St. Matthew, Chapter 24, verse: 19a; Those with child.

Our paragraph topic is:  (The destruction of Jerusalem) Part 5.  

Take nothing with you.  Run for your life if you are to be saved.  Don't turn back for anything, else you loose your life for death is at your heals.  Christ delivers a dire message to his disciples and to the people about the coming destruction of Jerusalem.  Everyone, all the Jews are praising their city, enjoying the sights and sounds of its beauty.  But not Christ.  He is warning the people of impending doom. 

Those who believe are shocked.  Those who disbelieve ignore, pass his prediction off as idle gossip from those who would spread fear.  The leaders and rulers of the people are terrified that this man who has captured the minds and hearts of the people is now spreading rumors of destruction of their great city.  It means ruin for their leadership.  And most horrified are those who are with child or children.  He is saying:  "But woe to those who are with child."

Women beware that you will suffer most because you are with child!  Death and destruction will find you first and foremost because you are unable to flee fast enough to outrun death.  You will be swallowed up by the oncoming horrors of destruction.  And the women know the truth of what the prediction means because they have seen and heard the meaning of tragedy and war.  Women are the possessions of destruction and those with child are ravaged the most.

Even today we see the loss of life due to natural disasters.  And those most vulnerable are the women and children especially those with child.   Floods and fires and hurricanes and storms and all kinds of natural disasters occur around the world in places where people live that do not have adequate means to prepare themselves for oncoming disasters.  Loss of life is precious, something that tears at our hearts when we see and hear of such in places in the world.

Christ was a sort of early warning system in those days in that he was telling the people what was coming that they might prepare themselves for the event.  The same as we have today, early warning systems that give us knowledge of impending doom that we might have minutes to escape death.  Even at the clutches of death though we must prepare ourselves daily thanking God for his precious gift of life and thanking him for the sacrifice made by Christ Jesus ,on the cross, to give us new life.  Believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and know that the promise of Christ is yours for the asking.  Death is but a door that we must all go through to transform ourselves to the true spirit of life that Christ has given us.  Know that it is yours for the asking, yours for the receiving, yours for the keeping that no one can take away.  Take the narrow path and God will 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 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 23, verses: 19a; Blind Ones.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Their distorted religion) Part 9.  

We grew up signing the nursery rhyme three blind mice not knowing its meaning.  Christ calls the Scribes and the Pharisees blind fools, blind guides, hypocrites because they have created a distorted religion that they teach the people.  He even tells them that they are making converts to their religion that are becoming sons of hell.

They hound him.  They dog him constantly thinking that they might catch him in some trick to accuse him of some transgression of the Law so that they might punish him and silence him of his teachings to the people.  They refuse to see.  They refuse to hear.  They refuse to understand who they are dealing with.  In their minds they believe that Christ is an ordinary man attempting to lead the people away from the rulers of the temple.  Yet this is the one belief that keeps them from seeing the truth that is before their eyes.  And this is why Christ calls them:
"Blind ones!"

They could not see.  They were blind to the truth that was right before their eyes.  Many people are that way today.  Rather than admit an error or their wrong they rather deny the truth knowing that they were wrong.  They create a false lie in their minds in an attempt to make themselves believe that the lie is the truth.  Then there are those who just are not able to accept the truth that is presented to them right before their eyes.  Their minds break down and do not accept what they see.

We cling to what we know, what we can feel and see.  For many everything else is make believe.  Yet the physical and spiritual nature of who we are is a fact, we are one person in two bodies, physical body and spiritual body.  Christ came that our spiritual body would not die.  He came to pay the price for our sins.  Now we have a choice.  We can live in the physical body and die in the spiritual or we can die in the physical and live in the spiritual.  The choice is ours.  The belief is ours.  The asking is ours.  The love of our Lord and Savior is ours to believe.  He came for us.  He died for all of us.  He awaits our call.  Call his name! 

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, verse:19a; The Tree of Nothing.

Our paragraph topic is:  (Jesus curses a fig tree) Part 2. 

The Earth Made Fruitful:  Genesis: Chapter1, verse: 9-12.

Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place and let the dry land appear."  And so it was.  God called the dry land earth and the assembled waters Seas.  And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and all kinds of fruit trees that bear fruit containing their seed."  And so it was.  The earth brought forth vegetation, every kind of seed-bearing plant and all kinds of trees that bear fruit containing seed.  God saw that it was good.

And that was how it was in the beginning.  Everything had a purpose and there was a purpose for everything.  The earth brought forth vegetation with fruit and the fruit had seeds that bore fruit.  And there was nothing that was without a purpose.  For God said it was good.  And yet there were trees of a different kind that came to be.  Trees that did not bear fruit but only leaves.  And seeing a tree by the wayside, he came up to it, and found nothing on it but leaves.

Was this tree not according to the purpose of God?  Did it not serve a purpose in his plan?  How did it come to be that this tree did not have fruit and seeds in fruit?  Christ came upon it.  He felt hungry and a need to feed himself.  But the tree of nothing had no fruit.  It had nothing to give to the Son of God, the Lord of the universe.  What purpose did it serve?  Of what good was it to be in existence? 

All creation has a purpose, be it good or bad.  We acknowledge the good that is within us and we accept the evil that can come from us.  Yet there is more than that.  We are spiritual beings held within a clay shell.  We have a purpose, to recognize that which has given us life, to rejoice in the knowledge of who we are, and to know that there is one above that gave us the life that we own.

The choice is ours to see, ours to believe, ours to know, ours to accept.  Some will and some will not.  Some will accept their human reasoning as a hindrance to allowing themselves to believe.  It is that step beyond reasoning that allows those who believe to see, to know, and to understand that they are more than just the physical.  It is that step beyond reasoning that allows us to open the door of the physical and see the spiritual that is within us, the light of life.  And with that giant step beyond reasoning one begins to transform into the living spirit.

It is the light within that transforms.  It is the light within that grows.  It is the light within that shines through the physical and transforms the world.  Death cannot hold it.  Time cannot define it.  Chaos cannot move it.  Love is the force that gives it life.  For within the spirit is the love of God our Father and the passion of Jesus Christ our savior and nothing can separate us from that love.  We have a purpose.  We belong.  We are loved.  We are at peace.

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.