A Christ Follower: The Journey

Thine Is The Kingdom ... The Power ... And The Glory Forever! Jesus Matthew 6:13 Incredible In this age of "me first," the Jesus Prayer , mandated as Jesus' answer to the disciples question, " Teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray ,"   makes it abundantly clear that, IT is NOT ALL about me, and it is also not all about you. I know this is hard to grasp, if you are a human secularist who believes, " I am the Captain of my fate ." Indeed, this is very hard to believe, if you have abandoned the absolute truths of God being over all, in all, through all, and in charge of everything. If you worship your little ole self, a mere creature, rather than The Creator, this is inconceivable; nevertheless,  if you truly wish to walk in freedom, as a fully alive person, one of the most freeing -- if not the most freeing -- realities you can ever possess, is we have a benevolent, merciful Creator, Sustainer God who began all things, sustai...

"Deliver us from all evil." Jesus Okay: Here the Son of God is telling us how to pray according to the will of God, and He is saying, "I want you to pray to the Father, and I want you to ask Him to deliver you from evil. "  Hmmm? Now this is really an interesting prayer request. Does the Son of God, Jesus, really believe in Evil? Let's check this out: His Purpose   Fulfilled Take a look at what the "beloved disciple," John said about this: In 1 John 3:8b we see written, " THE reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil's work."   Now we know Jesus came to save us (deliver us) from the penalty of our sins. And we know that He is the o nly name given under Heaven by which we can be saved from this penalty. (Acts 4:12) However, one thing is very clear there is ONE purpose behind it all that is vital to Jesus, and that is He went through all that He endured to destroy the Devil's work.  And He definitely  succeed...

" Lead us not into temptation " Jesus Praying According To God's Will: Let me set the stage: Here we have the Son of God, and He is continuing to teach us how we should pray. In other words, we are learning about how to pray according to God's will . It's God's will to pray to our Father, and be clear we don't put our earthly father's human frailties on Him. For our Father is a Heavenly being, and He has no flaws. It it God's will we pray for our Father to be revered, feared, held in awe, wonder and mystery. We are to pray for the Kingdom to come. We are to pray that God's will would be done on planet earth precisely like it is done in Heaven. We are to live one day at a time, and we are to pray that God will supply our needs on "This Day." We are to pray for forgiveness, and be fully aware of how we are asking for being forgiven. Then we come today. Temptation Explained In A Simplified Way.   Many misread this p...

Forgive us our sins the same way  we forgive those who sin against us:   Jesus The Most Famous Prayer In The World There are millions of people who have, or do, pray The Lord's Prayer . Or as our Catholic brothers and sisters would say, they pray the "Our Father." There may even be billions praying this prayer,  given that the organized church reportedly has about 2.3 billion people as a part of its family. It's potentially the most well known, and memorized, scripture anywhere. It  may even rival John 3:16 for the top spot of well knownness or familiarity.  This could be true because it gets prayed, in its various forms, over and over and over again. Millions of people pray it at least once a week on Sunday morning. It also could be true because, when Jesus disciples asked Him to "Teach us to pray," He told them, "Pray like this. " It almost sounds like a command decision on Jesus part, therefore, many obey this most famous prayer in...

Give us, today, our daily bread.   Jesus The Old Normal Verses The New Normal Normally, during our old normal, in these United States of America, people do not tend to be too concerned about how they will be taken care of. I am not saying this is true for everyone here, but most.  That is until the COVID-19 hit, and things began to change. A new normal has happened: Now 17 million Americans have lost their jobs, and this is the result of completely shutting our economy down.  Small businesses are shuttered and  even our church buildings are closed.  Many people are really scared regarding the future. We are not even allowed to gather in groups. We have to stay away from one another. We cannot even hug one another. I cannot imagine how it is for those of you who are in other countries where your economies were not near as robust as the one we had in America. And I know some of you, in other nations, love to embrace one another, which is not somethi...

Demonstrate Love Via The Authentic Relationship And Be Glad … Or Not. April 8, 2020 Alfred McGowen DEMONSTRATED LOVE.  Beloved, let us love one another; after all, love comes only from one source – God- if you demonstrate love, you demonstrate unequivocally that you are born, as a child of God, and have an authentic relationship with the true and living God, through faith in Jesus, the very Son of God, by the Holy Spirit’s power. NON DEMONSTRATED LOVE:  If you do not demonstrate love, to your fellow human beings, you clearly do not know God. Why? This is so because God IS the ultimate source, embodiment and personification of Love, and of how love is to be demonstrated. “ Thus saith The LORD!”  His true children will do likewise because He makes us into His image. (Romans 8:29) HOW TO DEMONSTRATE LOVE:  Therefore, daily live by completely surrendering to God, through Jesus, and then let the Holy Spirit empower you to become a shining example of lov...

Your Will Be Done On Earth Like It Is Done In Heaven : Jesus Complicating Discovering God's Will Sometimes, when I think about the will of God, I feel a bit perplexed by how complicated people make determining how to know God's will. I think one reason people do so is because they confuse a particular context of a well known passage of scripture.  Many consider Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he sweated blood, and where He prayed, "Not my will, but your will be done," as as an automatic belief that your, or my will, will consistently be diametrically opposed to what God wants? This is simply NOT true. In the context of Gethsemane, Jesus absolutely knew what the Father wanted, and He knew what it would take to carry out that will. He would have to go through a LOT of pain, and then He would die. His body rebelled against what He already knew to be the will of God. So, He said, "Not my will, but your will be done."  This does not, the...