Finding our way through the wilderness

Matthew 7:13-14

New International Version (NIV)

The Narrow and Wide Gates

    13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.

Day Seven

Choose the right path

Making hard decisions is one of life’s most difficult task. It is even harder when we are trying to do God’s will rather than our own. Along life’s highway there are many twists and turns, one false turn can lead down a road of destruction while one good turn can take us to a place call salvation. However, sometimes both roads appear to be the same and it’s only until we have traveled down the road some when we realize if we made a good or bad turn. Lucky for us we are blessed with a Savior that allows U-turns at any junction and at any time.

Still none of us want to make a wrong turn in life, though it is bound to happen. So how do we try and make sure that choosing the right path when life brings us to a fork in the road?  Just as most new model cars all have navigational system install in them to keep us from getting lost, God has given us a spiritual Magellan to  guide us whenever we are in need. It is, yes you guessed it, The Holy Bible. We must read it, study it, obey it, and most of all trust it. The Word can be our beacon of light when the fog is too dense to see through.

In our scripture above Jesus gives us some advice on which path to take whenever we are in doubt.  In this text Jesus is doing what He loves to do which is teaching. Here He tells us to Enter through the narrow gate. For the wide is the gate and broad is the road to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it.

To translate this for our topic today Jesus is telling us to avoid going with the path that is called right by the world. For that path is leading to destruction, though it may look right in the beginning. Instead choose the path of the righteous, and the path that is only picked by a few. For this path will ultimately lead to life. Again, just because one path is more popular doesn’t make it the right path.

Studying the Word will guide each and every one of our steps. Psalms 119:105 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”  We can utilize what the Lord has given us to take the stress of decision making off of our shoulders. For Matthew 11:29 says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, you will find rest for your souls.”

It also goes without saying, though I will say it anyway, that whenever we are going to make a crucial decision or any decision we should pray to God for answers. However when we pray, pray that His will may be done not our own.

In additional to the bible and prayer God can give us direction though His people. This is why we fellowship with one another. We should be able to go to our pastor, elder, or a mature believer asked for their advice, in turn we much also share our wisdoms with our brothers and sisters. We are one body in Christ so if we are to be there for each other in our times of need.

Finally, when we are choosing the right path we must make sure that the path is of God’s choosing not of our own. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Let’s not hinder our own progress by trying to do God’s job. We can hand over the reins to Him and let Him guide us to the land of prosperity.

Please join us tomorrow as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless,

                        James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Matthew 6:14-15

New International Version (NIV)

   ¹⁴ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Day Six

Forgiveness

  Forgiveness is one the hardest of all of Jesus’ commandments to follow, however it could be the most essential. Forgiveness is sometimes hard to do because it is a completely self-imposed act. No one can force us to forgive someone that wronged us and truly no one can really teach us how to forgive, because we all forgive differently. However, no matter how hard of a task we must learn how to forgive no matter how minuscule or colossal the offense may be.

  
  Why do we have to forgive? How many times do we forgive someone that has wronged us? How do we forgive? Again we can use the scriptures to answer all of these questions.

First in Matthew 6: 14-15 Jesus gives us a clear answer to why we should forgive others. In this passage Jesus is teaching the people how to pray. He does so by reciting what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Because the text doesn’t say why Jesus after reciting the Lord’s Prayer had to explain the part on forgiveness, let us use our spiritual imagination for one moment. I can see someone in the crowd following along with every word that Jesus is saying and then when He says, “Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” That same person stands up and says, “Teacher why should I have to forgive someone who as wronged ME, shouldn’t the person that wrong me be the one asking for the forgiveness.” Jesus answered their questions as well as ours by saying, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

So you see that in order to gain forgiveness for our sins we must first forgive others, because how can we ask our Heavenly Father to forgive us when we cannot even forgive our neighbor. Also if we are to try and walk in His footsteps we must also imitate His actions.

  How many times do we forgive someone that has wronged us? Jesus answers this question in Matthew 18:21-22. In the text Peter asked Jesus “how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me. Up to seven times?” Jesus answered “I tell you not seven times but seventy-seven times. I believe that Jesus’ answer to Peter is twofold. On one side Jesus is telling Peter and us that we are to forgive and continue each time someone wrongs us. Now this may seem hard to do but think about like this, what if God told you that He had ran out of forgiveness for your sins? We would all be in a world of trouble. Luckily we serve a merciful God who would not turn His back on us, so as the Father does so does His children. 

  On the other side Jesus is also saying that if someone wrongs you one time it may take a while to truly forgive them. Jesus knows our nature and forgiveness is not a natural act for some of us, so He is saying keep on working on forgiving that person until the matter is settle in our heart.

  Lastly, how do we truly forgive? Like we said earlier no one can teach you how to forgive, it has to be a self-taught act. However like in all other areas of life, the bible can help instruct you. One of the key acts of forgiveness that I look to when I am struggling to forgive is between Jesus and Peter. When Jesus was being judged, flogged, and being prepared to be crucified, Peter was seen and identified as a follower of Jesus. Peter subsequently denied even knowing Jesus three times, just as Jesus had predicted. Imagine how that would feel not only was Jesus being unjustly beaten and led to his death, but His closest companions had left him to endure this by himself. I can’t imagine how lonely Jesus must have felt, but still after He was resurrected Jesus forgave Peter and the only disciples without even a second thought.

  On a personal note about forgiveness I would have to say that it is truly worth it to forgive the person(s) that have wronged us in the past, present, and future. Because holding onto a grudge or animosity against someone usually only does ourselves harm, that person gets to walk around carefree while we harbor anger and contempt towards them in our hearts. It not worth it, if we want to find our way out of the wilderness and enter into our promised land, we must learn to forgive.

Please join us tomorrow as we continue our journey. Until then God Bless,

                                         James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Romans 3:23

New International Version (NIV)

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Day five

Backsliding

   While I would love to say that our journey will be straightforward with no bumps in the roads, I know that this is a false statement. Because as we pointed out earlier when you are trying to build a relationship with God the enemy works double time to discourage us. Now the enemy has no power, this is clear in the book of Job where Satan has to ask God permission to bring Havoc upon Job, but he is a great deceiver. Backsliding is one of his many tools that he uses to keep us trap in our spiritual wilderness.

   First thing that we need to know is that just as the scripture above says all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try we all sin. Paul said it best in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. So in this he, Paul, is not talking about himself before he got saved, no he is talking in the present tense of the time he was writing the letter. So if we can understand that we will have times where we fall short than we can stop backsliding from deterring our journey with the Lord.

   Secondly, we need to realize that God gave his only begotten son Jesus to die for our sins. When Jesus died on Calvary he was dying for all of our sins and when He arose on the Third day He did so with all power in hands. So Jesus already defeated sin for us so it is no need for us to try and fight it on our own. So instead of running away from the Lord when we sin or backslide, we should be sprinting to him so He can cleanse us with His blood.

   So does this mean that we can sin whenever we want? No, it is exactly the opposite. The closer you truly get to the Lord the more you want to walk like Him. It always confuses me when I hear non-Christians saying that we can do whatever we want because all we have to do is say I’m sorry to God in Jesus’ name. While we do believe that we are saved by Grace, a true Christians knows that there is much more to our religion. Jesus tells us himself that we have to turn from our wicked ways and repent. In Matthew 7:21-23 he says, “  Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” Keeping these words in mind we strive daily to do the will of our Father who is in heaven, but we know that if we should fall our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is right there to pick us back up again.

    Finally, as we said backsliding is almost an inevitable event but there is one way to combat it. Stay in the Word! God has given us the bible not only for a great read, which it is, but the bible should be studied constantly. Proverbs 4:13 says, “Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.” The instruction that the writer speaks of is the Word. There is Power in the Word! It can be our compass in the middle of the wilderness, just pick it up and it will tell us which way to go.

   Please join us as we continue our journey tomorrow until then God Bless,

                                 James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Matthew 6:25-34

New International Version (NIV)

Do Not Worry

    ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

   ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Day 4

 Don’t Worry

   

   So we have just started out on our journey and we are feeling pretty good. We know we have a long way to go before we make it out of the wilderness and crossover to our promised land, nevertheless we are still optimistic.

   So we are traveling along fine and then what happens? We are sidetracked by the problems of our daily life. We remember that the electricity bill, the gas bill, and the mortgage or rent is due. We also remember that just like last month we are going to have work hard to scrape up the money to pay all of these things to avoid them being cut off or being evicted.

   So we decide that we are going to camp out in this area of the wilderness for the next couple of days. Just long enough for us to take care of these things and then we will pick up where we left off.

   We must not let the cares of this life halt our progress, because the enemy is constantly attacking. We must continue to move forward pushing to become closer with God.

  This is not to say that this life stops, because we all know that it doesn’t. While it would be wonderful for bill collectors and landlords to say to us they are going to take a break from charging us, we know that most likely this is not going to happen. (I say most likely with hope that one day this will come true *smiles*)

  So we since we know that life isn’t going to stop and we know that we have to keep moving forward, the question is how do we balance both and be successful? Jesus tells us how in the scripture. He says it simple and clear, do not worry.

   Worry is defined by the dictionary as to be or to make anxious. If we were to think back to a time when we were anxious, we would remember that during that time we could not think about anything other than the thing that was the cause of our anxiety. This is why Jesus tells us not to worry because when we do our focus is shifted off of Him. He says seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and then all of these thing shall be given to us as well. So when we have our focus on Him we can rest assure, because like Allstate says we are in good hands.

   Does this mean that we live in this world care free? The answer is no, in my humble opinion. This means only that we have faith that God will provide for us throughout our days. However, remember what the author says in the book of James, Faith without works is dead. This means that while we have faith that God is going to provide for us, we utilize the opportunities that he gives us. In other words we cannot sit around all day waiting for God to put food on our plates and clothes on our back, we must use the abilities that He blessed us with to obtain these things.

   So as we continue to move forward remember not to let worrying halt our journey, for God has promised us an abundant life and we can’t let anything stop us from reaching it. Like the songwriter said if His eye is on the tiny little sparrow, then I know he watches over me.

   Tomorrow is a day of rest, but I encourage you to go to church if you had not already planned to do so. If you are looking for a church to attend I invite you to attend my church Faith Memorial Baptist Church. The pastor is Dr. John W. Peoples. And we are located on 3117 North Kelley Ave. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Until Monday, God Bless

                              James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Matthew 6:19-21

New International Version (NIV)

Treasures in Heaven

    ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Day three

Where do our treasures truly lie?

       As we make our way through the wilderness, walking side by side with God, we must realize that with every step that we take we are moving further away from the world and all of its material things.

       Yesterday we talked about letting things go so that we can move forward, noting that there are some things that we have to cut out from our lives in order to keep progressing in the right direction.

       Today we are going to talk about other thing that can stunt our spiritual growth and that is our worldly possessions.

        Living in this great land of America, we are taught that in order to achieve true happiness you have to strive for the American dream. In this dream we have a huge house(s), fancy cars, powerful friends, perfect spouse, and adoring children. Again having any of these things is not wrong or immoral in the eyes of God, because God wants us to live an abundant life. It is in the pursuit of these things where we can lose sight of our promised land.

        In this scripture Jesus is teaching us not to put our faith in worldly things that can be taken away from us within a blink of an eye. He is saying okay you worked are to get that brand new car or to own that brand new house, I ‘m proud of you. However don’t let any of these material things define who you are, because that car can be stolen or wrecked beyond repair. That house can be destroyed easily by fire or natural disaster. What does that say for us if we store all of our hope in things that are swept away so easily? When the storms of life come our way we are going to be uprooted like a poorly planted tree. So Jesus is telling us to store our treasures in heaven. Where they won’t grow old and rot away, in heaven where a thief cannot break in and steal our treasures away. We should store our treasures in heaven where they will reside with our heavenly Father for eternity. The funny thing is that once we start to do this the more blessed we become. 

         However, if you are like me you are wondering how does one get treasures in heaven? Well I believe that the treasures that Jesus is talking about is the privilege to spend eternity in heaven with our heavenly Father, and our Savior Jesus Christ. I don’t know about you but I can’t think of a greater treasure than that. We can earn that privilege by repenting from our sins and confessing that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and that no man comes to the Father but by Him.

         Lastly, look at the scripture twenty-one. It says “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

         If our heart is still connected to this world there will be no room for Jesus. We will be stuck wandering through the wilderness like the children of Israel. Before we take another step let us clear our hearts of all worldly things, so that Jesus can take domain of it.

Please continue along with us on our journey tomorrow, until then God Bless.

                        James Anthony Love

Finding our way through the wilderness

Matthew 5:29-30

New International Version (NIV)

²⁹ If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Day Two

Moving Forward

Yesterday we discover that in order to find our way out of the wilderness we must first recognize that we are indeed in the wilderness.  Recognition is the first step towards salvation. So when acknowledge that we are indeed lost in a spiritual wilderness, we know that only God can create a path to get us to our promised land.

Now that we have taken that first step where do we go from here? The only logic answer would be that we move forward. However, sometimes moving forward is easier said than done. One of the hardest things to do when you accept Christ into your heart is to move forward, because in order to move forward you have to leave some things behind. This causes us to become complacent in our relationship with God, which in turn sets us back even further in our journey. This is true because the closer we are with God the harder the enemy works to cause separation. The good news is that God gave us instructions on how to move forward after we have taken that crucial first step.

Let’s examine the scripture from above.

In this text Jesus was giving what we call the Sermon on the Mount.  Here Jesus is telling the people that he did not come to abolish the Laws that the people lived by but He came to fulfill them. He goes on to tell them to expand on the laws i.e. not only should you love your neighbor but you should love your enemy as well.

In our text He says if your right causes you to stumble then gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. Now I don’t think that Jesus meant literally for us to cut off body part that we believe are causes us to sin. No as for most of His teachings He spoke in parables and riddles so that you would have to truly study the word to gain an understanding in to what He was trying to say. This again goes with what we say early with God giving us free will he wants us to search and find him on our own accord.

So what does this scripture have to do with our topic of moving forward? I’m glad you asked.

Here Jesus gives us a perfect road map how to move forward on our journey out of the wilderness. When He says if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. What He means is that when we start to move forward with our relationship with God we are going to have to cut some of things that may yield your forward progress. Because once we decided  to walk with God we have to separate yourself from the world. Again this is a hard thing to do, but in order to move forward it has to be done.

While it can be almost anything that can hinder us from moving forward, some of the more common roadblocks are angry, resentment, lust, envy, hate, and an unwillingness to forgive. These are the things that we want to cut away from our live so that we can start moving forward.

In the same token we also have to cut ties with some people, things, and places if we truly want to find our way out of the wilderness. Because some people are content with living in the wilderness and some things that we done before we started our journey can make us turn and walk in the opposite direction of our promise land. And to be real, some places we just don’t have any business being at if we are truly inviting Jesus into our hearts.

So in order to start moving forward towards our promised land, let’s cut away some of the things that are holding us back. We can do so by giving it all to Jesus. Whatever is hindering us from moving forward give it to the Lord and I promised He will take the burden.

Please continue along with us on our journey tomorrow, until then God Bless.

James Anthony Love