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“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:16 NIV

This is a very vague statement that is made by Jesus when He tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. This is the last verse for that parable. There are several interpretations of this statement. All of these interpretations have one thing in common and that is that they are all based on the individuals Jesus is talking about having accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Some people believe that the statement is meant to let everyone know that regardless of what we, as humans, have decided is worthy of reward, that in the end it is up to God and His grace. He will decide who gets what rewards, and who gets those rewards first and who gets them last. Those who we believe are the least deserving of rewards in the kingdom of heaven, may actually be first to receive God’s grace because God chooses to give it to them first. Others who we believe are the most deserving of rewards may be last to receive them. It is all God’s decision.

Other people believe that Jesus is telling those who are poor, by the world’s standards, that they will be rich in heaven and those who are rich, by the world’s standards, that they will have less riches in heaven.

The third interpretation that some people believe is that Jesus is telling the Israelites that even though they were the first to be included in God’s family, they were among the last to come to faith through Jesus. Gentiles believed in Christ as the Messiah before the Israelites came to believe in Jesus and who He was.

It is all up to interpretation and could mean all three of them. Only Jesus knows what He meant when He said it. No matter what it means, the only way we enter heaven is through believing in Jesus, accepting His gift of salvation and declaring Him to be our Lord and Savior.

So have you done that?

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.” 1 John 4:15 NIV

Jesus is the Son of God. I have never heard a truer sentence.

Can you do that? Do you do that?

Acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God is hard for some people because they are still living with the mindset of wanting to fit in with the world, the people around them. Being a follower of Jesus is something that they hide.

However, Jesus did not hide wanting to help and save ALL of mankind, even the individual who is afraid to acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God out loud. He proudly acknowledged His Father who sent Him and He went to the cross for each one of us.

If you know that Jesus is the Son of God, I pray that you are willing to acknowledge it and acknowledge it out loud to others.

Have a great day!

“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Psalms 86:11 NIV

When we first are saved, we tend to be excited to learn as much as we can about Jesus and the unconditional love that He offers. As time passes and we spend that time as a Christian in this world, we have choices to make. We can either choose to continue following God or we can choose to revert back to our old ways of doing things, the way the world does things.

To me, this verse that is contained in the 86th psalm, is a prayer. A prayer that every believer can pray at any time. It expresses to God our desire to get closer to Him than we are at that present moment. That means that Christians who are still early in their walk can pray this prayer and embrace it as a prayer to help them grow. It also means that Christians who are seasoned are able to pray this prayer as a way of getting even closer to God than they are.

This verse or prayer, however you wish to view it, is the essence of what we long for. We long to know the way that our Lord Jesus wants us to walk, so our walk looks like His. We long to have the comfort of knowing that He is eternally faithful to us even though we do not deserve it, even on our best days. We long to have a heart that is only focused on Jesus. Not one that is divided between pleasing Him and those around us. Not divided between following God’s plan for our lives and fulfilling our own plan.

Fearing God’s name is not quaking in our boots, it is reverential respect. Knowing that we can do nothing without God and that He has given us free will to pursue whatever we want, whether it is following Him or not, is the ultimate act of love. As Christians we should want to show the level of respect that that kind of love deserves.

Heavenly Father, teach me your way, Lord. Teach me so that I can follow Your will and know that You are always faithful. Give me an undivided heart, so I am always focused on You. Help me to give You the respect that You deserve. In Jesus’s precious name. Amen

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalms 27:14 NIV

Who likes to wait?

No one really.

In the world we live in today, waiting is not something that very many of us want to do or are good at. We are used to instant gratification. With all the electronic devices we have, we don’t have to wait for much of anything.

Therefore, waiting for answers to our prayers can be grueling. As Christians, we should want to do God’s Will. We should want to be obedient to His plan for our lives and I think we are for the most part. It is the waiting to find out what God wants us to do, or waiting to see what His plan is for our lives that can be troublesome for us. We sometimes can take things into our own hands. When those moments come where we want to take charge of what we believe should be occurring, we can look to David. He has gone through so many of the same types of difficulties throughout his life that we have and he was able to return to a position of following God, waiting for God.

David, in this psalm, goes through several emotions, talking about those times when he is uncertain of what will come next. He starts out writing with confidence of God’s favor on him, he then cries out for help but ultimately ends the psalm with the confidence of knowing that he is to wait on the Lord and that he can wait on the Lord. That the Lord will be there for him.

This is a verse that every Christian needs to hear from time to time. We need reminding at times that God has promised to answer us. He has not promised us that the answer is always going to be what we want it to be, but there will be an answer.

By waiting on the Lord and being strong, we exercise our faith. Faith is not developed if everything goes the way we want, when we want it, all the time. Therefore, we need to have moments where we don’t get answers in the time period that we have set. Waiting helps us to become closer to God, as we walk in the knowledge that God wants what is best for us. That we can trust Him.

How well do you wait?

“if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” Colossians 1:23 NIV

Paul was writing to the churches in Colossae while he was in prison for proclaiming Christ as the Messiah. He had not met the believers in Colossae but had heard great things about them and was wanting to encourage them to continue to grow in their walk with Christ.

Paul is telling the churches at Colossae that if they are truly committed to Christ then they are to continue to live according to the gospel. The truths they have heard are the foundation that they have built their faith on and that is Christ. They are to not give up hope but to persevere in trials that they will face, including in their everyday life such as not living like the world lives.

What does that look like in today’s world? The idea of continuing in our faith, not moving from the hope we have from the gospel. It looks like living in such a way as to be removed from the ways of the world. Removed from the idea of following our fleshly desires and instead we listen to the Holy Spirit. Wanting to follow what God wants for our lives, staying in communication with God constantly.

Dear Heavenly Father, Please help us to be in constant communication with You, so we are able to discern what You want us to do. Help us then to be obedient to Your will. Thank You for Your love and guidance. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 NIV

As with a lot of the direction and guidance given by Jesus, this verse is misunderstood and misquoted a lot of the time. There are people who use this verse to say that God will provide any materialistic thing you ask for if you seek Him first. That is not what this verse means at all.

Even though the meaning of “these things” in this verse is our basic needs such as food and clothing. Jesus has taught His disciples and believers that we are not to live with our minds filled with worry about how we will make sure we have food and clothing but instead He tells us to trust God the Father. By looking at the beginning of the verse, we need to realize that seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness first, is what our minds should be focused on.

When we use our time to explore God’s word, ask for His will to be done in our lives, trust that He is in charge and wants what is best for us, we come to realize how much God values us. This should be our priority, making sure that we are open to hearing what God wants us to do to fulfill His will and then being obedient to the call to do our part. By making this our priority, we are not just adding it to our list of priorities for the day or week or month, but we are to live with this priority of seeking God as our main priority.

The idea of seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness means deciding to live in a state of continual repentance because of our sin. This can lead us to live a life that is devoted to God. Seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness is making sure our heart is in the right state. One that is devoted to God, that wants what God wants for us. God will make sure that we have what we need to fulfill His will as long as we are sincerely seeking to do His will for our lives. Our motives matter.

Take time today to examine why you ask God for the things you ask God for. Are they things that will fulfil His will or your will?

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:12 NIV

God chose to create us. He chose to let us continue living after sin entered the world and He chose to send Jesus to pay the final price for our sins so that we could be able to spend eternity in heaven with Him. He chose all of that. When we choose to believe in God and follow Christ then we are choosing God. God loves us very much. God has shown us compassion, He has been kind to us, He has been gentle with us and He has been patient with us.

When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are to imitate Him in our actions, thoughts and words. We take off hatred, hostility, cruelty, impatience and pride. We are to replace them, as a new creation, with compassion, gentleness, patience and kindness.

Humility comes when we realize that we can do none of this without Christ, that those actions and thoughts are hard to be consistently shown by us if we rely on our human nature. We need to rely on Christ to help us demonstrate to others the same love and compassion that has been shown to us.

Heavenly Father, please help us to rely on You to show others the love and compassion, the patience and gentleness that You have shown us and instilled us to show others. Living in this world and trying to rely only on ourselves is a losing battle. Help us to not let the devil get a foothold in our lives. Continue to give us the strength we need to live life as Your chosen people. In Christ’s name Amen.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.” John 15:16 NIV

Jesus is speaking to His disciples in this verse and reminding them that they did not choose Jesus, He chose them to be His disciples. He appointed them because He knew that they could bear fruit. The fruit Jesus is talking about is the ability of them to spread the good news of Christ to everyone. The disciples were given the ability to perform miracles as well by Jesus, but only when God deemed them to be done. They had to ask in Jesus’s name for God, the Father to permit the miracle to occur.

This verse is not only for the 12 disciples who followed Jesus. Jesus is speaking to you and me today as well with this verse. He wants us to spread the good news of Who He is to everyone. Do you spread the good news? Do you witness to others? Some people are afraid to witness with words, but everyone witnesses with the way they live their lives. We don’t tend to perform miracles, but we are able to be witnesses and spread God’s love everywhere we go.

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” John 16:24 NIV

This verse is part of the conversation Jesus was having with His disciples on the night He was arrested. Jesus had had many conversations with them but this one is the first time, according to my research, that Jesus told them to pray ‘in’ His name. By doing this He is giving them the knowledge that He is the mediator between them and God, that His will can be done because He has the authority to make things happen.

When we practice asking ‘in’ Jesus’s name, we are acknowledging that we are unable to do anything without Jesus. Once we accept this it becomes easier to realize that we need Him for everything. Jesus is the mediator between us and God. He is the only one who can go to God on our behalf and we definitely need someone to go to God on our behalf because of our sinful nature.

The last part of this verse says ‘Ask and you will receive’. I want to emphasis that it is not telling us that whatever we pray for we are going to receive. That is not what this verse says because that is not how it works. We need to understand that praying ‘in’ Jesus’s name is different than praying and simply using Jesus’s name at the end of the prayer. When we pray ‘in’ Jesus’s name, we are to be doing it in unison with God’s will. If we are not in union with God’s will then we should not expect to receive what we are asking for. We need to remember that God knows better than we do what we need. After all, He is God!

When we accept that we can do nothing, that we have the One who can do everything on our side, we can give it all to Him. He was willing to the cross for us, He is willing to be our mediator and give us what we ask for as long as when we do it in His name we are doing it in unison with God’s Will.

Are you asking for things simply using Jesus’s name at the end of your prayer or are you seeking God’s Will and asking for things ‘in’ His name?

“A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.” Proverbs 20:19 NIV

This is a straightforward verse. It is not a verse that many people want to think about because no one truly likes to be called out on a negative behavior. Gossip is a very hard behavior to deal with. This is a behavior that our enemy, the devil, has figured out how to manipulate so that we may not even realize we are behaving in that manner until we are in the middle of it.

When we are told something in confidence that we feel led to pray about, our inclination can be to ask other Christians to help by praying as well. This is a wonderful idea, however, this is when we have to be extra careful in what we say. If we ask others to pray for another person and do not give their name or situation, I believe that is fine as God knows the person and circumstances.

When we decide we are going to give a small amount of information about the person or circumstance, we should know the personality of the one we are asking to pray. Some people are fine at being asked to pray and not having any information about the request. Some people are better at praying for others when they know the name of who they are praying for and unfortunately there are the people who have a challenge focusing on the prayer because they want to know the rest of the information.

Our enemy is sneaky and will take this good hearted desire to help others, praying for them and having a group of people pray for another individual, and he places the thought that maybe telling just the person what is going on will help them to really pray specifically for the need. The challenge is that often times that little amount of information can be turned into incorrect information that is spread around or the person who came to you in confidence doesn’t really want anyone else to know any of what is going on. Truly keeping the information to ourselves is important. We can ask others to pray for someone without giving any information beyond, the person needs prayer.

As much as we are to not be a person who gossips, we are also to keep in mind what we know about how well another person can keep a confidence when we decide to talk about issues others are having that we have been asked to pray for. So, as the new year begins, if you have a resolution about controlling your tongue, this verse may prove to be helpful when you are searching for biblical backing.