There's something I've been thinking about recently -
we have to check our hearts
because in a world that's ever increasingly divisive,
polemic, do we find our hearts slowly slipping
into being judgemental?
Divisive? finding it difficult to forgive?
finding it difficult to be compassionate?
judging people?
And I think that's one of the greatest
temptations that we face,
to put ourselves in the position of judge
whereas that's not a position that God gives us
as children of God.
Whilst we're on this earth,
it's not our place to judge
because God is the judge.
And I think so many of us,
maybe consciously or subconsciously find ourselves slipping
into that judgemental position.
What can you say about this?
What is judgement?
Well, when we judge someone's motives
or think that we know the reason why someone does something
and say whether it's good or bad.
Thank you for saying motive.
We need to understand when it comes to judgement,
Jesus' standard of judgement is different
from man's judgement.
That the Lord does not judge what we say,
what we do on face value.
The Lord always looks at our heart
to judge the motivation of why we are doing this.
And that's the purpose that brings God's approval
or the reproof of God in our actions
and decisions every day.
As you said today,
God is all about relationship.
We should not forget that the heart
of the matter of this Bible is to restore
the relationship between God and man.
And that's the love relationship.
Absolutely.
Not only between God and man,
to other fellow human beings.
I say mankind.
Today relationships are under repair, everywhere.
Not only towards God,
but towards our neighbour,
towards our brothers, towards our sisters,
towards our friends and towards those who are not our friends.
Why we are saying this.
Jesus said, ‘you should love the Lord your God,
with all your heart,
with all your mind, with all your strength and?
Love your neighbour as yourself’.
Good - as yourself.
That love starts first with the love of God.
And that's the love of God in us,
as the Bible says ‘it’s poured
by the Holy Spirit in our heart’.
Romans 5:5, that overflows.
If I have a cup of water,
you cannot quench my thirst with a cup of water.
You share it with me, that's why Jesus said.
If you know who is speaking to you
and what is the gift of God in John 4,
you would've asked me and I will give you?
Living water.
Living waters.
And the water I give you will?
Well up within you.
Will well up, overflow to everlasting life.
Oh my God!
God has set a table before us
and He wants us to be blessed abundantly
so we can have something to share with others.
It means our request, when we come before God
should not be self-centred.
If we ask for God's sake,
the blessing will overflow.
If you ask for God's sake,
God knows you are not asking just for you,
but for your neighbour.
That means one of the major obstacles
is actually selfishness.
Absolutely.
And that makes us also want to judge people.
That is a problem we have.
That's why James says,
when we come into God's presence,
we ask and we don't receive because we ask-
Wrongly.
Wrongly, why?
We ask for selfish, classic, and material reasons.
The motivation God approves
is when the reason behind the action is for God's sake.
And it is only God that can see that motive.
We can't see people’s motives.
God can only see it
and that's what is important
because we are not asking man,
we are asking God.
You want God to hear you.
We want God to answer our prayers.
So remember, when we come to Him with our lips,
He listens to our heart.
Can we go to Matthew 15:8
that will lay down the principle of this message.
Matthew 15:8.
Let's listen to what Jesus Christ,
the righteous judge said.
But don't forget the Bible calls Jesus,
the judge of the living and of the dead.
Let's listen to the judgement of Christ.
"These people draw near to me with their mouth
and honour me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me."
"And in vain they worship me,
teaching as doctrines, the commandments of men."
In vain we pray,
in vain we ask when we come with our mouth alone,
but our hearts are far from God.
How sad that is,
that people think they're worshiping
but actually it's in vain.
Yes, because our heart is far from God.
Means when we come to God,
we should bring our heart first before our mouth.
We should not be too quick to speak.
When you bring your heart,
when you engage your heart before God,
the scriptures say we don't know what to ask.
We don't know what to pray for.
Romans 8:26-27.
That's why the Holy Spirit intercedes.
Absolutely.
In words we cannot...
Yes, go ahead.
Those we cannot.
We cannot comprehend.
Thank you.
When the Holy Spirit comes,
He will take you to God's presence first
and then He will help you
how to pray and what to pray for.
We often hear that prayer changes things.
That's not entirely true.
Yes.
Prayer changes us.
Prayer changes us and?
And faith changes things.
Faith causes things to happen.
Let's break that one down.
Prayer changes me.
Because it takes our focus off ourselves.
We all enter God's presence because we have trouble.
Because nobody comes to Jesus in comfort, am I right?
Very often we come because of our burden.
But the Bible says don't be too quick
to ask for solution.
Try to find out what God is saying in the matter.
That's why we bring all burdens before Jesus to God
and ask Him to know God's opinion on the matter.
This is God's opinion on the matter
that will reveal His will on the matter.
Jesus walking towards the cross was not for Himself,
it was for you and I, for humankind
because He said, "Nobody takes my life,
I lay it down myself.
I have the power to give my life and to take it back.
That's the command of my father."
So it is the motivation that is important.
When Peter heard what Jesus said,
"I'm going to Jerusalem,
they will arrest me,
they will spit on me and they will kill me.
On the third day I will rise."
Peter said, "What? God forbid.
It will never happen to you."
Why? selfishness.
Peter was focusing on himself, on the natural side
with emotion, with love for Jesus.
But Jesus was thinking the thoughts of God,
not the thoughts of man.
So when we judge situations
and others from a human point of view,
it's actually a selfish attitude, is that right?
Absolutely, because very often
we judge people because we have a mindset,
a negative mindset,
pre-judgement against others
and that is not good.
Remember in John 8:11,
when they brought the adulterous woman before Jesus.
The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law
who brought that woman to Jesus for judgement.
That's why they brought her for judgement.
Because the law of Moses said,
anybody who committed sin must be stoned to death.
So their decision was made already.
They had a prejudgement on that woman already.
They judged her in their hearts already.
They just wanted confirmation.
And when they brought her to Jesus, they said,
"Master, the law of Moses said,
if we catch any person in the act of doing adultery,
that such a person should be stoned to death."
That's what the law of Moses said.
They were trying to trick Him.
You, what do you say?
So when we take the situation on literal senses,
on the letter, you are going to stone the woman.
That's what the letter says.
That's why even a judge,
when you go to any court today,
no judge will go by the face value.
They do investigation to find out
what was the motivation of the person.
You will never condemn any person
if you learn the person has a psychiatric problem.
The first thing is if the person has his own mind.
Has he done this act wilfully,
consciously with all of his mind?
That's when guilt can come.
Because if the person is out of his mind,
because he has a psychiatric problem,
you cannot say he expresses will.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
So rather than judge him, and take him to prison,
they would take him to hospital for treatment
and that was the right judgement, right?
But in the case we're talking about,
when they brought the woman to Jesus,
Jesus looked at them and said,
"If any of you has never committed sin,
be the first to throw the stone."
I just love that word that Jesus spoke
because it just shows
that Jesus is the father of every heart,
every heart from now till the end of the ages.
And everyone has to answer to Him,
whether we understand it or not,
or we realize it or not.
We do have to answer to Him
and that is why He knew
what had happened in each person's heart
because He knew the motive.
And that's why only He was in the position
to say that judgement.
Rightful judgement is to get into the heart of the matter.
And you can't do that without the Holy Spirit.
No, because the Holy Spirit
always gets into the heart of the matter.
He never judges a situation by face value, over hearsay,
or by what a situation looks like.
He looks beyond, to the heart
to find out the motivation of the person
behind that action.
And we should not be quick to judge.
Not be too quick to judge.
If the rightful judge who sees the heart
does not rush into judgement,
why should we rush into judgement?
That's why many relationships have been so strained
because we judge people on today
and we don't know what tomorrow brings.
Husband and wife.
Today we have many.
If I ask, if we are honest,
we have so many marriages, relationships,
marital relationships that are strained today
because of this mindset.
Marriage is a unity of heart and purpose, and mind.
The heart agrees, right?
If our heart agrees,
we should not have any division in our hearts.
And that's why God said in the Book of Malachi 2,
"I am the witness of your wedding."
That's what God said.
"Be careful that in your heart you will not betray
your wife or your husband."
The heart, that's why Jesus say,
‘if a man looks at a woman
in his heart without saying any word,
but desires to have relationship with a woman,
he has committed adultery in his heart’.
Jesus always gets into the heart of the matter,
the heart, and He said,
"If any of you has not committed any sin,
be the first to throw."
He just demonstrated with just that sentence
that He's the father of every heart.
Absolutely, by saying this,
the motivation, what brought that woman to that act
however sinful it is,
the same temptation everybody's faced with today.
The hierarchy of sin can only be determined by Jesus.
Sin is sin.
Lying is sin, killing is sin.
The sin of Adam, just disobeying.
The sin of Adam that disobedience of eating a fruit,
I say, How can this bring death to him?
Not only to him, but to the whole world.
What matters is not the action,
but the motivation behind the action.
We'll have time to talk about it in depth.
But if you see..
Yeah, because he wilfully disobeyed God
and he had chance to repent and he didn't.
Good.
If I see you doing something
which does not seem right to me,
which does not seem,
instead of me praying over it or asking you,
I come to a conclusion
because I expect you to do the right thing.
So I say, "Ah, what she did it seems strange to me."
Instead of enquiring from God or finding out,
you come to a quick mindset and judgement.
That's why mindset is a problem.
Negative mindset.
Negative mindset,
bad feeling towards others.
Prejudgement which is fed by pure ignorance
can come to a judgement, wrong judgement.
That's why I was thinking of,
well, I said at the beginning that we as believers,
we are supposed to be with a difference.
We're in this world but not part of it.
So we should refrain from allowing our hearts
to be drawn to division, to judgement,
to anger, to bitterness
when we see or hear things that are happening around us.
And rather we should do what is good
to change the bad we see,
be a force for love.
Judgement is a double-edged sword.
You can judge what is not right,
but you must have a sense of judgement to do what is right,
and that is what I want to say.
If I have judgement, it’s not just to say
"This is bad, this is bad."
But rightful judgement says, "This is good,
This is what we should do."
Yes, it is double sided.
What I mean.
Okay, when I enter into a relationship with a person,
what is the motivation to say
this is the person, this is this.
Before you go, the Bible says, ‘Enquire from God’.
When you enquire from God,
you have the rightful judgement of anything you do.
You will know the right place to go,
the right type of people to meet,
the right type of job to have.
That's rightful judgement
we need to have the positive side of it.
If we have rightful judgement
and that cannot happen without enquiring from the Holy Spirit,
then we should guard against judging people.
Because no one is righteous, not even one.
Without the Holy Ghost we cannot get
into the heart of the matter.
If you ask anyone who is honest and sincere,
what type of person they want to marry,
they want to live with,
they will mention criteria
that are all based on the outside.
Beautiful eyes, beautiful nose,
beautiful body, tall, whatever.
Everybody has his own,
How do you call it? Preferences.
But,
The most important is the inside.
Who will talk about the heart?
A man or woman that fears God.
That's the heart.
Our heart does things before our mouth.
That's the motivation.
That's why the Bible says,
‘When you think negatively,
you are bound to speak negatively and act negatively’.
That's why the Lord warns everybody in that Matthew 15:8,
‘That what defiles us is what comes from our mouth.
All our motivation, anger,
resentment, divorce, separation, attack
always comes from the heart of a person.
That's why, remember when Peter said
to Ananias in Act 5,
that's a clear example of judgement.
Let's take the example.
At the early church in the beginning,
the disciples were selling all their properties
and bringing them in common to the Treasury.
So, anybody who was in need received help, right?
Yeah.
We have Ananias and Sapphira,
they came to the apostle, they sold their property.
It was their own property.
They had the right to do whatever they wanted to do with it.
They sold their property.
Let's say the house was 1 million.
They said, "Let's tell them (disciples)that the house was half, 500,000."
They came and said, "Okay, our house was sold for 500,000.
This is the 500,000."
And the rest, they kept it.
That's what they did.
It was their property.
They could have said, "Okay, I give you 500."
If they said to Peter, the house is 1 million,
I get 500 and I give.
Nothing would've happened I really believe
because you're free.
It's your free will offering from your heart.
But they were trying to, they lied.
They kept that entirely from Jesus and said that
the house is sold at this price.
Peter was a man led by the Holy Ghost
with rightful judgement.
He enquired from the Holy Spirit,
And the Holy Spirit revealed him the truth,
that the price of the house is not what they said.
This is the real price.
When Peter heard this, what did he say?
He said, ‘You have sinned against the Holy Spirit’.
Why did you allow satan to fill your heart
so that you can lie to the Holy Spirit.
You have not lied to man but to God.
That was the judgement.
And when we read the Bible they got scared
by the judgement that came.
And immediately what happened to them?
they fell dead.
Anytime I read that passage,
I get extremely scared.
I say, thank God, we don't have this.
But there was a sense of judgement, rightful judgement,
which was extremely clear on the motivation of actions.
And also knowing that the Holy Spirit is there
in every single decision that you make,
every single thought in your heart,
the Holy Spirit is witness to that.
Thank you for saying this.
Now, if you have awareness, if I have awareness that
the Holy Ghost is inside of me,
I should be extremely careful of my thoughts
first before I talk about my words,
because everything starts in the thoughts.
That's why as a Christian, a believer
should be careful of what he looks at,
what he sees, what he touches
that can influence his thoughts.
Bad feelings, negative thoughts start from here.
You don't need to express it,
but God hears it
and it matters to the Holy Spirit.
That's why when we have the sensitivity
of God's presence in our heart through the Holy Ghost,
anytime our mind begins to drift
towards something that's not right,
your conscious will judge you immediately
because of who?
Because the Holy Ghost will prompt your heart
before you step into action.
That's why we need to always be sensitive
to the voice of our conscience,
because that's how the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
Absolutely, that's why James said,
‘Nobody can tempt God, God cannot be tempted’.
But sin is when we are attracted by our own desires,
by our own will that we are enticed
to fall into the temptation of pre-judging others.
The question is, the person you are judging today,
no matter how bad the person may seem
or look to you on human judgement,
ask yourself, what does Jesus think about that person?
Because we're not God.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that.
God's standard of judgement is different from our own.
God tests our heart to reward us
because His focus is the motive behind what we do.
Exactly.
Saul, you know Saul?
Who was Saul?
Well, Saul was the one
who was persecuting all the Christians.
Yes, terribly in a very harsh way.
Forcing them to blaspheme, persecuting them.
Yet God said he was His chosen vessel.
Yes, though when he was going to persecute the people
in Damascus having letters of recommendation
from the teachers of the law with full force.
Even Stephen, he stood there as Stephen was killed
and stoned to death.
Yes, that was his zeal.
But he had a zeal for the law of Moses,
but zeal marked with ignorance of spiritual things.
He judged the situation on the letter.
For the Word of God, when we approach it in the letter,
we have the wrong judgement.
There's the letter of the Word, There’s the spirit of the Word.
Wait, say that again.
There's the letter of the Word
and we have the spirit of the Word.
The divine meaning of the Word.
So you can be very committed,
zealous towards the letter of the Word
and yet completely missing the point.
If it's not in spirit, it's not in truth
and so it's all nothing.
That's what Jesus said to them.
If you know that I delight in mercy,
you'll never condemn innocent people.
That's what Jesus said.
Jesus met Ananias, one of the disciples
who knew who Saul was in the dream.
And when Jesus mentioned the name of Saul,
he said, "Hey Lord, this man is a wolf.
He's a terrible person."
No, I mean just think about it in today's society,
if someone who's publicly persecuting people
that believe in Jesus,
and then suddenly God reveals to you
that, ‘Oh, this is actually the one I want to use
as my chosen vessel’. Wow!
And that's what happened.
And I mean, yeah.
The motivation behind the action of Saul was pure ignorance.
He had a zeal without knowledge.
And he even said it in that Book of Timothy 1.
But now, what was the answer of Jesus to him?
He's my chosen vessel.
God does not consider our now,
our past to determine our future.
We need to understand that.
Because Jesus is a tomorrow thinker,
He has vision.
Thank you.
Jesus is looking at your tomorrow.
Thank you.
Even your 10 years from now.
Thank you.
Your 20 years from now.
This is what matters to Jesus.
But we are so concentrated on now, now, now
and even not now but yesterday.
The pain of the past,
the betrayal of the past,
the disappointment of the past,
the scars of the past we're so full of all these scars
that we find it difficult to even live today,
let alone trust our tomorrow in the hands of Jesus.
And yet Jesus knows what we can become tomorrow
if we fully submit to Him
and that's what he's looking at.
I always remember Prophet TB Joshua
was such a man of vision.
He looked at us, a situation where
when we came so many years ago,
there was no way,
all of this was in our mind.
No, we just wanted to not miss salvation.
Yet God knew, God knew because God knew the plan
He had for every single person.
Jesus never, never, never considers your past
to determine your future.
Jesus came to change our lives,
to change our focus.
We humans, we keep record of the offenses of the past.
We keep a record of every wrong done to us.
That's why we find it so difficult to forgive.
‘Ah, you have done it again, again’.
We keep record of the past.
But the Bible says,
‘Loves keeps no record of wrong.
When Jesus looked at you and I,
as He did for the Samaritan woman,
His purpose is to give you a new focus of the future.
Satan the devil we all know,
always speaks about our past, our unworthy past.
No one was born righteous, no one.
But Jesus has come to remove that past
and give you a new future that can change.
And He can do it for you,
He can do it for someone else as well
that you are currently looking at with the eyes of judgement.
If Jesus can remove our past
and point us to the future,
then he can do it for everyone.
That is why we shouldn't judge anyone on account of today
because tomorrow is a mystery.
So, when the Pharisees brought that lady,
they were considering her past.
But you say rightfully,
tomorrow is a mystery that only God knows.
When Jesus is correcting you and me, all of us,
it's because of the future.
When God says, "Don't do this."
You may not do it today,
but you may do it tomorrow.
Correction, judgement, everything God has spoken
through the mouth of the prophet as a warning
is for the future.
When God said to the prophet Jeremiah,
‘Tell them that if they continue to do this,
I will send the enemy.
Nebuchadnezzar will come, He will burn the city.
He will kill everybody’.
But God was saying this to trigger a sense of repentance.
So they can say, “Hey God, sorry, we come back,
we stop doing evil, we come back to you."
That's true, because it's how we respond
to that correction or that judgement
that is actually what Jesus is looking at as well.
That will determine your future.
Your response to correction determines your future.
And when we talk about correction here,
we mean correction in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Absolutely.
You know, when you read your Bible
and something comes to your heart,
that can be God correcting you
because the Word of God has power.
Power, for converting power, purifying power.
It's a double-edged sword.
So, you mentioned correction.
How do you do correction?
Correction is not judgement.
There's a difference between correction and judgement.
Judgement is a mindset,
a preset judgement in your mind already.
You have decided to judge the person already.
But correction
is to help someone.
Is to help the person to change.
How do you correct a person?
Don't say, "Hey, this is bad.
You are this, you are this."
That's condemnation.
Do what is good in the sight of the person
to change the bad you see,
That's why the Bible tells us in Galatians 6
that we should be gentle
in our correction.
That is be a leader by example.
Example means let your character show.
Let the person see in the way you speak,
act, a reason to come to you to say, "I'm sorry."
Do what is good in the sight of God
to change the bad you see.
If the person is an angry person, be gentle.
Let him see your gentleness.
So, he can say, I'm sorry.
If the person has pride,
we don't respond by pride.
Let him see humility.
Let your humility convince him to say,
"I'm sorry."
Two wrongs cannot make what?
A right.
So, what do you do?
The weapons of righteousness.
The Bible says, when we see a situation,
don't be too quick to judge.
You should find out from God's perspective
what is the mind of God about that situation we judge.
Today we arrogate the position of God to judge people.
Correction is our duty,
but judgement is God's duty.
Correction in love.
In love of course.
And with the right motivation.
Correction, not to see someone fall down,
but to help someone.
In fact, I really really appreciate all those
throughout my journey
who took time to correct me for God's sake.
I really see the product of that,
the consequence of that, the result of that.
And that's why the Bible says in the Book of Proverbs,
if you are wise, you should not despise correction.
You should appreciate correction
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
When you say the power of Holy Spirit, it means
judgement leads to punishment, right?
But correction leads to amendment,
repentance and reconciliation.
There are two ways of approaching this Holy Bible.
Jesus, His attitude was constant correction,
showing God's standard of doing things.
When the Pharisees were opposing Him,
asking Him questions,
Jesus responded with the wisdom of God.
He spoke what is right in the sight of God.
When you think right, speak right and act right
in the sight of God,
you are correcting everybody.
People are reading you.
We talk about Prophet TB Joshua, well you are right.
His lifestyle was a constant correction to everyone of us.
Why correction?
You will see the way he attended to the simple people,
to the poor, to even those offending him.
His reaction towards them.
You would never see him fighting people,
answering back, never.
His attitude, humility, doing what is right
in the sight of God to change the bad you see.
So now the weapons of righteousness
are the fruit of the spirit.
So, exercise the fruit of the spirit
in the face of the fruit of the flesh
and that's the change we're talking about.
Let your character reflect Christ’s character.
If people insult you, don't insult back.
If you insult back what's the difference?
Jesus said, "If you love only those who you love,
even those you say are unjust, they love the children.
Anybody can do it, but love your enemy.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Bless, do not curse.
That's the weapons of righteousness we're talking about.
And that will actually disarm those
who have a bad judgement of you.
This does not mean correction will not take place.
Correction is our duty.
If we see something wrong, correct in love
by telling the truth, by showing the truth.
Leadership by example.
That's what brings change.
You know that person will now
listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit in their heart,
prompting their conscience to know that
what they're doing is wrong.
Christian means?
Christ likeness.
Okay, the question.
Anytime you face a situation of opposition,
ask yourself, how would Jesus react in such a situation?
Somebody embarrasses you, insult you.
Remember, Jesus was embarrassed,
constantly insulted, constantly opposed, constantly.
They even said he cast out demons by Beelzebub.
They even said He was demon possessed, He was demonized.
There's nothing they did not say against Jesus.
But how did He respond?
He responded with forgiveness.
And when the truth was ignored, He was silent
Because He knew the people were ignorant of the truth.
Truth is hidden.
Truth is not intellectual; it needs to be perceived spiritually.
So, your integrity,
no matter how good you are on the inside,
can never be perceived intellectually.
It has to be discerned.
Integrity cannot be understood,
perceived intellectually but spiritually.
Meaning you cannot know the heart of man
if you're not helped by the Holy Ghost.
Ask God to help you to get into the heart
of the matter of a situation before coming to judgement.
Ask Him to show you the heart,
the motivation of the heart of the person
so you can have rightful judgement.
This being said, we have the avenue,
the weapons of righteousness
that can heal your relationship with everyone.
Service your relationship.
Absolutely, service it.
We will talk about that,
do you service your relationship?
You have to take care of each relationship.
You should not take it for granted because-
Because what gives us joy,
wealth, health in life
is all about relationship.
How do you service your relationship?
How do we service it?
It's true, but how do we service it?
You know your vehicle, you drive your vehicle
and you have a computer to tell you in 100 miles,
you have to take it to the garage.
A computer will help you to take it for service,
to change the oil, to clean this,
to keep it, to maintain it.
Relationship needs to be maintained.
You don't wait till situations emerge to act.
Love never waits for a situation to come, it anticipates.
That's why we need to service.
Don't wait for the person to ask you to do this, to do that.
Do it spontaneously for God's sake.
Don't wait for someone to ask for help.
Do it spontaneously from your heart.
Ask God, what can I do to help somebody?
Everybody wants to change somebody,
they don't know how to go about it.
But did you yield your heart to be a servant?
For the Holy Ghost to use you to bless others?
Remember what makes us human is what, is not?
Our ability to think, but our ability to love.
Which kind of love, everybody has somebody to love,
but everybody has somebody to say,
"I don't love this person."
“I don't like this.”
When you look at a person on the outside,
it will not take long to see something you don't like.
Nobody's perfect.
But it takes a lifetime to see
the beauty in the heart of the person
beyond what you can see.
You say, "Don't reject anybody because of today,
tomorrow is mystery."
Okay, when Ananias was saying Paul was a bad person,
but Jesus saw the future, the future apostle.
He said, "He's my chosen vessel."
God is not looking at our kindness, our obedience now,
but obedience in 20 years, in 50 years to come.
Somebody can be good today,
but tomorrow (it’s a mystery), can be bad.
You can pretend for a long time,
but eventually the real-
Somebody cane be bad today and be wonderful tomorrow.
The real character will come out.
That's why we should not rush into decision
to judge too quickly.
People judged Jesus on the outside.
In John 7:12, some said he's a good person.
Some said He's a bad person, He deceives people.
Even those who said He's good
and welcomed Him on Palm Sunday, saying hosanna, hosanna -
the same people said -
Crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him.
So, we shouldn't,
Yeah, that's another thing.
We shouldn't be so concerned about
people's opinion about us,
even people that we don't know.
What should matter to us is God's opinion about us.
And God tests our heart to reward us.
The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
The purpose of salvation,
the purpose of the Holy Bible,
can be summed up in one word, righteousness.
What is righteousness?
Right standing before God,
not right standing before man.
Right standing means rightful judgement for God's sake.
God said to Abraham, "Walk before me blamelessly
by doing what is right."
Thinking right, speaking right, acting right
according to the mind of God
every single day of our lives.
We are made to be like Jesus.
We have to behave like Him and the task is huge.
That's what Jesus said, "Carry your cross and follow me."
What is your cross?
Your cross is not the wood,
your cross is your body.
The cross is myself.
Self-will, self-will. My will, my self-will.
That's always wanting to go opposite to what God wants.
Absolutely, if my flesh is crucified
and I carry the cross,
asking Jesus to help me.
I will walk in the footsteps of Christ in righteousness
every single day of life.
If you do so,
you will have capacity to bless people around you.
You will never destroy any relationship beyond repair
for tomorrow is mystery.
There will always be room for forgiveness
and your marriage, your relationship, your friends,
you will never lose a friend.
You will never destroy any relationship beyond repair.
People may leave you,
but you'll never leave anybody.
But Jesus will service that relationship.
Thank you. Amen.
So thank you so much for joining us
and how to service our relationship,
how not to judge on a human level,
but correct in God's love.
We can't do any of this without the help of the Holy Spirit.
So, let's continue to ask the Holy Spirit
to give us more of Him and take more of us,
in Jesus’ name.
Thank you, that's the right prayer.
Take more of me and give me more of you, Holy Spirit.
Take more of my lies and give me more of your truth.
Holy Spirit of truth forgive my lies,
help me to be truthful.
Holy Spirit of humility forgive my pride
and give me your humility.
Lead me to humility.
These are the things we should pray for,
to put on Christ as our righteousness every single day.
And by doing that,
you're servicing your heart
and if you service your heart,
then definitely your relationships are serviced
because you relate with others through your heart.
By doing so,
you are asking the Holy Ghost to fill you.
And when He fills you,
He will fill you and that love will overflow to others.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.