In Matthew 18:16, Jesus says quoting Deuteronomy 19:15, “But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’”

If we are abiding in the love of Jesus Christ, we should be at peace with one another even in our disagreements. The corporate church is quickly falling and fading away spiritually although some may be standing strong financially or numerically. This is caused by strife and separation between brothers and sisters united and made one by Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation, Jesus speaks of a church being lukewarm and being spit out of His mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) We can portray that same taste to the world by the way we act and treat each other. How many times have we heard, “The Christians did this,” or “Can you believe what those Christians are doing?” We should desire to resolve issues within the body as quickly and quietly as possible amongst ourselves. In a family, we don’t our neighbor to know all of our disagreements by the way we react. It is the same in the family of God. God desires to resolve any disputes that may arise without us having to go to the world for guidance and judgment. In essence, when we let the hands be upset at the feet of the body of Christ, no one gets any work done and we become useless to the cause of Jesus Christ. Holding grudges is foolish anyways. Imagine getting to heaven and seeing the Glory of God and we can only worry about whether we are allowed to eat pork or not and so forth. Let us forgive quickly, love generously, and continue to abide in the undeserved grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Matthew 18:14, Jesus contines to say, “Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

As we read in the past two reflections, God has an unfailing and unconditional love for us. He keeps His children safe and if one goes astray, He will go out and get them to bring them back to the flock. God does not want us to die, but would rather us to have eternal life. That is His desire for everyone. If that were not true, He would not have sent Jesus Christ to hang on a cross to die for our sin. Selfish thinking leads us to say, “If God cared, He would/wouldn’t _______ (fill in the blank).” My beloved, God cared enough to sacrifice His ONLY begotten son to die on a cross. If I had 100 sons, I wouldn’t offer any one of them to die for someone else’s mistakes. I thank God that I am NOT God. God allowed Jesus Christ to die for our sins while we still hated Him and lived in direct disobedience against Him. I wouldn’t do that for my closest friend but our gracious, loving, and merciful God allowed His ONLY begotten Son to die for His worst enemies. God does not want us to perish and live in darkness forever. When we exhausted all humanly methods to find salvation through our own filthy self-righteousness, God provided the one and only true answer! Thank God for Jesus Christ! The light has come into the world and has filled our lives. We are no longer blind. We can now have everlasting life through the only Son of God, Jesus Christ, who came to take away the sin of the world.

In Matthew 16:21, Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Right after the glorious revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus began to reveal to the disciples God’s plan to redeem man. He revealed to the disciples the gospel before it even happened. The truth is Jesus was betrayed, beaten, killed, and raised up on the third day. Many of us seem to lose focus on that. We only want to talk about the love of Jesus, the great teachings of Jesus, to follow His examples, or the peace that He brings. However, without the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, everything else is utterly meaningless. Paul wrote without the resurrection of Jesus, our faith is in vain and we are to be pitied the most amongst all men. Without BOTH the death and resurrection, there is no Christianity, there is no redemption, there is no peace. Our faith lies upon two pillars. The first pillar is the death of Christ to wipe ALL of our sins away. We are covered by His precious blood. The second pillar is the resurrection of Christ. Through His resurrection, we have received a new life. Both are the two most essential components of our faith. If one is missing, the foundation completely falls to the ground. Thank you God for this newness of life in Jesus Christ you have so graciously given to us. Lord, let Your world fall on us to bring forth the fruit you deserve.

In Matthew 16:8-10, Jesus was aware of what the disciples were thinking and said to them, “O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up?  Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up?”

Our faith is small. Thank God while our faith is small, Jesus lives within us to be the completion and fullness of our faith. The refining process Jesus did in the lives of the disciples helps strengthen our faith more than we can ever imagine. Sometimes we look on others and say “oh just have faith” or “you need more faith.” That is a bit demeaning or condescending to say to a fellow brother or sister. Who gave us the position to judge the amount of faith someone else has? It is always easier to tell another person to have more faith when we are looking through the window of our well air-conditioned lives on a hot summer day of what the world deals to believers in Jesus Christ. However, what state do we go into when we can’t pay our mortgage, car payments, light bill, or even afford to get some bread and water for our family? Do we tell ourselves to have more faith or are we frantic? Many of us open our mental Rolodex to see who can help us. No one can help us but God. We always seem to forget how much God when we are faced with a tough situation. Instead of telling our brothers and sisters to have more faith, why don’t we help strengthen their faith just as Jesus did for His disciples and does for us? We must come along side each other carrying each other’s burdens in the name of Christ. That is how God strengthens faith. It is not by us telling each other “to have more faith.” Faith is not sold at the supermarket; faith comes by hearing the Word of God and living life IN Jesus Christ our Lord.

Have we left our first love? Many times we get so busy being involved in serving the Lord that we forget all about loving the Lord. Then whatever it is that we do becomes a burden for us and we feel the weight of the world upon us. This is how the enemy traps us. We end up Being Under Satan’s Yoke. Have we left our first love? Join us in this special message directly from the heart of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Deliver on how much He loves us and desires us to return back to Him, our first love.

Revelation 1:8

“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”

Revelation 2:1-7

“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands:

² “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. ³ You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
⁴ “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! ⁵ Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. ⁶ But this is in your favor: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.
⁷ “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.”

2 Kings 3:3-14

³ Solomon loved the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship. ⁴ The most important of these places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings. ⁵ That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”

⁶ Solomon replied, “You showed faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued your faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.

⁷ “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. ⁸ And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! ⁹ Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”

¹⁰ The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. ¹¹ So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—¹² I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! ¹³ And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! ¹⁴ And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”

John 3:16

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Romans 5:6-11

⁶ When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. ⁷ Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. ⁸ But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. ⁹ And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. ¹⁰ For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. ¹¹ So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

Ephesians 2:8-10

⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. ¹⁰ For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Philippians 1:6

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Looking back on life, before completely surrendering my life to the Lord Jesus Christ, I was certain that I was alive. This deception is one of the many favorites that are used by Satan himself. Recall, in Genesis chapter 3, the serpent told Eve that surely she would not die, and surely she did. As I think of the words I say unto you, if not my eyes are fill are filled with tears, certainly my heart pours them out. I was blind, but now I see. I was dead in my sins, but now I am made alive through the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

It has been said that we should forget our past, live for today, and look forward to the future. I cannot completely agree with that. We must never forget our past. It is an essential part of our lives. It is a constant reminder of how our lives were when we ourselves were blind and dead in our sins. If we try to block out our past, then we may end up in our past, looking forward to the future. In all honesty, God doesn’t forget our past either, but through the blood of Jesus Christ who hung on a cross for our transgressions and iniquities, each drop of blood that hit the earth was the drop of blood that covers ALL of our sins: the ones we did, the ones we may be doing now (even while reading this), the sins that are to come, those known and unknown to us, and even the many sins we don’t know exist. The blood of Jesus Christ covers it all.

Living in the deceit of Satan has caused us to be born in the paradox we are born in. If we examine it, a sinner (which we all are, and always will be) is dead to God unless He believes in His Son Jesus Christ. In my perspective, when a mother gives birth, she does not bring in new life, but she brings in new death. However, as Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again. When we are born again in Christ, Christ has given us life, and we are then truly alive. The ultimate seal, victory, glorification of our risen Lord is our fleshly death, when we leave this world, and go to join our Lord in Heaven. That is the ultimate victory over Satan. That is why Paul can write in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then saying that it is written will come true: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, I want to make abundantly clear, we are saved by GRACE through FAITH in Jesus Christ, and that alone. There is NOTHING that we can do (on our own strength) to attain the kingdom of God. Some religions believe they are on a score card with God and will face judgment and at that time God will make His final ruling on their destiny. Unfortunately, they are partially misled (which is not possible to be partially misled, we are fully led or fully mislead). Our good works will NEVER outweigh the penalty of sin, ALL sin, which is death. Many of the good works that we try to do to make up for our sin would never have been done because we would already have deserved to be struck dead … whether I was saying one curse word, stealing candy bars, or murdering thousands of people. Sin is sin and it is outright disgusting. You can pray on your knees forever, but God will not hear those prayers until it is in name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God for sending His only Son, and I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for staying on the cross, and washing my sins away and giving me new life make me alive in Him.

Just to reiterate the previous point, Ephesians 2:8-10 reads from the apostle Paul “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the GIFT of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Plainly stated, we cannot brag about what we were created to do, but should be ashamed of doing what we were not created to do. Jesus Christ removes that shame from us.

In the same sense, we are not alive through the good deeds that we do, or because we join a church, pray all the time, or go on mission trips. In all honesty God has no care for what we do for Him because He can easily do it Himself; his biggest concern is why it is done. If we do it to look good in front of our friends, then we already have our reward. We join churches, sing songs, and serve in the church; that is all a diversion from the devil for us not to truly have our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are still dead. God doesn’t care what it is that you do or where, it is why. Is it for the love of our Savior Jesus Christ? If it is not, it has no place before God’s eyes. Go seek your credit before men!

A very recent example is a few friends of mine found out some of the most prominent musicians are part of some secret society that glorifies Satan (or something to that extent.) One friend in particular deleted all the music by these artists which was out of fear of Satan, but foolishly justified it as awareness, and not out of the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Friends, if it is not done because of God, then it is just to better ourselves, but NOTHING to be boastful or proud about. It is amazing how we boast about not doing bad and doing things we should naturally be doing.

With all that being said, I can’t help but have tears of joy and be thankful to God. Just looking back on my life, I se where I was, where God found me, and where He took me to. My dad often tells u how He blames himself for not bringing us to Christ sooner, but I say there is no need to have fault in that. We are responsible after that age of atonement to believe and come to Christ on our own. If we are His sheep, we shall hear his voice when He calls. There is no one that can save us (especially not ourselves) but Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who died for our sins and rose again from the dead to give us true freedom and life. I am drawn to Genesis 47:8-9 where it reads “Pharaoh asked him, (Jacob) ‘How old are you?’ and Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.’” The Amplified Bible reds Jacob’s response as “The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years, few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained to those of my fathers in their pilgrimage.” When I look back on my life, as I am sure many of you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior will also attest, because w accepted Jesus Christ to take control of our lives, our days on this earth were difficult, filled with evil, deceptive, sinful desires. As soon as we were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, our flesh died, and our spirits were made alive in Christ Jesus. It also reminds me when Moses lead Israel out of Egypt, how they wandered for 40 years, the same way we wander until we come to Christ Jesus. We can only rejoice that our God is such a loving and patient God.

In closing, I would like to leave you with a quote from the site of Reverend Mark Brown in his reflection of John 14:6. “Jesus is the ‘life’ which is zóé and speak of being alive. So focusing on Jesus I come alive! And this is very much my experience (and mine as well)! The more I focus on Jesus the more alive I feel. Energy and purpose as I seek God through Jesus. Passion and clarity about what I am to do, in seeking after God through Jesus.”

In the John 8:14, Jesus says to the Pharisees “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going.”

I am at peace because Jesus has comforted my spirit and soul. He assuredly told us He knows exactly where He came from, and exactly where He is going. Now He asks us to follow Him which means if we follow Him, He will lead us to the same place He resides. Jesus, the Christ, provides us with perfect completion for our lives. Before we came to know and truly trust in Christ, our lives were some type of crazy movie with alternate endings, but we all died in the end. Once we came to Christ, He told us exactly where we are going, and were are no longer anxious. Our souls are calm because we have that certainty. There is no other person who has been able to tell their followers where they are going because they did not know where they came from or where they were going themselves. That feeling of uncertainty definitely leaves their followers in fear their entire life. However, Christ completes our hope because He IS our salvation and our redeemer. In Christ, the Kingdom of God is no longer a hope, but a promise. God always keeps His promises, so most assuredly, we know where we are going. My spirit and soul rests in that certainty.

If you are yet to find that certainty, or you are in search for perfect completion in your life, please don’t hesitate to email us at faithfulservant@selflessfaith.com.

In John 9:25, after Jesus healed the man who was born blind, and the blind man was vigorously questioned by the Pharisees on the validity of his eye sight being restored. They advised Him to give the glory to God because the man who healed him (Jesus) is a sinner. In John 9:25, the blind man responds, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

One thing is for sure, all though we once were blind as well, all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and have a personal, intimate relationship with him, we are now able to see. No matter what people say against Christ, with various methods to make Him seem that all He has done is not true, or the Bible full of errors amazes me by the amount of ignorance possessed by ‘man‘. We are so quick to accept a history book with information (which constantly proves what the Bible said thousands of years ago), but we reject the true History book that tells us about all creation. It amazes me how the book that is not a history book has so much history in it, and a book that is a history book has barely any history in it. Regardless of the fact, we once were blind and followed the ways of the world. Christ Jesus provided us the Light that our spiritual eyes needed so they may be opened, our chains of slavery to sin sin broken, and our lives to have been healed. No matter what people say, let us be convinced and persuaded, that we will not be separated from the love we have in Christ. Neither death or life can severe, heights or depths can measure the amount of love Christ has for us and the love we have for him. Amen.

Sadly enough, looking in from the outside of the Kingdom of Heaven, often times people get discouraged because they believe the path to Heaven is extremely narrow. They believe Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who died on the cross and bore all of our sins, being the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one comes to the father except through Him is very narrow minded.

John 14:6 reads ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Or that Jesus is the bread of Life

John 6:35 reads “³⁵And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

Or that Jesus is the Light of the world and whoever follows Him shall never walk in darkness.

John 8:12 reads “¹² Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

People who don’t have a relationship with Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Savior believe these to be very narrow and there are other methods and paths to the Kingdom.

However, why would God send His ONLY Son, which He loved, to be sacrificed for us if it wasn’t the ONLY way? If there was another way, God would not have sacrificed His son. John 3:16 reads “¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is very disrespectful to God to say, although Your Son died for us, we will create our own manmade methods to get to your kingdom. What we fail to realize there is nothing spiritual that man can make, and anything physical that we can make over a period of time, God can tear it down in less than a second.

It seems ridiculous that we say the path to the Kingdom of God is too narrow through Christ Jesus. He did not shed his blood, have His loved poured out, only as one potential method only for those who decide to take that path through His name. If there was another way, He would not have gone through all the pain and suffering He went through to redeem us of our sins.

In Matthew 26:39, Jesus went a little farther in the garden at Gethsemane and fell on His face and prayed saying “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus saw the pain, suffering, torture, and horror He was about to endure for the sins of the world, which He had no part in. Even He, Christ Jesus, asked the Father, His Father, if there was any other way and when He received no response, He knew He was the ONLY way.

If we had to sacrifice our life or a life of one of our loved ones to save just one person, and after it was done, it was said well you didn’t have to do it because there are many other ways it could have been done, it would be a total sign of disrespect. That is what we are doing to Jesus when we try to say there are many ways to the Kingdom.

So in actuality, the path to the Kingdom of God is not narrow at all. Through believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our Rock and Redeemer, He makes a wide path for us to walk on. However, it is a very specific path. Many times we confuse the difference between narrow and specific. A few definitions of narrow are: not wide, extremely thin, restricted, limited size or scope, constricted, and tight. Now, the definitions for the word specific are: distinguishing something particular or special or unique and stated explicitly or in details, or simply put “direct.”

Now, with these definitions, God’s instructions to come to Him were very specific, but not narrow at all. If the path was narrow, we would not have the freedom in Christ that we have today. However, it is clearly stated that He is the path to the Kingdom. The direct and only path, however that path is wide with freedom. We are free to be used the way our Lord wants to use us to carry out His will. We are children of God, our Father, waiting for instructions, specific instructions to carry out His will.

Saying the path is narrow is absurd. In retrospect, the path to hell and eternal damnation is much narrower than the path to eternal life. Living in continuous sin without repentance is the narrowest path to eternal damnation. However, that path is not specific at all because Satan uses many tools and falsehoods and lies to cause us to carry out his evil intentions and not trust our Lord.

With the new technology, we have maps and GPS systems to lead us to a specific location or destination, or to locate exactly where we are. However, without the map or the GPS system, we get lost and turn down dark narrow streets or alleys and we are lost and don’t know what to expect at the end of the road.

This is the same with our spiritual lives. Our Bibles are our maps, our GPS systems, to the heart of Christ, to arrive at our eternal destination, the Kingdom of Heaven, to see Jesus face to face, and hand him our resume of how we lived our lives for Him, in His image, so we can hear the sweet words from His mouth:  “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Thank you God for the specific instructions you sent us, your only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and for loving us so much that you sacrificed His life, to redeem us by allowing Him to be crucified on a cross, with arms open WIDE, pouring out His love upon us as He returned home to You. Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness to Your Father, and Your faithfulness to us that you carried out the Will of the Father and died for us although we did not deserve it.