IT’S WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE THAT COUNTS

Leon FontaineDevoted

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dishes, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!” Matthew 23:25 (NLT) What’s on the inside matters most to God. The Pharisees and Sadducees didn’t get this. Though they outwardly followed religious laws meticulously, Jesus called them hypocrites and frauds. (See Matthew 23.) Why? It’s because the Pharisees did everything for public show (Matthew 23:5-7). Their focus centred around whatever looked good on the outside—but ignored the inside. Jesus said, “They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behaviour. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer” …

SE TRATA DE DÓNDE USTED ESTABLEZCA SU MENTE

Leon FontaineEntregate

Cuando alguno se sienta tentado a hacer lo malo, no piense que es tentado por Dios, porque Dios ni siente la tentación de hacer lo malo, ni tienta a nadie para que lo haga.  Santiago 1:13 (DHH)  El versículo de hoy habla sobre la lujuria, lo que simplemente significa un fuerte deseo por algo que tiene el potencial de hacerle daño. Cuando la lujuria es concebida, da a luz al pecado. Cuando el pecado se realiza, produce la muerte, que también incluye todo lo que forma parte de la oscuridad: depresión, infelicidad, enfermedad, confusión, mal humor, ira y todo lo demás que usted no puede encontrar en el cielo. Cuando dependemos del auto-esfuerzo y del auto-deseo, la muerte reina. Todo lo bueno comienza a morir …

DO YOU THINK THE JURY IS STILL OUT?

Leon FontaineDevoted

We love each other because he loved us first. 1 John 4:19 (NLT) God loves us before we do anything to earn it, just like loving parents do today. When a family welcomes a new baby, that infant hasn’t earned any love yet. They mess their diapers, keep their parents up all night and never say thank you. Actually, for the first few years, kids don’t earn anything at all. They don’t help out financially, clean the house or appreciate all the hard work their parents put in. Yet as parents, we pour our hearts and souls into our kids because we’re helplessly in love with them. We don’t pick up our new baby and go, “All right, kid, the jury is still out on …

ENFRENTE LA TENTACIÓN Y SALGA VICTORIOSO

Leon FontaineEntregate

Piensen en las cosas del cielo, no en las de la tierra. Colosenses 3:2 (DHH)  Todo creyente enfrenta tentaciones. Aunque el diablo no tiene el poder de llevarnos a hacer cosas, él tratará de tentarnos para satisfacer necesidades y deseos legítimos de manera incorrecta.  A muchos de nosotros se nos han enseñado a orar para que Dios nos salve de las tentaciones, como si Él estuviera lejos y fuera reacio a ayudarnos. Pero nada en el Nuevo Testamento nos enseña esto. En cambio, se nos enseña sobre el poder y la habilidad de Dios dentro de nosotros en Cristo para resistir y enfrentar la tentación, y para vivir la increíble vida que Dios quiere que tengamos.  Entonces, si el poder de Dios está en nosotros para …

WHY DIDN’T JESUS THROW THE FIRST STONE?

Leon FontaineDevoted

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” John 8:7 (NLT) Relationships cannot flourish anywhere other people expect us to follow a bunch of rules before they show us love. Whether it’s within a church or a family, if our acceptance is attached to rule-based performance, we will struggle with staying authentic for fear of being judged and rejected when we mess up. Jesus never operated like that. He showed people love first. John chapter 8 provides a perfect example of this. The Pharisees found a woman who had been caught committing sexual sin and dragged her before Jesus. While they waited for Him to bring the …