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

thinks we spend more time judging others for their sins when we should be living out a loving example for them. Mat 7:1-5 @WeeManWest

believes that God gives what is best for us instead of the rocks and snakes for which we don’t realize we are asking. Mat 7:7-11 @WeeManWest

recalls with gratitude that nearly 14 years ago, I read Mat 7:13-14 and God began a true and lasting transformation of my life. @WeeManWest

is troubled that we are intellectually quick to diminish God’s authority to speak in visions and dreams. Act 10:9-23 & Acts 2:17 @WeeManWest

so wants to awake daily in satisfaction with God’s likeness and righteousness having been imprinted upon him by God. Psa 17:15 @WeeManWest

Matthew 7:1-5 The point of the Law is not that we stand and judge our brothers but rather that we hold ourselves up the light of scrutiny. We are so harsh toward others when we ourselves are equally guilty in other areas of our walk with Christ. Jesus wants to transform you. He doesn’t want you to brow-beat everyone else into full obedience. He wants you to be a loving example of how to live and by your example to SHOW others the difference.

Matthew 7:6 We should be careful with our time. We often cast must effort to pigs who will merely trample what we have given them under their feet and attack. I think this reference was concerning the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.

Matthew 7:7-11 I believe this passage has become grossly misapplied in our day. We don’t ask God for the sake of ourselves. Jesus isn’t promising material prosperity to anyone who asks. Jesus is teaching a simple lesson about the prayer life. If we are asking, seeking, and knocking concerning His kingdom and His righteousness which He had just said a couple of verses prior (Matthew 6:31-33) were more important than food and clothing.

What Jesus is promising is this, if we ask God He will give us what is best for us. If we ask God for bread He will not give us a rock, or if we ask for a fish He will not give us a serpent. We ask in accordance with what we think is best for us. Yet God knows what is best for us and will give us what is best. We may indeed in our flesh be asking for what we think is bread but instead it is actually a rock. We may indeed in our flesh be asking for what we think is fish but instead it is actually a snake.

Matthew 7:12 A key principle to the law of Christ is that we treat other people in the same way that we ourselves would like to be treated. Even if such is to our own harm!

Matthew 7:13-14 This passage means a lot to me. These two verses were the beginning of God manifesting Himself to me. He began to rip me away from religion with this text. So many of us are on the broad road unawares. I was on this road in spite of walking an aisle, saying a prayer, and being baptized on three separate occasions. Still I found myself, well the Holy Spirit found me, on this road. I recall the sheer terror of the moment in my life in which it seemed that God was sitting next to me on my couch ripping away the veneer of religion with which I had surrounded my sinful, compromising, deceitful existence.

I’m thankful that God opened my eyes and gave me a new life. He put me on the narrow path in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ I remain on that path. I add nothing to the equation other than my sin and failure. He keeps me in His righteousness.

These verses are a descriptive comparison. Which best fits your life?

Acts 10:4-5 Here we have an interesting case of which to note. We just read (Acts 9:42) that Peter was in Joppa of all places. Now we see Cornelius, a Roman centurian, who was a God-fearing, generous man of prayer, who is visited by an angel. God is choosing to allow this man to hear the Gospel in an extraordinary circumstance. Note: God is choosing this for two purposes, #1 Cornelius is seeking God (he who seeks shall find (Matthew 7:8) and #2 Peter needs to learn that the Gospel is for the whole world, not just the Jews.

God didn’t have to send for Cornelius to send for Peter. Cornelius didn’t have to send for Peter. But the righteousness of God and the sincerity of Cornelius is shown in that God responded to this sincere seeker by telling him to seek further and that Cornelius responded to God in obedience.

This reminds me of the “Experiencing God” model. God is always at work, God desires to bring us into a love relationship with Himself…Cornelius is presented with a Crisis of belief. My how we need, like Cornelius, to be attentive to how God is working around us everyday so that we can respond and experience God in new ways.

Acts 10:9-16 Peter is praying and falls into a trance and has a vision. I’m dismayed at how in our modern intellectual church mindset we have diminished the value of visions and dreams even though the opening sermon (Acts 2:17) of the church said that God would speak to people in them. Peter is shown in this dream a sheet from heaven full of unclean animals. The lesson to Peter was to obey God, even if it didn’t make religious sense to do so. Jews were forbidden to eat from unclean animals, yet, God is telling Peter to kill and eat an unclean animal. God says, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

Basically, when God gave Peter permission to eat the unclean animals God was declaring them clean. He is God, He can do such things. Yet, Peter had a religious objection to what God was asking him to do. How often are we guilty of letting religion stand in the way of what God is doing? Religion is man’s creation, not God’s. He wants us to experience Him in a loving relationship…not through a myriad of legality.

Acts 10:17-23 When we’ve had a dream, or a vision, or a message from God from His word or through His Spirit we must watch our circumstances for its reality. I had a dream nearly 20 years ago that is still in my mind. A dream for which I just recently began to see the initial fulfillment in my trip to Uganda last October…20 years of waiting for what God had shown me to become reality!

Fortunately for Peter, he waited only mere moments…the vision was still fresh on his mind when his visitors arrived. Peter also was spoken to by the Holy Spirit to reinforce the vision. Peter was going to find the meaning of his vision only if he obeyed and went with these strangers. God will drive us into a crisis of belief because He deeply desires to fully manifest Himself to us. He is going to do so with Peter. Peter and his Joppa crew accompany these men to meet Cornelius.

Psalm 17:3 I may be alone in this, we shall see, but have you ever awoken at night and been so aware of the spiritual realm that surrounds us that you are frightened? I have on many occasions. Usually I awaken and sense a deep, unexplainable darkness, yet I’m not concerned for my physical state. Instead, my mind begins to be reminded of my sinfulness and my failure. I lay in my bed and confess those sins, some of which I was previously unaware of, to Christ and beg for His forgiveness. Suddenly, His peace falls over me and I can return to rest. As I said, I may be totally alone in this, but just wanted to share. David talks here about being tested in the night and it recalled this to my memory.

Psalm 17:6-7 Carrying forward my previous thought. When I call upon Him in these instances this is the experience that I have, the warm comfort of His loving refuge.

Psalm 17:15 It seems from the conclusion of this Psalm that all of this was a dream for David. Possibly a dream about his enemies who were out to get him. I love the way he closes this Psalm! David speaks of the prosperity of the wicked and their ability to pass it to the next generation Psalm 17:13-14 while following that statement here in verse 15 by saying that all he desires is to behold God in righteousness and that He would be satisfied with God’s likeness when he wakes up. WOW! I so want that to be my desire, that daily when I awake, that my greatest satisfaction would come from being like God and being filled with His righteousness!

Genesis 37:2 Joseph brought a bad report of the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, which would be Gad, Asher, Dan, and Naphtali. What will be interesting is what role they will play later on.

Genesis 37:3 Of all the lessons Israel could have learned from his father this is the one that stuck…he is playing favorites with his children just as Isaac had with he and Esau.

Genesis 37:5-11 It looks as though most of my devotional time today is centered upon God speaking to us in dreams. Here we see that Joseph has two significant dreams, both of which place his brothers and his family into subjection to him. This doesn’t play well with him already being Israel’s favorite son and the youngest of the sons to boot.

Joseph first pictures his work as a sheaf that stands while his brothers works/sheaves all bow in subjection to his own. Joseph’s dream was for several years in the future. He would not see this dream come to pass in his homeland but in a foreign nation.

Joseph next pictures the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowing to him. As I’ve discussed that the sun and moon are signs of biblical authority, here we see Israel interprets the dream to be himself bowing to Joseph. Again this dream is for a future fulfillment in a foreign land.

Yet we must make note of the symbols and their usage for future discussion of dreams, visions, and prophecies. Sheafs are a symbol for works or the harvest of one’s labor. The sun, moon, and stars are a symbol of Israel and her tribes and the authority/dominion they were supposed to have. When we see them mentioned poetically we must take into account that the author may very well have Israel in mind.

Genesis 37:12-36 Joseph serves as a picture of Christ. He is sent as Christ and the prophets were sent to see the state of the flocks of Israel. Yet, his own brothers conspired against him to kill him just as they later would do to Christ Jesus. Christ was sent my His father to the flocks of Israel. I wonder if it was the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah who were seeking to kill Joseph.

Note: Reuben seeks to save Joseph from certain death. Reuben is trying to atone for his wrong-doing with Bilhah. As such, he probably wasn’t respected among her sons.

Judah comes with the plan to sell Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. Joseph was taken to Egypt. Reuben freaks out and they hatch the plan to pretend that Joseph was slain. Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

The importance of the coat cannot be missed. The coat symbolized Israel’s favor upon Joseph and became the object of his brother’s spite. Christ’s own cloak would be ripped off and gambled over by those who slew him.

They offer the torn and blood-stained cloak of Joseph to Israel. Jesus was sacrificed, killed by his brothers.

Genesis 38:2 Judah chooses a Canaanite woman as his bride.

Genesis 38:6-11 Judah had wicked sons. Er was struck dead by God for his wickedness. Onan suffered the same fate when he treated Tamar like a prositute. Judah fearfully promises his youngest son Shelah to Tamar at a later date.

Genesis 38:12-23 Judah, after mourning his wife’s death, travels to see his freind Hiram in Adullam where he had met his wife. Judah is deceived into taking Tamar as a prostitute. She takes his signet and cord as pledge of his return. Yet when he returns he doesn’t find her.

We should always be careful to honor our word when we give it. Judah hadn’t honored his word to give Tamar to Shelah when he came of age. Now the plight of Tamar has been laid to his account.

Genesis 38:24-26 Tamar is found to be pregnant by immorality. Note the judgment against her, but not the vindication to find the one who had been immoral with her. He had excused his own immorality, but was ready to prosecute Tamar to the death. Then the BIG surprise…Judah she’s bearing your children!

Suddenly, Judah realizes his own unrighteousness and I guess water and dirt are poured on the fires of judgment. Now that its Judah’s sin as well it looks like the time to judge this sin has been deferred.

Genesis 38:29 Perez breaks through from being second born to being first born. Perez means “breach” and it was said of him, “What a breach you have made for yourself.” Zerah means rising.