St. Matthew, Chapter 20, verse: 17-18a, Behold: The Prediction of Death.

Our paragraph topic is:  (The third prediction of the passion) Part 1. 

We now begin a new paragraph topic where Christ speaks to his disciples about the future.  He has told them many things in confidence over the past years.  But now he speaks to them about what is going to happen in the future.  He wants them to know.  He wants them to understand.  He wants them to see the plan of the Father.  But they do not understand because they have not yet received the Advocate that will open their eyes to all that he has spoken.

The disciples are followers.  Soon they will become leaders after all that they have learned from Christ.  His journey is coming to an end and theirs is about to begin.  So Christ is preparing his disciples for what is about to happen.  They will be shocked.  They will be terrified at what will happen.  But for now they are being told of the future to come.  And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them,  "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem." 

Behold we are going up to the place where things will happen.  They were going up to the place where all will be revealed, where all will take place, where the end will happen and the beginning will be revealed.  He wanted them to know.  He wanted them to understand what will transpire so that they will understand and not fear.  Christ has taught his disciples through the years.  He has performed miracles, healed the sick, cast out demons, made the lame walk, the blind see, brought back those who were dead.  He completed all these miracles to demonstrate to his disciples that the power of God his Father was with him and that he was the Messiah.

They followed him because they believed.  They knew that he was the Chosen One who had come to save the people.  Yet they did not know how he would save them.  They did not know what had to be done.  They did not know that he would have to die to complete his mission.  And they did not know that he would come back to them from the dead after having been crucified on the cross.

But this was their legacy.  This was their proof.  This was their evidence of who they believed him to be.  We read about this in the witness that has been left for us in the Bible.  We were not witnesses as they were.  We were not there to see with out own eyes, to feel with our own hearts and hands.  Yet we are given this legacy from those who were there, from those who did see, from those who were a part of the truth.  Can we believe?  Can we know?  Can we become a part of their witness, today? 

The truth lies within you.  The proof of who we are has been given us through the legacy left behind by those who were there.  And the witness is that which will come to reside within us.  The Spirit will testify.  The Spirit will enlighten us.  The Spirit will guide, light the way, protect, provide and fill us with the love that comes from the Father.  We are all created in his likeness.  We are all his children.  We all belong to him, if we choose.  We have a choice.  We can choose.  But the proof lies within us if we seek to know.  The truth lies within us if we desire to find.  The truth lies within us if we knock and open the door to the all fulfilling love of the Father.  We are going up to Jerusalem.  Will you come and see?

Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage and then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ. The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.

St Matthew, Chapter 19, verse: 4, The Creator made them male and female.

Our paragraph topic is:  (The question of divorce) Part 2. 

The question of divorce, what does it mean.  By definition divorce means: a judicial declaration dissolving a marriage in whole or in part, especially one that releases the marriage partners from all matrimonial obligations.  Where did this idea of marriage come from?  Where did it originate?  Marriage by definition means: any of the diverse forms of interpersonal union established in various parts of the world to form a familial bond that is recognized legally, religiously, or socially, granting the participating partners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities.

So now we have an established union for marriage and a judicial declaration for divorce.  Christ instructed the Pharisees on this question and it's origin.  He wanted them to understand its origin and why it came to be.  He said to them: ''Have you read , that the Creator from the beginning, made them male and female?" 

From the beginning they were made different.  From the beginning the Creator made us different.  We were conceived in the mind of God our Father as male and female.  For there was a purpose.  There was a cause.  There was a reason for the different vessels that we inhabit.  Our goal, our mission, our existence is based upon what God created us for.  Yet his creation was given free choice, free will, the freedom to change.  And with that freedom came disobedience.  And with disobedience came into the world right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, sin and death.

Our Father made it so, from the beginning.  We decided to make it otherwise through judicial declarations in our own eyes, disregarding the purpose of God.  And so it has been down through the ages.  Why do we marry?  Why do we live together?  What is the purpose of it all?  We are given to believe that this is the norm, this is natural, this is the accepted way.  This is how we are raised from birth.  We are given the thoughts of man, the thoughts of the world and not the thoughts of God, our Father.  We are given the world and all that is within it and not given the spirit and all that awaits us. 

We are spiritual beings living temporarily in the physical form.  Do we know?  Do we understand?  Do we believe who we are?  Science has not told us so.  Education has not taught us how to find the spirit or even, that we have one.  On the contrary our education denies that we are spiritual beings.  Our world teaches us that we are material, flesh and blood, and not of a spiritual nature.  Our world supports the belief of the physical realm and not that of the spiritual.  Yet we exist, we live, and we die  And then we are unsure of our spiritual transformation to the true state of who we are.

But with knowledge we can come to know who we are.  With insight we can understand the true nature of the spirit being of who we are.  With the gift from the Holy Spirit we can begin to awaken from the sleep of the world that has been given to us since our birth.  And with that awakening we see the truth of ourselves and the majesty and glory of God our Father.  For he has given us purpose.  He has given us life.  He has given us the word.  God's plan comes through the knowledge of who we are in Christ.  And with this knowledge can we begin to know the truth of why the Creator made us male and female.  It is not the divorce for any cause but the bonding for a cause.  It is the knowledge of the spirit that eliminates divorce completely and brings us back to the will of God Our Father.  Do you know?  Can you understand?  He made us male and female.  He put us together for a purpose and the spirit, not the world, will guide us according to the will of God.

Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage and then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ. The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.