Author: Allen Forte

Many of you may know the story of how God asked King Solomon to build the temple in which God would live among the people.  The Temple was God’s way of telling the people that if they lived in obedience to Him, He would dwell among them in His house.

They had their houses.  And then God had His.  In 2 Chronicles scripture says that when Solomon finished building God’s Temple, he prayed.  And when he finished praying, God moved into the Temple.  2 Chronicles 7:1 says it this way.  “When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”

God moved in that day and started to live with and among His children.  When He did this, it is said the priests and the children of God could no longer enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house.

So, what about today?  The temple built by hands for God is no longer here.  It has been destroyed many times over.  God wanted a better place in which to live among us.  He wanted a place closer and more intimate than His own separate house.  He wanted something warm and alive like Himself.

Still, He doesn’t want to just live among us, He wants to live within us.  So, He sent Jesus to prepare a way for Him to live within us by His Holy Spirit.  We ought to think of our bodies now as home to His Spirit.  1 Corinthians 6:19 says it this way.  “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own.”

It took Solomon seven years to build the first man-made temple for God.  And then before God could inhabit His house, it had to be sanctified—set apart—made Holy.  That is why Solomon prayed when the work was all done building the temple.

So, in a like way, we are being prepared to be His Temple today.  And God is fast at work this time Himself, preparing our lives to be His home.  The first Temple was made for God by the hands of man.

Now His next Temple is you and me, and He is doing the work Himself.  He is always cleansing us. He is always sanctifying us.  He is always working to make us more Holy each day.

Solomon used the best materials available at the time to build God’s Temple.  But with you and me, God uses the best of Himself to build up our lives to be home to His Spirit.  But this time, we get to participate in preparing a house for God.

If you want your life to be filled with the Glory of God, you should empty your life of things that bring you glory.

When God fills your life with His presence others will be drawn to you.  They will not have to stay away as the priests of old had to stay away.  No, this time, when God moves in, He invites others to drop by to see what is going on.

So, prepare yourself as best you can for His move-in.  

Make your life a resting place for His life.  If you have too many things going on with you, He may not find the place to come and rest with you.

Make your life dependent on the presence of His strength.  If you live in your own strength, He may find that you do not need His presence as much as He would like your presence with Him.

Make your life a place that shows the salvation of the Lord.  If you act like you do not need to be saved, He may move on to someone crying out for the gift of Salvation.

Make your life a place that rejoices in His goodness.  Be grateful for everything and selfish for nothing.  Gratefulness unlocks the fulness of life that is possible for us.  It makes what we have enough and more.  It turns rejection into acceptance.  It makes sense of your present and your past, so you will have a better tomorrow.  It turns strangers and enemies into friends.

So, pray that God would help you let Him finish the work to make your life His Temple.  When you do, He will fill your life with the Glory of His Spirit.  You will get to live with Him and not just near Him.

You are His Temple.  Prepare yourself to be filled by His presence.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Recently I have been reading the Old Testament Books of Numbers.  Numbers 1 is about the number of people who were brought out of Egypt who wondered in the desert and died.  It is the first official census or numbering of the children of Israel. Numbers 2 is about the numbering of the children of Israel who were born in the wilderness who would later cross over into the Promised Land.  Numbers is God’s ways of counting the population of His people.  God wants to keep track of the time He has with us here on earth. Now, had I been one of those people in bondage in Egypt, I would have complained.  I know that about me.  Had I been one of those people born in the desert, I would have complained.  Yes!  I know me.  When things are not going well for me, I can complain well. But then I read this scripture in Psalms 90:12. It says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” The Lord could have told me to stop complaining.  Instead, He showed me that complaining about what is happening with me now keeps me from seeing how to live abundantly right where I am. Numbering our days means we have a population of days in our futures.  We should live like we know what that population is.  Complaining will keep you from gaining insight to live through your circumstance with wisdom.  It keeps you from gaining wisdom. Complaining keeps you from living with the wisdom needed to get what God has provided for you each day, just as it is.  Complaining keeps you from seeing the little miracles God has designed for you. So here is what I have learned and what you can learn for yourself about seeing the good in life no matter how bad life seems to be for you now. Numbering your days means you live today like it is the last tomorrow you may have.  Numbering your days helps you see what is hidden by your heart from your eyes that are set on seeing how difficult things are for you. Numbering your days will make you say to yourself if today is my last day, I will live it like it is my best day.  The wisdom we gain when we number our days makes us understand this point.  When you do this, the number of days that are your best will be greater than the number of bad days in your life. Numbering your days will help you see that today does not have to be a great day for you to have a great day.  Wisdom tells you that. With the Lord, you don’t have to have a big house to have a great home.  Wisdom tells you that. Numbering your days will help you see that many of the things you lose are typically lost to make room for the things He wants you to gain.  You cannot fill your life with His blessings when it is already filled with stress over things you cannot control. Wisdom tells you that. Numbering your days helps you see that the things that happen to hinder you today are forgotten when tomorrow comes.  You learn to stop living just to get out of something. You learn instead to get through something. Wisdom tells us that. Numbering your days helps you see that when your season of bondage is today, you can live through it without it living through you.  Wisdom tells us that. Numbering your days helps you see that when your season of living in the wilderness is upon you, you can live in all abundance.  Wisdom tells us that. When we number our days, wisdom tells us to live as if we are the Lord’s no matter what we may be facing.  When we do this, we learn to live under the shadow of His wings, in the Power of His glory, in the abundance of His favor and in the excellence of His workmanship. So then, let’s learn to number our days so that we open our hearts to the wisdom He has made available to us, the wisdom that transforms how we live through any circumstance we may face, so that we will number our days with gladness. 

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In Joshua 24:15, Joshua says to the Israelites, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua had shared the options the people had before them.  They could either choose to be like the people they conquered, or they could be like the people God delivered.  They had a choice to make.  What would it be?

Today, we often have the same choice.  God sits up in heaven watching and waiting to see what we will do with the things we face.  He wonders if we will choose to be like we were before we believed or if we will be who we have never been since we believed.

Psalm 31:14 says it this way.  “But as for me, I trust in You O Lord.”  In this instance this “but as for me” refers to some difficult things that we will face in life.  David says for himself and for us, no matter what is happening with him and around him, he will always trust the Lord for his way forward.  That was his choice.

So, what about us?  When people seemingly get ahead and are blessed by worshipping the things God says we should not worship, do we choose to trust Him and or them?

When we are in trouble and our very hearts and souls are wasted away with grief and sadness, will we trust Him or them?

When day after day our lives are full of grief and our strength fails because of our sinful ways, will we trust Him or them?

When we are a reproach with those who hate us and even at times with those who like us, will we trust Him or them?

When all things seem to be against us and nothing is for us, will we trust Him, or will we trust in them who are like those of the world?

Both David and Joshua are saying something similar.  They both believed God enough that they were committed to being the people He had delivered them to be no matter what.

But we have a choice.  And God waits for you and me to say to Him, “But as for me, I am happy to be your child.  No matter what.”

God is more than able to be God to us.  He is more than able to care for us.  He is more than able to save us and to deliver us from all that we face.  And if it is to be, that we are not delivered right away, He alone is still able to carry us through all that challenges us.

But He will not force us to believe.  He will not entice us to believe by offering us something He does not offer any other person.  He does not behold us to Him by saving us from anything.  Still, He is more than able to keep us from ourselves and from all that would have us.

He waits for us to stop, look, and speak to Him, and say, “All may be against me, but as for me, I will choose You still as my God and I will follow You as my God.  No matter what.”

So let this be your mind today.  You have a choice, one that the world offers and one that He offers.

But as for me, I will serve the Lord because to serve anything or anyone else may be the reason I am challenged with the things I face daily.

O Lord, things may be difficult for me, but I know You shall hide me in the shadow of Your wings.

And the things You hide are the things You keep safe.  Others may flee and run to something they believe will free them.

But far be it for me to do that.  As for me, no matter my circumstances, I will keep serving You.

Live A Delivered Life.  Love you.

Have you ever wondered how much you might be hindering the work that God wants to do in the people and world around you?  Well for me, I am sure I hinder some of God’s plans.  I know that to be true because I don’t know all of His plans and I don’t know all of His ways.  I’m a hinderance for sure.

In Exodus 4, God tells Moses to go to Egypt and free His people.  But Moses had a hard time believing he could do what God wanted him to do.  Moses’ lack of belief hindered God just for a bit.  In Exodus 4:30-31, scripture says this simple thing.  “Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel.”  They did the signs God told them to do, and the people believed.  Then, because they believed, they worshiped God.

What were the signs God wanted to work through Moses?  Well, God turned a rod into a serpent and then back into a rod.  Then He caused Moses’ hand to become leprous before restoring it like it was before.  And finally, He caused water from a river to become blood on dry land.

The signs were for the people to believe that God had sent Moses to deliver them from their bondage.  But they needed to believe what they couldn’t imagine more than what they saw daily.  The same thing that would have hindered them from receiving their deliverance almost kept Moses from being part of God’s plan.  Belief.

A lack of belief or doubt are seeds that grow to hinder God’s planned work through us.  But belief is a powerful thing in our lives.  It helps us learn to accept what we cannot imagine in the face of adversities that are ever with us.  Belief is what we have to help us.  It is never there to hinder us.

Now we know that none of us can keep God from doing anything that He wants to do.  But we can hinder Him in what He wants to do through us or with us.  Belief is the forefront of strong faith.  It is the backend to a life of worship.  Belief is the help we use to get out of the way of the things God wants to do with us.

Sometimes in our lives we all have moments when God tries to give us signs to believe that He is with us.  We don’t always see the signs because we look for Him to do more than just to be with us.  We want Him to change what is happening with us.

Each of us has at some point leaned on a rod or a stick to help balance our walk through something difficult.  It can be the rod of medicine or food instead of the strength of belief.

We may use the rod of forgetfulness or ungratefulness for good health to keep us from seeing that poor health is just a wave of the hand away.  Good health should be to us a sign that God cares about us.  He is the one true healer we need.

Things will not always turn out the way many people want.  When they draw water only to find it is undrinkable, they are discouraged.  We may use our abundance of good things to hinder us from seeing that in our abundance we should be a help and a provision for those who have need.

Bondage for some people is right before us.  It happens in many ways, and it is not as far away as Egypt.  So, let’s make sure we are a help more than a hindrance to God when He has plans to use us in the lives and circumstances around us.

Learn to focus more on the people around you instead of the things that hinder you.  Believe so that you become a help rather than hindrance.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

I like the Christian mini movie series “The Chosen”.  In fact, it’s one of the few TV programs or movies I watch.  I’m not a big TV or movie person.  But I love “The Chosen” because it is a good expression of scripture.  I know that it’s a movie, but if you can get past that, you will find a story line that is close to what our scripture tells us.

“The Chosen” is about the story, the relationship, and the lives of the people Jesus choose to be His disciples and how that might have gone had we been there to witness it.  Jesus chose 12 people to be His disciples.  They were called to be His disciples.  And they were His Chosen.

The story makes me think about myself and ask, “What about me?”  It makes me wonder if I am Called, if I am Chosen, or if I am neither.  So, as I considered these two words, Called and Chosen, what I found is simple.  I want to be both Called and Chosen.  And being neither, well that is not an option for me.  Here is why.

In Matthew 22, Jesus tells the story of a king who held a wedding feast for the marriage of His Son.  The King sent out invitations to call His friends to the wedding.  But many people were too busy to answer the call.  They had all kinds of excuses.

The King then told His servants to go out into the streets and bring in anyone and everyone to the wedding – good or bad – until the banquet was full of people.  But the King found one man there who was not invited so this man was thrown out into outer darkness.

Then in Matthew 22:14, Jesus explains this by saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”  The King in this story could be God. The Son in this story could be Jesus.  The wedding in this story could be the joy both God and Jesus have because each of us are called to accept their invitation and gift of salvation.

God says to us, I am going to call a lot of people.  But I will choose those who respond with a hearty yes to come to the to spend eternity with Me. But like the invitees in this story, many of us will be called but we won’t respond.  So, few of us who are called or invited will be Chosen by God.

Abraham, John the Baptist, and Moses were each called by God. Their actions showed us they were Chosen by God to live with Him in eternity.

Mary was Chosen by God.  Her actions showed us she was called to live with Him in eternity.

David was Called by and Chosen by God.  So, David gets to live with God in eternity.

King Saul was neither Called by God nor Chosen by God.  Saul was the people’s choice to be their king.  We don’t know about the eternal life of Saul.  But if he were neither Called nor Chosen, then we know that is not a great state in which to find yourself.

Consider what this means to you.  Read Matthew 22 1-14.  Jesus isn’t just talking about an earthly king and an earthly wedding.  He is speaking to you and me about the desires we should have to make sure we are both Called and Chosen.

Don’t think you must have a ministry of some sorts to be Called.  God is always calling you to come to Him.  You don’t need a special anointing of the Spirit to receive a Call of God or to respond to the Call of God.  All you really need is a hearty response of yes!

Many are called.  You are one of the many.  Few are Chosen.  You want to be one of the few.  When Jesus writes the next chapter of “The Chosen,” make sure He is speaking about you as one of those He called and choose to be with Him.

And try not to be too religious about being Called or being Chosen.  When you are Called, people will see how you respond to something greater than your own desires.

When you are Chosen, people will see how you live quietly, listening to someone greater than you or anyone around you.

Many are Called.  Few are Chosen.  And all these live quietly listening and responding to the Lord with their lives more than with their words.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

The tradition to set aside a day to honor mothers has been around for a long time.  I don’t know where it started.  That doesn’t matter.  Mothers are important to us, and they are important to God.  In John 19:25-27, while He was on the cross, Jesus honored His mother who was standing at His feet.

He looked down from the cross and said this to His mother and to one of His disciples whom we believe to be John, “Woman, behold your son.” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.”  Jesus honored His mom who was about to lose one of her children.  His mom had other sons and daughters, but Jesus thought to make sure that His mom would be cared for after He died.

Several things we see in this exchange between Jesus, His mom and John.

Jesus loved His mom.  He probably loved her more than His brothers and sisters loved her.

Jesus cared for and about His mom.

Jesus gave her His best while He lives.  And after He departed, He made sure she had the best of what would remain.

Jesus favored His mom and was graceful towards her.

Now we don’t have to be the mother of Jesus to understand how important moms are to us and how we should treat them.  There are other examples of moms in the bible who were favored by God and man.  One of those was Hannah the mother of the prophet Samuel.

The name Hannah is a girl’s name that has Hebrew origin.  It means favor or grace.  1 Samuel 1:4-7 tells some of the story of Hannah.  She was married but without children.  Her husband had a second wife who had several children.  This second wife mistreated Hannah because she was barren.  Hannah was grieved, tormented, and provoked by this second wife.

But scripture says this about Hannah’s husband, Elkanah.  It says Elkanah gave much to his second wife and to their children, but always gave more to Hannah because he loved her more.  1 Samuel 1:5.

Elkanah somehow did for Hannah what Jesus did for His mom years later.  He did for Hannah what we should be doing for our moms now.

He took care of his other wife, but he loved Hannah.  We have to love our moms.  And even if they are barren in some way, they are still special before God so they should be before us.

Elkanah favored Hannah, and he made sure it was known by others.  We must love in ways that it are seen and known by others.  This shows the favor of God on the moms in our lives.

Elkanah knew his wife, and he did not stand in the way of what was important to her – children.  We have to know what is important to our wives and to our moms and to help provide those things of importance.

Mother’s Day is indeed a special day because mothers are a special people before the Lord and God.  It is through my mother that I learned that as much as is within me; because of that, I work hard to have a great relationship with the women in my life.  You see, nowhere in scripture does it suggest that moms are or must be perfect.

But just like Jesus with His mom, and Elkanah with Hannah, you and I today can make imperfect things perfect when we find it within ourselves to favor our moms,  always giving grace to them no matter who they are towards us.

Just like Elkanah’s second wife was mean towards Hannah but Elkanah used that to favor Hannah even more,  so we must learn to favor the moms and the women in our lives no matter the circumstances of life we face.

And to you moms and wives reading this, be like Hannah.  Don’t let hard things that come up against you make you a hard person to love and to favor and to give grace.  Remember, people are called to love and to favor you.  Learn to make that as easy as possible for them but being humble and graceful in all you are and in all you do.

Happy Mother’s Day to you all.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Have you ever noticed when God speaks in scripture, His Words are written in black?  When Jesus speaks to us, His Words are written in Red.  When I noticed this difference, I found that the answer is in the nature of God and Jesus as it relates to us.

God communicates to us about His nature so that we understand who He is.  No one has ever seen God, nor have we had conversations with Him.  So, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can only understand what God says about Himself.  God writes to us His biography.  It’s His account of His life.  He tries to get us to understand.

But with Jesus it is different.  Jesus was born a man, walked among men and talked with men.  Jesus has conversations with us.  He establishes a relationship with us by having conversations about who He is, who we are, and who we should become. 

God communicates with us.  Genesis 2:16 says it this way.  “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.”  God doesn’t expect us to say anything.  He expects us to obey.

Jesus has conversations with us because He wants a personal relationship with us.  John 3:16 says it this way. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  Jesus talks with us so that we will want to become believers in Him.

So, when we speak of and write of the nature of God and what He says, we are writing His biography.  We speak of and give an account of His life through our eyes and through our own understanding.  We say these are the footsteps of God.  We follow His footsteps so that we discover lives of obedience.

Do you have some footsteps in your path that you are following?  Whose are they?

But Jesus doesn’t need us to speak of Him.  He does that Himself by using our lives as believers to reveal Himself as our Savior. He writes His autobiography using a relationship with each believer.  He is the footprint in our lives that every believer and nonbeliever can see.

Believers gladly take His footprints as evidence of our relationship with Him.   So, our lives are in a way the autobiography of Jesus’ life in us.  When we give our lives to Jesus, He uses us to speak about Himself for Himself.  We reveal His footprints so that others can know His life.

So then, the historical account of God should be to our lives, His footsteps that reveal our knowledge of Him.  If the footsteps you take follow your own path, you are writing your own biography of your life more than you are writing of the knowledge of the Life of God by your life.

But the historical account of Jesus is Jesus’ own story about Himself to us.  It is His autobiography.  He writes and speaks about Himself for Himself.  Jesus has conversations with us through His own life and Spirit.  If the footprints found in your life are your own, then you are having a relationship with yourself telling others of your own life.

So, the question today is this?  Is your life a historical biography of who God is?  If it is, we should see some footsteps ahead of you that reveal the path forward for your life.

Or is it an autobiography of a relationship you have with Christ.  If it is, then we should see some of Jesus unmistakable footprints found in your life speaking to us about who He is.

You need both God’s footsteps and Jesus’s footprints living in your life.  It is important for you to distinguish between the two.

As a biography of the life of God, we follow footsteps that tell a story of what God has communicated to us about Himself.

As an autobiography of the Life of Christ, the Spirit tells of a relationship Christ has with each of us.  He reveals the footprints of Jesus’s love living in our lives.

As a biography of the Life of God, we share what we have come to know.  We follow the footsteps that reveal where God is and where He wants us to be.

As an autobiography of Christ, we reveal the depth of the relationship we have with Christ.  He tells others of Himself by revealing how He is the Bread of our Lives.

There are times when we should be the instrument of God’s biography.  We should tell the story of who He is as He has communicated that to us.

There are times when we should be the instrument of Jesus’ autobiography.  We should allow Him to tell the story of His relationship with us as He has conversations with us daily.

The problem we have with this is simple.  There are more times when we are our own biography of what we believe about God. We have never had a burning bush encounter so don’t have footsteps we can follow.

And many of us have never had a life changing, belief transformation in Christ, so we do not have the footprints of Christ in our lives that reveal the conversations we have had that led to the transformation we have enjoyed.

If you are going to live a believer’s life, you must recognize and follow God’s footsteps and you must have some of Christ’s footprints written in your heart.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Matthew 14:25-26 tells of a time when Jesus went out on the sea to be with His disciples.  It says they were in a boat, and He went out to them walking on the water.  Matthew 14:26 says it this way.  “And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a ghost.’  And they cried for fear.”

The disciples had just been with Jesus earlier that day.  He had sent them out on the boat to go to the other side of the sea.  He waited on shore a bit to pray and then He went out to them later that night. They didn’t know what to think or what to believe, so they chose to believe He was a ghost.

Well, I’m like the disciples sometimes.  When I encounter something that I do not understand or something I cannot explain, I often choose to believe the thing that cannot explain what cannot be to me.  Since I can make no sense of some things, I use nonsense to explain to myself the things to me that are not possible things.  But wait!

When the angel went to Zacharias to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would be having the baby John the Baptist, Zacharias was afraid to believe.  He was afraid because he and his wife were very old, so this didn’t make any sense to him.  Luke 1:12.

Yet a little later the same angel went to Mary and announced to her that she would become pregnant, and she would have Jesus, the Son of God.  Mary wondered about how this would be possible because she was a young girl, and she was a virgin.  But she was not afraid.

Fear kept the disciples from believing what they were seeing.  Fear kept Zacharias from believing what he was hearing, so he was made mute until the day John the Baptist was born.  Wonder and anticipation made Mary believe how possible it was to hear what she was hearing.

The disciples should have known better; they walked with Jesus daily.  Zacharias should have known better; he was a priest who served God daily.  And believers today should know better; we have the Spirit of God in our hearts.

In Luke 1:36-37 God assured Mary that the thing she was hearing was a Possible Thing.  He tells her, “Now indeed Elizabeth your relative is also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.  For with God nothing will be impossible.”

God made the water.  Why should we find it amazing that Jesus then could walk on water?  Anything is a Possible Thing for God.  God is able to do all things.

God created Adam from the dust of the earth.  Why should we find it amazing that He could cause an old lady to have a baby?  Old women having babies is a Possible Thing with God.  He is able to do all things.

So, let’s not think the things that make no sense to us must be the ghost of our unbelief.  God can do anything.  We must not be fearful but believing.  Anything is then a Possible Thing with God.

So, if to us a thing has never been heard of, believe that with God it is a Possible Thing.

If to us a thing has never before been seen, believe that with God it is a Possible Thing.

If to us a thing is unimaginable, believe that with God the unimaginable is a Possible Thing.

Don’t give your fears the belief that you should only give to God.  It doesn’t matter how unimaginable, or how unknown, or how unthinkable, or how unseen anything may be to us. 

All things are Possible Things with God.  Put your fear to death and live in belief of the Possible Things that are in your life daily.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In Matthew 16:1, Jesus tells His disciples, “How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?  But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  Now this was the second time Jesus had told them this.  The first time they thought He told them because they had forgotten to take bread for their journey.

I guess the disciples were kicking themselves because they knew Jesus would not have forgotten to take bread.  He remembers to do everything, especially the important things.  A few years ago, we went through a phase where we asked ourselves, “What Would Jesus Do?”  We started to see the letters WWJD everywhere in the Christian environment.

I imagine the WWJD letters are still around today, but the question has lost some of its emphasis.  Like everything, too much of a thing can easily make that thing common and perhaps unimportant to us.  Now I’m not saying we should not wonder about Jesus.  But perhaps a better more lasting question—one that will never lose its importance—would be to ask ourselves, “Am I learning the way Jesus wants me to learn?”

“How is it that you do not understand I did not speak to you concerning bread?”  That was Jesus’ question to His disciples.  But Jesus was saying to them, you must not only understand the words I say, but you must also learn to comprehend what is said and to learn what is meant.

Jesus was using words they all knew to talk about ways of living they all should know.  Having bread and water are necessary to sustain life, but how we live is critical to how fulfilling life can be for us.

“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  Here Jesus did not use the words “be aware.”  He chose the one word “beware.”  Sometimes we can confuse the two.  To be aware is to simply learn to be conscious of what is around you.  There is no real danger.  Be aware of what you need to take on your journey so that you don’t forget anything important.

But by using “beware,” He is saying to us stop, listen, use caution because there is danger around.  Watch out for what you cannot see ahead—there is danger lurking.  Beware of where you go because some places are not safe for you.

Beware of playing with fire; the fire could burn you.

Beware of who you hang around with; they may not have your best interest at heart.

Beware of who you live like; they may not be living right.

Beware of who you learn from; they may not have learned what will help you.

If we are going to do what Jesus does, we will need to understand what He says and comprehend what it all means.  The easiest way to do this is to submit ourselves to learn the things that He has learned and to learn the things He knows and tries to teach us daily.

When Jesus said beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, He wasn’t speaking about bread at all.  The disciples had learned that leaven was used to help make bread, so they thought Jesus was speaking about bread.

If you want to make sure you get your living as right as possible, set your heart to learn what Jesus has learned.  Learn how He learns.  Learn why He learns the things He learns.  He tells us to take His yoke upon ourselves and to learn from Him.

Let’s do that.  The best example of how we should live is perhaps found more in learning to learn from what Jesus has learned.  When we learn like He learns perhaps we will be better at doing like He does.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.