St Matthew, Chapter 17, verse: 26, Tribute to the kings of the earth: The Payment.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Paying the Temple tax) Part 4.   

Simon Peter was questioned by the tax collectors about the didrachma and he was angry.  The question opened a wound.  The question made him see red.  The question made him see the injustice of the system and it did not sit well with him.  For many years Simon did not like how the tax collection system was administered and he wanted to do something about it.  But Christ wanted to teach him a lesson.  Christ wanted to show him how to overcome the anger.  He wanted Peter to learn not to let the injustices of the world cause him to open the door to anger, to frustration, to hatred, and not to give evil a foothold into his heart.  

Christ saw how Peter was disturbed.  He knew the turmoil in his heart.  He felt the anger and the frustration in Peter so he wanted to help him to understand how to accept it.  Christ sought to question Simon on the injustice.  He sought to show Simon how to overcome.  And he sought to demonstrate to Simon the trust that he must have in the father to overcome all injustices.  So Christ sent Simon fishing.  He gave him a task that would bring him peace, a task that would take away the pain of injustice and bring calm into his mind and soul. 

Simon was a fisherman and that was the one thing that he knew.  And Christ sent him to fish that he might believe in the providence of God.  He told Simon:  But that we may not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up.  And opening its mouth thou wilt find a stater; take that and give it to them for me and for thee."

What can we learn today from this lesson that Christ gave Simon then?  Simon was disturbed by this injustice.  This injustice had been with him for years and each experience made him feel worse.  He wanted to react.  He wanted to do something.  He wanted to find some solution.  We face the same situations today.  There are many things that would disturb us.  There are injustices that we face that would make us angry, disturb us, frustrate us, make us want to take action into our own hands to find a solution.  But God is our father and it is his to resolve, his to deal with, his to exact wrath and punishment.

How then do we find resolution?  How then do we cope with what we face daily?  How then do we allow ourselves to have peace with the pain and horror in the world?  Christ sent Peter fishing.  He gave him something to do to past the time until the issue would be resolved.  He gave Simon a task that would give him the time to trust in God's justice.  He gave Simon a task that would allow him the opportunity to practice patience.  And so it is with us today.  God's rule will prevail.  God's justice will be upheld and the wrath of God will be exacted upon those who practice injustice.  We must trust in God to fulfill his promise.  We must have faith in God's will for us that we do not open the door to the evil of hatred, fear, frustration, anger, and all manner of wrongs that are against the will of the father.

Christ gave us a commandment that we should love one another as he has loved us.  For we are all created in the image and likeness of our father.  We all have the spiritual life given to us by our father and it is that life within us that is most precious.  For our father loves each and every one of us and if we understood the love that he has for us we would know the truth of who we are in him.  That knowledge of love brings a peace that is not of this world and that peace is the joy of who we are in him.  Let not your peace be disturbed.  Let not your joy be overturned that you loose the inner peace that comes with the truth of who you are. 

For God so loved the world that he sent his only son that we would have life eternal in him.  And it is that precious gift of life that we must strive to protect from the destruction that comes through the open door of the injustices of this world.  Hatred, fear, frustration, anger, all are intended to disturb the peace that Christ has given us through the father.  Practice Perfect Patience and you will know the justice of God.  Practice Perfect Patience and you will see the miracles of the father.  Practice Perfect Patience and you will know the love of the father that will fill your heart and soul completely.  Be at peace.  Be with love.  See the truth of the light of the life that Christ has given you and you will see your brothers and sisters as they truly are in you.  Come!  Follow the path before you.  The truth is before you.  Seek it.  Follow it.  Find it and you will know.  Christ loves you.  The Holy Spirit awaits you.  God the Father be with you. 

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 16, verse: 22, The Future of the Church: the first member wavers.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Passion and resurrection foretold) Part 2.   

Simon Peter was the first member of the Church.  Simon Peter was given the knowledge of Christ's origin.  Simon Peter was given the revelation.  And Simon Peter was under attack by evil because evil wanted to prevent the church from taking hold here on this rock, this earth.  For Christ had willed that his church would be established and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  Yet the gates of hell and evil itself would make every effort to tear it down, to undermine it's efforts, to bring scandal, to discredit the the true nature of its creator, and to do anything it can to turn man against Christ.

Christ was the teacher.  It was his mission to teach his disciples.  He had to give them the wisdom to withstand what was coming before them.  He had to provide them with the understanding to see the truth of what would happen to him.  He had to show them how all was predestined and written about him before he came to earth.  And he had to prepare them for the future of their mission after his mission was complete.  They did not know.  They did not yet understand.  They did not fully comprehend the teachings that he gave them but they would take them to heart. 

And the first member of the church, Simon Peter, was under attack.  He heard what was being said.  He felt the agony of what would happen.  He knew the truth of the consequences of the forthcoming storm and he was afraid.  He was under attack and his heart was opened to allow fear to come in.  And with that fear came evil.  For evil took possession of him.  Evil controlled him and made him fear.  And evil moved him to action.   And Peter taking him aside, began to chide him, saying, "Far be it from thee,O Lord; this will never happen to thee."

Peter was the first member of the church and today there are many.  The church is in us.  The church is beside us.  The church is through us and with us in our daily lives.  But are we with the church?  Are we true members of the church?  Do we belong to the church as the church belongs to us?  We perform our weekly duties by going to Sunday service.  We pray.  We perform our ritual and prescribed duties, but does that make us true members?  For we live in a world that turns us away from the church.  We live in a world that would have us not believe in the truth of the church.  We work, sleep, cry, love, play, and have all our waking hours in a place that would turn us away from the kingdom of heaven. 

Simon Peter was under attack and he took Christ aside and told him that it would not happen.  He told Christ that he could not believe that these things would happen to him.  Yet he did not know that he was at war with the world.  Peter did not understand then, that evil was around him and influenced him to act.  The times since then and the times now have not changed.  The church is at war.  We the members of the church are at war with evil and the war starts with each of us individually.  How we think, how we act, how we believe, how we work, how we play, how we love, how we see, and most of all how we open our hearts are subject to the war we wage with evil. 

For it is through the heart that evil finds passage.  It is in the heart that evil wants to reside.  It is with the heart that evil wants to possess that it may create evildoers for its work.  Guard your heart from the tricks and traps of the world, for they are many and subtle.  Close the door of your heart to those things that would compels you to love.  And protect your heart with the truth that comes from and through Christ, our savior.  For with him and through him and by him, we are transformed into the children that our father created.  We are the light of the world and the light from the Holy Spirit should resides in us.  Do you know?  Can you see?  Christ told us how to be certain.  Open the door of your heart and invite him in.  He will come and reside with you.  Follow the path set before you and know the truth of who you are in Christ. 

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 16, verse: 18, The Rock: The Church.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Peter's confession) Part 6.   

And to Simon was given the truth from heaven.  For not by his own understanding did he come to know the truth.  By the revelation of God the Father himself, did Simon come to know, did Simon come to speak, did Simon come to believe with certainty that Jesus was the Christ, Son of the Living God.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that mankind would be saved from destruction and damnation.  For Christ came to redeem man from the sin of Adam and to do something more.  He came to establish his kingdom here on earth, on this rock.

The disciples did not know.  They followed Jesus because they felt that there was something different about him.  They followed him because they saw the miracles that he performed.  They followed him because they believed that they would be a part of something greater than themselves and their own accomplishments.  They followed him because they saw for themselves what the crowds felt as he preached and taught a new way of life, different from that which was taught by the Pharisees and the Saducees.  They followed and the crowds followed because Christ was the light of the world.  But there was more. 

This was not just a one time thing; Christ came, he overcame, and he left.  Christ came to do more than just preach and teach.  He came to train and to establish.  He came to build and to create.  He came to dominate that no one and nothing would destroy what he was creating and building, the church.  And so he spoke, that his church would be created.  He commanded that it would be done.  He willed that the evil of hell would not overcome what he was creating.  And so it was and is today.   "And I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

And so it began some two thousand years ago that Christ established his church here on this rock.  Nowhere else did he come except to this rock the earth to build his church that would last down through the ages and for eternity.  He will come again to judge, to separate the goats and the sheep, the wheat from the tare, the good from the evil.  Only the father knows the date and the time.  Only the father will be the judge.  Only the father will call an end to all things as we know it.  We all have heard the predictions.  We all have been warned as to the final outcome.  Are we prepared to meet our maker?  Are we ready to meet death, right now?

The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.  The gates of hell shall not overcome the power of what Christ began.  The gates of hell shall not destroy what Christ created for you and for me.  He gave us a place to grow.  He gave us a place to thrive.  He gave us fertile soil to be nurtured in, a place to be fruitful.  He gave us the seed that is planted within us.  He gave us new life that we may live.  He gives us joy, the knowledge that he is with us.  He gives us protection from the dangers of the world and the evil that awaits us.  He gives us love that guides us and fills us with the knowledge that he is the one sent down from heaven by our Father and our God.  We have a living God who is alive and not dead.  We have a living God that will come to our aid if we open our hearts to him.  We have a living God in the church that is with us, in the church that is in us, in the church that is a part of us.   

Come!  Open your hearts to the love of Christ and accept the church that you are a part of.  Receive the Holy Spirit that you may know the truth of who you are in Christ.  I have and I know who I am in Christ.  I see me everyday in him.  I know me everyday in him.  And the Holy Spirit abides with me.  Follow the path set before you and you too will know the truth of who you are.

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 16, verse:16, The Rock: What Simon says.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Peter's confession) Part 4.   

He asked what the people thought and they answered, a great man, a great prophet.  He asked what the disciples thought and there were no answers.  Not James, not John,  not Mathew, not Bartholomew, not one of the disciples had an answer to his question as to who they thought that he was.  Not one, except Simon Peter.  For Simon spoke what was feared to be spoken.  Simon spoke what was feared to be blasphemy.  Simon spoke where the others would not speak.  But they did not know.

They questioned what type of man he was.  They questioned how he was able to do miracles.  They questioned the power that he had over demons and spirits.  They questioned his knowledge of spiritual matters.  But they did not dare speak who he was.  They did not dare proclaim who he was because of the fear of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  For it was punishable by death from stoning to commit blasphemy.  And they were fearful of what might happen to them if they proclaimed that Christ was the Messiah.  Yet Simon Peter made the statement.  Simon Peter overcame the fear.  Simon Peter spoke what was feared by the others and called Christ the Son of the Living God.  Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

And the truth was spoken.  Was Simon right?  Who do we say that he is, today?  In these modern times, most would say that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  But do we believe that, do we know that there is a Living God?  We know that we have to or should go to church each Sunday.  We know that we should prey.  We know that we should not commit sin, but do we not?  For what we know is of the world and what we do not know is of the spirit and of the truth. 

How do you know for sure who you are.  You are flesh and blood.  You are emotions, desires, wants, needs, you are you.  And the you that is you is provided for in the world.  But the you that is you outside of the world is not known.  The you that is you in the spirit is not seen.  The you that is you of the truth of the light of Christ is hidden for you to find.  Will you seek it.  You can find it if you desire to know.  Christ came to give life that we may have it more abundantly.  Yet most, only have life in the physical and not life in the spiritual. 

We see the physical.  We believe in the world.  We know the world is where we live, sleep, eat, play, pray, and die.  And we are consumed of the world that keeps us occupied with the things of the world.  Yet we are spiritual beings in a physical body, a knowledge that most do not believe or know.  And we were created in the image and likeness of our father, the Living God. And Christ came that the life that was given us before the fall of Adam could be restored to those who believe, to those who wanted, to those who sought, to those who know.  Simon says he was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Does he live in you?

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!