Golden Nugget - How to Love the Lord with your Strength & Worship with Terry MacAlmon

We have been discussing this passage in Mark 12:30 in the last three articles: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

During our discussions, we have been going out from the viewpoint that loving the Lord involves sacrificing and giving.

The way you love the Lord with your strength is by doing things, by using your strength.  Don Francisco sang in one of his songs that love is not a feeling, but an act of your will.  You choose to do something in obedience to the Lord.  Jesus said in John 14:15: If you love me, you will keep my commandments, in John 14:21: Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them, in John 14:23: Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him, and in John 15:10: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

       

Four times in a matter of minutes He said that doing what He says proves that we love Him.  Can it be that He considers doing His will to be important?  Then, seconds later, he said something that we seriously should consider doing.  He said in John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  Many of us may now have thought:  ‘I’m so glad I’m His friend, for He laid down His life for me.’  However, verse 14 comes next: You are my friends if you do what I command you. 

Ouch… If we do not do what he tells us to do, every moment of every day, we are not His friends. And maybe we do not count among those He has laid down His life for? 

This, however, can be played to both sides.  If you consider Jesus to be your friend, you should lay down your life for Him.  What does that mean?  It means sacrificing things you’d like to do, things you enjoy, things you indulge in to satisfy your desires, therefore everything that defines your life according to your will, in exchange for what He wants, what He expects of you.  This is what the apostles did.  They sacrificed their careers, their pleasures, and their carnal desires so the gospel can go out and it could get to you.  How about us doing it as well?

Jesus did the same.  As we saw earlier, He said in John 15:10: …just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.  How did He keep His father’s commandments? 

1.   He sacrificed His heavenly comforts and came to earth to identify with man.

2.   Every day, during His early-morning prayer time, He heard from His Father what He should do that day to serve the people whom His Father loves and He did it sacrificially.  He did not first buy everything He needed to live a comfortable life and from there did a few things to appear good.  No, He said: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)

3.   He died a horrible death to set you free from the bondage of sin.  This, He did not really want to do.  He prayed in the garden regarding the death He was about to die: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)  He did not suffer and die as a hero, but as an obedient child who proved His love for His Father through His obedient actions, often against His will.

Jesus summarised the life He expects you and me to live in these words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26).

        We read in Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

        If God went to all the trouble to prepare good works for us to glorify His name, who are you and I to choose to live in comfort and disobedience?

        Let’s love the Lord our God with all our strength.

Let's worship with Terry MacAlmon

58. Sermon on the Mount Secrets - Seeing is Desiring

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22, 23)

Considering the context, we can conclude that in this verse, Jesus was talking about money. It follows the verse about our treasure. The verse about the masters, God and Mammon (money) follows it, and after that, we read about material goods for another eight verses. Therefore, the passage must be about money.

The eye introduces us to our surroundings, and the heart follows the eye. When a child notices a toy he likes in a toy store, he desires it, although he has never thought of buying that particular toy before. This applies to all people. The best way to keep a thief from stealing something is to hide it, and the best way to entice a customer to buy your product is to display it. What the eye does not see, the heart does not desire.

The passage above refers to the attitude of the eye. How are our eyes programmed?  What will our hearts follow? We can’t help but see what is before us, but how we see it is what counts. We have a choice. A man can see a beautiful woman and either ignore her or let his heart follow his eyes and desire her.

In the case of money, we expose our eyes and hearts to cars, houses, desirable lifestyles, and vacations. When we program our eyes to focus on material goods, status, and position, our hearts will desire and obtain them.

We also see ourselves in our mind’s eye, and that determines what we desire. Do we see ourselves as rich, powerful, and influential, living in a mansion? Do we envision ourselves in a political, managerial position, or in a position of influence in the church? If so, that is what the heart desires.

However, if we program our eyes to see the Lord, His works, and the needs of others, those eyes will ignore the material things they see and focus on what the Lord is doing. The heart will then follow, desiring to get involved with His activities. We see these with both the physical and the spiritual eye.

“God is light; in Him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth,” (1 John 1:5b, 6). The Lord and Mammon, the god of money, are enemies. If God is light, then anything outside God must be darkness. If God and money are enemies, then money must be darkness. I hear you say that the Bible says it's the love of money that is the root of all evil, but we're not referring to evil here. We're referring to things keeping us from walking in the light, from using our time to proclaim the light instead of managing things that are not of God, thus darkness.

A good eye, whether physical, spiritual, or the mind’s eye, focuses on the things of the Lord and will therefore bring light to the body. A bad eye focuses on things not of God, but of Mammon and other gods. They will darken the heart, since the God of light is absent. “If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?” (Matthew 6:23b). If you use money or another dark entity as your guide, your life is destined for darkness.

What do your eyes cause your heart to desire? Do you set your eyes on temporary pleasures or on eternal rewards? We require no more than our daily needs. Anything more, in God’s mind, is darkness that will lead us to neglect His cause.

God is light. A body full of light is one that has absorbed God’s presence. In a body full of darkness, more attention has been given to ungodly activity; that is why we find less light.

What evidence can we find of God’s presence or His light in our lives? As when we switch on the light in a dark room, revealing its contents, the light of God reveals the contents of the heart. The evidence of the Lord’s light or presence in our lives is a revelation of His character, of His Word, and about our lives.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you,” (Matthew 7:7). The more you ask the Lord about Himself, His Word, and His Kingdom, the more He will reveal to you. He will reveal solutions to your problems as you seek them with all your heart.

Knocking at these doors might take time, though. The Lord might take His time to reveal, since He first wants to see a sincere and trustworthy heart. He wants to find out who will constantly seek Him and who reveals a genuine interest in that which is important to Him. Can He really trust a heart that is divided between His enemy, Mammon, and Himself?

If we are so concerned about meeting our material needs that we have little or no time to think about the Lord and His Kingdom, then money has replaced God’s presence. Then we might no longer get revelation. Even if someone gives a revelation, we might not grasp it, because the light of God is not there to reveal it.
The lockdown situation that most of us find ourselves in now is a good opportunity to learn to shift your focus. Personally, I had to deal with the desires of my heart. Am I going to occupy my mind with worries where the money would come from, or am I going to be busy with God's Kingdom (allowing Him to use me to affect other peoples' lives) and His righteousness (working at being holy and pure before Him), trusting Him to meet my needs (Matthew 6:33)? 

The body in this context can be either an individual or a body of believers. Remember the city on a hill with its lights? Imagine to what extent the Lord can use a body of believers with a corporate heart after God, living in revelation, constantly seeking more of it.

To get to this point, though, a body of believers has a major stumbling block to overcome: tradition. Although tradition provides security, it prevents people from receiving and acting on fresh revelation. Religion is dead and the body is in darkness when people follow set rules and procedures instead of the living God.

For children and adults who are prepared to learn in a childlike way. For more information see http://t-a-c.co.za.

Golden Nugget - How to Love the Lord with your Mind & Worship with Terry MacAlmon

Jesus said in Mark 12:30: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

So far we’ve been looking at loving the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul.  You may read it by clicking on the relevant links.

The mind is actually part of the soul, but because Jesus mentioned it separately in this passage, we’re discussing it separately.  Our mind is the main thing that determines our actions.  Everything we do begins with a thought and thoughts have a number of sources.

             1.   Thoughts could originate from us.  We get an idea.

             2.   Thoughts come through what we see and hear.

             3.   Thoughts could be an idea another person shared with us and we then

                 think about it.

             4.   Thoughts could be suggestions from Satan.

             5.   Thoughts could be a prompting from the Holy Spirit.

    What we do with our thoughts is what determines our love for the Lord.

 Our thoughts could be an idea that would result in something good or a temptation to sin.  Or it could be about yourself and what you want to accomplish.  Everything we think determines where we stand in our relationship with the Lord.  It’s no use we say we love the Lord, but what we think is actually disgusting to Him.

     James 1:14-15 tells us the following: Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.  King David was a good example of the consequences of such thoughts.  He saw Bathsheba bathing and instead of resisting the thought right from the start, he cherished the thought until it gave birth to sin, the sin of committing adultery with her and murdering her husband.

     Where did this thought come from?  It came from what David saw, but also from what Satan suggested to him.  He was probably set up through a number of suggestions to be in the right place at the right time for Satan to accomplish his purpose.

     What could Satan’s purpose have been?  The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to David.  You can read the entire account in 2 Samuel 12:1-15, but Satan’s purpose became clear in verse fourteen.  After Nathan has conveyed to David the Lord’s punishment for what he had done, David immediately repented and then Nathan declared God’s forgiveness and the withdrawal of some of the punishment, but what Nathan said in verse fourteen was very profound, actually aimed at you and me as well.  He said: “However, because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the child who is born to you shall surely die.”  Another translation uses the words “because by this you have given the enemies of the Lord great occasion to ridicule Him”.

     Why are we tempted then?  Is it really about us?  In a way it is, yes, because sin does affect our peace, joy, and fruitfulness.  Satan wants to kill, steal and destroy these things.  But what Satan really aims for is having a go at God.  He seeks opportunities to ridicule God and show contempt for Him.  He wants to be able to say: “Do you see what Henry has done.  He claims to be a Christian and having everything you promised, but look how he behaves.  Is that what your children are like?”

     When we cause that to happen to God, as a result of what originates in our thoughts, do we love Him?  Shouldn’t we sacrifice in our thought life and the resulting actions to the honour and glory of the Lord?  These could be sinful thoughts leading to sin, but it could also be self-centred thoughts leading to self-centred behaviour, such as own ambitions, too much attention to hobbies and sports, occupying the mind with earthly and worldly interests instead of God-centred interests, etc.  A good Biblical example here is the story of Martha and Mary.  You may read it in Luke 10:38-42.  This world is not our home, and our life is not our own.  We are Kingdom citizens on a pilgrimage to represent the Lord on earth.  His interests should actually take all our time and energy.  Yes, we need to relax and a little entertainment and sport activity are necessary, but we really do need to love the Lord with ALL our (our entire) mind.

   

Sacrificing our appetites, our desires, our self-gratifying thoughts and behaviour for the sake of the Lord’s desires, and thinking about what He wants, is what loving Him with our entire mind is about.  Meditating on His Word and His will all the time is how we love Him with all our mind.

    But how do we do that?  Won’t we be too spiritual doing that?  In whatever you do, consult the Lord and think about how He would feel about what you’re about to do.  If you love your wife, your children, your parents, and your friends, you involve them in your life, don’t you?  Similarly, if you love the Lord, involve him in your thinking and your resulting actions.  Ask Him what He thinks and wants, tell Him of your joys and struggles, think about how He perceives things and the behaviours of people (including yours), and avoid having Him ridiculed by His spiritual and human enemies.

Let's worship with Terry MacAlmon

57. Sermon on the Mount Secrets - Where is your treasure? Part 2

We're busy discussing this passage in Matthew 6:19-20: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We were saying that our entire focus should not be material things on earth, but should be using the gift we've received and God will care for us. I then gave an example of how the Lord cares for us personally while we're working at focussing more on our gift than on money and where that comes from.

Someone else's gift might be making money and giving it away. Such a person does not care much for teaching, encouragement, evangelism, or anything “spiritual.” She wants to bless God’s Kingdom and see to it that the wheels are turning. She does not love money, for money passes through her hands; she just loves making money.

I have a friend like that, only his passion is not giving, but serving. He was part of our youth outreach team some years ago. While we were all interested in evangelism, teaching, and counselling, he was more than happy to maintain our building, sound system, and electrical equipment. He was outspoken about it. He had no need to preach; he just wanted to serve. He felt that was what God called him to do.

God is concerned about the focus of our heart. What do we think about? How do we use our time and energy? Is it for His Kingdom or our own well being? Have you ever wondered why the world is developing, why we are not still riding horses, carts, and wagons? It is because people think. We constantly think up better ways to do things, and the result is a dynamic, changing world. If we constantly think about who God is, discovering His characteristics and imitating them, what a dynamic place the church will be.

What are these treasures we store up in heaven? Would it be money when we give money? Would we have a magnificent mansion in heaven that we so desired on earth?

I have a parable for you. Once there was a rich man and a poor man, both Christians, who lived in the same village. They knew about each other. The rich man lived in luxury, just for himself. He believed in Jesus, but loved his position in church. The poor man, on the other hand, loved Jesus in spite of his poverty and cared for other poor people by helping and encouraging them.

One day, they both died and went to heaven. As they walked with the angel who took them to their homes, they saw a spectacular mansion.

“That must be mine,” the rich man said.

“No,” the angel said, “it belongs to the poor man.”

The rich man’s shoulders slumped. “Then where is my home?”

The angel pointed to a small shack and shrugged. “We could use only the building material that you sent up.”

I don’t know what our homes in heaven will be like. Some Bible translations talk about mansions, most mention rooms, but the Greek word means residences. However, it doesn’t matter, because what we send up will be used to our benefit, whatever the Lord decides this benefit might be. I think the best treasure we can send to heaven is obedience. I said earlier that the closer we live to the Lord on earth, the more intimate our relationship with Him, the closer we will be to Him in heaven. This is why Hebrews 12:14 says that without holiness no one will see God. Our present relationship will simply be transferred.
 Isn’t being close to the Lord in heaven already enough treasure? But once again, isn't this a selfish approach? The greatest treasure we can send up to heaven if we consider God's needs are souls. We have the saying in English; "the more the merrier". We have been so conditioned that money will make us happy. Mammon tries his utmost to get us to focus on earthly treasures, but to God, it's about relationships. Who are the happiest - the rich people all alone in their position and status, or the crowds of ordinary people having fun? Heaven is going to be fun. Why would that be? Would it be because we are all going to be all alone in our mansions, or because we will be one big happy family surrounding our Father?

We all have gifts, and we are not expected to give more than we have or more than we are gifted for. It doesn’t matter what you sow, as long as you sow in obedience. All sowing will result in equal blessing on earth and a treasure in heaven, and usually in winning and preparing souls for an exciting and joyful eternal life with Father God.

For children and adults who are prepared to learn in a childlike way. 

Golden Nugget: How to Love the Lord with your Soul & Worship with Terry MacAlmon

 Jesus said in Mark 12:30: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

In our last post, we began to discuss the practicalities around loving the Lord.  We were discussing whether it is good enough to only tell the Lord you love him.  Last time we were discussing ‘loving the Lord with all your heart’ and we’re taking our discussion from the angle of sacrificial and giving love.  Maybe if you read the article here you can get the whole picture.

What is your soul?  The soul consists of your mind, your will, and your emotions.  However, in Mark 12:30 Jesus separates’ the mind from the soul, so we will only look at the soul as the will and emotions and discuss the mind separately.  Many of us enjoy loving the Lord with our emotions.  We like the goosebump kind of worship.  That is actually why the church has become so ineffective, since this kind of “loving” the Lord is very selfish.  It’s nice to go to church for an exciting “kick” and then being able to say we had a good time with the Lord.  But who is this kind of worship about?  Isn’t it about you and me, to get a good feeling about being religious?  What did we sacrifice and what did we give?

Consider for a moment what it was that gave the early church in the book

of Acts a kick.  Wasn’t it the power of God that went with them as they healed the sick, preached the gospel, and drove out demons?  It was an emotional experience, yes, but one focused on the Lord and what He had done with them for others and not just for themselves.  They sacrificed their selfish emotional experience for a God- and neighbour directed experience.  This resulted most of the time in severe persecution during which other emotions, such as fear and anxiety, manifested.  What did they do with these emotions?  They turned it into faith.  They did not allow their carnal nature and Satan the pleasure of enjoying these negative emotions, but sacrificed these feelings to the Lord in exchange for faith.  We do enjoy the attention that these negative emotions create for us, don’t we?  Satan is a master deceiver and our sinful nature enjoys going along with him.  It’s only our acting in faith that counters this.  For example, in Acts 4 we read that Peter and John were arrested and after they were released, the believers responded as recorded in verses 23 to 31.

We, therefore, love the Lord with the emotion part of our soul by sacrificing selfish emotions in exchange for obedience and faith.  What does this obedience consist of?  Obedience is all about doing the good works the Lord has prepared for us – thus giving of ourselves.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, (Ephesians 2:10).

The soul also consists of our will.  We have been created with a free will and this is the area where our love for the Lord is tested most severely.  Do we want to sacrifice our will in exchange for the Lord’s will?  How often do we pray in both the Lord’s Prayer and our general prayers: “Let your will be done”?  Do we really want it?  What if the Lord’s will contradicts our will?  Once when the Lord convicted me of something He wanted me to get rid of because it didn’t please Him, I told Him I wasn’t able to stop it.  I was too weak was my excuse.  Then He told me: “No, it’s not that you cannot, but that you don’t want to, for you can do all things through Him that gives you strength (Philippians 4:13) if you wanted to.  We often have a lot of excuses as to why we cannot act in obedience – not enough time and resources, etc.  But we know the saying: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.  Comfort and selfish ambition are the two great enemies of loving the Lord with your will.  The only way to love the Lord with the will part of your soul is to sacrifice your will in exchange for His will and to give yourself entirely for His purposes to be fulfilled through you.

“But I am within His will.  He blessed me with all the comforts I enjoy,” you may tell me now.  Is that so?  I challenge you to ask the Holy Spirit to show you which parts of your life are your will (what you want and desire) and which are His (what He wants for you).  When He convicts you, why not sacrifice your soul (will and emotions) in exchange for what God has planned for your life and in that way show your love towards Him by giving what He requires of you to give.  Then you can enjoy what He promised you.

Let's worship with Terry MacAlmon

56. Sermon on the Mount Secrets - Where is your heart? Part 1

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

Some people, who preach prosperity, believing the Lord wants us to be financially prosperous while on earth, teach the principle of sowing and reaping.  The more money we sow into the church, the more money God will bless us with.  I don’t want to offer an opinion on the validity of this principle, but I want to talk about our focus or motivation.  When we sow money with the purpose or motivation of reaping money, we violate at least three principles laid down by the Lord:

So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?’  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31, 33)

No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matthew 6:24)

The third is our passage under discussion.

Why are we on earth?  What is our purpose for living? 

When we lived in the United Kingdom, there were many people from countries in the EU who came to live in the UK following the opportunity to make more money.  However, they did not come to stay indefinitely, but send all their money back to their own country to be stored up for them when they returned.

So it is with Christians.  We are only ambassadors sent to this foreign

“country” (earth) to accomplish the purpose, which the King of our “country” (God’s Kingdom) wants us to accomplish—the winning of citizens (souls) for our Kingdom.  We are not to store up treasures here.  We find a few reasons in our passage for this.  Verse 19 mentions destruction by moth and rust. Inflation and aging devaluate our treasures.  It also mentions theft.  Many people in many ways want a cut of our treasures.  Men will make a plan, whether illegally or “legally,” to take others’ money for themselves - they say business is business.  This makes us worry about our treasures.  When we have much to protect and worry about, the time and energy that we are supposed to use for Kingdom work are consumed by our earthly treasure, (Matthew 6:31-33).  That is why we need to have our treasures in heaven.  Those treasures are kept safe so we don’t need to worry about them, but can focus on our task of being busy with those things that are important to the Lord.

Verse 21 tells us another reason to store our treasures in heaven.  That which is important to you, occupying your thoughts all day, will also occupy your heart. 

How do you feel about the god of money, Mammon?  What do you make of him when he lures God’s people away from Him, making them dependent on money for meeting their needs?  Do you like it when he puts glittering temptations before people, enticing them to desire more than they need, and getting corrupted by lust after money? 

How do you feel when you see people obey God’s principles, when people live according to His principles of interdependence, of giving and receiving, of trusting God to provide so that He, not Mammon, gets the glory?  Do you enjoy being used in the gift God gave you, seeking first His Kingdom, and being in right standing with Him? 

When we seek to have our treasure in heaven by doing what the Lord expects of us, He will keep His promise in Matthew 6:33.  We can testify that the Lord is taking care of our financial needs because of the principles in the passages above.  We have endless testimonies of how we looked at our budget and realized that there is no way we could pay our bills, but we did. I always say that with the Lord, a bookkeeper will be confused, trying to figure out where the money came from.  The car’s tyres last longer, and so do food and other consumables.  The Lord’s protection, especially against the constant attacks of Mammon, is obvious.  We trust that in the end, a treasure awaits us in heaven.  This is my story.  Someone else might love making money and giving it away.  To be continued.

For children and adults who are prepared to learn in a childlike way. For more information see http://t-a-c.co.za.

Golden Nugget: How to love the Lord with your Heart & Worship with Terry MacAlmon

Joyce Meyer once said that love consists of sacrifice and giving and at the time it struck me as so true.

        I then started to meditate on our love for God.  Words can be so empty.  When we tell the Lord that we love Him, what do we actually mean by that?  How often have you told the Lord in prayer and during worship that you love Him?  What did you mean by that?  We find a number of verses in the gospel of John chapters 13 to 15 that says the same as John 14:21: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.  This is one way to love the Lord; by doing what He says.

Jesus, however, set the example of perfect love.  He sacrificed all self-indulgence - His selfish desires - and gave all His time and resources for the sake of others.  He summed up His actions in John 15:3, which is in the same context as John 14:21 above: Greater love has no one than this; that someone lay down his life for his friends.  Did He do it for us?  Yes He did love us in that way, but I believe He did it for His Father, who loves us so much that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).  He obeyed Father God by manifesting this love His Father has for us and in that way He showed His love for His Father.  He set the example for us to do the same – to prove our love towards Him by loving our neighbour sacrificially and through giving of ourselves.

        I want to look at love for the Lord from the perspective I received from Joyce Meyer.  Jesus said in Mark 12:30: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

       

        Let’s start with “all your heart”.  What is in my heart that I can sacrifice to make space for Jesus?  What is near to your heart?  Maybe your family and friends, your sport, your career, your hobbies, desireable things – these are all things that we desire and spend time with.  Jesus said in Matthew 10:37: Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  He used these examples because they are usually closest to our hearts, but by that, He included anything that is closer to our hearts than Him, such as the list above.

        How do we know when He is close to our hearts?  What do you think about most of the day?  Maybe how you can improve in your sport, what you can do to make your business more profitable, what you can do at work to make a better impression, what you can do today that will be fun, etc.  How much thought have you given the Kingdom of God and your relationship with Him (Matthew 6:33).  The Kingdom involves winning souls, encouraging people, praying for the sick, teaching the Word of God, giving sacrificially, serving the needs of people, i.e. using your gift to make a difference, to the glory of God (Romans 12:6-8).

        Seeking His righteousness involves getting to know the Lord – thinking about Him, meditating on His Word - so you can please Him by obeying in faith.          All these demand time and effort; and to make the latter available you need to sacrifice other things that takes up that time and effort.

Loving the Lord with all your heart therefore involves giving of yourself to the glory of God.

        The disciples and the believers of old set a good example of how to love the Lord.  We read about the consequences of acting in faith, i.e. loving the Lord, in Hebrews 11 and in particular verses 32-38 and in Paul’s experiences as recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:24-29.  We know that most of the other disciples of Jesus had similar hardships.  Jesus said in John 16:33: I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world, you will have tribulation.         But take heart; I have overcome the world.  How do you measure up in comparison to these?  Where are your heart’s desires set at?  

        In our next Golden Nugget we’ll look at more areas in which we should the love the Lord based on Mark 12:30.

Let's worship with Terry MacAlmon

55. Sermon on the Mount Secrets - What is important to God? Part 2

This is the second part of our study on “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:16-18)

The next two verses of the Sermon on the Mount are integral to our study on fasting. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal,” (Matthew 6:19, 20). With this we can read the following passage: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple,” (Luke 14:26). The former relates to material goods and the latter to relationships that can hinder God’s purposes for us.

Our purpose in life should be to prepare for eternity and to take as many

people to heaven with us as possible. In Luke 14:26, Jesus teaches that too much attention to loved ones takes time and energy that belong to our relationship with Him. Our loved ones are also a mission field, and we need to care for them and make them aware of Jesus’ love. They do need our attention and time, but not at the expense of our relationship with Jesus and our efficiency as obedient Christians. To a disciple of Jesus, everything should be secondary to carrying out His commands (Matthew 28:18-20). Our family members’ care, salvation, and training take first priority. Relationships with our family and friends, however, need to be balanced with the needs of the Kingdom. The closer our relationship with Him here on earth, the closer we will be to Him in heaven. If we sit at His feet on earth, it will be like that in heaven. If we are busy with many things here on earth, regarding Him from a distance, so it will be in heaven.

Fasting is part of relationship building and prayer; it is a statement. It shows God that we are serious about putting ourselves aside for His purposes. It is sacrificing time, goods, and energy for the sake of relationship building and prayer. We can set ourselves aside from television, the family, food, and any form of normal daily activity for the purpose of having more time to pray.

Again, our motivation could be to impress others or religious duty, or we can do it to accomplish something in the spiritual realm. But if we do it for selfish reasons, we have received our reward in full. At that point, we have accomplished our reason for fasting and have received what we were looking for: the attention of others. God ordained fasting, even from the earliest times. He did it because fasting restricts the carnal desires and needs and releases time and energy for the sake of God. The Lord then multiplies them, and it results in great power.

How foolish can we be in neglecting our relationship with the Lord? (We must be careful to distinguish between relationship and religion. To pray habitually and go to church without considering the Lord in your life, without giving Him full control of everything you have and are: this is religion, not a relationship. Building a relationship with and pleasing the church rather than the Lord is also religion.)

What percentage is the eighty-odd years that we live on earth in comparison with eternity? Is it perhaps 0.000000008% of a billion years? Why are we so interested in being well-off in this limited space of time? Why would we want to grasp position, pleasure, riches, power, and fame at the cost of our neighbour? In the process, we lose our treasure in heaven by displeasing God. At the end of this life, we lose our earthly treasures. What do we have left then?

The motivation and purpose by which we live, the treasure and reward that is important to us will determine how much time we will spend in relationship building with the Lord. It determines how much and how well we are prepared to pray and fast in order to be effective in the Lord’s eyes. Good works and religion do not impress the Lord. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

            According to verse ten, we are God’s products, which He created to do the works He prepared for us. We are not to do what we think is good (for then we can boast), but are to hear from the Lord, through prayer and fasting, what He wants us to do. We then act in faith, which pleases God (Hebrews 11:6). Through this, we gather treasure for ourselves in heaven.

Please pray with us: Dear Lord Jesus, I am so earthly-minded. Please open my eyes that I can become aware of eternity, that the full realization can hit me. Search my heart and show me where I gather earthly treasures, even if it appears to be good and Christian. Give me the grace to sacrifice time for prayer and fasting so that I can become aware of what You want me to do and so be effective in building Your Kingdom. Amen.

For children and adults who are prepared to learn in a childlike way. For more information see http://t-a-c.co.za.

Golden Nugget - Jesus said no one is good

And as He was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. (Mark 10:17-18).

Have you also found these words of Jesus intriguing?  Here sat a man who left the glory of heaven to serve mankind, who has only ever been unselfish by sacrificing His own comfort, pleasures, and desires to exert Himself in doing good to others.  Even when He wanted to get away to have a little alone time and the people selfishly demanded His attention, did He not refrain from serving them wholeheartedly (e.g. Matthew 14:13-21). 

Would you say He was a good man?  If you compared yourself to Him, would He appear to have been better than you?  In my case, He was definitely better than I could dream to be.  We so easily call people good - "John is a good man", "Cynthia is a good woman". 

But Jesus, even though He was the Son of God and the perfect man, did not consider Himself good compared to God the Father.

We have nothing good in us!  Jeremiah 17:9 states:  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).  In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

We are not good.  We are desperately dependent on the only One who is good and this we have through His Son, Jesus Christ, who provided the way by means of His death and resurrection. 

In Luke 18:10-14 Jesus told of two approaches we may have:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Where do you stand?  Which prayer will you pray?