Selfless Faith

Respect can be defined as the condition of being honored or as an admiration or esteem. It seems we search our entire life to be respected. We feel as if we deserve respect. We even demand it. We puff our little chests and yell “I will be respected!” Why is respect so important in our lives? In Ephesians 5:33, the Bible tells wives to respect their husbands. God knows how important respect is to men. The Bible also tells husbands to love their wives. God also knows how important love is to women. However, we always forget right before wives are commanded to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the same Holy Spirit that came upon Jesus while being baptized by John the Baptist. The same spirit that goes to and from the earth and sees all things, knows all things, hears all things, knows our deepest thoughts, and all the secret desires of our heart. Without the Holy Spirit, the third person of the God-head, dwelling in us, we will never be able to truly love and respect each other.

However, something that I have realized lately is people are getting this idea that they deserve respect and can demand it. I’m not sure who put this idea into our mind. In actuality, we are not owed anything by anyone. We owe our lives to Jesus Christ for His sacrifice on the cross for us. He paid a debt that we could not pay. He paid it in full. Yet we always say we must be respected. We want the world to respect us. It seems we haven’t realized that the world hates us and its ultimate goal is to see us painfully and slowly die. It is like an insanity cycle. We say respect ME and the world spits in our face, so we try again and then the world slaps us. When will we learn to stop prostituting our lives with this world? We need to stop reading the parts of the Bible that make us feel good and dive into the complete and perfect word of God. We need to ask Jesus to live His life through us. We need to have the Holy Spirit empower us.

To all who are in Christ, yet demand respect from the world (one of our enemies), let’s take a logical approach at this. The world hates God and our Lord Jesus Christ. They always resist the Holy Spirit and blaspheme Him. Now, if we are in Christ, why would we expect respect from the same world that hates and has no respect for our Savior? That doesn’t make much sense.

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In Matthew 16:18, Jesus continues by saying, “and I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

The foundation of the church was set on Peter’s proclamation. The rock that the church of our Lord Jesus Christ was built solely on the fact that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Some people foolishly think the church was built on Peter. I must say to think that is calling God foolish. Are we to honestly think that  God would put the body of His only begotten Son in the hands of man? Everything we touch we destroy. Would God allow His kingdom to be based on man’s weak and immoral decision making skills? If it was up to Peter, only the Jews would currently be saved. However, our Lord Jesus Christ had a bigger and better plan for all of us. He sent the Gospel of His grace and salvation that whosoever would believe in Him would be saved and have everlasting life. We change our minds so often we think everlasting means two weeks if that much. That is probably why some actually believe we an lose our salvation. He did not send us “another” person. He is all that we need. We say Jesus commanded us to preach the Gospel to the end of the earth. We take that as a method of showing we are doing something for God. The enemy is so deceptive. There is absolutely nothing God asks us to do but to believe on the one whom He sent; His son Jesus Christ. There is nothing that we do on our own strength after we come into the rest we have in Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit of God working through us to make His name glorified. We can’t even keep the first commandment on our own strength to think God would entrust us with the message of eternal life on our own strength. We can build as many churches as we want, but if they are not built on the rock solid foundation of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God, it is just a pile of rubble.

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In Matthew 16:17, Jesus answered and said to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

“Blessed are you!” That just rings with delight to my ears. It is nice when people wish a blessing upon us or when we tell someone they are blessed, but when it comes directly from God, my heart melts with gladness from the warmth and sincerity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The angels rejoice when just ONE sinner turns to God forsaking all of their past ways. As soon as someone can see that Jesus is THE Christ, the Son of the living God, and receives Him into their life, God immediately blesses that person. Many people and denominations try to add to God’s word. They say in order to be saved and blessed by God, you must believe in Jesus AND do something else whether it is baptism, join their church, not eat meat, not drink wine, give to charities, wear pants or not wear pants, wear makeup or not wear makeup and the list can go on and on. I get a headache just thinking about it. Why do we allow Satan to use us as a tool to keep the lost away from God? Jesus said the will of the Father is you believe on He who He has sent. He did not have a grocery list of things that needed to be done for us to be saved. As soon as we acknowledge Jesus is the Christ, God delivers us from where we once were and blesses us because of our faith and trust in Him and Him alone.

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In Matthew 16:16, Simon Peter answered Jesus and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

There are many times when a tough question is asked and I have no idea how to respond. However, when I slowly start to speak, words start to flow that bring knowledge and hope to those desperately in need of Jesus Christ. After that, I have to replay the conversation in my head because I am not entirely sure what I said or where it came from. I know that response could have only been from God through His Holy Spirit which came upon us the second we accept Jesus Christ into our lives. If we are faithful and true to His Word, He will use us to provide the answers to those who are seeking after Him at any given moment. How could Simon Peter say “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” so boldly? He was with Jesus, the living Word of God, God in the flesh. The same applies to us. Many people say “I pray but I don’t read my the bible.” How can Jesus Christ mean anything to us if we do not take the time to get to know Him and get as close as we can to Him? We need to get back to the Word of God, to our Savior, to our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us so much He STAYED on the cross for us. Not only was He nailed, but He stayed up there and cried out to the Father to forgive us because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. When we are in the midst of battle, He will provide the words of eternal life through our hearts, eyes, and mouths to those who don’t know Him while delivering us from every evil work against us.

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In Matthew 16:15, Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do you say I am?”

That is the ultimate question which is asked directly by Jesus. Who do “we” say that He is? The world has it’s own invalid thoughts and opinions on who Jesus is, but it does not matter. It makes no difference what they think about Jesus. All that matters is who we believe and know that He is. Many different groups of people say Jesus was a great teacher or a great prophet or a very enlightened man and try to give Him some weird kind of respect or praise but not the glory He deserves. It is all meaningless. Jesus made it very clear who He is. Jesus said that He is God many times. For someone to reduce that to teacher, prophet or an “enlightened” man has no respect or reverence for Him at all. We must pray that God guard’s our hearts so we do not fall victim with the rest of the world degrading the person of Jesus Christ. We can say Jesus is the Lord, our God, but if we do not follow Him and dedicate our lives to Him, lives which He died for, we are just as wrong and misled as the rest of the world. If we believe Jesus Christ is our Lord, the Son of the living God, let us allow God to changes our lives to reflect that.

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