Focus:
kjv@Revelation:14:12 @ Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
(
FaithOfJesus thread begun by r
RandyP )
Today's Verse:
kjv@Matthew:5:13-16
kjv@Matthew:5:13 @ Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
kjv@Matthew:5:14 @ Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
kjv@Matthew:5:15 @ Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
kjv@Matthew:5:16 @ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Today's notes:Salt of Earth
Context:
- Before - blessed are the
- After - exceeding the righteousness
What is man believing/doing?:
- attempting to generate and be the salt/city/light by their own power/resource
- attempting to have other's praise God for their good works
What is making man to believe/do as he is doing?:
- reliance upon self rather than Spirit, a view that what they have in themselves is essentially/observably good
Notes:
City refers to more than one, several gathered together as one. Salt crystallizes together as one. Light is the prismatic observance of three colors and can either be generated or reflected. Others have lit this candle the candle has not lit itself. The light itself illuminates good works, not good works illuminating themselves.
We have no light of our own, our light is the work of Jesus upon us as a whole; a body. The body is a work by Jesus that we can not do for ourselves by our own resource (to come together as one for this purpose to this extent and be effected spiritually like from no other source) and therefore can be seen by others as a work glorifying to/of God.
The light is the work He performs in/on/through us the body that shows us in a much larger global sense, a unified global sense, a discernible global sense, an ever present global sense.
If we make it to be anything other than what it is, it looses it's worth as salt, it becomes covered or hidden, it becomes much less of a city being on much more common ground, it is then only what we have made for ourselves.
Key Messages:
What does this say about our present condition?
- The fact that not even Christians see themselves in this sense indicates that we are not correctly understanding it nor giving ourselves over to this in a much larger spiritual sense, we are trying to accomplish much less by our own resource individually or denominationally.
- Christians can devote themselves daily to being a light, work side by side daily for years and never know each other to be Christians nor observe from each other good works so extraordinary so as to conjure praise to God.
- Others fully intend not to see the work of the Lord so that not only are they looking for the evidences that we are not His work, they are manufacturing it. For them to actually see and praise God this work of the Lord requires quite the substantial work; which He fully intends to show them.
- By man's resource there will never be a firm conclusion to the longstanding divisive issues of doctrine and dogma and theory amongst believers, there will always be an apprehension of a functional universal body and the ecumenical compromises that would have to be undertaken. God's resource however is that all of this is wrapped up in the body of a person His Son, the closer we are to His Son the closer we are to each other. It is His work then, our submission to, that makes this to be so.
Further Resources:
Comment Board:Matthew:5:13-16
index:FAITHOFJESUSDEVOTION - Devotional Index
strkjv@Matthew:5:13-16 rwp@Matthew:5:13-16 mhcc@Matthew:5:13-16
FaithOfJesus2 - Devotion Index
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