By His grace, what the radical life of Christ should look in an American context!

believes it is difficult to respect authority when that authority isn’t doing right, yet Jesus taught us to respect it. Mat 23:3 @WeeManWest

thinks someone/politicians labeling themselves a “servant” is more than likely trying to prove it to themselves. Mat 23:11 @WeeManWest

believes we should serve in humility demanding NOTHING, waiting patiently for Christ to exalt us in His due time. Mat 23:12 @WeeManWest

is certain that unless we believe we are sinful, corrupt, and incapable of good we will not be ready for Christ. Psa 53:3 @WeeManWest

wastes effort doing things expecting God to join in when instead he needs to join God where His is already working. Num 14:42@WeeManWest

Matthew 23:3 Jesus taught us a respect for authority while recognizing that often those in authority do not practice what they preach. Often those in authority will use their “authority” to create themselves and out clause or to just not abide by the standard they have set for the common person.

Matthew 23:4 So often those in authority use the burden and labor to keep the common man occupied while they themselves become the beneficiaries of the work of the common man.

Matthew 23:5 As Jesus teaches elsewhere so He revisits here, those who do their works to be seen by others are in the wrong. All the pomp and pageantry of this world is vanity. Whether its ceremonial pageantry in religion, industry, or politics you still face the same worthlessness.

Matthew 23:11 Serving others is what truly leads to greatness in the kingdom of Christ. Are we the servant or the served? Our goal should be to humble serve for the honor and will of Christ.

Applying this also to the political realm where our leaders call themselves “servants”. Servants don’t make the rules but rather abide by the rules of their master. When someone is a master, a rule-maker, they are not serving but are being served. Don’t be so easily decieved by the slick words and pageantry of the elites!

Matthew 23:12 If we must exalt ourselves then we are in defiance of Christ. We should serve in humility and demand NOTHING and wait patiently for Christ to exalt us in His due time!

Romans 5:2 We stand by the grace that we have accessed by faith we have received through Christ. Nothing of our salvation is our own it is all God’s and for His glory alone does it come to us.

We rejoice in this hope, that God is not looking at any of our works of which even the most righteous among them are like filthy rags, but rather that God looks at us and sees the works of Jesus Christ which are complete in Him alone.

I add nothing but my own sin to the equation. Yes, my faith leads me to good works that yet are tainted by my own sinful motivations, attitudes, and actions. Woe unto me if I were to think any work of my own added anything to what Christ has done to save me wholly and completely into everlasting life.

Romans 5:3 We rejoice in our sufferings. REALLY?! Last time I checked most of us tend to moan and complain in our sufferings. Paul is describing a faith that embraces our sufferings for the value they will produce in our lives.

Suffering stinks!

Yet suffering is the powerhouse of spiritual production for the life of faith! Suffering produces endurance in our walk. Endurance is beneficial in and of its own because we must endure so much turmoil at the hands of our enemy that we need the ability to endure.

However, endurance that is born through suffering then produces character in our walk. Character/integrity is a solid compass for all of our living. Character then produces hope. Why? Because our character witnesses to us  having been born from our endurance that was forged in our suffering. Our character KNOWS undoubtedly from where it has come and gives us hope of where we are going.

Romans 5:8 Jesus didn’t sit around and wait for us to get things right before He came to die for our sins and reconcile us to God. Jesus knew we would NEVER get things right. Instead, Jesus came at just the right time to reconcile us, the avowed enemies of God, to God. He died for His enemies!

Romans 5:10 How powerful the knowledge that Jesus died for us while we were His enemies in order to reconcile us to God and make us His allies! Why? Because now we can be even more confident that if God would spare not even His only Son on our behalf when we were His enemies how much more can we expect from God in our redemption now that we are reconciled to Him as His allies?!

Psalm 53:1 I’ve heard many a Christian assert that April 1 is National Atheist’s Day on the basis of this verse. Yet, the context here condemns all of mankind for we all live like atheists!

We live as though there is no God or worse yet that our achievements are our god or still even worse yet that our achievements make us a god!

Psalm 53:3 Until we take to heart what this verse says and realize that this verse is saying this about us we will not be ready to truly grow in Christ Jesus.

We are all fallen away and corrupted in this world. None of us are capable of doing anything truly good. We all carry some hidden motive, deep within our being, that taints even the best of our good works.

Numbers 12:1 Moses is catching it from all sides and angles. Not only are the people complaining about everything, but now also his own family is speaking against him. Many are the trials and troubles of the righteous in this world.

Numbers 12:3 Moses was very meek. He was extremely humble, even more humble than all the people on earth. Moses’ humility is what stands out in this episode more than anything.

Moses humbly complies and goes to the tent with Aaron and Miriam. When God has sentenced Miriam, Moses prays for her healing.

Meekness leads to mercy. Yet, neither meekness nor mercy are weaknesses but rather strengths. Humility and mercy are two of the most difficult things for us to do as human beings.

Numbers 13:28 Israel was to inherit the land and the spies’ report of the land was that it was good, it was exactly as God had promised. Yet, the big word is “however”. However shifts the emphasis from the land to its people.

They saw the land to be a good land but saw the task to conquer the land to be a giant task.

Numbers 13:30 Caleb views the land through faith and sees it as their land for the taking. What God has promised He will provide. Faith allows us to see God’s promise as the reality instead of our circumstance.

Numbers 13:32 The other spies lacked faith and instead of trusting in God’s promise as the reality they instead made the circumstances the reality. They told the people that the land would eat them up. Often we will surrender to our greatest fears when we fail to look at our circumstances through faith in God’s promises.

Numbers 13:33 Apparently the land had a population of giants living in it, the Nephilim (Genesis 6) were in the land. Some archaeology is beginning to confirm this fact of history.

Numbers 14:1 This generation shows themselves rejected. They are so trapped in the mentality of the oppressed that they cannot trust God to keep His promise. Rather than rejoice at the opportunity ahead they weep.

Numbers 14:4 After deciding in their lack of faith and in their victim/oppressed mentality that it would be better to either die in Egypt as an oppressed slave or die in the wilderness from old age than it would be to even attempt to conquer the land of promise the Israelites begin searching for a new leader to take them back to Egypt!

No return policy exists for the plan of God. You don’t get to enjoy His deliverance to turn back to the old life.

They were worried their children would become prey, yet their children are the ones through which God will later conquer the land.

Numbers 14:8 The men of faith speak out: Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua. God will bring them into the land. The people of the land are no threat to Israel if God delights in them. Four men of faith speaking to a couple million people who lack faith.

Numbers 14:12 As the people were ready to stone the men of faith God shows up and is ready to disinherit the entire nation due to their unbelief. Yet, humble Moses intercedes again, even on behalf of this nation of people who were ready to stone him to death.

Numbers 14:16 Moses pleads with God on behalf of His own great name. All of this life is about the greatness and glory of the name of God among all the nations.

Numbers 14:28 The Israelites were going to get exactly what they feared, sort of. That generation was going to die in the wilderness with the exception of Joshua and Caleb. I wonder if Moses and Aaron were listening?

Instead God is going to take the next generation, the ones this generation thought erroneously would be prey, they would be the generation to conquer the land of promise.

Numbers 14:34 Certainly I do not ever want to know the displeasure of God. He sentences them to 40 years, a year for every day that the land was spied out, to wander aimlessly in the wilderness until that generation dies off.

How terrible to never get there? They are on the border of the land of promise and yet will never set foot in it.

Numbers 14:37 The men who had lied about the land and led the people into this rebellion against God were struck with plague and died immediately. We should be careful never to be at war with God.

Numbers 14:42 Israel presumed to go into the land anyway, in spite of God’s decree. Moses warned them that God was not with them and that they would be defeated and so they were!

We need God with us in our lives. Therefore, the simplest solution is to watch to see where God is and follow Him into that work. We must be spiritually attentive to the work of God in and around us so that we can join Him in His work and be where He is.