In all my years of following Jesus, falling and getting up again by His hand of mercy, failing to love like He loves when someone betrays me, I have finally learned a very important lesson: Love God. Love Others. Always go back to the basics.
Love God no matter what is going on in our lives because He NEVER stops loving us! Love Others like Jesus loves us. His love looks like this: Love all who are in your life and all around your life, all who work with you in your vocation, all who are in your immediate family and those in extended family, all who are imperfectly finding Jesus and being perfectly forgiven, those who are striving to follow Jesus in every part of their lives, those who fail and fall but get back up again, all who come to His church building to get a glimpse of Him and worship Him, and finally all who hurt, despise and malign you. Love God first with all that is in you. Then, with His love in you, Love Others.
There is an even more important lesson I have learned about the extreme, relentless love of Jesus. The more I realize the depth of His love for me, the greater and deeper my love for others grows. It all begins with the One who is Love.
Matthew 22
The Greatest Commandment
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
THINK ABOUT IT…
If all the world who God loved so much that He sent His Son to lay down His live to save us, so that we could have a complete relationship with God, Abba Father, and become one of his children, heirs with Jesus, could realize the extent, depth and height of His love for us and love Him and each other like He loves us…it would be revolutionary! This revelation of Jesus’ love in the hearts of mankind would result in a revolution of real love, perfect love, forgiving love, patient love. We would stop holding grudges, betraying each other, trying to get the upper hand, win arguments, fight to the death on worldly views, make lists of grievances, harbor hate which drives fear and mistrust. We would no longer be divided but united…in Jesus’ love.
What kind of love is this?
Self-less love. Self comes last. God comes first, others second in the two commandments Jesus is telling the religious elite (and us) that are the most important to live for God. And they didn’t “get it”. They refused to get it because God was not in their lives. They divorced God from all of life. They did not like this revolutionary thinking and behaving that Jesus was telling and showing in the lives of all people.
We will see later in our study of Matthew that in just a few hours, the religious leaders will continue making their lists of false grievances so they can nail Perfect Love to a cross. We will also see Jesus wash the feet of a the one who will betray him, a friend and follower.
People still moan…“But Jesus, you don’t know what I’ve been through and still enduring in my life!” To say that Jesus doesn’t know what criticism, betrayal, ridicule, bullying, mocking along with the final torture of being nailed to a thick beam, then hoisted up on a crude cross publicly for all to jeer as His blood flowed, is a lie. Jesus went to and through hell and came back again to defeat death, paying for all our sins…all because of His love for us. It was Jesus mission on earth to reconcile us to God.
Some of His final words on the cross were, “Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Can we loving forgive like that?
What kind of love is this? Perfect, sacrificial, self-less, Jesus more, love. Love God. Love Your Neighbor. Love the world. Love like Jesus.
Paul explained the love of Jesus to the church like this:
“ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2, NIV
Read the whole chapter for the story of complete love lived for God.
Do you really believe what you believe is really real? If yes, then continue to love God and love others like Jesus loves us. If no, then ask God to help you in your unbelief. He will. God wants to have a relationship with you now and for eternity. God wants His best for you.
Abba Father,
You are God and we are not. You loved us first. You taught us how to love in Jesus. Your love was demonstrated by Your Son. Thank you, dear Jesus, for all you did so that I can be free to love unconditionally like you. Help me daily to go deeper in realizing your love for me so I can love others like you love me. Thank you for being Love.
In Jesus Name, Amen
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
How many times are believers led to traps in worldly conversations just to bring us down or cause us to doubt and look foolish. This story reminds me that it is imperative that I know God’s Word and study the teaching of Jesus, not so I can do battle or defend the gospel, for Jesus needs no defense, but so I will not be like the Sadducees or be in doubt of what I know to be the Truth. Here is the place to begin: Truth is the person of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
It is sad you see to listen to those today who use God’s Word as a battering post to move people to follow them and not God and His Word. This is not truth. Truth is believing in Jesus Christ as Savior AND Lord, accepting and obeying His Teaching, and allowing Him complete control of our thought life and subsequent behavior. As a believer in Jesus, I am “married” in commitment to Jesus as the bride of Christ along with my husband and all others who believe. At the time of His coming back, and He will, this “bride” wants to be ready.
“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” Revelation 22:17
God reveals Himself to us in ways that are indescribable and nothing short of miraculous. God has a plan for us that He reveals to us in small bites, at each stage of life, in ways we can swallow, as we walk in His Presence and grow in His character. We know we have not “arrived” until we meet Him face to face! We believe God always wants the best for us. Even in bad times, God works out good for bad for those who believe He can. That’s why we can praise Him through tears and rejoice in Him with smiles. HE is God and we are not. We are not perfect but we know, without a doubt, we are perfectly forgiven. There is NO ONE like our God!
The Article…
The article makes sense and I see it becoming prevalent among believers who are struggling to make sense of what is not our job to explain. Jesus says, “give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” To God we give our lives. To our government, we simply obey the man-made rules that prevent anarchy, (based on “The Ten”), vote with God-given wisdom, and pay the taxes due.
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
THINK ABOUT IT…
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
The Spirit came on the church at Pentecost, and the apostles performed great signs and wonders (Acts 2:43; Heb. 2:1–4). The rulers rejected the witness of the Spirit, and this brought final judgment. They had rejected the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and there were no more opportunities left.
Come to the Table! 
Just come to the table
Just Come, come to the table
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3;16
Matthew 21
3 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
From time to time, God sent His servants (the prophets) to the people to receive the fruit. But the people mistreated the servants, and even killed some of them. What should the householder do? He could have sent his armies to destroy these wicked men. But instead he sent his own son to them. The reference, of course, is to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the “heir” (Heb. 1:2). 
GOD’S COMPASSION EXPRESSED BY HIS SON
CHANGED MINDS
When we change our minds from living that leads to death to new life in Christ, we will enter the Kingdom of God.
HOLY PAUSE
Most people who are put in charge of a meeting, a task, an office staff, or anything that requires decision making think they must have an answer for every question put before them.
If you don’t know, the honest and best answer and always the most helpful is, “I don’t know.” It is at that point that more information is gathered from the group so you can make better decisions in problem solving.
When they finally face Jesus, after many months of watching Him with eyes of hate, criticizing Him, fearful of the popularity He is gaining among the oppressed people they ask, “By what authority are you doing these things?”
Matthew 21
THE 
Do we know?
WHAT DO WE LEARN?
Do I really believe what I believe is really real?
Matthew 21
That Jesus would curse a tree may surprise us. The same power that killed the tree could also have given it new life and fruit. Jesus certainly would not hold a tree morally responsible for being fruitless.
God wants to produce fruit in the lives of His people. 
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” –Jesus
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.” Galatians 5: 24-26, NLT
If you came to my house, took away all my books, and set up a gambling casino, I’d be ticked. If you came to my house and rearranged all my belongings that meant something to me so you could set up card tables for poker, I would be upset. If you came to my house and moved everything of value out of the way so that a new business I didn’t like could be set up, I would be indignant. If you moved me out of my home because I was getting in the way of you making money so you could get rich, I would cry.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem before He even entered the city. Jesus already knew what was happening in God’s house. So, He did something about it. He rid His House of all the extortioners, thieves, crooked money-changers, price gougers, and dove sellers. Common people came to the Temple court seeking God while offering a sacrifice that was hard to afford because of the price gougers. God’s house had been ravaged with an unrecognizable purpose. Jesus merely cleaned His House and went back to HIS mission of seeking the lost to save them and healing the blind and the lame. All in a day’s work for the Son of God.
HOLY PAUSE
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Our praise becomes Your house, Your place
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
The crowds who spread out branches and their own cloaks knew him only as a prophet who could heal people of all kinds of ailments. Jesus became popular for what He could do. They knew He was from lowly Nazareth. They knew He could make the lame walk and the blind to see. But they didn’t know Him as Savior. Not yet.
Many bystanders have never heard of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord. They don’t know the Bible stories about Him The enemy has worked overtime to make sure people do not know about Jesus, his arch enemy. Satan does not want people to know Jesus is God’s Son who can save them from hell. 
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 