Posts Tagged ‘Love’

Jesus is the Model Rule Breaker

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:23-27)

Jesus puts people first, regulations second. Human needs come first, traditions second. The kingdom of God comes first, and everything else second. In practical terms, that means leaders must sometimes violate “sacred” traditions and tear down barriers. Sometimes that takes great courage.
We should not break traditions for the sake of breaking them. Customs can have their place or benefits. Usually they come into place for good reasons. Yet when custom interferes with human need, riles need to be broken. Human need comes before custom and tradition.
Jesus could have used hundreds of examples to show the religious leaders of His day had exploited and spiritually enslaved the people, but He selected one of the most important ones, the law of the Sabbath. Perhaps He did so to so that people would examine other customs, rituals, and regulations by the same criteria.
Sound custom breaking goes back to Jesus’ definition of the first commandment, loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. He tied this to loving our neighbors as ourselves so tightly that it is practically the same commandment. How better can we show our love to God than by the way we treat people? A Mountain Mover uses love as the measure for breaking human customs to meet human needs.

Moving Mountains in Satan’s World

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Though many have been led to believe that this world is God’s world, the Bible tells us something entirely different. The Apostle John was inspired to write: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

During the temptation of Jesus Christ, He was taken to a mountain and shown the glory of all the kingdoms of this world: “And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority [to govern] I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish’” (Luke 4:6).

Did Jesus contradict Satan and tell him that he was not in charge of the kingdoms of this world? No. He did not. Rather, near the end of His ministry, Jesus spoke of Satan in this way: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (John 12:31). As He also said: “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30).

Later, Paul wrote: “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). Satan the Devil is the invisible ruler-the “god” of this age, which has covered about 6,000 years of human history since the creation of Adam. But this age will end at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as King of kings! God inspired Paul to reveal to us that Satan is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). So the invisible spirit ruler-the prince-over this world’s society is actually Satan the Devil!

Nevertheless, the true Creator God intervenes when necessary, to accomplish His purpose. In Galatians 1:4, Paul taught that Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world” (KJV). But egotistical men, who think they know it all, are actually unaware that they are under the powerful sway of the invisible Satan. They think that their ideas about society and about government-often diametrically contrary to those of God-make sense. But God says: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

Satan deceives this world in a thousand different ways! In the book of Revelation, John foresaw a spirit war just ahead when “the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9).

Later, God reveals to us that at the beginning of Christ’s reign on earth, Satan is cast into a bottomless pit “so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:3). The Bible makes it exceedingly clear that this present society is Satan’s. Rather than truly seeking God’s will, today’s civilization is based on vanity, competition, deception and fraud.

Jesus told Pontius Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). Clearly, Jesus had no intention of trying to get into this world’s politics and wars. He represented another world, another government-the kingdom of God.  Mountain Movers International is about expanding God’s Kingdom on earth.

We are not about reorganizing  this world and get into the midst of a lying, scheming political system under the sway of Satan the Devil! We are about being used by our Lord Jesus Christ for His glory while we exist in the enemy’s camp.  Simply put, we desire to do God’s work, God’s way, through God’s people, for God’s purposes. We do this all the while understanding that the hardships and the “mountains” that get in the way are because we are in a spiritual war. It is through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we are able to move those obstacles that get in our way for the purposes of glorifying our Creator. It is the power of His Holy Spirit that graces us with this ability. To God alone be the glory.