The Identity of Jesus

As we have studied through the Gospel According to Luke, we have seen that Jesus had been with his disciples for a while and they have seen many amazing things: healings, exorcisms, miraculous supply of bread and meat, and a storm commanded to stop.  All of these beg the question, “Who is this guy?”

In Luke 9:18-27 we have a section where Jesus tests his disciples to see what conclusions they have made about him.  They obviously think he is worth following, but Jesus wants them to answer the question of his identity.

Jesus Wants Us To Know Him

It is easy to think of God as a being that keeps hidden and doesn’t want us to know Him.  He is invisible, which questions if He is really there, and He is seemingly silent.  Of course, the Bible contends that God has often “shown” Himself to man and often “spoken” to man.  However, He doesn’t do so all the time and especially not at the command of a person.  Yet, here we see the actions of Jesus letting us know that God really does want us to know Him.  As Francis Schaeffer has stated, He is here and He is not silent.  Like any good teacher, Jesus has let their experiences and his teachings stew within his students.  Now it is time to stir up the pot with the question we find in verse 18, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

The word on the street was that Jesus might be John the Baptist come back to life.  Of course for those who were familiar with John’s ministry, this is ludicrous.  John actually baptized Jesus and told his followers that Jesus was the One that he was preparing them for.  He clearly proclaimed Jesus as Messiah to his followers.  Another idea was that Jesus was Elijah.  This guess comes from the book of Malachi where there is a prophecy that states Elijah will come before the Day of the Lord.  The last guess is more of a catch-all.  Jesus may be one of the other prophets come back to life.  All of these are merely speculations of those who are clearly not intimately connected to these circumstances as the disciples were.  Thus they take on the look of a conspiracy theory.  The problem with conspiracy theories is that there is no end to the speculations that can occur.  Even when there is no conspiracy, you can still make up several like a person imaginatively writing a novel.  Who can know the difference?  If a person stands up and says, that is not true because I was there.  The person with the conspiracy theory only needs to accuse them of being part of the conspiracy.  Thus we are left either paralyzed, not knowing what to believe, or grasping at ideas that have nothing to do with the truth.

Jesus next presses the point home.  “But who do you say that I am?”  This is the more important question that Jesus is leading up to.  Peter is the bold one of the group and so he speaks what is most likely the belief of all of them, except perhaps Judas. “You are the Christ of God.”  We will touch on this more in a moment.  But for now let us recognize that those who were closest to Jesus believed that he was the Messiah that they had been waiting for.  They knew the speculations of the crowd fell far short of who Jesus was.

It is interesting that Jesus forbids them to proclaim this publically.  Why wouldn’t Jesus want to be publically proclaimed as Messiah?  Doesn’t he want people to know who he is?  Yes he does.  But he is not running for the office of Messiah.  He is not trying to get elected to a position.  The Messiah or Christ was not chosen by people, but chosen by God.  So the people needed to come to this conclusion on their own, rather than pressured by Jesus or by his disciples.  Also, Jesus knew that if he proclaimed himself Messiah, the religious leaders would quickly arrest him and have him killed.  So this delay gives him more time to minister throughout Israel and let people see for themselves who he was.  Jesus relied more upon the Spirit of God speaking to people’s heart about who he was then him telling them.  This would be more authentic and not manipulated.  We must notice that after his death and resurrection, Jesus commands his disciples to now proclaim publically who he was.  Of course He would be absent having ascended into heaven.  Yet, the Holy Spirit would be working in the hearts of people to help them receive it.  Why some receive the witness of the Holy Spirit and others reject it is a mystery that we may never completely understand.

Who Is He?

So who is Jesus?  Peter declared him to be the Christ (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew) of God.  These terms literally mean “Anointed One.”  They point to the prophecies in the Bible of a man who would be chosen by God and anointed with power by Him in order to restore righteousness within the government, society, and individuals.  This Anointed One would also put down those in rebellion against the God of heaven.  This wasn’t just within Israel.  God’s Anointed One would bring salvation and Judgment to the Gentiles as well and thus would become King over all the earth.  Now the other gospels record this as well.  However, they also reveal that Peter’s answer was longer than Luke records.

In Matthew 16:16 Peter also says that Jesus is the “Son of the Living God.”  Now there is no conspiracy here.  Maybe Luke’s source only remembered the first part.  These testimonies of what Peter said do not conflict.  One is just longer than the other, or more detailed.  So Peter also saw that Jesus was not just a man.  He saw him as divine.  He is called son because his body was the miraculous creation of the Spirit of God within Mary.  She conceived without ever being with a man.  This is just as impossible as it is for dirt to come together and form Adam.  Both are direct creations of God.  So Jesus as a man is the direct creation of God or the Son of God.  Of course, in His divinity he is not created.  John makes this clear in his Gospel- John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  He goes on to declare that the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus.  So he is more than a man chosen by God and anointed by him.  But even more, he is a man inhabited by the Word, and second person of the Triune God.

Jesus clearly commends Peter for this answer.  He was correct.  However, he was missing a critical component to the identity of Jesus.  Yes, he is all those amazing things.  The type of person that we would all want on our team and yet look at the response of Jesus in Luke 9:22.  Jesus was also the one destined to be rejected.  In the way of the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah, Jesus was also supposed to be rejected (You may want to read Isaiah 52-53 for further background on this.)  He would suffer many things at the hands of the elders and then he would be put to death.  Like a cornerstone that had been perfectly shaped and sent to the builders, Jesus presented himself to Israel and the leaders rejected him.  “We will not build with this stone,” they say back to God.  Yet, God would vindicate Jesus by raising him up on the 3^rd day.

Will You Follow This Man?

This third part of his identity is important.  Everyone wants to embrace Jesus on the first two points.  But who wants a hero who not only is killed, but asks you to pick up a cross and follow him?  It seems foolish to many.  Jesus knew that if he didn’t bring this up now they would have trouble receiving it later.  So he spends some time walking them through the issues of what it means to believe in him and to follow him as a disciple in verses 23-27.

In verse 23 he points out that to follow him will require denying your own desires.  The cross is an implement of death.  Thus dying would be a critical part of following Jesus.  I don’t have time to flesh this out completely.  Let’s just say, we may not always be put to death physically for following Jesus.  However, at every point that my flesh and this world tempt me to leave Jesus, I must die to that desire to leave him in order to stay with Jesus.  Whom will you choose?  When you madly lust after someone to whom you are not married and it pulls you to commit sexual sin, whom do you choose, Jesus or sin?  When Jesus says, “Forgive,” but your heart says, “No way,” whom will you follow?  When you are told that you need to follow a 21^st century Jesus, i.e. the new and improved Jesus who is not so offensive, whom will you follow, Jesus or Jesus+? 

Jesus then adds in verse 24 the issue of self-preservation.  Sometimes we refuse to die to sin because we lust so strongly for it.  However, other times we refuse to die because we are afraid to die.  Though Jesus doesn’t use the word courage here, I am going to apply it.  It will take courage to follow Jesus.  Self preservation may save your body, but it can get you spiritually killed.  Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  But, rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”  If I save my body, I have only done so for a few years.  Even if my actions of walking away from Jesus gains me 40, 50, or 60 more years, then I will stand before God and give account for having walked away from Jesus.  Such small amount of years in this body will seem so trivial in light of eternity.  It takes courage to face both physical death and emotionally dying to those sins that seek to pull us away from Jesus.  Jesus knew his disciples would need such courage.  We must give up the goal and direction of our life for Christ.  Notice in verse 24 the words, “for me.”  We are not called to just whimsically give up things or even totally deny ourselves any pleasures.  But, precisely where following Jesus clashes with my desires or society’s desires that is where I need to die.  You cannot hold on to two conflicting desires.  You will either follow Jesus or, like Judas, pretend you are following him, or you will merely walk away from him.

In verse 25 Jesus moves it up another notch.  Before, he dealt with self preservation, which only gains one’s physical life.  But here he posits being able to gain the whole world.  Being on top of the heap financially, musically, religiously, politically, in business, or among your friends, can all be temptations that pull us away from Christ.  All of these things can take your soul to hell if you let them pull you away from the directives of Jesus.  Jesus is not against accomplishments.  In fact there are great people who have chosen to follow Jesus.  But how many sell out Christ because they think it will help them get what they want?  Countless millions.  Whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord because without him our accomplishments are hollow and will not be worth it in the end.  We have to hold accomplishments in this world very lightly.   We have to be ready to let them go in order to follow Christ.  We have to guard our hearts so that they are not riddled with lusts that will keep up from Jesus.

Lastly, it requires refusing to be ashamed of Jesus before this world.  If we refuse to stand with Jesus before men, then He will refuse to stand for us before His Father.  When Jesus is crucified the disciples figuratively throw down their crosses and run.  They are scared.  Peter even denies Jesus to a young servant girl, he is so afraid.  Yet, this verse is not about a onetime thing.  After the resurrection the Spirit of God filled these men and enabled them to give the good witness and stand with Jesus even to the point of physical death.  They stood with Christ in the end and that is what matters. 

Today there are many, in the Church, who are ashamed of Christ and the Words in the Bible.  They may not say so, but they demonstrate it when they try to redefine Jesus and reinterpret the Bible.  They thus build a different Jesus, an idol.  What say you?  Are you going to follow the modern golden calves being created across this world?  Or, will you follow this man who is Chosen by God, Anointed with power to save and Judge, and is rejected by the majority of this world?

The True Jesus: His Mission

Last week, in the temptations of Jesus, we saw the defensive side of what it takes to be led by the Spirit, or walk with God.  The believer must resist and stand strong against temptations.  Today we will look at the offensive side, which focuses on what we need to do with all our heart, mind, and strength.  Let’s go to Luke chapter 4 verse 14.

He Was Led To Teach

Most of the time that Jesus taught was in northern Israel around the Sea of Galilee.  This was due to the fact that it was far enough away from the religious leaders in Jerusalem to furnish a relative amount of freedom.

One thing that sticks out in verse 14 is that Jesus came forth from the time of temptation in the “power of the Spirit.”  This is clearly an additional comment that brings up the connection between temptation and spiritual power.  To resist temptation is to embrace the power of listening to the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does not become any more powerful, but our yielding to Him allows the power of His guidance to flow through us.  God wants us to be filled with the Spirit and to resist temptation so that we may be empowered by the Spirit.  Whether we do miracles as Jesus did is immaterial.  God gives His gifts in varying amounts and disperses them throughout the body.  So that, no one person has all His gifts.  However, we can all be a powerful witness of Jesus.

Jesus did teach and, though Luke doesn’t mention it at first, verse 23 shows that he was doing miracles as well.  Luke focuses more on the fact that Jesus was initially received by everyone except those in His hometown of Nazareth.  I will come back to this issue later, but recognize that even when God is operating for good, we can be envious of what He has done for others.

Now before we get into the nitty gritty of the rejection in this passage, we should recognize that Nazareth’s rejection of Jesus is only a small picture of the Jesus being rejected by Israel as a nation.  Thus, at the beginning of His ministry we see his hometown rejecting Him and thus all the other cities in the area being blessed by Him.  Similarly as Jesus is rejected by Israel as a nation, the gospel of Jesus goes out to the nations of the world and they are blessed instead.  This pattern follows Jesus to this day.  Do not be enamored when crowds and multitudes crowd to hear about and follow Jesus.  For in time as they are challenged by the Truth of Jesus many will fall away.  If the Truth of Jesus is taught it will eventually be resisted by the majority.

He Reveals His True Mission

When Jesus comes to Nazareth, the stories of what he has been doing have preceded Him.  Thus when he arrives he is given a seat of honor and asked to read the Scriptures at the Synagogue.  Jesus turns to a specific passage, Isaiah 61, and reads several verses.  Then He sits down and says, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  I’m sure that went over like a ton of bricks, but let’s analyze this. 

Isaiah 61 is a prophecy that seems to be saying that God has anointed Isaiah to give Israel good news.  The good news is that God is going to help them rebuild the ruins of Israel.  Also, there is a promise that God will demonstrate His righteousness among the nations and Israel will be exalted.  As in any prophecy, the question is who, when, where….etc.  Jesus is saying that this passage was about what He was doing that very day.  He is saying that He is that anointed one who will help Israel rebuild the ruins and exalt the righteousness of God among the Gentiles.

Now notice what the anointing or power of the Holy Spirit is for in this passage.  Israel had become so spiritually damaged by sin that they were impoverished, brokenhearted, captive, blind, and oppressed.  Jesus had come to deliver them from these things.  We must recognize in this beautiful passage the ugliness of what sin does to a people.  In fact the teaching in our own country that people are basically good is an extremely evil one.  It tells us that we should basically follow our “good” inner inklings, which in the end lead us to a place of spiritual poverty. 

Jesus had come to give good news to the poor.  Now those who are materially poor are definitely in a position to be open to the gospel.  The rich don’t need God and aren’t interested.  But a poor person knows full well that they have great need.  Yet, being materially poor is no guarantee that a person will truly hear and take to heart the “Good News” that Jesus is giving us.  The gospel can only be received by those who are poor in spirit.  They have tried clamoring after the things of the world and found them to be elusive.  Some are opened by this to Jesus, but some refuse to be softened and broken in these times and only become harder.  Sometimes our problem is not that we are materially poor, but that we are not “poor” enough.  When we drop our pride, bitterness, anger, and the hunger for wealth, our spirit is able to receive the good news of the gospel.  If you are lacking in wealth and material possessions today, then go all the way and become poor in spirit.  God has great news for you in the person of Jesus.

Jesus came to heal broken hearts.  Now we use the picture of a broken heart to refer to being wounded by those we love.  Our hearts are not just wounded, however.  They also become dysfunctional.  We refuse to embrace some things that are good and desire other things that are bad.  Instead of a heart that is singularly fixed on God, ours becomes shattered into a thousand competing lusts and we are left without peace.  The greatest healing of all is to have our dysfunctional hearts touched by the Truth of Jesus.

Jesus also came to free the captives.  Though Israel was technically in their own land, they were under the tyranny of Rome.  However, Jesus didn’t come to free them from Rome.  Thus He did not see Rome as their captor or oppressor.  Their true captor and oppressor was the devil.  Through their sins he had bound them in bondage and kept their hearts captive to lusts.  They were unable to break free from the hold of sins on their heart and the penalty of their sins.

Jesus came to give sight to the blind.  They have not only become blind to their sin, but also to the Truth of God’s Word.  They were unable to receive the insights and comfort that God had given them through the prophets who had come before.  They couldn’t even see that they had become poor, captive and blind.  This is similar to the words of Jesus to the Church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, “You say, ‘I am rich, and have need of nothing.’  You do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.”  How we need to stop finding hope in everything but God’s Word.  If you are saying, “But I’ve tried God’s Word and it doesn’t help,” beware.  This is only proof that you have become blind to what it is truly saying.

If you compare what Jesus read in Luke to the Isaiah 61 passage you will see that he stops in mid-sentence.  Jesus had come to proclaim the year of God’s favor, but not the day of vengeance of our God.  That would come later.  In fact the “Day of the Lord” for this whole world looms on the horizon.  Recognize that when Jesus comes back he will finish this sentence.  But for them it was to be a time of God’s grace.  Jesus had come to offer sinners a way to freedom.

Rejected By His Own

Now in verses 23 through 30 we have the details of the rejection of Jesus.  Now it is the lot of Jesus to be quickly received only to be later rejected.  In one church service Jesus goes from the honored seat sharing the Holy Scriptures the whole lot of them trying to kill him.  We must guard against this tendency of our flesh in our own hearts.

Jesus was rejected because he laid bare what was in their hearts.  Jesus is not content to just be welcomed into your life.  His job and mission is to show you the true condition of your heart and soul.  Now, none of us are perfect and we get pretty testy when we think another impure person is trying to point out our sins, much less the hidden things deep in our hearts.  But in Jesus we have one who has never sinned and knows those hidden things.  This extreme vulnerability is a very scary place to be found.  However, at the cross God proved His heart towards you.  You can trust Him.  If he exposes your heart, it is not in order to hurt you or take advantage of you.  But, rather, it is so that he can heal you.

There is no one for Jesus to pat on the back in this picture.  All of them, all of us, need saving from sin.  Now the hearts of the people of Nazareth thought that they deserved some miracles.  Do here what you are doing in other places.  Jesus gives them the examples of Elijah and Elisha.  Both of these prophets did powerful miracles.  However, in two cases they did so not for Israelites, but for gentiles.  Why?  Jesus begins to poke and prod.  It was because of unbelief in Israel.  Thus Jesus did not do many miracles in Nazareth over the course of His 3 ½ year ministry because of the unbelief in the heart of the people there.  “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  They said to themselves.  This hardness walled them off from the miracles of Jesus, but it couldn’t wall them off from His grace.  Jesus comes and speaks the truth in love to His hometown.  If they could only hear and see and believe. 

This crowd did not need miracles.  They needed faith in Jesus.  They become so made that they want to kill him that day.  They crowd around him and lead him out to a cliff to throw him off of it.  Now, in light of the temptations, Jesus could have jumped off to prove that he is the messiah.  But instead Luke says that he turned and walked right through the middle of them.  They are paralyzed by the Spirit of God and impotent before the Son of God.  This was their miracle.  The miracle of watching God do what He will over the top of all the power and pomp of mankind.

May God give us all the ability to humble ourselves before Him and receive the grace of His Son Jesus.

MIssion of Jesus Audio

The Holy Spirit in Salvation

Over the next several weeks we are going to be looking at what the Bible tells us about the Holy Spirit.  Today our focus will be on the Holy Spirit’s work to bring people to salvation.

Before we go into that, however, I would first point out that the Holy Spirit should not be something that is scary to us.  The phrase itself is intended to get across the point that “this” Spirit is different from other spirits.  It is holy in that it is unique and set apart.  But it is also pure, clean and good in its motives and activity.  Thus, of all spirits that exist both human and otherwise, this Spirit is the pure clean and good one.  Thus we can trust the Holy Spirit to have pure motives and to only be working on God’s behalf.

Next, the Holy Spirit is not a force.  Scripture uses personal pronouns of the Holy Spirit and clearly depicts Him as being a person.  I am using that word not as a human being, but rather as something that has conscious being and conscious activity. 

Now let’s begin in John 16:5-11 to get a feel for the Spirit’s work in bringing people to salvation.

Click to read more ...

Living Honorably In This World

Generally, we talk about honor only when we are referencing the military.  However, in 1 Peter 2:11-12 all Christians are called to live honorable lives.  What is honor?  At the root of honor is the concept of value.  We ought to live in a way that is good and valuable to society, regardless of whether that value is recognized.  To have honor in a dishonorable society is a unique pickle.  True honor is not defined by what the crowd values.  It is inherently valuable and “ought” to be valued by all men.

It is precisely this situation that Peter talks to in this passage.

Living Honorably Begins With The Inner Battle

Verse 11 points out that there is a battle that goes on inside of each believer.  God is not interested in people who appear to have value, like a kind of “fool’s gold.”  Rather, he wants our outward honor to come from battles that have been won inside.  If we try to act honorable without having fought those inner battles we will not have true honor, nor will our conduct truly make a difference.  It will eventually implode because it lacks foundation, and we all know that foundations are valuable.

First he calls them “beloved.”  This is important because in verses 9 and 10 he had reminded them of the book of Hosea.  They were like the adulterous Gomer that had sold herself into slavery to follow her adulteries.  Yet, Hosea, who represents God, had purchased her back to himself from the auction block.  Imagine that guys or gals.  What if you had to go buy your wife or husband back because they had purposefully sold themselves into prostitution?  Would you do it?  God has done that for us.  Those who were not loved through Jesus now become “Loved.”  You are loved by God and therefore should be loved by his people.  You have been given a place in his family.  Like a concerned older brother, Peter “begs” them to fight this inner battle.  He is coming alongside them and urging them towards the good and warning them against the bad.  No matter how this inner battle goes, we need to always keep in mind that if we have believed in Jesus then we are God’s beloved.

Next he reminds them that they are foreigners and strangers.  If you follow Jesus and fight this inner battle then you are going to stick out as strange in the cultures of this world.  Like any foreigner living in a foreign land we can forget our heritage and be assimilated.  Though this is not evil in the natural sense, it is bad spiritually.  In a world that is not fighting the “inner battle,” we stick out when we do.  It can be easy to give up and be assimilated.

So what exactly is this war?  Peter says that the lusts, or strong desires, that are based in our fleshly bodies war against our soul.  Did you ever think that your 5 senses are being used by your lusts to fight against your soul?  What would you be willing to sell your soul for?  What is your price?  The faith in Jesus that resides in your soul is hated by the lusts of the flesh.  Like a little baby that is used to getting its way, it screams and fights for control.  But unlike a little baby, the lusts of the flesh are able to kill faith and destroy our soul.  Jesus said in Luke 21:19 that when we are going through trying times we can take possession of our soul by being patient.  Trusting God in the fire and knowing that he will bring you through; waiting on God beside the Red Sea and knowing that he has a plan of deliverance; these are the things that are the valuables of our soul.

Peter says that they need to abstain from the lusts.  Literally, we should create a separation between us and them.  This tactical maneuver is meant to protect our faith and not lose our soul.  Joseph does this literally when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him.  In our lives we have many outward temptations, but they are working through inner lusts.  If a computer is a temptation to let sexual lusts take over then what are some means that we can do to abstain and separate ourselves from that temptation?  Lust always tells us that “Jesus isn’t enough.”  It tells you that you need something that God says you don’t.  Or, that you don’t need something that God says you do.  Boiling it all down, it is the same argument as Satan used in the Garden with Eve.  Leave God behind and satisfy yourself.

Let me remind you of the gospel, good news, of Jesus Christ.  Before you ever get to doing something good for God, you already have all that you need in Jesus.  When you put your faith in Jesus and follow him, you have all wisdom, power, joy, love, hope, and anything else that you will ever need.  Jesus is the wisdom of God, the power of God, the joy of God, the love of God, etc…  To have Jesus is to have everything you will ever need.  This simple truth can be forgotten by those who fall to temptation.  But it can also be forgotten by those who fight against it.  God does not love you because you have conquered temptation so well.  Nor does he despise you because you have done so poorly this week.  God completely love you, before you ever do anything in this battle.  He loves you because you have believed on His Son whom he sent.  The problem is not solved so much by doing more as it is by believing more.  Don’t let the lie of lust cause you to doubt these truths.  And, don’t let successes in this battle cause you to fall to the lust of pride.   Simply trust God.  When you fight them you are protecting what you already have between Him and you.

Living Honorably Moves to Conduct And Action

Honorable conduct is that which is morally good and brings glory to God.  Of course we need an unchanging means to measure the goodness of our conduct.  Society cannot be a good judge of what is good because society is always changing.  God has given us his sure word so that we can always know what is honorable no matter what society we are in.

Honorable conduct must always be lived out in the midst of those who are not honorable and are lost.  Peter refers to the Gentiles.  Literally this is all the nations and people.  In that day none of these nations and people knew God.  They were all lost.  We have to live out God’s morality before people who are plunging madly ahead into pleasing the lusts of their flesh.  This is not easy.  In fact we will be often rejected.  That is what Peter means when he says that some “speak against you as evildoers.”  They may call you bigots, haters, ignorant, Judgmental, Intolerant, Out-of-touch, etc. but we are to continue living out what is good.  Why?  It really is valuable, honorable.  They really do need us to live for God before them.  They really do need to see it and rub up against us in their lives.  It is the only way they are going to have any hope.  It is not important that this world embrace us.  But it is important that they observe us living out what is good before them.

Peter reminds them of a coming “day of visitation.”  The day of visitation is a reference to a biblical concept that from time to time God inserts himself into a person’s life, or a nation’s affairs.  When he does it is an opportunity for grace and mercy.  If we receive him and follow him we will find miraculous grace.  But if we reject him we find ourselves handed over to judgment.  This is precisely what happened to Israel when Jesus came.  Those who embraced him found grace and the miraculous activity of God.  But those who rejected him went on to experience the judgment of God as they were handed over to the effects of their rebellious hearts.  If we have lived out the truth before the lost, they have a chance to believe in the day of visitation.  There will be something within them that remembers that strange person who lived differently because of Jesus.  They may be saved.

Food For Thought

We don’t appreciate good things until they are taken away.  Don’t let the rejection of today cause you to quit fighting the inner battles and living honorably.  You won’t win any accolades of this world, but you will make a big impact in some one’s life.  Those who speak ill of you today, may come knocking at your door tomorrow.  Will you help them or be offended?  God help us to work for Him and not ourselves.

Lastly let me just say, God is faithful to visit individuals and nations at His appointed times.  We need to be faithful knowing that God is faithful.  America has had several visitation by God and I don’t know if we have another one coming.  But it is our job to be faith because no matter what, this world is headed for the biggest visitation of them all—the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Maranatha!

Living Honorably audio