All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out.John 6:37
Jesus is not here to cast us out. He is here to help us. He is here to lay down his life for us to be well. He wants so bad for us to be well and to be happy and righteous and Holy. God is leading us to Jesus so that Jesus can unite us and give us life. Like Joel Osteen says, He has beauty for our ashes. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”(John 6:37-39) To think my problems started when I came to Jesus would be a lie. My life has improved because of Jesus. But the problems started when the pressures of life started to weigh in and make me believe I had to give in to their negative peer pressure in order to “really live.” I have to accept the way that God wants me to change and not be stubborn. I also have to accept the advice of the wise. Don’t be over righteous or over wise. This means to me be more honest and real. Solomon also says the fear of the Lord will keep me from all of the extremes. Why did i just mention these? Well, sometimes peer pressure makes us believe we can’t be fun or have fun in Jesus and we have to compromise on the life lessons our parents and guardians teach us in order to be cool. When we truly believe in Jesus we start to actually do what He says. One way is giving to the poor.
If we are generous and give to the poor alms of what we have, Jesus promises that our inside will be clean. In Luke 11: verses 37-41 Jesus approaches the pharisees who look good on the outside but are ignoring the storm inside. Most people they look good, and can show you outwardly their life seems fun and inviting and problem free. And it could be problem free to a certain degree to have you fooled. But Jesus wants our heart and behavior and words to be clean. When we take a shower it does nothing for the dirt that piles up on our heart. But when we are generous to the poor, and give and share alms, the food and money we have, we begin to change our heart through the power of Jesus because we are being obedient to his words. We need to make a practice of being generous to the poor and not just a one day, one year thing. We need to change by being obedient and we will see the spirit of the Lord change us from the inside out. Let’s continue on and on, continuously to be generous and practice Luke 11: 37-41. Thank you
_Anonymous