Coffee With The Lord

Matthew 9:9-13… You should read it!

The mission of Jesus stands in stark contrast to the expectations of many religious people!

And nothing has changed! Jesus saw a hated tax collector and called him saying “Follow me!” … An invitation (almost a “summons”) to discipleship!

He offered “redemptive fellowship” to “tax collectors and sinners” and was criticized for it… His mission that He clearly articulated? …”I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance!”

And nothing has changed… that is still His desire and mission (and we are called to perpetuate and further it!”

Romans 12:9-21: My last reading in January, the month of “resolutions,” using the “Necessary Food Bible Reading Plan” I authored…

On this last day of January – the month of “New Years resolutions” – many of which, I’m sorry to say, have probably been discarded or fallen into disuse… (Hopefully some of them have survived with determined discipline!)

So this morning, during my time of “Coffee with the Lord,” I read a passage that was a little like reading through someone’s “New Years resolutions” on January 1! In my Bible it was given this title: “Behave Like a Christian!” Is consists of a varied and valuable list of behaviors that, if followed, would make an incredible impact on our world in the name of Christ and the Gospel! Be sure and read it (and my advice is that you read it slow and reflectively – let each item “sink in” deeply)…

So, after reading it, I’m overwhelmed! Just overwhelmed!! I wrote this in the margin of my Bible today… “Where to begin? I fall so far short! I could camp out for a month here! No… for a year!! Oh Lord help me – assist me – enable me! Remind me! Transform me! I want to live like this every day! I long to be this kind of Christian… NOT OVERCOME BY EVIL AROUND ME, BUT OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD!! That’s my prayer on January 31!

Matthew 8:19–22: “A scribe came up and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”(ESV)

A religious leader and another of Jesus’s disciples are taught in these verses two very important lessons about following Jesus…

1) Before you say impulsively, “Lord I will follow You wherever you go!” – COUNT THE COST!

2) But when the invitation/the call comes,.. SAY “YES!” DECISIVELY and don’t begin to make excuses!