If you’re a follower of Jesus, you belong to another Kingdom. Your citizenship—your allegiance—is to a heavenly King and his kingdom (Phil 3:20). Don’t confuse your calling as a kingdom ambassador by mixing the language and concerns of Jesus with other kingdoms. Our Lord doesn’t approve.

It’s time to trust in the power of the cross, to pledge our allegiance to the One riding into town on a donkey, the suffering Messiah—vindicated in resurrection because of his faithfulness. It’s time to believe that his Kingdom advances when we stop trying to bring it through worldly kingdom means, and instead see the church as his agents of new creation.

The bottom line is that, however we explain violent portraits of God in the OT, and even if we can’t explain them, we must never allow anything we find in the OT to compromise or in any way qualify the revelation of God we have in Christ. Jesus isn’t part of what God is like. The fullness of God’s deity was in Christ (Col. 2:9). And Jesus reveals a God who chooses to die on behalf of enemies rather than to use force against them.

The cross is both very ugly and very beautiful to those who believe. The surface of this event is revoltingly ugly, because it reflects the ugly sin that Jesus bore. But to those who by faith see beyond this surface appearance, the cross also reveals the supreme beauty of a God who, out of love, was willing to bear our sin, suffer our curse, and to thereby take on this revoltingly ugly, sin-mirroring, surface appearance.

Matthew 7:1-2-

These verses often create a misunderstanding amongst believers that we are not to EVER judge. These verses doesn’t actually say that we should never judge, but they warn us that however we judge that the same system of judgment will be used on our account. Are you judging rightly?

The deep revelation of the heart and nature of God as is realized in the Person of Jesus may not bring a million people to a single revival, but it will ignite a million revivals in a million people. I’m excited for what God is doing and I desire to see it on a scale we’ve yet to see. BE THE REVIVAL!

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: Salvation, Union with Christ, Spiritual Sonship and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: Trinity, The Gospels (what is the good news), Unity and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: the character and nature of God, the role of Scripture, eschatology and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Matthew 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

The Sermon on the Mount is more than well-crafted words, but it also builds a rock solid foundation for what life in the Kingdom should look like. Jesus doesn’t craft this foundation by creating a new system of rules, but He builds by sharing the beautiful and radiant nuances of the character and nature of God as they play out in real life scenarios. This is why all who heard these words were astonished. This is why we are all still challenged and astonished by them today.