God is giving each one of a us a test and the great news He gives you the answer

Welcome to episode 218, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 218. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm going to continue on our little talk or lesson about picking a side, and we're going to go back to Matthew 12, and we're going to just do 30. And at Matthew 12:30, he who's not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters abroad. And I also want to remind you of Matthew 6:24, and let me turn to that real quick. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. John 10:10, the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. Abundant life is a promise from God, and I'm thinking that is the side that you want to pick. But let us go to Deuteronomy. I know you need some Old Testament reading with my superior reading skills, but I want to talk about Deuteronomy 28. I'm not going to read that to you, but in the beginning of Deuteronomy 28, it lists the blessings and then the curses. And in the chapter of— and I'm going to let you read that. But this is Moses writing down, you know, if you follow my word, then you can expect to be blessed. But if you don't follow my word, these are the curses that will befall you. And I just want to tell you that since Jesus took all sin on his body, it says cursed is anyone who hangs upon a tree. Jesus took all of the curses that came with the fall. He took all of our sin, all of our mistakes, and it was nailed to the cross, and it was buried with him. All of this sin, all of this disease, all of everything, it has been paid for. It is taken care of. And now, blessed is he who does not see but yet believes. And we're going to go read that real quick. This is what Jesus told Thomas when Thomas was saying, hey, I just need to stick my finger in his hand and stick my hand in his side before I will believe that Jesus is walking around. And the resurrected Christ is an important lesson or teaching in Christianity. In fact, Paul said that if Christ had not resurrected, then we would be— it would be useless for us to even be worshiping Jesus. And I want to go to John 20. I'm going to let you read all of it if you want, but I want to go to John 27, where Jesus is talking to Thomas. Then he said to Thomas, reach your finger here and look at my hands, and reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving but believing. And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. I, I don't know about you, I have never seen Jesus personally in the flesh. God has not revealed himself to me physically. I know that some people have said they've seen him or had a vision of him. I don't have any of that. I do— I can picture him because of his word, and I can see Jesus in his word. It says the word became flesh and dwelt among them. So as I spend time in the word of God— this is my soapbox moment— As I spend time in the Word of God, I then get a picture of my Lord and Savior, and I can picture him better with my imagination or my spiritual eyes, even better as I read it. And as I see it in my spiritual eyes, and I can kind of get a picture of what and whom God is based on how he walked and lived his life. And I just want to encourage you that as you're in the Word and you're meditating on these truths, that you can kind of get a picture of who Jesus is based on what he did and how he lived his life. And Jesus, in his own words, said that if you see me, you've seen the Father. So none of us could look on Father God, still can't. If Father God appeared to me right now, if he wanted me, if he wanted to take me out, he would just appear in all his glory, in all his power and awesomeness and the light, and I would be no more. It would be worse than any kind of atomic bomb or any kind of anything. That's how much power God probably has in his little finger. We cannot look on Father God. It just— he's said it multiple times, you can't see me. But we have now got a representation in the flesh. Jesus became flesh. God, the Word of God, became flesh. So we can look at what Jesus did, and we can see the Father. But he's talking to Thomas. You and I have not seen. I just want to declare you blessed. When you read Deuteronomy 28, just read the blessings, because the curse, unless you just accept it— the punk's going to lie to you. He wants to deceive you. He wants to destroy you. He wants to do anything he can to keep you away from the one true God. And as we're talking about all this, division and all of this pitting groups against one another. It's so apparent. Most people just get all wrapped up in what they're seeing with their natural eyes that they don't take time to say, well, what's going on with that? Well, I need to read Deuteronomy 30. This is awesome, and I know you've probably read this before, but I just want to read it to you. It's Deuteronomy 30:11. It starts in 30 11. For this commandment which I commanded you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very near you. In your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil: and that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, Choose life, that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. Now I know that's a mouthful, but I just wanted you to hear all of that, and I just wanted you to hear how good our God is. He's pretty much taken up all the crap out the game. And I know I probably shouldn't say crap, but he's taken it all out. And he said, look, don't go looking around, don't go saying, hey, we need to get some angel to come down here and tell us this, or we need to see some vision. No, he's given you the word. He has given you the word of God. And he's told that— now this is Moses saying this and writing this— God pretty much gives you the test. And he says, I've set before you— this is in 30:15, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil. There is two different sides. You've got to pick a side. And in the next episode, we're going to talk about, you know, what Paul kind of sees it. But I just want you to be thinking, and I want you to be meditating on this idea that God is giving each one of us a test, and that he is testing us to see who we will serve. Are we going to serve ourselves Are we going to serve this world? Are we going to serve the punk? Are we going to serve the one true God? And I believe the unity in the body of Christ— how we all need to kind of come together, and it shouldn't be this difficult. This is like two choices. This is an A and B. If you've ever had a multiple choice test and you've had— I had an economics teacher that I think he gave like 6 or 7 It was like all the way to G or H, you know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It was so over the top. It was like A and B or B and C. And I mean, it was just, you had to know it. It'd have been a whole lot easier if he'd have just let me write out the answer than to have to read all these different multiple choice questions. And it was just way, way too difficult, in my opinion, unnecessary. But, you know, he was the teacher. I didn't care. The test that God sets before you and I. He sets before us today life and good, death and evil. And then we go to John 10:10, where the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. That's God, that is the simplicity of God. You either choose life and good or death and evil. And then I want you to go down to Deuteronomy 30:19. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. God gives us the test, and he's so loving and he's so kind and he's so awesome, he gives us the answer. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that a great teacher? Isn't that a great God that he says, hey, I want to show you all the differences between the gods that you will follow, the gods of this world, Satan the punk, all of this garbage that's going on. I wanted to show you there is a difference. You do have a choice to make, and every person is gonna have to make a choice. And I know if you're just on the fence, if you're in the middle of the road, I'm just telling you, go back and listen to my last 4 or 5 episodes. You are going to get run over in the middle of the road. I wish you were either hot or I wish you were cold, but lukewarm is gonna end up with God vomit on them, and nobody wants that. I I'm just telling you, don't get in the middle of the road. Don't try to be on both sides of this street. Pick a side. And that's my whole reason for having this episode today, is just to show you God is wanting you to pick a side, and he's giving you the right answer. Deuteronomy 30:19, he says, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life." There you go, he gives you the answer. Check life. Life or death, go ahead and pick life. Let me give you the answer. It is that simple. It's just not easy because we are so distracted, we are so deceived. And if you're not in the Word of God, then you do not know the truth. And the truth is Jesus. The truth is this Bible. It is fought against. If you can't tell that Satan hates this word, then you're not paying attention because you, you can bring just about any book And there's all kinds of stupid garbage books out there. But if you start bringing the Bible to school or to your workplace or to any kind of function or any kind of meeting, you can get ready for a lawsuit because it's coming. Because most people that are not God followers of God, they're going to come against this word and they don't even know why. Well, I went over the last episode and I want to stop here. I could go on and I— but I don't want to ramble. I want to make the point Choose life. I'm flailing my arms, I'm waving around, I'm trying to make you understand that God wants you to choose his Son and life. Lord, we thank you for the word that you've sent to us, Lord, both Jesus and the Bible. God, we thank you for the clarity that it gives us as we read it and as we embrace it and as we plant it into our hearts. God, I pray that the person listening to this episode will dive into your word and start meditating on it and start planting this incorruptible seed into their soul. And Lord, I pray in Jesus' name that it would find a good ground, that it can grow and get 30, 60, or 100-fold return. You said your word will not come back void. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truths that are found in it. And we thank you for allowing us to know the truth. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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