesus helps people in storms" or "Jesus can help people walk on water".  Peter's conclusion would have been different.  I think Peter's conclusion would have been "Jesus helped me in a storm" or "Jesus helped me walk on water".  There's a vast difference in those statements.  The disciples' conclusion would have been based on observation.  Peter's conclusion would have been based on stepping out in the storm.

Secondly, when Pastor Dale spoke of Jesus and Peter getting into the boat, I was challenged to consider how I viewed that action.  Did Jesus carry Peter?  Did Jesus drag Peter?  Did Jesus again enable Peter to walk on the water?  I found that I had my own opinion.  As I ponder this,  I think that the way we view Jesus and Peter getting into the boat may be directly related to how we view God.  We are only told And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Him.  I came home and looked up the verb tense of the word caught.  Then I realized I'm probably not going to be able to figure it out.  I don't know how Jesus helped Peter get back to the boat.  But, I do know this, the manner in which Jesus helped Peter is the manner in which Peter needed at that moment.  Our God is Jehovah - the becoming One; the One who becomes what we need.  For each of us, He gets us "back to the boat" differently, but always, just as we need Him to.

What did you get from this morning's message?

Bring Them Here to Me

And they said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish." 

He said, "Bring them here to Me."   Matthew 14:17-18 

They basically said to Jesus, "What we have is not sufficient".  The apostle Paul got it.  He wrote in 

2 Corinthians 2:16 .. and who is sufficient for these things? 

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 

2 Corinthians 3:5 

Jesus knew that the disciples (and every believer) did not have what it took to meet Jesus command to meet the needs of the people.  He already knew what He was going to do.  He gives you and me the awesome privilege of being a part of His work by using our loaves and fish.  

The loaves and fish were placed in His hands.  They were given to Him for His use.  That's what He asks of us - to give to Him what we have.  What He does with it is up to Him.  He already knows what He's going to do with what we give to Him. (John 6:6) 

May it be all to His glory.

The Sower, The Seed and The Heart

The hard heart, the shallow heart, the crowded heart - each prevents the seed from burrowing down into a place in the heart where it is protected and it can thrive.  

Psalm 1:1-6 

¹  Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

²  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

³  He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.

⁴  The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

⁵  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

⁶  For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

My part is to be sure there's nothing blocking and that I allow the words of God's truths to sink deep by meditating on them and by walking in them.  I think that meditation and application make pathways for the seed to go deeper and bear more fruit. Otherwise,  I will walk away personally unaffected and unfruitful for His kingdom.

When we plant by the rivers of water, we will bear fruit, we won't whither and we will prosper.  What a powerful seed It is!