Ӝ Meditations on Jesus’ Exposition of Kingdom/Gospel Life (Matt. 5-7)

Matthew 6:24-34

- Matthew 6:28-30

The literary images which Jesus uses in this passage are so rich with foundational truth.  When describing the caring ways of the Father to his disciples, Jesus points to one of the most transient of His creations: a flower.  He explains that even the care of this minute part of creation - that flowers such as the lily grow and are clothed in glory - is a direct work of the Father.  The Father is personally responsible for the growth and beauty of the flowers of the field.  Yet, the grass withers and the flower fades; “when the wind has passed over it, it is no more” (Psalm 103:16a). It says again in Isaiah, “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass” (Isaiah 40:6b-7).  I see two main concepts in this imagery.

First and most important, the Father is really serious about caring for His creation; “He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:15b).  And more than He is the master Gardener who sees to the health of the smallest and weakest living thing, He is the perfect Father who never fails in always providing for the needs of His children and whose desire it is that they  grow in His abundant life and are clothed in the beautiful glory He has given to them.  This is His glorious purpose for the one creature He calls Beloved, to whom He imparted His very life source, His being, into their existence; they were made to breathe him in and breathe him out; yes, even be in Him.  And He purposed in His good pleasure, according to the counsel of His will that their spirits would be the place of His rest.  Those who allow worry to infect their thinking and influence their actions do not see the Father as He really is and, therefore, do not understand what His purpose is in them, what His position is towards them.

Second, I believe another reality Jesus is displaying by using the image of a flower is the transience of human life here on earth.  Not only does it contradict the reality of God’s Fatherhood to worry, it also works directly against God’s design for mankind.  Jesus is challenging the perverted way of thinking that recognizes needs as the justification for worry.  He is saying that worry is a form of perversion to which we succumb when we are not living in the light of divine reality.  Needs should not inspire selfishness and the frantic struggle to survive; in fact, they are the indicators of our utter reliance upon the Father, not only for physical things but for everything.  And in the light of that complete dependence we rejoice, for just as we are utterly dependent, poor in spirit, we are fully believing in His faithfulness to give us the Kingdom because the truth is that “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (1 Peter 1:3). So, reality is in Jesus; in order to live in truth you have to abide in Jesus.  Those who are outside of truth, living in the system of darkness spend all of their days declining in the wrath of God, finishing their years like a sigh (Psalm 90:9).  Their lives are ravaged by worry and every other kind of demonic presence because they are enslaved to a government of sin.  Jesus is calling people out of that system and into the Kingdom of His rule, identifying those patterns of thoughts - worry in this case - which are altogether foreign and contradictory to the Divine rule of heaven.

Death is dead

To many, death is when the earthly body ceases to live.  But really death is an absence of the Spirit, so that even when a body lives it is dead without the Spirit.  The redeemed of God have been made one Spirit with the Lord (1 Cor 6:17), we have been completely freed from death.  Death is so nonexistent to the believer that Jesus refers to it in a contradiction.  Jesus says in John 11:25, "he who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."  In Christ, death is exposed as a fraud.

The Lord is teaching me that giving myself fully to stewarding the Spirit and delving into the mysteries he unveils and cultivating the life he gives is not a short-lived burst of energy; it is not a chaotic scramble to reach this final place of maturity to operate from for the rest of my life.  Thank the Lord for maturity and growth in the Spirit, but this is a lifelong journey.  Those exhortations of Paul to make melody in your heart to the Lord, to pray in the Spirit and rejoice at all times are practices that you will never outgrow; for your union with the Spirit is not for some kind of personal end, but it is the very purpose of your existence, the very intention of God's design when he created you in his own image.  So seek his face.  

To see King Jesus and accept him as he is and not as I or another man or group of men want him or make him out to be.

No place I would rather be than here in perfect love, captivated not by myth but by reality's Creator.

Don't ever forget, son, that it is only what I think about you that matters in the end.  ~  The Father

There He Sits

As men all but forget beautiful purity, trampling her into the mud with the soles of corrupted minds filled with vain philosophies and demonically inspired thoughts; as women look for freedom in dark caves, for liberty in cages; as youth shrivel the substance of their souls with the mindless drivel of entertainment, young men sacrificing their manhood for pleasure's opposite and young women sacrificing their womanhood for the same; as kings and dictators and rulers refuse to do homage to the Son, the creator of all power and authority; as the poor and the needy bear the brunt of injustice, the product of an unbridled, undead selfishness; as men forsake their normal functions and women forsake theirs; as the whole mass of humanity forsakes goodness and even calls it evil; as it embraces evil and even calls it goodness; and as it stumbles toward the brink of chaos drunk on the wine of immorality, He sees.  No thing is hidden from His fiery sight.  And every pair of eyes will one day gaze into His as He peers into the the very center of selfhood, unearthing the beat of each heart.  That moment is mere seconds from being what we call the present, when eternity in all its terror bears down on human spirits.  Are you ready?  Don't be swept away in a flash flood of filth.  But always be beholding the throne; and the One who sits upon it.  

Mexico Trip Summary

Below is the letter that I sent out to all those who supported me in my mission trip to Mexico.  Enjoy!

Hello All!

What an exciting trip!  My time in Mexico was one of the best experiences of my life!  God, as always, far exceeded my expectations.  I thank Him for sending me with such a great group of people (my church youth group), and introducing me to some awesome missionaries in Mexico. He did mighty works through us all.

First off, to any supporters who read my blog, I want to thank you once again for your generous giving both in prayer and in finances.  Because you decided to give, I was able to take advantage of this opportunity to impact the people of Mexico with the Gospel.  Lives were most definitely transformed and impacted (including my own), which should be of no surprise to us since our God is always making old things new and restoring that which is broken.

Restoration and transformation were definitely the main themes of our ministry times.  And it began the very first night we were there.  After settling in to the houses of the missionaries we were staying with and spending half an hour in prayer, we drove in an 18 passenger van and a couple of suburbans (which were our modes of transportation for the rest of the week) to a local church.  The worship was full of energy and power (even though I could only understand a few words :) and we saw people healed of pain in the neck and other areas. Then after a timely message by my youth pastor, we were able to lay hands on the local members of the church and see them impacted by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Afterwards we spent another forty-five minutes or so praising the Lord in song and dance as the Spirit was preparing us for an awesome week.

Every day of the week in Mexico was filled with rich times of fellowship with each other and with the Holy Spirit.  And one day that sticks out in my mind as one I won’t ever forget is the workday.  The workday was an entire day dedicated to doing practical jobs on a church building located in one of the poorest areas of Guadalajara, Mexico.  These jobs included everything from taking parts of the roof off to painting large interior sections of the building to mixing and laying by hand 450 square feet of cement 3 inches deep on the second floor.  After all the work was done, I was completely worn, but extremely satisfied with everyone’s efforts to get everything done.  There’s something about physical labor that gives you a unique sense of satisfaction, especially when you’ve completely drained yourself in the process.

Now it’s critical you understand that when I say that every single day of my week in Mexico was awesome, I’m being completely serious.  But there are those moments amidst those days that stand out among the rest as personal favorites, the workday being one of those moments for me.  Another favorite moment of mine was the opportunity I had to preach at one of our meetings.  I won’t deny that there was a sense of nervousness beforehand as I prepared speak, but I also acknowledge the peace and the rest the Lord gave me in it, and the confidence that I had in Him to bring forth what He wanted to say through me.  A lot of times our fear of something (which could be speaking in front of people) is an outflow of our lack of trust in the Lord’s goodness and our ignorance of His unstoppable desire to glorify Himself through us.  And He did just that.  The message went smoothly overall (with the exception of a few misspoken phrases and a couple of translating problems which we all laughed at afterwards :), but most importantly, God moved mightily in the time of worship afterwards, and the Holy Spirit ministered to people in some awesome ways.

The final special moment about which I want to write to you occurred on our final night of ministry.  On that night, after hitting the streets and inviting people from the local villages to the service, the team gathered near the front to pray.  We really felt like we achieved some breakthrough in prayer and were encouraged to see God move during the rest of the service; and He did.  After worship we laid hands on people with arthritis, back pain, and hearing deficiencies and saw them healed.  We saw a girl’s leg grow to its right length and we saw arches grow on feet that had none.  Talk about an increase of faith!  I was far beyond excited, I was overflowing with joy and thankfulness.  My heart cried, “There is no word I will honor above Yours, Jesus.  You commanded us to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, and cleanse lepers (Matthew 10:1), and now I’m seeing these things happen before my eyes.  I’ve always professed healing to be true but now my theory has become a reality.  How can I ever not believe again?”

I hope these stories have moved and encouraged you.  I’m excited about the work of the Holy Spirit continuing in my life and in yours.  And I thank you once again, for your support.  I pray that God would bless you, keep you, and cause His face to shine down upon you.  That He would reveal Himself to you from day to day and that you would be conscious of His presence at all times.

Grace and Peace,

Thomas

The Lord is my light and my salvation.  Whom shall I fear?  Not tribulation; not hunger, thirst nor any kind of want; not the future; not the past; not the present; not pain nor death; and certainly not man.  The Lord is my light, my vision; I see life by His light and I am guided by it daily.  He is also my salvation.  My heart, my soul, my mind, my strength, and everything I am is bound up in my covenant that He has made with me.  I don't have confidence in anything else for the salvation of my soul: nothing else delivers me from evil; only He snatches me from the clay, from the grave, from Sheol itself, and plants my feet solidly on the rock that is higher.  I shall not be moved.  Whom then shall I fear?

The Beauty of Purity

The Lord loves purity, and for many reasons.  One that comes immediately to mind is that purity is a direct expression of his nature and his reality: the one who is pure is not tossed about or affected by the trends and fads - the winds this world blows and their varying temperatures; but instead he is timeless.  Immovable.  The very voice of love, hope, faith, joy, and peace

He is unstained, unhindered, by the perverted indoctrination of those who are bent on practicing evil.  Instead, he brings eternity into time with his very being - with every expression of his alive-ness.  He has a doctrine of life; but it is more than a doctrine: it is a way of life.  It is, in fact, the Way of life; and it encompasses him; it constitutes his existence.  So, one could say he is a doctrine of life.

Yes, he is timeless; but he is simultaneously within time.  He is not distant or far off in the future - impersonal and unreal. Instead, he is more in this moment than any one person who is trapped in time can be.  And yet he is not in this moment per se: he cannot fully be contained in one moment or expressed in it; but it is his coming to terms with the immortality of his soul that causes him to be simultaneously fully here and fully there - there referring to the fullness of God's Kingdom: the fulfillment of God's dreams (that they would be with me where I am).  Therefore, he lives unbound by time's chains, and yet he does not undervalue time.  In fact, he redeems time, making it beautiful, colorful, and creative.  He bends time to his Father's will; for he is a steward of all that his Father has given to him.


Yes, he is immovable in His faith; and he is a mover of others towards good works. In his immovability he is like the oak: his massive roots penetrate deep into the soil, and his trunk is the very picture of strength.  His spirit is deeply entrenched in the person of God.  He is always exploring God's mind and contemplating and meditating on God's thoughts and desires, slowly making them his own, integrating them into the patterns of his thought, into the tendencies of his heart.  He moves others in that he spurs others on towards good works of the Spirit.  He sees God's gifts in others and exhorts them to develop that which they have been given.

His words drip life; in this way he is the voice of all that is good. His words produce abundant fruit in the lives of others; and they resonate within the pure in heart.  The pure one gives voice to the yearnings and longings of the Spirit; for he is always conversing with Him - always listening for the slightest of whispers.  He has forsaken all other voices; he listens and rests in only that which his Father speaks; and he reveals what he hears to the broken around Him, bringing the warmth of joy to their downcast hearts.  He is truly a deep drink for all who find themselves desperately thirsty.  And even as he is surrounded on all sides by overfed, piggish souls and neglected spirits, his words divide soul and spirit, and refresh and renew the spirit, restoring its health and injecting it with an abundance of life.  This raising up of dead spirits of man reflects the tremendous beauty that the pure one carries within him; his words of resurrection give us a perfect image of the richness of his heart; for out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth speaks.

Yes, this one - this pure one - has a quality of otherworldliness that is simultaneously refreshing and disconcerting.  Refreshing in that it gives life to the deepest part of one's being; it reveals God on new levels and in new dimensions.  And disconcerting in that it confronts everything within us that is not of that same unstained quality and calls us to a deeper and more intimate abiding in the love of the Father - free from sins chains and free to follow and be fascinated with the God-man, King, Messiah, and Friend, Jesus the Christ.

He's Been SO Good to Me

No natural circumstance will, in any way, taint that which I hear the Spirit speak, nor will it altogether hinder me from hearing what He says.

The Martyrs

"...for they loved not their life even unto death." (Revelation 12:11b)

Here are two excerpts from the book Jesus Freaks Vol II.

"I Forgive You"  Abbot Iscu

Romania, 1951

"Abbot Iscu lay quietly awaiting death in the Tirgul-Ocna prison as a result of the tortures he had endured at the hands of his Communist captors.  He spoke very little and looked serene as he felt heaven draw closer.  If he did speak, his words carried the weight of eternity, and all attention in the cellblock suddenly focused to listen to him.  Yet each breath he took revealed the pain that wracked his body.

Across from him, horrified at the sight of the abbot, lay another prisoner near death.  He was once a Communist officer, and it was at his hands that the abbot had been tortured to the point of death.  He had been a faithful Communist, and for this he now shared the cell of those he had been told to make "recant the Christian superstition" for the sake of the party.  As a result of something none of the other prisoners ever learned, he had been imprisoned as well and tortured by his own comrades.

Though he, too, was at the point of death, he could find no peace in death.  He awoke in the middle of the night in a heavy sweat and grabbed the arm of the person nearest him.  He knew most in that cellblock were Christians, so he begged prayer.  "I have committed horrible crimes.  I can find no rest.  Help me, please"

Because of the damp cold and never really knowing when it was day or night, many in the cell were still awake.  At the Communist torturer's words, Abbott Iscu motioned for two other believers to come and help him.  With their help, he was lifted from his bed and brought over to the officer, where he was set down on his bedside.  The abbot the abbot reached out and laid a comforting hand on his torturer's head.  "You were young and did not know what you were doing.  I forgive you and love you, as do all the other Christians you mistreated.  And if we sinners who have been saved by Jesus can love like this, how much more is He himself ready to erase all the evil you have done, to cleanse you fully.  Only repent."

So in that common cell, others heard the confession of a murderer to one of the men he had murdered.  they also heard the murdered absolving his murderer.  They embraced at the end of their prayers and gave each other a holy kiss, as was the custom of Christians in Jesus' time as well as behind the Iron Curtain.  

They both died that night and must have entered heaven together.  It was Christmas Eve."

"My Heart Seemed Too Narrow to Contain His Joy"  A Japanese Prisoner and Others

Japan, 1622

A Christian in Omura wrote the following in a letter from prison:

"Oh, if you taste the delights with which God fills the souls of those who serve Him, and suffer for Him, how would you condemn all that the world would promise!  I now begin to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, since for His love I am in prison, where I suffer much.

But I assure you, that when I am fainting with hunger, God has fortified me by His sweet consolations, so that I have looked upon myself as well recompensed for His service.  And though I were yet to pass many years in prison, the time would appear short, through the extreme desire which I fell of suffering for Him, who even here so repays our labors.
Besides other sickness, I have been afflicted with a continual fever a hundred days without any remedies or proper nourishment.  Yet, all this time my heart was so full of joy that it seemed to me too narrow to contain it.  I have never felt any equal to it."

Later, when he heard that he would be burned alive, he overflowed with joy.  He constantly expressed his gratitude to God, for he felt himself unworthy of dying as a martyr for Jesus.

On September 2, he was taken with twenty-four others to Nagasaqui, where, only shortly before, fifty Christians had been executed for their faith.  When they arrived near the city, they were taken to twenty-five stakes that were all in a row and tied to them.  The wood had been set all around them with the farthest extremity about eight meters away.  When the wood was lit at this point, it took about two hours for it to burn to those tied to the poles.  The Christians stood all this time with their eyes toward heaven until the flames finally took them.

"We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ, but also in the wonderful comfort he gives.  We suffer in the hope that you will be comforted and saved.  And because we are comforted, you will also be comforted, as you patiently endure suffering like ours.  You never disappoint us.  You suffered as much as we did, and we know that you will be comforted as we were."  (2 Corinthians 1:5-7)

I desire to be fully separated from the world and its systems and wholly abandoned to God and His wisdom.

Derivation: Hebrews 11:26

The reproach of Christ is to me greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.

Derivation: Hebrews 11:5

Lord, I ask that my testimony would be that I please you.

You Know Me - Steffany Frizzell

This song is amazing!  I'm not positive, but I'm almost certain the lyrics are based on and are a beautiful expression of Psalm 139.  I encourage you to read Psalm 139 either before or after you listen to the song.

I Love Laughing at Myself

"IF WE ALL GET TO HEAVEN!...er...wait...is it when?  Oh!  WHEN we all get to heaven."  *hysterically laugh at myself*

Messing up can be a good thing if you get a good laugh out of it.

Purity Part 1

God finds great delight in those who refuse to be covered in the dirt and filth of this world and have determined to live set apart, godly lives in the midst of a perverse generation.  He searches for those whose hearts are exclusively committed to him and the furthering of his Kingdom: he takes great pleasure in the purity of their heart, he savors their worship and loves to bless them (Psalm 24:4-5); for he knows that through them his life can flow untainted into the dying world all around; he knows that they can be trusted with the burdens of his heart; he knows that they will remain set apart, forsaking the world and its wisdom and presenting their bodies as holy sacrifices unto God (Romans 12:1).  God is jealous for the pure in heart.

Nevertheless, though he desires purity - total separation from the world and its systems, and total abandon to God and his wisdom - above all else, the workers, the harvesters, remain few.  For purity is no longer something that is desired by God’s people - desired enough to be pursued at the cost of their lives, anyway. The church has become like the harlot to whom Israel is so often compared in the Old Testament: we have ignored this New Covenant that God has made with us and have chased after worldly pleasures.  


Where are the men of God?  Where are those who would rather lose their life than be stained with sin?  They are trapped within a cage created by their own self-indulgences.  All that remains is a shadow of what was - sin has destroyed everything else that had any worth.

The Helper

"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you." (John 16:7)

What an amazing statement, and one whose reality and weight is so often overlooked; and if not overlooked, never really applied in the personal lives of people.  How different would we be if we allowed the truth of this statement and its pertaining reality to the Spirit-filled people of God to conquer our doubts and fears; if we allowed the Holy Spirit - the Helper - to be fully Himself within us, expressing God's love and manifest presence to the people around us?  What changes would be made if we were to grasp both mentally and spiritually this certainty, that as we walk in our neighborhoods and other public places, the actual Spirit of God lives within us (in full measure) and wants to come out of us  through our speech and the way we do life and into the needy, broken lives of people around us?

The truth: we have divine power and presence which abides on the inside.

The current reality: we don't fully believe in Jesus' statement, that it was better for Him to go away so that the Spirit might come. We don't fully understand as we should our purpose in this life and the person (the Holy Spirit) who indwells us to help us accomplish that purpose.  And we are so wrapped up in our own affairs, that the yearnings of God's heart are not important to us: we go days and maybe weeks without acknowledging their existence, and we certainly do not let them break us or move us.

Don't be fooled.  It is no mistake that the church today has only a vague, impersonal knowledge of that which it possesses.  The enemy is ever vigilant to cloud the understanding Christ's bride.  But you should not be deceived by his wiles: recognize your identity as a son/warrior/messenger of the Lord, and bring and establish the Kingdom wherever you go.