“The Rich and the Kingdom of God

¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?

¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honour your father and mother.’^[a]”

²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

²⁴ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is^[b]to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:17-27 NIV)

“Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!  You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.”" (Acts 8:20-21 NIV)

Thought:

Let’s face it we want more! Is there anyone who thinks that they will be happy with less money not many. But as this story illustrates what really is the point. We think we will be happy by winning the lottery or getting a raise.  That hole inside us will be filled if we just have more money.  But will there ever be enough to fill the hole no.  You can’t put a square peg in to a round hole.  You can’t fill a hole left by God with more money only God can fill the hole. No matter how much money you accumulate you can’t take it with you when it is your turn for your body to die. No matter how much money you have you can’t buy a relationship with God or salvation.  But if you choose to accept God’s Gift of Love the hole in you will be filled and when your body dies you can take that gift with you. It will take you to the feet of Jesus.  This Season lets accept the gift that is worth more than gold. Let’s accept God’s Gift of Love.

“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.^[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture.” (John 10:9 NIV)

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5 NIV)

 Thought:  

Salvation isn’t given to the person who does the most good deeds because then we would be trying to earn it and we can’t. Salvation is a gift for the taking because we can’t earn it. No matter what we do, how many hours a day we spend helping others. There is always a way we could have done more and sometimes instead we chose to do something selfish OOPs! See you are not good enough.  We cannot make up for the sin in our lives. There is only one way to get salvation, by believing in Jesus and accepting His gift of life, through His love and mercy.  This Christmas season do your best for others but know that you can’t fix everything. You will not do everything perfectly and that is ok.  With God’s Gift of Love we are forgiven for our mistakes; you don’t have to be perfect. Jesus has already paid the price.

“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe

he Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NIV)

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. (Deuteronomy 5:6-8)

Thought: 

OK I know for some people this is a contentious issue but I am sorry to say there is only one way to Heaven.  It is not Brahman, not Nature Gods, not Ahura Mazda, not The Tao,  not Mahavrira,  not Buddha, and  not Allah, these are created deities they are not the one and only God. We are to worship only the Creator God. There is only one God and one way to Salvation.  You have the right to believe anything you want but only God and His gift of His Son dying in our place will get us to heaven, the rest ore just attempts at avoiding the truth, satan’s way of trying to keep us from the truth.  Sorry if this upsets you but all you have to do is look at the facts to see the truth.  There is more proof the Bible is true than any other ancient document I suggest you spend so time researching it.  You can find the facts in books by Josh Mcdowell or  Lee Strobel, to name two, both men set out to prove the Bible wrong only to find it has to be right. They are now strong believers. This Christmas let’s celebrate, the one and only God, and His Gift of Love, at Christmas, His one and only Son  who became a man to die in our place. Thank You God!!!

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,

who gave Himself a ransom for all …” (1Timothy 2:5)

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.(John 14:27)

Thought:

This is supposed to be a season of Peace but often it is so hectic, stressful and crazy that peace gets lost.  God’s gift to you is Peace look to Him and watch as the stresses of Life fade and the joy of the season take their place. His peace is eternal and you can rest in it as the world goes crazy.  I’m not saying that your circumstances will change, although they might, but your attitude towards they will. May God’s “Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance..” (Jude1:2) this Christmas season and Remember God’s Gift of Love:

“For God So Loved The World That He Gave Is One And Only Son”

So we can be Redeemed and Forgiven by Grace, becoming His Children,

filled with His Spirit, Well and at Peace

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

Thought:

Are you hurting? Jesus understands whatever your pain is and He was willing to suffer so you wouldn’t have to.  Jesus is willing to dry you tears, strengthen you and bare your pain for you and with His wounds He will heal you.  Turn to Him and He will help you through. Remember God’s Gift of Love:

“For God So Loved The World That He Gave Is One And Only Son”

So we can be Redeemed and Forgiven by Grace, becoming His Children,

filled with His Spirit, Well

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. “ (Colossians 1:13-14)

Thought

Okay, we have talked about redemption, the fact that God gave us His Son Jesus to die in our place this a GREAT part of God`s gift of love but it is only a part.  What else did we receive in this incredible Gift? For one we received Forgiveness.  What is Forgiveness? Is there a difference between Forgiveness and Redemption? Yes there is a difference Redemption means the price has been paid as I have said Forgiveness means (brace yourself for this because it is so exciting) that our sins are gone.   That is right folks GONE!!!!!!  The only way for them to be wiped away is if someone dies, blood must be shed and Jesus did it for us, in our place (Hebrews 9:22), So They are not just put aside for a while and then brought up again when we do something else wrong just to remind us of how awful we are.  No they are gone.  The slate is wiped clean (Psalm 103:12 Romans 4:7, Hebrews 8:12) All we have to do is confess them to God and He wipes them away (1 John 1:9) WOW!!!!!!

This Advent season, others will do things that upset us, when they do let’s remember God’s Gift of Love for us and show them that love by treating them the way God treats us, by forgiving them (Colossians 3:13 ) Remember  God’s Gift of Love:

“For God So Loved The World That He Gave Is One And Only Son”

So we can be Redeemed and Forgiven

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

WOW!!!  This is the Second Sunday of Advent and we will be lighting the second candle to remind us of The best Christmas Gift ever!!! God’s Gift of Love: He Gave His One and Only Son. God only has one son and yet He loves us so much that He gave His Son for us.  What does this mean?  It sounds so bazaar. Could someone actually love me so much? Why would He do it? What for? Why did He need to?

It all started, not surprisingly, at the beginning. God created a perfect world each detail thought through and worked out He wanted to create people like Himself, perfect, and have a relationship with them ( Genesis 1-2) but relationship doesn’t happen if one side has no choice.  So God arranged for us to have a choice. He places a tree in His perfect world and told the people they could have anything they wanted in the garden except the fruit of that tree.   If they ate of it they would sin and that would cause them to die and our relationship with God would also end.  I’m sorry to say that they chose to eat the fruit instead of the relationship with God (Genesis 3) this meant that the perfect world was gone and sin reigned. The sin that the first people committed brought sin and death on us all (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23) But God didn’t give up on us He still loved us and wanted a relationship with us. He had already worked out plan B.  A Plan to turn things around again, He gave the most incredible Christmas Present, God’s Gift of Love: He Gave His One and Only Son

The sin in the world made it so that we had to die, God sent His Son to die in our place (Romans 5:8) He redeemed us by paying the price for us so we wouldn’t have to (John 15:13). But that isn’t the whole story Jesus God’s Son arose from dead and is alive today, He concurred death (1Peter 3:18). With the Price paid we can again choose to have a relationship with God (Romans 8:1).   But that isn’t all we received when God sent His Son and we will look at some of the other parts of this amazing gift this week.

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent and we light the Second candle to remind us of

God’s Gift of Love: He Gave His One and Only Son

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thought:

This amazing gift of love is so powerful that we will never be away from it.  As this verse says nothing and no one can separate us from His love. It will always be with us no one can separate us from it: not unbelieving family members, oppressive governments, distance or satan.  Not even a crazy Christmas schedule. The gift of God’s love is ours and no one and nothing can take it from us

For God So Loves the World

John 3:16 (NIV)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

This is the First Sunday of Advent, this season we will be looking at God’s Gift of Love We will do that by looking at one of the most well known Bible Verses of all time John 3:16. Each week we will look at a different phrase from the verse and what it means to us this season.

The first phrase is For God so loved the world. So that is what we will look at this week. SO how does God love us? Yes He did send His Son but we will look at that next week when we get to that phrase. This week we will look at the kind of love God gives us. There are so many different kinds of love, what is God’s love really like? Do you know? Have you really experienced it? or have the hurts of human “love” kept you from seeing the amazing love of a perfect God? Do you see love as fleeting or eternal, burdensome or light, does it come with pain or peace, fear or freedom? What is true love from the source of Love, the God who is love? The God who created love? The God who gives the gift of love.

God’s Love is a HUGE Love – I have spent a lot of time with Children over the years. And have heard them ask the question that all of us would like to ask of the people we love but are often afraid to, “How much do you love me?” Of Course it is also a question we fear being asked because we often don’t know how to put it into words. What I have often heard as the answer they give is, to spread their arms wide and say this much and then use their outstretched arms to give the youngster a big hug. How much does God love us? The bible says “Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies (Psalm 36:5). This is a whole lot more than just stretched out arms. God’s love for us is so big that it cannot be contained on this earth but fills the whole universe. God’s love for us is limitless. I pray that God will reveal His huge love to you and your family this Christmas season I pray that you will experience God’s Gift of Love!

Thank You God for loving us beyond limits, beyond reason and understanding.

Today is the First Sunday of Advent and we light the first candle to remind us

For God So Loves the World

My favourite time of the year is almost here. Advent starts next Sunday November 27^th. I love Advent because the time before Christmas is such a hectic time with so much happening – parties, Christmas concerts and pageants to get to, gifts to buy, and people to visit – that somehow the reason for the season gets forgotten and the Greatest gift of all gets left lost in the shuffle. A few years ago, as some of you know, I started a website as a gift to my friends and family, as well as myself, to help me focus on Christ at Christmas. This is His Birthday we are celebrating and I would hate for Him to miss out.

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My Website is called “Into God’s light” to remind us to move towards the light God shines to show us the way to Him. There are a few things on it that may interest you. The first is a Devotion or thought for the day. They are short and don’t take much of your time but I hope they will help you to look to God as you deal with this often crazy time for wisdom and peace. Each day starting next Sunday a devotion will appear on the site. If you are interested you can subscribe at the top right hand margin, this will mean that you will get the devotions emailed to you each day so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to look at them. Don’t worry your email address will not be sold or used by anyone else.   Your privacy is important to me and I to hate spam. I would not do that to you.

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Also in the right margin are some other things that I think you might like. First is the Meaning of Advent. I know that Advent is a Church tradition that is quickly disappearing as churches seek less tradition but this is one I believe should be kept. For the reason I mentioned in at the beginning of this message. This means that few people know what it is anymore. This will give you a basic understanding of the season.

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Next is How to make an Advent Wreath so you can have your own and light the candles on the Sundays of Advent as well as throughout the week whenever you choose. Then comes Past Devotions so if you do not feel that this year’s devotion topic is the one you want to use for yourself or your family feel free to choose another set. Next comes Christmas Stories and Poems one for each day of Advent ( please be warned some of them require tissues). I included a Christmas Eve and Christmas day Service for you in case you don’t have a church to go to or your church is not able to have one or to do on top of what your church does. They can be done in a group or on your own. You might want to look at them in advance because there is a small amount of prep you will need to do for them beforehand. Then just for fun I added some Recipes and the Flylady Holiday Control Journal in case you need help getting organized this season.

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I hope you will enjoy my site and that it will help you focus on the reason for the season “the Greatest Gift of all”.  Feel free to pass this information on to anyone you think will be interested. The website address is www.intogodslight.com and you can leave me comments by clicking on “comments” on the website. Thanks for your time.  I know how little of it you all have this at this time of year and I appreciate you spending some of it on my site

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May God bless you all, this Advent Season.

Lynda