Sorry not had chance to write today's yet. But we have just had a wonderful house group at Gail's.
Just thinking back to yesterday's reading in Matthew. Jesus instructed the disciples to go and preach the gospel, doing signs & wonders. Jesus commission was to make disciples teaching what He taught them. This is one of those things.
Readings: Gen 27:30-29:12; Ps 9:13-20; Prov 2:11-15; Matt 10:21-42
Genesis
28:12-15. Here we see an open heaven & a picture of what a believer's relationship with heaven is like. This is the interaction of what a Christian who walks closely with God can enjoy, a two way exchange. When we pray & ask God to act this give us an idea of how the interaction works, where God sends His angels to carry out certain tasks.
Jesus made it clear in John 1:51 that He is the access to heaven. He is the means by which heaven comes down to us and by which we can go to heaven. He is the “ladder.”
16-17. It is possible to be in the presence of God & not know it. There are many times during a service that I experience the Lord's presence & yet others don't seem to. This is why we need to live a life of holiness, so that we are in tune with God.
He also uses the word 'place' something which I actually have a real problem with our use of to describe church. The church is a living organism, made up of individuals & not a church building. The use by Jacob indicates that he thought the location was significant in experiencing God's presence, rather than being able to experience the presence of God wherever we are.
Jacob describes what he has seen as the gate of heaven. Gates are very significant (including a mention of gates of death in Ps 9) they were very often where a city would congregate & speak of a place of access both in & out. Our minds can be seen as being gates & we are the guardian of the gates. If we allow certain things to enter our minds we give authority for them to be there. This is how the devil can bring influence into our lives, because we have allowed him access through the gate of our mind.
Matthew
Jesus here teaches us that God is the most important person in our life. This will sometimes be at the expense of the desires, thoughts, opinions of other people - no matter how close they are to us. We should fear God alone, for only He can destroy our souls. When He becomes our priority order starts to appear in our lives (and lots of really good stuff too!) BUT this can bring division, however this is right as we stand for the truth revealed in Him.
v32-33. Jesus says that He will not accept secret disciples. Further more when we think of what the opposite of deny is, affirm, confess, uphold etc - this is what we expect Jesus to do before the Father so to deny Him means that He will deny us.
I think that this is more than admitting we are Christians, but is actually doing the things He has asked us to do. As we have seen throughout Matthew, this is declaring the full gospel, including healing the sick, casting out demons.
When we say that these things do not happen today, we deny the full nature of Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today & forever.
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