On This Day: Pruned to Bear Fruit in the Beatitudinal Valley

   "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." (John 15:5-8)

   There are times when I am feeling negative emotions to the point of despondency, but suddenly I look around and realize where I am: in the Beatitudinal Valley! That always reminds me that it is a blessing when we find ourselves feeling poor in spirit about what we are reading in God’s word.

   As I considered this in relation to a dubious track record in the “bearing much fruit” category, God again blessed me with another Beatitudinal Journey that reminded me who I am, and for whose glory I am alive.

   If "bearing much fruit" requires saving lots of souls, or building up lots of disciples into living for Christ, or helping people spend a lifetime seeking God in his word and prayer, I am obviously a failure.

   If "bearing much fruit" means looking to others like we are filled with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control" (the fruit of the Spirit) then this would be strike two.

   However, if letting myself meet God in the Beatitudinal Valley so he can bless me with a genuine journey into real fruit bearing is how I will "bear much fruit", then recognizing where I am on the downside of the valley gives me hope that the upside is ahead.

   The Beatitudes are the way Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). They are eight statements that begin, “blessed are…”, and then describe the qualities people will find in themselves when God is blessing them. Yes, this is the focus, that Jesus is describing what it looks like to be blessed by God, NOT what we must do to earn God’s blessing.

   So, if any of us feel “poor in spirit” in relation to bearing much fruit, that willingness to admit how poorly we are doing is a blessing from God.

   And if any of us go deeper into “those who mourn” what is wrong with us, it is further evidence that the Father is at work to bless us by grace through faith.

   When we find ourselves going even further into meekly acknowledging that we cannot fix our problem of bearing so little fruit and so we must submit to Jesus Christ who can “transform” us into his image, that meekness is a blessing of God to break our attachment to self-effort and lead us to fully rely on his Son.

   When we submit to Jesus Christ and find ourselves hungering and thirsting for the righteousness of bearing much fruit to the Father’s glory, we are being blessed. This downside of the Beatitudinal Valley brings us to valley bottom where God satisfies our longings by grace through faith in ways no amount of doing good works or trying harder could ever accomplish.

   This results in God blessing us to become his “merciful” children with “pure hearts” in our single-hearted devotion to him. We become the “peacemakers” whose pure hearts want nothing more than to see everyone we meet come to experience peace with God through the good news of Jesus’ kingdom. And we become such an annoyance to the world, the flesh, and the devil who do not want people glorifying God by bearing much fruit, hence their incessant efforts to “persecute” Jesus’ church into oblivion.

   Since I am sharing this on the morning of Easter Sunday (Resurrection Sunday), it is fitting that we would celebrate the new covenant in Jesus’ blood by seeking with all our hearts to bear much fruit in this world to the glory of God the Father, and the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord who has provided so great a salvation.

   And then we go from here to abide in Jesus Christ as branches abide in the vine, and to praise the Father for any ways he deems fit to prune us (knowing that much more is required than pride would ever admit). If we truly hunger and thirst to bear much fruit to the glory of the Triune God, we welcome every pinch of Father’s pruning shears as a gracious and necessary good to make us like his Son.

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

On This Day: When Today’s Nicodemus Meets Jesus

   Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (John 3:9-12)

   For a long time, I have pondered how different modern “apologetics” is from what I read in Scripture. The whole idea of apologetics comes from the Greek word “apologia”, which means to make a defense. Peter spoke of this when he wrote about “always being prepared to make a defense (apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

   As I have considered that Peter was writing to persecuted Christians, not contemporary Bible students, and that the New Testament is full of examples of what it means to give a defense for the reason we have hope, it has stood out that the biblical focus is not proofs for creation, proofs for the worldwide flood, proofs for the divine authorship of any particular book of the Bible (all good things), but on explaining what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and then watching how it divides the “few” from the “many”.

   Quite recently, when I went through the book of Acts, I was drawn to the way Paul shared the good news in Athens where the people had no knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures or what Jesus of Nazareth had done to secure our redemption. It was very instructive to see what Paul did and did not emphasize. I could see that he stated the truth of what we all must deal with in relation to God, and then met with those who believed.

   Now I am in John 3 where Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus is showing me how the Messiah addressed what this “teacher of Israel” needed to hear. And what I conclude today is that Jesus wasn’t doing left-brain apologetics. He wasn’t matching proofs to challenges.

   Instead, he was seeing the soul-condition of a man who was not alive. This teacher of Israel was still dead in his trespasses and sins.

   And THAT attracts my attention. How did Jesus speak to a man who saw nothing more than signs that proved Jesus must be from God in some way he couldn’t figure out?

   Answer: Nicodemus, “You must be born again”!

   How does that explain the hope that is within me?

   The reason for the hope within me is that I have been born again!

   How have I been born again?

   Well, let me tell you a story…

   And on we go into the “good news of great joy” that God has given us “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

   Let me tell you what Jesus Christ did for us through his sinless life, his horrifying death, and his liberating resurrection. 

    Let me tell you about how “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and how the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 came “to seek and to save the lost”.

   Let me tell you how “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21), and how “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

   And let me share the wonder that “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) so that my hope is perfectly defensible. It makes perfect sense that I would have hope in Jesus’ return, in my resurrection, in me becoming like him when I see him as he is, when you list all the things that God did for us through Jesus Christ so that the faith I have in the present time is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

   Which brings me back to this whole soul-condition stuff. Jesus came to give “rest to our souls”. That rest includes the justification by grace through faith I have already experienced upon being born again by the Spirit. It rests on the sanctification by grace through faith whereby I am presently being “transformed into the same image (as Jesus) from one degree of glory to another” (II Corinthians 3:18). And it rests on the promised glorification by grace through faith by which I will finally be “glorified with him” who secured our so great salvation.

   How do I see Jesus doing this with Nicodemus?

   The central thing is that Jesus spoke exactly what Nicodemus needed to hear to be born again. We can’t improve on that.

   What do our present-day Nicodemuses need to hear? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

   And when they complain that this doesn’t make sense, what do we say? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

   And how do we explain why we aren’t going to argue in earthly ways? Because “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Which means, arguing in the flesh only produces fleshliness. Earthly thinking. It goes nowhere. That’s why Paul warned Timothy not to waste time in such things.

   And when the Nicodemuses still defend their right to unbelief, we echo Jesus’ words, “You must be born again.”

   This continues into Nicodemus asking, “How can these things be?” Isn’t that a perfect time to go into contemporary apologetics and explain all the reasons we know the Bible is true? There may be some room for this, considering most people we will talk with don’t know their Bibles like Nicodemus did.

   However, while contemporary apologetics seems to aim at helping people understand, Jesus’ focus was on helping Nicodemus see that in his soul-condition he did not understand. Jesus made a point of it. He made Nicodemus admit, at least in his mind, that he was a teacher of Israel and did “not understand these things”. He pointed out that his problem was, “you do not receive our testimony”.

   And today, I have been meditating on this: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12).

   What stands out is that Jesus did not try telling Nicodemus earthly things to help him accept heavenly things. Rather, he exposed the sinner’s soul, that his inability to understand the earthly things made the heavenly things impossible.

   This wasn’t to show him it was impossible, but that it was impossible for HIM, for Nicodemus, for the man who was not born again!

   And just in case anyone is wondering if I would turn this into a system whereby I develop my own brand of apologetics, no, I’m not interested in that. Neither am I suggesting that the apologetics that can explain all the background information to other religions, to atheists, agnostics, and skeptics is without value.

   All I am sharing is that, when we look at how Jesus did things, his work was to address people’s soul-condition in a Beatitudinal way that would cause them to feel poverty of spirit, to mourn their sin and ignorance, and to meekly resign to their own helplessness and the authority of Jesus Christ. Why? So they would hunger and thirst for righteousness that is satisfied while every man-centered quest for righteousness is constantly denied.

   Ever since I began factoring in the Beatitudes into everything God is doing with me and others, it is apparent that Jesus was doing this all the time. He wanted Nicodemus to feel his poverty of spirit. This would not come from earthly arguments about how we know the Bible is true, but from the admission in a sinner’s heart that he or she does not have eternal life.

   I am eager to see how John 3:16 will sound to me a few verses from now when I get to it. But right now, do any of us need to admit that we are not born again and that is why we are always looking for signs instead of attaching to Jesus’ words?

   Do we need to agree with Jesus’ assessment that, for all our searching, our problem is that we do not understand (because we are not born again)?

   Do we need a reminder that we have already repeatedly NOT received the testimony of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles in what they have written of the kingdom of God?

   And do we need to admit that we have struggled to understand the earthly things (like evidence for the Bible’s divine authorship), and that is why we are having so much trouble accepting the heavenly things?

   I know I have a propensity to say far too much. But I hope this little bit explains how Jesus seems to focus on exposing people’s soul-condition rather than giving left-brain evidences that prove the Bible can be trusted. If people aren’t born again, they cannot see beyond the “signs”, the external evidences of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

   As I’m watching Jesus’ ministry to Nicodemus, I have in mind that there is good reason to believe he did become a disciple in the end. He was one of the men who took Jesus’ body down from the cross and placed it in the tomb. But I’m also watching how Jesus shared the good news with him in a Beatitudinal way so that, instead of left-brain arguments, he gave right-brain attachment to show that Nicodemus did not have attachment to God. And Jesus’ signs weren’t enough to give him that. He needed to be born again.

   Centuries ago, Augustine described how he had to believe to understand rather than understand to believe. He was expressing the new birth. He had to be born again to “get it” about everything else, and that is what we see Jesus doing for Nicodemus back in the day, and us in our time.

   If none of this is clear to you, take the time to read the first two chapters of John to see how they lead to Jesus’ visit with Nicodemus in chapter 3. Perhaps you need the same journey he took to come to know Jesus for real.

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: To Rest in What is Revealed

   In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 
   All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21-22)

   One of the biggest things I want people to know is that eternal life is to KNOW God. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). 

   Yes, that is the essence of what it means to receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has secured the salvation by which we can return to the God who created us and know him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

   This means that our daily interest should be in how well we know God. And, for some of us (at least people like me), how well I know God rests completely on how he feels about knowing me. 

   The stage on which Jesus has made his heart known to me over the years has been one littered by broken relationships. I grew up in a family that was broken. My attachment-light got stuck in the “always on” position because I was desperate to not miss the hope-springs-eternal time that someone might actually want to attach to me. When I learned that the term “hyper-vigilant” describes a mindstate that has been trained to be on guard against danger, I wanted to know how to bring that into my relationship with God.

   Or, how God was shining his spotlight onto my broken radar system so he could heal what was wounded and bring me to peace in my relationship with him.

   Since I had my first conscious awareness of God’s interest in me almost 6 decades ago, and then learned how to listen to him in his word in the most real and personal of ways almost 33 years ago, I can chart a relationship with God that has been growing because I am God’s child. My security with him doesn’t rest on how well I hang on to him, but on how settled his love is for me. My significance to him doesn’t depend on what I do for good, but what his goodness has delighted in for me before I was even created. My acceptance with God doesn’t rest on my good behavior that must always be that 1 ounce more than anything I do wrong. Rather, my acceptance with the Triune God rests on him accepting me in his beloved Son.

   No matter who I talk with, and no matter who I imagine might read this, my supreme interest is in how they know God. I regularly remind people to see the grace and peace of God in the Beatitudinal Valley because the way God blesses us is typically so different than religious (and irreligious) life has taught us. We need to attach to God in our poverty of spirit in order to know what it means to truly have peace with God. 

   Today it feels like God is comforting me in some of the most painful losses I have experienced as he shows me the reality of his desire to find me and have me as his own. Yes, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Yes, the judge of all creation. Yes, the eternal Father, the glorious Son, the comforting Holy Spirit. They have a personal desire for me to know them and have gone through hell (so to speak) to have me. 

   If no one has told you this, stop pretending, and meet with God as you are. Tell “our Father in heaven” how you are doing. Be the child. Lay your complaints before him. Tell him what you don’t understand. Be honest. Be real. 

   And then listen. 

   Yes, open God’s word and listen to him. He is speaking. His Holy Spirit is with us to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance things we have already known. Whatever stands out, talk to him like that is what he is saying to you. Converse. Dialogue. Meditate on what he says. Cling to it with all your heart. 

   And today, let my testimony that learning “the Son CHOOSES (desires) to reveal” the Father to his beloved brothers encourage you that he will do the same for you as much as for me. Why? Because the level ground at the throne of grace is faith. Not necessarily great faith. Not even mature faith. Just faith that comes like a child and wants to get to know God. Yes, get to KNOW him!

   Eternal life comes through believing in Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives eternal life to us because we must be alive to know the Triune God. As John wrote, “In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

   The darkness has not overcome Jesus’ work to pour the love of God into my heart by the Holy Spirit he has given us. Come to Jesus as you are and let him overcome the darkness in your life so he can lead you to know God better than you have ever known him before. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: Down in Humility; Up in Exalting

   As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “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.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62)

   My wife was just reminding me a few days ago about what happened the first time I was going to teach through the Beatitudes in our home church ministry. We were in a series through Matthew that brought us to chapter 5. I initially thought I could do a summary of the eight Beatitudes in one message.

   However, as I was meditating on them leading up to that particular Sunday, the things I was learning about what it looks like to be blessed by God surprised me. What I had once thought was a “to do” list for believers turned out to be a “God is doing” list for the kingdom of heaven. 

   This was so mind-changing that I knew there was no way I could make do with an eight-point summary. I had to lead our church through these one at a time so we could be transformed by the mind-renewal God had given us (Romans 12:1-2). 

   The next big surprise was that, when I announced my change of plans from one message to eight, people voiced their despair that I was going to take that much time to look at these qualities. As one man said, “You’re taking the highest standards of the kingdom of God and you’re going to take eight weeks to tell people who already feel like crap about our walk with God all the things we are failing at?!”

   I couldn’t help smiling at how God had prepared me that week with a far different view from what we had been taught. For the next two months, we had a very uplifting time of considering NOT what were these “highest standards” of what God required OF us, but what were the marks of GOD’S blessing when HE was working IN us. 

   In other words, the Beatitudes do not list eight things we are to do to be blessed. Rather, they show us eight of the qualities we will find happening in our lives when God is blessing us. For what I now call the “downside” of the Beatitudinal Valley, we don’t try to be poor in spirit so God will bless us; God is blessing us with the “poor in spirit” experience so he can give us his kingdom. We don’t try to mourn so God will bless us; we accept that God is blessing us when we find ourselves mourning whatever is wrong between us and him because he wants to comfort us beyond our comprehension. We don’t try to attain meekness; we accept God’s work of blessing us with the meekness that admits we can’t fix ourselves and so we surrender to Jesus’ authority to save us, heal us, fix us, and transform us. And we don’t try to make ourselves hunger and thirst for righteousness so God can bless us; we acknowledge we are being blessed when we feel starving for the righteousness we do not have because we know God will satisfy that longing. 

   The same is with the other four qualities that describe the “upside” of the Beatitudinal Valley. We don’t try to be merciful so God will bless us; we agree that we are being blessed (and have been blessed) when we see how God is leading us to be merciful towards others as he has been merciful towards us. We don’t try to earn God’s blessing by purifying our hearts; we rest in God’s blessing as we join his work of purifying us from the inside out. We don’t try to make ourselves peacemakers so we can earn God’s blessing; we receive God’s blessing of turning us into his peacemakers who want nothing more than to see other people experience peace with God. And we don’t try to earn brownie points for good behavior when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, but we know we are being blessed by God when our walk with Jesus Christ receives the same hatred as he did when he was here.

   I share all that because today I needed to be reminded that we can face the absolutely most painful, hopeless, discouragements, and those days when feelings can’t even be described in words, and know that “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). 

   Two other Scriptures I really need to review so often are,

   For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

   “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2).  

   Today I’m being honest with God about things in me I can’t even explain. I’m trembling at his word that speaks of the exact things I am feeling and facing with such a gracious invitation to “draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). And I’m going out on a prayer walk along a favorite trail that will help me experience the blessings of the Beatitudinal Valley God has set before me today. 

   And even though I don’t know all the specifics that await, I do know that humbling myself under the mighty hand of God today will lead to him lifting me up in due time however he decides is the most blessed way of doing so. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Faith is Built on Our Lack of Faith

   One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22-25)

   The connection between the Beatitudes and our lack of faith is HUGE!!! And Jesus taking his disciples through a storm in their boat was a prime illustration of how God builds up our faith by exposing our unbelief.

   What I call “the Beatitudinal Valley”, or “the Beatitudinal Journey”, is my summary of the eight Beatitudes Jesus presented to introduce what we call his “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1-12). Here’s what they look like in a boatload of disciples going through a storm with Jesus.

   The first Beatitude in this valley is a step down into “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” It should be noted that this is the first thing we will see God doing when he is blessing someone, he leads them to know their poverty of spirit. 

   In this case, we can see how Jesus was blessing his disciples by letting them see the true condition of their faith. This was likely in preparation for what they would be required to do not long after this, and it may have been a way to keep the men humble about their distinctive place in his ministry. 

   As the blessing of our poor-in-spiritness settles into our souls, it leads to the blessing of “Blessed are those who mourn…” Contrary to the prideful heart that wants to fix whatever poverty of spirit it sees, the blessing of God leads us deeper into some honest mourning about our condition. 

   In other words, while today’s trend with children is to try and keep them from feeling anything bad about themselves, God blesses us by leading us to sincerely mourn things in our lives that are not like him. And there is something about us lacking faith that makes us quite different than Jesus. 

   The blessing of mourning whatever is wrong with us leads deeper into a state of “Blessed are the meek…” This is where we know there is no way we can fix whatever poor-in-spirit area of our lives we are looking at, and so, instead of trying to do better, we turn to Jesus in surrender to his shepherdly authority to lead us into his Father’s will. 

   And as we surrender to Jesus to help us, we find ourselves in the blessedness of “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” because we find ourselves now longing for the very thing we don’t have. In this case, Jesus is using his disciples to point out any ways we lack faith, and showing how he uses storms to expose such things helps us look at what is happening in our lives to see if he is doing something similar. 

   The upside of the Beatitudinal Valley leads into “Blessed are the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” but the primary focus of the disciples in the storm is how Jesus was blessing them on the downside of the Beatitudinal Valley to humble them in the area of their lives that mattered the most, their faith. 

   I hope this encourages you to be honest about your soul-condition, particularly in how you feel God would address your faith (or lack of faith). I believe the Beatitudes show us how the only way we can grow in our faith is by agreeing with Jesus when he asks us where our faith was when we didn’t trust him with something. 

   And the disciples' request of, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5) is a very good example of how we will grow in faith once we admit we need to do so. 

   To encourage us to admit we have weak faith, don’t forget how Paul instructed the church, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Romans 14:1). This shows that people who are weak in faith should feel as welcome in the church as anyone else, but with the guidance that focuses on how to grow in faith, not how to win quarrels (there is a big lesson in that about the people in our churches who love to quarrel and what it says about their faith!). 

   And here’s a word from Jude who was an earthly brother to Jesus but had to come to faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He exhorts us, 

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt…” (Jude 1:20-22).  

   That shows us that we must strive to build up our assemblies of believers in our faith while being merciful to those who doubt because we know how much mercy we received to give us whatever faith we have attained. And if we are the ones who struggle with doubt, Jesus’ church should be the safest and most loving place to admit it, and to be built up by those whose faith is stronger than ours. And that should be true no matter what storms of impossible situations we go through.

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Jesus Marvels at a Man’s Faith

   When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well. (Luke 7:6-10)

   I trust it’s “enough said” about the contrast between Jesus marveling at great faith and marveling at great unbelief. We should know in our hearts which group we are in, and which group we want to be in. 

   For the rest, I want to share how we travel through the Beatitudinal Valley in the Beatitudinal Journey of transformation. This is based on Jesus’ Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12, his introduction to what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. 

   The first four Beatitudes are what I call the downside of the valley. If we attach to the blessing of God in each one, there is a feeling of going deeper inside ourselves with each step until reaching the core of our being where we absolutely long for what God is doing in us in Christ. The second four Beatitudes describe what we become like once we have encountered God in the humbling work of the downside into his mercy. 

1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” As we stand between the two scenes of Jesus’ marveling, we feel God’s blessing as we recognize in ourselves the many ways we fail to have such great faith as that centurion. Yes, it is a blessing when we look at this scripture passage and realize it does NOT describe our kind of faith. And it is a blessing when we look at Nazareth and its unbelief and feel that is far more what we are like. God is blessing us with the realness of admitting our true soul condition.

2. “Blessed are those who mourn…” While the natural inclination of the flesh is to run back up the downside of the valley and get out of there because we don’t like how our humbling feels, when we feel God blessing us, we find ourselves irresistibly going deeper into the mourning of our soul-condition. To let ourselves feel grief over why we have so little faith (instead of self-justifying that we are not so bad after all) is God’s blessing. There are comforts that are only experienced by those who will mourn their poverty of spirit. 

3. “Blessed are the meek…” At this point, we still refuse to go back up the downside in an “I will do better next time” kind of way, and instead, in meekness, we go deeper and admit we can’t fix our lack of faith, but Jesus can. Knowing the miserable state of our soul condition, we yield to Jesus’ authority to transform us into his likeness from one degree of glory to another, and we know it will not happen until we give up on ourselves and surrender to him.

4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” When we are fully aware that we do not have the great faith Jesus honored in the centurion, and that we have dishonored our Savior with so many episodes of unbelief, we find God blessing us with the hunger and thirst for the “righteousness of faith”. It is a blessing to feel this hunger at the most real experience of our poverty of spirit because now God can satisfy our hunger in a way he could never honor our good works. 

5. “Blessed are the merciful…” Once we are hungering for the righteousness of faith by grace instead of any good works, we know what mercy feels like. We can‘t judge others weak faith because God has mercifully addressed our own! Instead, knowing how God has blessed us in his mercy, we become merciful to others who struggle with their faith. As Paul said, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Romans 14:1). Once we have been blessed on the downside of the Beatitudinal Valley, we begin the upside journey by relating towards everyone from a merciful heart.

6. “Blessed are the pure in heart…” Weak faith is a double-minded faith. We want to trust Jesus, but we trust other things more (like the self-protection of our unbelief). As God humbles us through the Beatitudinal Journey, we find ourselves wanting to simply live by faith in every situation. We cling to Paul’s “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). We want “the prayer of a righteous person” that “has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). We simply want to be “the righteous shall live by faith” in everything.  

7. “Blessed are the peacemakers…” This is a faith issue. Church folk who do not labor to bring people to have peace with God do not have faith that God would use them, or that the good news of great joy is the only hope of escaping God’s wrath against sin, or that Jesus alone can grant eternal life to those who believe. By now we should see how the Beatitudinal Journey gets us here so that our mercifully pure hearts are desperate for everyone we know to have peace with God, and so we tell others about Jesus by faith that we are joining God in his work of saving souls.

8. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness…” I hope we can see why this is not the first step of the Beatitudinal Journey! But once we have experienced the blessing of God in the first seven Beatitudes, we are so in love with leading people to have peace with God that we can at least grow in our sense of blessing that any persecution that comes from this way of life is a joyful evidence of our fellowship with Jesus Christ our Lord.

   Now, while this On This Day sharing is a bit longer than most, this has still been a very brief example of how to apply the Beatitudinal Journey to today’s lesson about Jesus’ view of our faith. It should give us all hope that we can feel blessed by God as we face our poverty of spirit as much as if we were already on-fire-for-the-Lord peacemakers being persecuted because we are causing so much trouble to the world, the flesh and the devil. 

   The bottom line is that Jesus marveled at the great faith of the centurion and the great unbelief of his hometown folks. I’m not sure whether he still marvels at things in his ascension to the right hand of his Father, but how he views both faith and unbelief will not have changed. Today’s lesson from Scripture calls us to step out in faith to grow up in faith, and this includes whatever steps of the Beatitudinal Journey God is focusing on today (and tomorrow, and…).  

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: Good Person, Good Treasure, Good Fruit

   “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45)

   When I come to a passage like this, I think of it as a “self-examination text”. Jesus is addressing things we must first apply to ourselves before considering how to contribute to God’s work in the body of Christ.

   I found it helpful to discover that the “good” in the tree, the heart, and the fruit means moral goodness. It isn’t fruit in the sense of how we are affecting others, but fruit in the sense of what the tree produces whether anyone notices or not (an apple tree is an apple tree even if no one eats the fruit!). 

   The main point is that in Jesus’ kingdom, the work of God is so transforming that there cannot be any disparity between the person we are, the things we treasure in our hearts, and the way we act towards others. 

   Which reminded me of a huge lesson I learned in the early 90’s, that God always begins his work in our hearts and people are more committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God. 

   The reason that stands out today is that self-protection makes liars out of us. Hypocrites. We try to act like good people on the outside, but God’s transforming work is hindered because we won’t give up lordship over our hearts. God can’t transform us without leading us out of our old hearts into the new hearts the prophets foretold, but our fortresses of self-protection are defiant that no one is going to mess with the things we have hidden deep inside, not even GOD! 

   For some of us, the “log” that needs to be removed from our eyes is the log of self-protection. Whatever it is we do to hide a traumatized, reclusive soul must be removed so we can be “transformed into the same image (as our Savior) from one degree of glory to another” (II Corinthians 3:18). 

   Opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s inspection will invariably lead us into another journey through the Beatitudinal Valley. God will bless us with the poverty of spirit that admits the ways we are not doing well in what he is teaching us. He will bless us with the mourning that grieves what he is showing us about ourselves that is not like our Savior. He will bless us with the meekness that gives up trying to fix ourselves and opens the door of our self-protection in submission to the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord. And he then blesses us with the hunger and thirst for the righteousness of being in our hearts what we are trying to portray in our works. 

   This then leads to us being blessed by becoming genuinely merciful people because of the mercy we have experienced in our hearts. We are blessed by having pure hearts that make us the same on the outside as we are on the inside. We are blessed by becoming peacemakers who genuinely want everyone to experience peace with God, and that leads to us being blessed with joy in our persecutions because we know that the way the world is treating us is because we truly are becoming like our Savior (based on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12). 

   In Luke 6, Luke is showing us things Jesus taught about life in his kingdom. If we have confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord (over every part of our being, self-protection included), and we have believed IN OUR HEARTS that God raised his Son from the dead, the salvation we claim to have will show in what we do (Romans 10:9-10). If that is not what is showing, it’s time for a heart-to-heart with our Father in heaven in the name of Jesus Christ his Son. It will be transforming.  

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Jesus Teaches Fishing For Men

   And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:6-11)

   Luke’s description of what Jesus said to Peter on this occasion is expanded by Matthew and Mark to include what he said to the four men.

   Luke (Jesus to Simon Peter): “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 
   Matthew: “And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’” (4:19).
   Mark: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men’” (1:17).

   I see these records like puzzle pieces. Each one adds a detail or two that expands the picture. Since Peter had reacted so strongly to Jesus giving them a miraculous catch of fish, Jesus explained to him what was really going on. But then we are shown what Jesus said specifically to the two pairs of brothers, and how the men left everything to follow him. The rest is His-story, as they say. 

   A very long time ago I read a Scripture verse that stated, “He who wins souls is wise”. I can’t recall which translation I was reading, or if that was a quote from a book, but it comes from Proverbs 11:30 which is written as “whoever captures souls is wise” (ESV). I can still feel the youthful longing to be such a person as that, someone who captures souls for the kingdom of God, not as trophies, but as treasures of the grace of God to deliver people out of darkness and transfer them into the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins (paraphrase of Colossians 1:13-14). 

   Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” I can relate far more to the first half than the second, but the Beatitudinal Valley leads me to let myself hunger and thirst for the righteousness of being a soul-winner and to be in a home church that is learning to fish for men just as Jesus taught the disciples. 

   For today, I mostly want to know where Jesus sees me in my discipling so I can mature into the disciplemaker he wants me to be. My part is to follow him completely and surrender to everything he is doing to make me like him. And if that helps someone get to know him today better than ever, I will rejoice in that as well!

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: What Good Has the Good News Done?

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

   There came a time in my “institutional church” experience when I understood something as a pattern. It was the realization that so many people I was supposed to be caring for in a pastoral way had never had a personal experience of God doing anything for them in their “inner being”. 

   Instead, everything was described in terms of externals. People could give details of when, where, and how they were “saved”, often followed by a testimony of how they were quickly ushered into helping with some kind of program in the church. 

   In the last institutional church I was pastoring, I was leading an evening of discipleship training and asked everyone to describe the best experience they ever had of someone ministering to them. As we completed our testimonies around the circle, something stood out in glaring revelation: Not one person talked about something that happened while attending a program! Every story of ministry happened in personal relationship in whatever circumstances people were going through at the time. And yet here they were convinced they had to run more programs than were possible with our number of people! 

   It doesn’t matter if we are kept busy with constantly changing expectations, or the routine of doing the same old job in the same old church program, taking care of others has a way of numbing us to how we are doing. And, since how well we are doing in fellowship or ministry to others comes from how well we are abiding in Jesus as branches attached to the vine, we must regularly take a look inside to see if the “good news of great joy” that was announced at Jesus’ birth (Luke 2) is stirring us with good news in a world of bad and filling us with a sense of great joy to be a recipient of God’s gift of salvation.

   Paul prayed for believers, “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16). If that is not what we have, we must consider it a “blessed are the poor in spirit” experience. Why? Because God always begins blessing us by showing us what we are missing. Hungry? He has bread of life for that. Thirsty? He has living water for that. Lost? He has a shepherd for that. Dead in sin? He presents “the Resurrection and the Life” in his Son. Blind? Jesus came to give sight. Oppressed? Jesus came to declare the “Year of Jubilee” over you. 

   My point is simply that we need to always admit the true condition of our souls in our inner being so we can then let ourselves “hunger and thirst for righteousness” knowing God is blessing us with that hunger and thirst so he can satisfy us where it counts.

   Jesus did come to proclaim good news to the poor. Anyone who is poor in spirit qualifies (even if they are rich in worldly goods). With all the bad news around us, I really want to feel the good news of God inside me, and I will settle for nothing less than the “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17) that was in my Savior during his ministry and is my birthright today. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Hardness of Heart Hinders the Mind

    And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6:48-52)

   Does it matter to you that your mind might be hindered in understanding God’s word because your heart is hardened against applying it as fully as God is speaking it to you?

   Yup, that’s the point of this passage. The reason the disciples were so astounded about Jesus walking on the water was because they hadn’t let themselves process what it meant that he had just multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food to feed 5,000 people. 

   This is serious business because I have witnessed it so many times. People sit in church complaining that they really didn’t get anything out of a message, or they aren’t really getting anything out of their time with God in his word, when the problem is that they have hardened their hearts against letting themselves admit the implications and applications of God’s work in their lives. 

   Two other Scriptures help with this. First, 

We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also. (II Corinthians 6:11-13)

   This is another way of describing the hardness of heart in the disciples. The believers were restricted in their affections by choice. They also had the choice to “widen your hearts also”. Paul and his companions had exemplified hearts-wide-open fellowship and ministry. The restriction of affection and attachment between them was on the part of the church. 

   The same applies to Jesus. He is never restricted in his freedom to relate to us in love, grace, and mercy. He wants attachment with us more than we know it exists. What we are lacking with him is because of how we restrict our hearts with self-protection, and how that restriction limits our understanding of him.

   Second, 

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

   This illustrates how we are the ones who give in to the desire for self-protection, restrict our affections towards God, and then blame him that we don’t get it what he is saying in his word. 

   Right now, we are three groups of people. The narcissists don’t see anything wrong with them and it is always God and the pastor who are at fault if they don’t get something. The religious practitioners see this may be a struggle, but it clashes with their self-dependent way of deciding how far God can go in making them like Jesus. They will keep thinking about how this might apply without ever doing anything about it.

   On the other hand, the poor in spirit hear of this hardness of heart and mourn how much it is real in their lives. They meekly surrender to Jesus to fix this in them and let themselves hunger and thirst for the righteousness of having a heart that is absolutely unrestricted in affection, thought, or will. These are the ones who are blessed in their relationship with Jesus Christ, and I know this is the kind of church I want to be in, even if it is only a few who desire it.    

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: Discipleship in the Beatitudinal Valley

   And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men”… And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes… And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. (Mark 1:17-28 condensed)

   Somewhere close to two decades ago, I found myself in my first conscious journey through the Beatitudinal Valley. I am sure I had travelled this route before, but I never recognized it for what it was.

   The “Beatitudinal Valley” is the way I picture Jesus’ introduction to his Sermon on the Mount. He presents a list of eight blessings that we now call “the beatitudes”.

   In the journey where this all first stood out to me, I began to see how one beatitude led to the next. Then I saw how the first four beatitudes seemed like making progress down one side of a valley while the second set of four looked like the climb up the other side.

   I also noticed that none of these Beatitudes were “works based”, meaning, it is not, “if I do the first part, God will do the second”.

   Rather, it is a picture of what it looks like for people to be blessed. In other words, all eight blessings are a gift of God’s grace, not a good work God will reward.

   So, this morning, when I first saw how Jesus called the two pairs of brothers to follow him, and how this following him would result in them knowing how to fish for men, and I could see how this turned into the early church at and after the Day of Pentecost being filled with the Spirit and catching net-loads of new coverts, I realized that the grief I was feeling about this was a blessing. It wasn’t something I was doing to earn a badge. It was something I could feel God doing in me.

   For several years, I have been practicing being utterly honest with God about what I think and feel because he can’t transform me if I don’t admit where he is working. In a practical way, I discovered that we cannot mature when we are pretending to be someone we are not. What I found when I focused on this (to be utterly honest with God no matter how it feels) was that God was showing me things inside me I had never brought to him. As I admitted these things, and attached to him about how his word applied to them, I could see God changing me rather than me tweaking my “role”.

   My point is that I needed to see God’s leading in the Beatitudinal Valley far more than focusing on the words and meanings of Jesus’ early training of his disciples. I had to let myself see my poverty of spirit as a soul-winner. I had to mourn how horrible it feels to not see people coming to Christ every day. I had to meekly admit that I could not change this myself but had to surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ to do his will in me. And I had to let myself hunger and thirst for the righteousness of being “fishers of men” with the rest of the church in my community (including the community of cyberspace!).

   And part of the blessing of seeing God work in one’s life this way is to know where it leads. I am on my way to becoming one of “the merciful” who are becoming “pure in heart” as they seek to be “peacemakers” who want everyone in their lives to experience peace with God. And I can see how even persecution is a blessing of God because it shows we are becoming increasingly more like Jesus.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

The People Who Are God’s Sons

As I meditate my way through the gospel of Matthew, I am now looking at how Jesus was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” As this is quite familiar territory, I have been eager to discover what new things God wants me to see. Sometimes this means discovering something I haven’t noticed before, and other times it comes in the way of understanding how something applies to my life further than I have ever taken it. So far, I can say that I am not being disappointed with my journey! 

I am now at the second temptation of Jesus that revolved around Satan’s challenge, “If you are the Son of God…” In other words, the devil was telling Jesus what he would have to do to prove he was the Son of God. Jesus had nothing to prove so it was a short conversation![1] 

However, although Jesus would not prove he was the Son of God on Satan’s terms, God’s plan of salvation would make it abundantly clear who Jesus of Nazareth really was. When Jesus completed his work of redemption on the cross, he “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead”. 

The only reason worldlings can’t see this is, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 

And the reason it is crystal clear to Jesus’ disciples is, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 

Now, while it is abundantly settled that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I began wondering what proof there is that someone like me is a son of God. So, I looked up the verse that popped into my mind right away. In the 7^th Beatitude, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” 

The term “sons of…” isn’t specifically male or female. It indicates those who are like God, the children who are known by the fact that they look like their Father. This is why Paul could say, “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” And “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” His point is that being a “son” means a child who looks like his/her Father, not specifically being a male. 

I have often complained about the way some of the new translations put “sons and daughters” in place of “sons” and “brothers and sisters” in place of “brothers”. Aside from the fact that God didn’t breathe out those words, I hate the way it steals the point God himself is making, that his people are “one”. We are all sons of God. The male-and-female and son-and-daughter is still there in the sense of our earthly design. Everything the apostles taught about men and women, and husbands and wives, still applies. But the point in the kingdom is that there is only one people who are all sons of God, meaning all the offspring who look like our Father. 

So, being a peacemaker makes us look like our Father because everything about God is aimed at bringing his lost sheep to have peace with him through faith in Christ, and, if we are like our Father, we will want others to have peace with God along with us. 

We can’t escape that we honor God as a people when we are busy trying to lead others to have peace with God through the gospel. While that easily can turn into “blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness”, that, too, is like our God who knew that his own Son would be hated by the world, disowned by his own people, and deserted even by his own disciples. 

But we have our so great salvation that gives us “peace with God” because Jesus is the “Prince of Peace” who “is our peace”. Jesus has created in himself “one new man in place of the two, so making peace,” and that’s why “he came and preached peace to you who were far off (us Gentiles) and peace to those who were near (the Jews).” 

Therefore, as the body of Christ is made up of members who are all sons of God, Paul tells us about the “full armor of God” we are to wear to maintain our victory in Christ. This includes “as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.” 

And in that readiness, we make the gospel of peace known to everyone so we keep growing up in Christ as peacemakers who are just like our Savior, the “sons of God” who are looking and acting like the “Son of God”. Or, as Paul put it, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” That is what the sons of God look like.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] “‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:6-7)