Food for Thought with Pastor Gary
Matthew 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the underlying Greek words and their original meanings, I wish to simply give an explanation of my conclusions on this text with a story I'll never forget. After reading it, I hope you will never forget it either.
On June 12th, 2023, at around 5 PM in the evening, the mission team I was on had just wrapped up another mission where we had given a beautiful little house to an orphan family of three daughters, as I recall.
On our way out, as we were loading into our vans to leave the village and head back to our mission base, kids did what they always do, starting to congregate around our vehicles, "pressing in" and overwhelming the scene. You see the impoverished village conditions above, but you also see the beautiful smiling faces below, which happened as a result of the GOOD NEWS of JESUS coming to town!
To make a long story short, as we were about to pull out, one of our team members made the "mistake" of passing out a small piece of bread (the size of a small frozen biscuit) to one of the many children standing outside and pressing into the vehicle, only to see a "violent" reaction from what seemed like hundreds of hands swiftly and hungrily trying to get to the piece of bread.
Can you imagine the hunger these children must live with every day to be that aggressive for a piece of bread?
And now to our text, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth [could be rendered 'subjects itself to'] violence, and the violent take it by force..."
Imagine the violence Christ subjected Himself to in order to make Himself available as the bread of life (which had to be broken) to the world!
Furthermore, imagine how the poor in His day who were not cared for by the religious establishment gladly responded to Christ's open invitation. In fact, thousands who "had no chance" finally got their chance to be touched by the hand of God, so they violently went for it!
And THIS is the fervor WE need if we are to "consume" all that God has for us.
THE KINGDOM IS FOR THE HUNGRY...SO COME AND FEAST! GO FOR IT, AND GO FOR IT VIOLENTLY.
It will disrupt everything in and around you, but the prize of Christ, His Righteousness, and His Kingdom will be worth it all!
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Without getting bogged down in the details of the underlying Greek words and their original meanings, I wish to simply give an explanation of my conclusions on this text with a story I'll never forget. After reading it, I hope you will never forget it either.
On June 12th, 2023, at around 5 PM in the evening, the mission team I was on had just wrapped up another mission where we had given a beautiful little house to an orphan family of three daughters, as I recall.
On our way out, as we were loading into our vans to leave the village and head back to our mission base, kids did what they always do, starting to congregate around our vehicles, "pressing in" and overwhelming the scene. You see the impoverished village conditions above, but you also see the beautiful smiling faces below, which happened as a result of the GOOD NEWS of JESUS coming to town!
To make a long story short, as we were about to pull out, one of our team members made the "mistake" of passing out a small piece of bread (the size of a small frozen biscuit) to one of the many children standing outside and pressing into the vehicle, only to see a "violent" reaction from what seemed like hundreds of hands swiftly and hungrily trying to get to the piece of bread.
Can you imagine the hunger these children must live with every day to be that aggressive for a piece of bread?
And now to our text, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth [could be rendered 'subjects itself to'] violence, and the violent take it by force..."
Imagine the violence Christ subjected Himself to in order to make Himself available as the bread of life (which had to be broken) to the world!
Furthermore, imagine how the poor in His day who were not cared for by the religious establishment gladly responded to Christ's open invitation. In fact, thousands who "had no chance" finally got their chance to be touched by the hand of God, so they violently went for it!
And THIS is the fervor WE need if we are to "consume" all that God has for us.
THE KINGDOM IS FOR THE HUNGRY...SO COME AND FEAST! GO FOR IT, AND GO FOR IT VIOLENTLY.
It will disrupt everything in and around you, but the prize of Christ, His Righteousness, and His Kingdom will be worth it all!
