Saturday, October 21, 2006

Matthew 18 A Trumpet is Blowing (Todays it's called "Lena's Trumpet") But It's Blowing All Across the Land_ Please Read_Please Heed! ( I Love U Maria)

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

Matthew 18:1-35
The Greatest in the Kingdom
1About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Which of us is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?"
2Jesus called a small child over to him and put the child among them. 3Then he said, "I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. 5And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who trusts in me to lose faith, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around the neck.
7"How terrible it will be for anyone who causes others to sin. Temptation to do wrong is inevitable, but how terrible it will be for the person who does the tempting. 8So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better to enter heaven F91 crippled or lame than to be thrown into the unquenchable fire with both of your hands and feet. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better to enter heaven half blind than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.
10"Beware that you don't despise a single one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father. F92
Story of the Lost Sheep
12"If a shepherd has one hundred sheep, and one wanders away and is lost, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety-nine others and go out into the hills to search for the lost one? 13And if he finds it, he will surely rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn't wander away! 14In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father's will that even one of these little ones should perish.
Correcting a Fellow Believer
15"If another believer F93 sins against you, go privately and point out the fault. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17If that person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. If the church decides you are right, but the other person won't accept it, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector. 18I tell you this: Whatever you prohibit on earth is prohibited in heaven, and whatever you allow on earth is allowed in heaven.
19"I also tell you this: If two of you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. 20For where two or three gather together because they are mine, F94 I am there among them."
Story of the Unforgiving Debtor
21Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone F95 who sins against me? Seven times?"
22"No!" Jesus replied, "seventy times seven! F96
23"For this reason, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. F97 25He couldn't pay, so the king ordered that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. 26But the man fell down before the king and begged him, 'Oh, sir, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' 27Then the king was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
28"But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. F98 He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. 29His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient and I will pay it,' he pleaded. 30But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and jailed until the debt could be paid in full.
31"When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him what had happened. 32Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' 34Then the angry king sent the man to prison until he had paid every penny.
35"That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters F99 in your heart."
FOOTNOTES:F91: Greek enter life; also in 18:9. F92: Some manuscripts add verse 11, And I, the Son of Man, have come to save the lost. F93: Greek your brother. F94: Greek gather together in my name. F95: Greek my brother. F96: Or 77 times. F97: Greek 10,000 talents. F98: Greek 100 denarii. A denarius was the equivalent of a full day's wage. F99: Greek your brother.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
There’s a certain something inside of every man alive, that is the desire to be great. We might think it is pride and came from satan, but it is truly an attribute of God. God IS great and there is no one “as” great as He, yet He reproduced His greatness in men and women of the earth and told them to do great things in the realm they live in.
It is inside of the perversion of that desire that we find sin. Everything created was created by God, even desires of the heart were placed in men by God. Passion was perverted into lust, as an example. These attributes of life have to be routed properly, governed, tuned in to fulfillment of the heart desires of God and defined by the words of God.
To desire to arise above evil is godly, to desire to succeed, to overcome, to conquer, to get on top, etc are all from the Lord. The place satan missed it was that rather than becoming great, he went way too far and desired to usurp above his author. Also the way to greatness must be God’s way not any other way. There is a way that even seems right to man, but be careful of its end being death. If man is not going God’s way he is going the way of death. Jesus is THE Way, Truth, Life, this is the only true way to greatness.
So the disciples ask, “how does one become greatest in God’s kingdom”, Jesus (THE WAY) said…
“Unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.
4Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
#1 Turn from sins- repent. You were on a path, a road; and it led to death, for sin leads to death. Jesus died for sin and death, paid a hefty price for us to walk in life, so we find out a way we’ve walked is death, we turn around in honor of the death we believe He died for, for us and we change pathways and head towards life.
Repent means- turn around, go a different direction. Honor God, believe His word, call whatever He calls sin, sin, and turn. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean to, or you weren’t hurting anyone, or your heart was right. If God calls it sin, call it sin, forsake it, and follow Him to life.
#2 Become as little children- think about this one. Children are new, they are being taught everything for the first time, they trust and love their caregivers (God is our caregiver-parent model, they believe whatever their caregiver tells them, they don’t argue the case, they are honest, very vulnerable and trusting. You tell them something because you are teaching them about life and they act, right away. I’m not talking teenager here. I’m talking 3 year old, 6 year old, etc. They do what their trusted parent says, period. It is not a rebellious and debatable age. They are humble.
#3 Whoever humbles himself as a little child-“humble” means apt for change, moldable, to be under the guides of another, to be lowly, meek, not prideful or arrogant, not argumentative, modest in attitude, teachable, innocently trusting.
THIS is How to become great in God’s kingdom. God is looking for a few Great men and women. It starts with childlike faith. Many of us have to start from the beginning when we come to God. We have to sit at His feet saying, all I ever learned may be wrong, God help show me truth, light and life and the right pathway to begin on for and with You. If we do not start here with the new kingdom citizenship we have, we’ll go around mountain after mountain never growing up in Him towards greatness. He needs Great men and women to take the land back for Him, but there’s only one way to greatness, starting as a child in faith, trust, and honor.
In order to grow on from this childlike place and head towards the great things God has for each of us to do for Him in the earth, we have to cut off our past life for the old life cannot go with us where we are going. A huge part of this will happen for us in forgiveness. God requires us to forgive, any and everyone of their sins against us as He also forgave us of our sins. If we do not, He will not keep our debts off of us. We have to call sin what God calls sin. Unforgiveness is sin.
The whole principle of God’s kingdom is based on forgiveness.
Forgiveness is how we came to know Jesus.
We got a revelation of the debt of sin we owed God and realized there’s no way we could afford to pay it, then we surrendered to His will and received His great forgiving power. When we believed and received it by revelation and faith we were Born Again. We realized our great indebtedness to God. Jesus gave His life, and to be in covenant means there’s a life given for a life and so we decided to commit and give ours over to the work of the Lord. We love Him because He first loved us before we ever knew it. If this is NOT how you came to God, Go back and re-come to God! Get really saved!
It is such a serious time right now, God is opening the eyes of our understanding for truth. He is showing us the truth we may have never seen and He requires us to walk in it!
It says in Colossians, that the very way we receive Christ, meaning the revelation we had when we came to Him is how we walk in Him.
If we received Him with urgent fear we walk that way, if we received Him nonchalantly, we walk that way. If we came selfishly, or because we needed healing, that’s how we walk.
It may be a time to walk a new way. Really get saved right, in deliberate revelatory obedience and make a covenant commitment to walk in the fear of the Lord daily. Uproot old bad plantings. Wash off the wrong approaches and wrong thinking and wrong walking and walk in the truth and the light of today. Get rooted and ground in true love, not selfish love, but self-less, God love, the kind that lays down its life for others.
Col 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
The Lord has need of You! This is the seriousness of the hour. God has need of you.
In the past chapters of this and last week, we went over the scripture where the disciples went and got the donkey for the Lord. They said, “Lord what do we tell the owner if he asks what we are doing?” He said tell them, “The Lord has need of it.” (Of thee, of thy rebellion!)
Come on man, if you’ve been an illegitimate son, no one can tell you to even come to church or commit your whole life to God, God can’t speak to you with you responding to hear and do, it is time to give that over to Jesus. He has need of thee! He’ll mount the donkey in you, IF you LET Him!
The Lord has need of us in the earth. He does not do things magically. He set men and women in the earth to rule the earth and to allow and not allow things to happen, to be powerful and great for His works, to permit and to not permit, to bind and loose principalities and powers, to take a hold of darkness and disallow it, and to be light in the earth.
He needs a few great men and guess what? We’re it! He isn’t doing anything big because we’re not. It’s because we didn’t start out humble, and submissive, and allow Him to mount and conquer over our rebellious nature.
Allow Him to arise, and let the enemies of our souls and the enemies of His will, to be scattered and flee away. In fact we’ve been ok w/sin and we’ve allowed it live with us! Rather than Letting God move in. Where sin is allowed and cohabitated with, God is not dwelling there. Then we in ignorance, wonder why God seems so far off?
We’ve watered His word down to the opinions of men and have allowed satan’s demons to live w/ us! Whatever we allow is allowed, whatever we disallow is disallowed.
The Lord has need of our allowances of Him.
So on the matter of forgiveness, what exactly does 7 x 7 mean anyway? That means the same person, even the same offense or hurt in the same day, every time they do it, say it, or inflict it upon you, turn your other unhurt cheek and offer it and forgive them! 7 means all, 7 means all, completely. Jesus emphasized it, saying it twice.
Do not withhold forgiveness. If it is withheld by you, you are requiring them to pay for what they deserve, while God did not require you to pay for what you deserved – In fact we deserved an eternal burning with all 5 senses eternally aware it’s hurts inflicted upon us with no redemption from it in hell, but He gave you what you did not deserve and could never ever pay for- forgiveness of that eternal death, because His son died a tormentors death for you!
So one who lays down his life for another will “die” to the hurts and temporary pain here for that person until they can ask for it for themselves. Don’t make them pay eternally in hell. Pray for their soul, and for their sins that will send them to hell, just like your sins would and will send you there if you do not submit your rebellion to God.
If you do not forgive, you are saying that you are God the judge, and you are standing in His place, like satan tried to, you are requiring the judgment.
You are in sin. Your sin is going to kill you as well as the person who’s been offending you. Their sin will kill them forever in hell! That’s serious business! We need to cry out for their mercy, and if we do not forgive them, we are a part of sending them to hell. Their blood is on our hands! Hatred = murder. Unforgiveness not dealt with by God turns into bitterness, which turns into hatred and hatred is the opposite of love which forgives and does not eternally damn people.
God is warning us, before it’s too late for us. It is time to set captives free, open prison doors, release people from our prisons, the prisons of our hearts and minds.
R U Really saved? If not, better get really saved, soon, very soon. Now is the time to become a serious kingdom of light-and-life citizen!

Daily Repetitive Verses -
John 17:15
I'm not asking you to take them out of the world but to protect them from the evil one.