St. Matthew, Chapter 22, verses: 36; The Great Commandment.

Our paragraph topic is:  (The great commandment) Part 3.

Time and time again they came to question his knowledge of the Law.  They could not believe that he had a complete grasp of the Law.  They did not know him.  Their colleagues did not know him.  No one had studied with him.  So how was it that he knew the Law?  How is it that he knew the Torah, the ins and outs, the intricacies of what had taken others years of study to comprehend.  They had to test him.  They had to prove him a fake, a charlatan.

Yet he came to teach the people in simple ways the love of God.  He came to walk and talk to them.  He came to show compassion and mercy to those who were in pain and sorrow.  He came to give relief to the lost and to open the minds and hearts of all who would hear him and believe in his message that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.   But they questioned him saying: "Master, which is the great commandment in the Law? "

What is the great commandment in the Law?  Is it thou shalt not steal?  Is it thou shalt not kill?  Is it thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife?  Or is it thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul?  There shall be no other greater love before you.  Is this true today?  Do we love the Lord more than we love anything else?

To love something we have to know something about that which we love.  Do we know the Lord enough that we can love him?  Or do we love something else more because we know more about that thing which we love?  We love money.  We love what money can buy.  We love what money can bring.  We love what money can do for us.  We love all the things that having lots of money will bring us.  We lust for money.  We dream for money.  Our eyes glaze over when we think of winning millions of money in a lottery.  Yet do we think of winning love of God the same way?

We see with our eyes not.  We hear with our ears not.  We know with our mind not.  We are our hearts.  The heart knows the emptiness.  The heart knows true love.  The heart knows what it needs to fulfill its desires.  Do not be fooled by what you see and hear in the world.  The world is dying.  God is life and through his love we are renewed.  Christ Jesus came to renew life to those who would receive his message.  Now is the time.  Now is the place.  Now is the reason to open your heart and know the truth of who you are in his love.  The heart knows.

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 nd 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 21, verses: 44a; The Broken pieces.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Application of the parable) Part 5. 

Christ continues to tell us about this parable of the vineyard and the vine dressers, how they decided to take control of the vineyard and claim it their own.  In comparison as we look back we can find similarities with mankind today.  God our Father created us in his likeness and image and called us his own.  He gave us life out of the love that was within him to share his existence with us. 

Today we claim our existence as our own, devising our life from the ooze that grew from time immemorial.  And so it is that the elders and the high priest of the Jews claim that they are the rulers of the people.  All that has been written of his coming was not recognized or understood.  Yet they are the ones who were most learned and most educated of the Torah.  They could not see.  They could not understand.  They could not comprehend the signs of the time.  So Christ told them:  "And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces." 

And this became their warning, their stop sign.  Do not stand against this corner stone else you will suffer.  And this is our warning today.  Split, broken, pieces, are the results of what we will suffer in our lives.  We are meant to live a life of peace and joy and not a life of pain and suffering.  We seek to reach the top, to be like the others that we see and hear about living a life of luxury.  But in many situations we find ourselves split by pressure and pain, suffering the consequences of our own desires and passions.  Broken we find ourselves.  Wasted, lying on the wayside, forgotten and lost in our pursuit of the pleasures that this life is supposed to give us.

We have forgotten who we are.  We have lost our way.  We are influenced by the consequences of our own minds that constantly change according to the thoughts that we are given on a daily, minute by minute basis.  We are no longer in control of who we are and of our actions.  We are  led by the influences of the world.  Our thoughts tell us that we are not real.  They tell us that the life that is within us is our imagination, it is not real.  Yet Christ Jesus sacrificed his life that we may have life everlasting.

Be not broken.  Be not split in indecision.  Know that you are loved and that your Father lives within you.  You are a child of the living God, a father who provides for you, who protects you, who loves you.  The elders of old had the opportunity.  You have the opportunity today.  Seek to know the truth of who you are and you will come to see, 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 nd 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.