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  “The seeds that fell among the thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. And so they never grow into maturity.” (Luke 8:14 NLT) We know that Jesus used parables, or ‘word picture stories’ to talk about God’s kingdom to the masses of people who came to hear Him speak. One of the more widely known parables He shared is the ‘Parable of the Sower’, and is found in 3 of the 4 gospels. I should also point out that while there was much truth to be learned from these parables, Jesus only ‘revealed’ these truths to those closest to Him, His ‘disciples’. This is no small point either (Luke 8:10). So after Jesus shared this simple illustration with the multitude in Luke 8:4-8, His disciples came to Him inquiring as to what the story meant; and He was happy to explain it to them. The story itself tells how a man went out to sow some seed, and the seed fell on various types of soil, which aff...
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  “Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.” (1 Tim. 6:17 NLT) God richly gives us all we need…for our enjoyment… Have you ever heard anyone make the statement: “If it’s fun…it must be sin!” ? Yeah…that makes me chuckle too; and just so you know…that’s not a verse in the Bible. I don’t know who needs to hear this…but God is not ‘anti-enjoyment’, nor is He opposed to you having ‘fun’ and enjoying richly…a life lived to the fullest. He just wants to make sure you know that HE…is to be the source of that enjoyment and abundant life. That is, after all what He came to bring those who turn to Him with all their hearts (John 10:10). As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, God is not opposed to you ‘having things’. He just doesn’t want those ‘things to have you’, because then it becomes a problem for us, and a big one at that. Would you take ...
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  At the risk of offending a lot of well meaning, sincere folks who profess to be Christian, can I just tell you that if your personal ‘walk of faith’ has been characterized more...by ‘bumpy roads, tire blow-outs, nightmare-ish detours and flat out engine failures’…there’s a good chance that you missed the very first and most critical requirement of what it means to become a ‘Christian’. And that would be the need for a total surrender of your life to Jesus, up front. That is, after all…what it means (or is supposed to mean) when we ‘give our heart’ to Him. Failure to do so can lead to far more struggles and heartache than what God ever had planned for us. Christianity simply does not work when we insist on remaining in the ‘driver’s seat’. Living a surrendered life to God is not ‘hard’. WE…make it hard. Yeah, read that statement again. It’s only ‘hard’ when we say we have ‘given our lives’ to Him, but then refuse to surrender to Him….and hold on to ‘flesh’ (Luke 6:46). I can ...
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  You and I were created by God, and He has made known to us the mystery of His will and purposes through Christ, according to His good pleasure…and not the other way around. (Eph. 1:9; Rev. 4:11). The sooner we come to a place of realization that we exist to please Him, instead of pleasing ourselves…which comes about by aligning our lives and purposes with His will, the sooner we begin to walk in His peace and come to know His goodness and love. This is called walking in covenant with Him, and reaping the blessing that come with being a child of God. Clearly…not everyone will subscribe to this mindset nor surrender to this way of living. (John 1:11; 3:19-21) Have you ever been accused of being a ‘people pleaser’? You probably know what that is all about. Or have you ever known people who ‘lived to please themselves’? That doesn’t sound like any better of a reputation to have, to me at least. But then we read in the Bible about a man named Enoch…”who had this testimony, that he ...
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  If you missed yesterday’s message, may I encourage you to stop right here and just scroll back and read it now. And for those who did read it, it might not be a bad idea to go ‘review’ it one more time before continuing on here today; just saying. :- ) I would like to think we all know the difference between a ‘threat’ and a ‘warning’. God has never been in the business of ‘threatening’ mankind, but He sure gives us plenty of ‘warnings’…offered up in ‘love’, because it’s NOT His will that any suffer or perish…but that we would all come to __________ (2 Pet. 3:9). So consider a warning that Paul issued in Acts 13:40, where he admonishes us to “beware therefore…lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon us.” Paul then quotes a rather obscure passage from a minor prophet known as Habakkuk. If you’ve never heard me point this out before, I’d be curious to know how many actually have gone and done a semi-deep dive on what Paul was referring to here, by going back and looki...
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  I’ve heard the expression used both ways…where folks either lament over preachers who ‘never preach against sin any more’…or… complain how ’all that guy ever preaches is …‘against sin’. I’ll be honest with you…I’m not even sure if I know what that means…to ‘preach against sin’. For that matter, I don’t know that I have ever heard, even a ‘lukewarm Christian’ ...make the case that they were ‘for sin’. Now…if all you hear from the pulpit of your choice is the repeated warning…”Y'all better quit sinning unless you wanna bust hell wide open”… then I can see why some might get tired of hearing that; especially…if they have struggled continuously with the same old sins while no one has ever taught them from scripture how to be ‘free indeed’ (John 8:32-36). On the other hand…churches that have backed away all together from addressing the one thing that is responsible for bringing pain and suffering along with death and destruction into people’s lives…which is what sin does…then ‘woe unt...
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  “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons… having their own conscience seared with a hot iron…” (1 Tim. 4:1) “We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and ‘carried about’ with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting”( Eph. 4:14) “Do not be ‘carried about’ with various and strange doctrines.” (Heb. 13:9) I mentioned in yesterday’s message how this ‘spiritual flood’ that is coming, and already here…oftentimes comes in ‘two waves’; the first wave being a flood of deception, followed up by a wave of destruction. We are seeing that happen now, and have been. You should revisit what Jeremiah had to say about the ‘latter days’ and warned of listening to what some have termed the ‘pillow prophets of peace’ --- “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of t...
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