Front Porch Confessional

WE DID IT...a years worth of podcasts.  Thank you so much for all the love and support both through listening and also financial.  This verse has been so important to me, and was the 1st verse on episode #1.

Ecclesiastes  7:13 Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

How cool that Jesus calls us to be a child and not a CEO.  Why is it important to be like a child and to see how Jesus was?

Matthew 18:2-3  And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Words are cheap...woudn't you agree?  Lot's of people talk, but what is the internal reality for them?  Jesus is calling out the talkers and getting to what's most important.

***Note:  One correction.  In the podcast I said that Jesus was quoting Isaiah in 20:19, but the passages is Isaiah 29:13

Matthew 15:8-9 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” 

How do you know who to follow...those who bear good fruit.  But how will we know?  Do they look and live like Jesus.

Matthew 7:18-20 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Pastor John through the revelation of the Spirit shows us how to defeat satan.  

Revelation 12:11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

In a world that is looking for direction, why do we turn to anything other than the Words of God?  David is pointing us to the worth of God's words, we need to pay attention.

Psalms 119:103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Peter is trying to teach us how to live out the gospel in an unjust world.  Are we looking for justice or the approval of God?

1 Peter 2:20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.

We need to confront our individualism and see that it has always been about God and it will always be about him.

Ephesians 1:11-12  In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

I am so convicted by the passage.  God is pointing out the real error in our hearts and lives.  The way we see and serve people really matter.  So how are you doing?

Matthew 25:40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

This passage is so great...we can actually shut people up by the way we love Jesus and those around them.  This is the gospel and this is Gods will.

1 Peter 2:15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.