In contrast to the attention-seeking public prayers of Jewish religious leaders, Jesus taught the proper perspective in prayer is to have secret time with the Lord. Jesus also gives his disciples the model prayer for the proper manner to approach him in worship, of which we should pattern our prayers sa well.
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Jesus Christ is the light of the world. This world is naturally dark, but Jesus came to bring light, but also to illuminate the wickedness of this world that was previously concealed. Those in darkness hate the light, and thus the world hated Jesus’ light. Now, the disciples of Christ are called to be the light of the world, so we should expect this dark world to treat us the same way it treated Jesus Christ.
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After a great victory liberating Sodom, we find the mysterious character Melchizedek, both the king of Salem and the priest of the most high God. We consider Jesus Christ, who was a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who was much better than any Old Testament high priest under the law.
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Jesus draws the sharp contrast between the prideful announcing of almsgiving by religious leaders who had their reward of praise of men, and the way we should give to help this in need generously and in secret. We consider general principles for giving to have the right perspective to give generously for those who are in need.
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We consider the glory of God’s name. The name of God is near in our lives, and we have the ability to call on the name of the Lord. Oh what a joy to meditate on the glory of the LORD’s name!
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What is God’s definition of prosperity? What is God’s definition of success? We cannot let the world define for us what prosperity and success are. The world’s definition of prosperity and success will center around fulfilling the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which are not of the Father. We cannot seek ourselves or raise our children to pursue the worldly prosperity and success because that will end in shipwreck. We need to seek the Lord’s definition of prosperity and success.
“[4] Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias… [8] And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” (Matt. 17:4,8)
When Peter, James, and John were blessed to see Jesus on the mount of transfiguration along with Moses and Elijah, of course it was Peter who spoke too hastily when he was afraid. He foolishly said they should make three tabernacles – one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah – equating all three as equals, equating two men to the same level of recognition and prestige as Jesus. After being cast down on their face from bright light and God announcing this was his beloved Son, when they lifted up their eyes again, they saw no man – they no longer saw Moses and Elijah – but they saw Jesus alone. In a similar way, I think much of the Christian denominational world has the same incorrect vision and perspective as Peter here. They see other men as equal or co-participants in eternal salvation along with Jesus. As long as you see any human man (other than the God-man, Jesus Christ) in your view of eternal salvation, you are taking away glory from Jesus Christ and diminishing the gospel of Christ. The remedy for this incorrect perspective is fall on our face and rise up to see the same thing that Peter saw – to see Jesus alone, and not see any man in regard to our eternal salvation. Let us examine scripture and see Jesus alone as the only One in our eternal salvation, no man.
One of the most contrary to the world examples of how categorically different the kingdom of God is that we are called to love our enemies, to bless those that curse us, and to pray for those that despitefully use us. We are a great witness to Jesus Christ when we respond in the right way to those who treat us poorly.
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Jesus Christ is the living bread, our sustaining sustenance in this world. We ought to esteem the words of God of greater value, than even our necessary food. We must partake of Jesus’ bread and the fountain of living water to provide for our sustenance here in this world.
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It is vitally important in the kingdom of God that we realize how directly our decisions and actions today affect the future generations of the church. We need to keep the next and future generations of the church in our minds as we are thinking through our decisions today. We are also consistently commanded in scripture to be teaching the next generation God’s word that they would be strong, steadfast, and unmovable in the kingdom of God. We need to have a generational discipleship mindset and a generational kingdom perspective, to be purposeful in equipping the next generation to be the pillar and ground of the truth, that they can then teach their future children properly as well. We will see that scripture even directly connects up to five generations in teaching, so thus we need to ask ourselves today, how will my actions today positively impact the church five generations from now?
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