Category: Matthew

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day four)

As Jesus came down from the mountain, He was met by a humble leper.  The leper demonstrated some unusual qualities.  Whatever Jesus chose to do, this leper was willing to accept.  Sounds like three other men in Scripture…Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael.  These three friends of Daniel’s were going to be thrown into a fiery furnace unless they bowed to worship king Nebuchadnezzar’s gods.  In Daniel 3:17-18, these men said, “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, …but even if He does not, let it be known to you O king, that we are not going to serve your gods…”

Do we have such faith?  Are we willing to follow Christ, even if we don’t get what we want?  Do we demand the ‘correct’ answer to our prayers?  May our faith match that of Daniel’s friends and of this leper…whatever your will is, Lord, I accept it!

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day three)

“Go, show yourself to the priest.”

Your body is intricately connected to your spiritual well-being. This must be affirmed, especially against the tendency to think that valuing the “inside” means devaluing the “outside”. Such reasoning is disastrous. When the body is thought of as having little value, people will violate others’ bodies with abandon. The resulting pain in the human race is staggering: body-image issues which devastate a person, human trafficking, abuses of power, unchecked disease, and more. God values the body so much that one day he will raise it from the dead. Accordingly, Jesus told the man whose body he healed that the only way to understand his healing and to nurture his body is to steward it within the community of those who will help him remember how fearfully and wonderfully he is made.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day two) 

 And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Make no mistake, Jesus came to change the world. This insurgency, however, was not going to be hung up on a gospel of miracles. The true miracle is a surrendered heart that is ready to worship Jesus regardless of what would happen next. Jesus sends this healed man to worship as was the custom. Yes it was incredible. Yes it was a miracle, but Jesus was more concerned with a heart ready to continue in the faith and serve as the Spirit will lead. Is this your testimony.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (day seven)

How fitting that we begin Advent with the story of Jesus’ temptation? O Come, O Come Emmanuel. God with us. This month we celebrate the arrival of our Savior. We will celebrate His miraculous birth with images of the Christ Child, a sweet little Baby lying in a manger. This is the reason for the season! Our passage this week shows us this Incarnation in a different image. God not only came to be with us but came to be like us. Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” The virgin birth is only the beginning of the story. Jesus was born fully man, fully God with the anticipation that He would overcome sin and death, so that He could become our bridge to the Father. This was the plan of Salvation. This is the reason for the season!

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (six)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15

Jesus faced the full arsenal of the accuser. He knows what it is like to be weak and tempted in every respect as we are. More than any other, this story highlights for us Jesus’ humanity, and thus His sympathy towards us. While he had every ability and opportunity to overcome his weakness through His divine power, He endured the accuser in His humanity so He could identify with us in our weakness.

This has a profound result, even though Jesus is without sin, the Bible says He is able to sympathize with us in our weakness. This means as we face temptation we have a safe place to go for help without fear of condescension or condemnation, but instead we receive what we need, mercy and grace.

Jesus will not reject us in our weakness; He’s been there, he knows what it is like. We have a sympathetic savior.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (day five). 

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”  Three times in this passage Jesus answers, “It is written”.  When do you suppose Jesus first heard or read these words from Deuteronomy?  How many times do you think He read and reviewed them?  In His culture and religious context, we know He started when He was a young child being taught the scriptures. And that He reviewed them regularly.

2 Lessons:
1) God knows the future. He will bring to your attention and heart the scriptures you will need for spiritual growth and  strength.

2) Scripture absolutely does what it says it can do- BATTLE SIN- “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.”

PREPARE & EQUIP BELIEVERS– “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;”

2 Applications: 
1) Parents/Grandparents, whatever the age of your children start now helping them read, speak, and hear scripture regularly.

2) Adults/Teenagers/Older Children, make time in the scriptures (reading, speaking, and learning) a priority.  They will be more valuable to you than you could ever know.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (day four)

Today is Thanksgiving!  It is a day in our nation when families gather and usually share a meal together.  And this is not just any meal…it is generally a feast of major proportions.  It is difficult for us to comprehend what Jesus must have felt after 40 days of fasting and then becoming hungry.  [Esau was willing to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew after only a few days of hunting.]  Humanly speaking, Jesus was at a very vulnerable time for temptation.

Satan is a formidable enemy.  He knows when and where we are the weakest in dealing with temptation.  We may be at a spiritually high, mountain top spiritual moment and we don’t even recognize the temptation…and think we are invincible spiritually.  Or, we may be at our lowest spiritual moment when we have what seems to be no hope at all.  Exhausted, busy, trying to make a good impression…wherever our weak point is, that is where Satan will strike.

When temptation comes, claim 1 Corinthians 10:13.  If Jesus lives in you…you can resist the temptation!

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (day three)

“Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

Living in this world means wrestling with your capacity to do as you will. If you act as you please, what of others? If you act for the good of others, what of you? You don’t need the devil for that back-and-forth. What the devil does bring to the struggle, though, is support. You could use an ally. The devil’s called an adversary, but that role often manifests against the human race writ large. For you, though—well, for you the devil will be the one that agrees with you, the one that gets you, the one that tells you it’s time you get heard. Why do you even need God, then? That’s the very question scripture empowered our Lord to counter. May it so empower us.

Re:Verse passage – Matthew 4:1-11 (day two)

And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. vs 2

There is so much about this passage that speaks to me. As if we needed further proof that Jesus was fully human, Matthew records his hunger. Food will play an integral part of Jesus ministry, but in this passage we see that he is understandably weakened by a lack of nourishment. This is also a beautiful picture of Jesus being an example for us. Before beginning his earthly ministry Jesus sets a pattern of intimacy with the Father for us to follow. Before any endeavor we must seek his face, his blessing, and his guidance.