Refreshing Our Spirits With Scripture

1.25- Jesus; “You are the salt of the earth.” Turned out He was right. It is the year 2020 as dated from the date of Jesus’ Birth.

1.24- If we have a problem with someone it is good to remember that God has had problems with us. How did He overcome it? He moved from the high place to the low place. He washed our feet. He washed our sins away. He went to the cross to pay for the privilege of us being children of God and brothers and sisters of His. Now I have been cleansed and forgiven. The rest of my life I must forgive others. I follow the one who said from the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’ t know what they are doing.” Most of the time when we hold things against those we love it is true that we don’t know what we are doing. If you have been forgiven. If you have been reconciled to God. Forgive others. Help them in any way you can to be reconciled to God. Matthew 18. 21  Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22  Jesus *said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to s...

1.23 Matthew 5. 13  “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how [ e ] can it be made salty again ? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. What does it mean to be the salt of the earth? Salt adds taste and seasoning to make something taste different and better.   In addition it preserves meat. Jesus said that His students were the salt of the earth.   We are different.   We have a different world view.   Our minds are not set on retirement, but engagement.   To the Christian our goal is not withdrawal from our work and playing golf and shuffleboard for the rest of our lives.   The word retirement is not really in the vocabulary of a disciple of Jesus.   When we have more freedom to work for the benefit of God and our fellowman instead of having to go to a specific job location for our food and shelter we have more opportunity to do more things for t...

1.22- What is the proper attitude toward those who have hurt us and they then get in trouble and want to destroy their own life? We should care for them and appeal to them to not do themselves any harm. To attack Jesus people is a very bad thing and cause many bad things to happen.  Guilt and shame and other bad things can happen. Once Paul and Silas were in prison for helping someone and they kept on praising God.  They sung hymns of praise in the middle of the night.  There was an earthquake.  The prison leader who had been in charge of harming them was about to take his own life.  They said to him, "Do yourself no harm." When we suffer for doing what is right in following Jesus we can be sure that God will bless us with His love, mercy and grace. They on the other hand are setting themselves up for guilt and shame and many other negative outcomes. We should pray for them.  We should do what we can to help them. They did this for this jaile...

1.21- There is a tremendous temptation for us to trade away our souls for money and things of this world.  Jesus warned His disciples not to get so much into power of this world that they would forfeit their souls.  This is a great danger in religion and politics.  Arguments develop because we get a religious or political point of view.  We think it is more important than the gospel.  We get a certain position and then some jobs and positions that pay money or status feed our hungry ego and soon we are doing things that are very unloving. To overcome this problems Jesus recommended rich people give their money to the poor and transfer their wealth to heaven. Matthew 16. 24  Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25  For whoever wishes to save his [ v ] life will lose it; but whoever loses his [ w ] life for My sake will find it. 26  For what will i...

1.20- Jesus once had a friend who told Him that it would never happen that Jesus would suffer and be rejected by the elders of His religion. Jesus told him to get behind Him. Jesus called him Satan. Jesus said that Peter did not have in mind the things of God but the things of men. Matthew 16. 21  From that time [ r ] Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22  Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “ [ s ] God forbid it , Lord! This shall never [ t ] happen to You.” 23  But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on [ u ] God’s interests, but man’s.”