Words of Jesus Podcast - The Seeds of Potential

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

When we receive Christ (think of the example of Mary), we receive seeds of potential. We are given rewards for nurturing and bringing forth fruit. We are given "the power to become..." Jesus said, "Who is my mother? . . . whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Remember Job? Relax. Troubles give us the opportunity to become the person we need to be. Ezekiel 18:20-24 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount - Beatitudes (Part 4)THE FAME of Jesus spread so widely that great numbers came to see him from all over the countryside. Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain. There he sat down; and when his disciples came to him, he taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."Matthew 5:1-48, 6:1-34, 7:1-29

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I hope you're enjoying it. I know I am. I'm your host Don Harris and what I'd love to do is take you through the red words of Christ and let them, as he said, sink down into your ears. The idea is for the words of Christ to go within us so that when the time comes, they come out and we deal with things and we deal with them properly.

And I'm sad when I see people who have trouble within their families and they don't know how to handle them and they don't know what to say. And every time they say something, it makes the situation worse. And I think they so much need the wisdom of God in their life. And I feel sorry for them. But with the Christians, I get a little bit angry about it. I'm thinking, your Lord Jesus has made you a promise that if you'll keep his commandments that he'll come into you

and manifest himself to you and make himself real to you and you'll become essentially, I mean not to get off into something else that could take all day to explain but essentially become his mother on the earth. He said you know who my mother is? The people who hear the word of God and do it, that's who. And so we have the ability to take within ourselves the seed of Christ and raise that seed up until it be born in us,

until it be, as Paul said, formed in us, and yet still struggle with those kinds of things? No. I have to admit that I have an interest in, I want the wisdom and knowledge of God in my life. I want it in there in abundance. And I'd love to tell you that it's altruistic, it's strictly a humility on my part. I just want to be a wonderful

servant of God. But truth is, and I think honesty is everything, that there is a certain amount of desire to win. You just get sick of losing. Don't you get sick of losing? Every time and any time you do climb out of something it's because money or influence or friends or something has gotten you out of it. The truth is that we have that power within us. When we receive Jesus Christ

as the Son of God, the Messiah, the Anointed One and we made Him as we have in our modern vernacular, made him Lord over our life. I hate that term. Well, who are you to make a Lord? You'd have to be a king to make a king, wouldn't you? You know, you don't make him Lord. He is Lord.

You receive him. You don't accept him. You know, people talk about accepting Jesus. He couldn't care less if you accept Him. The idea is to live in such a way that He accepts us. That's right. We have faith in Him and we do His bidding. We do His work. We're a slave. We're an indentured servant. And we seek nothing but His

not even necessarily His appreciation, but we actually receive a respect from God because frankly there's not a lot of people, He doesn't have a whole lot of folks out there that are following Him. You can be one of them if you will as the scriptures say, receive Him, He will give you the power to become a son of God. We were talking about the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and I was explaining to you that Matthew had a tendency to

mention states of being. He mentioned characteristics of Christians more so than what they actually did with their hands or their feet or their legs. In other words, he was more into or at least his dissertation that he copied out was more in the line of if you are this person there's rewards for being this person. Now, you might have, it might have occurred to you

from the last show that there's a discrepancy or a contradiction in terms, maybe a contradiction in concept. How can I be rewarded for something that's given to me? You understand what I mean? If these things, we use the example poor in spirit, the first one in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit. And I was trying to say that that kind of humility is not something that you could actually manufacture in your life but it is a part of the grace that is given to us to become a child of god he puts within us seeds of humility and and so it's not that he makes us humble it's not that he makes us thankful or makes us into these

particular people this is this these are all offshoots of the false doctrine of imputation. And I'd love to talk about that, but we want to stay on subject. I have a difficult time, have you noticed? But these aren't, he doesn't impute paint on us, put in us humility. But there are seeds of humility, and many times these seeds of humility are watered by the troubles in our life that show us exactly how powerful we aren't. How powerless we are. And if we handle these things

in a proper way, we can become better people from this. So these gifts from God I'm afraid a lot of times we have a tendency to want to receive good at the hand of, what was it Job said? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not receive evil? Now there are people, especially in the Word of Faith movement, that hate that scripture. Nobody receives evil from God.

He does good and Satan does bad and that's all necessary to propagate their silly ideas. But no, we receive evil at the hand of the Lord and He does it for a reason. And that is to make us poor in spirit. To give us a love for our brother and to understand exactly who and what we are and where we are in life. And so these gifts that are given are not gifts in whole, nor

are they gifts in part, but they are gifts of seeds and potential that we can take. Jesus used the example that time of when he said the tower in Siloam that fell and then the Galileans that were slaughtered at the altar and he says do you think these people were sinners? He says I tell you they weren't sinners but except you repent you shall all likewise perish. And we read that and we think what did he say? What does that mean?

Except we repent. Except we repent, what did he say? What does that mean? Except we repent. Except we repent we're going to perish like that, but that it didn't happen because of sin? You know, it's scripture like that that shows us, or should show you, that you don't know what the heck you're talking about. You know, you've got words that are defined incorrectly, and when you say this scripture in your words, in your understanding of each of those words,

it doesn't make any sense. So what do we need? We need a new translation of the Bible, right? So we're going to translate this scripture so that it makes sense to us. Not only makes sense to us, but the words, we're going to use words that are defined with 20th century definitions. Now look, I'm in full agreement with understanding the scripture in 20th century terms. I mean, I'm just known as the preacher that

puts pants on the scripture. That's what I do. I try to do that. I talk about Jesus and Levi's all the time. So I'm all for putting these things into 20th century vernacular. But it's much like the argument of original intent about our Constitution. When there were certain things said, they were said in a certain time that meant what they meant between people of a certain time. The definitions were understood between the men.

We have to understand those definitions to understand what the Bible is saying and then apply it to our 20th century life. And so I think that we can make a mistake if we think that a gift of God is humility. No, that's not what you're going to find. What you're going to find is that this is what Job was talking about when he says, am I supposed to receive blessing at the hand of the Lord and not receive what is uncomfortable to me? No, what's

uncomfortable to me is allowing me to become the person that I need to be. I need to change. What's the word change in 16th century English? 17th century English. It's repent. That's what I need to do. I need to change.

Why do you need to change? Because unless I change, I will likewise perish. You see, when you understand the definitions of the word, the scripture comes alive. Oh, I see. Bad things happen to bad people and good people. Good things happen to good people and bad people. But when bad things happen to good people who have their heads screwed on straight, who understand what's going on, who relinquish to God

that they will receive evil at His hand, they're receiving evil at His hand because they know that He is making them into a better person. So I'm not going to perish by this, I'm going to become better by this you know it's a horrible tragedy yes i agree however i have an opportunity to become better and so these seeds are given to us and it is when we cultivate those seeds and they and they grow into the blessed are the merciful. Well, God is not going to just hand you mercy. But what he will do is he'll give you the power to receive mercy into your life.

So that you can exercise it toward your fellow man. And when you do that, he said, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. And blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god blessed are the peacemakers they're going to be called the children of god how do i get all these rewards by cultivating the seeds by cultivating the potential that god has given us through his grace and this is what makes this makes this such a beautiful thing and explains to us why we would receive a reward for being merciful, a reward for being a peacemaker,

a reward for being pure of heart, when those things, why would I receive a reward? That was given to me. No, the potential was given to you and you did something with it. You actually made these things happen. You actually chose the good and refused the evil. Again, we're going back to Job, aren't we? Why was God so impressed with Job? He told Satan why he was impressed with him. Because he loves me and he hates you.

That's why I like him. Because he fears God and eschews, he holds back, he rejects evil. Watch him. Yeah, take away everything he's got. But watch what happens. He'll come out on the other side a better man. And see, that's what we need to do. And so that's why there is a reward involved, even though what it may sound like is, is God is making us merciful,

making us love our brother. Not so. Not so at all. He's just giving us the potential to do so. It's like the rich young ruler. He says, I obey all the commandments. I've obeyed them ever since I was a kid. But what lack I yet?

What is that little guy asking? I keep calling him a little guy. But what is he asking? He's saying that, no, I don't murder my brother, but I want to. No, I don't murder my brother, but I want to. No, I don't commit adultery with my neighbor's wife, but I want to. I don't want to want to anymore. So what was he asking?

What was he saying in this particular case? I want to be different. I want to be merciful. I want to love my brother like I should. I want to be pure in heart. And Jesus says, you know what you want? You want completeness. Well, where does the Bible say completeness? The word perfect. That's what the word perfect means. It means complete. It doesn't mean sin means. It means complete. It doesn't mean sinless. It means complete.

I want to be complete. Jesus says, okay, if you want to be complete, that's where I come in. You know, the law, it might put you into the kingdom of God. It might separate you from the world as a child of God, as a fearer of God. But what my ministry is, is to make you into a different man. And if that's what you want, here's what you do.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. What a beautiful thing. And when he does deny himself, take up his cross, be willing to die for what he believes, and follows Christ, you know what happens? That seed of mercy starts to grow. The seed of purity of heart starts to grow. All these seeds that are given to us,

all these potentials that are offered to us as children of God because we received him, you see, this idea of instantaneous everything is just a damnable heresy. And it doesn't do anything but just discourage people. I'm saved. You know, I have all wisdom and knowledge. I've heard some of the word of faith people claiming.

I have all wisdom and knowledge, you know. All I have to do is ask God for wisdom and he gives it to us. He upbraideth not. And they quote scripture and stuff. But they're just as stupid as they were before they supposedly had the wisdom of God. They're just as clueless as they were before they had the so-called knowledge of God. Nothing's changed except what they're mouthing with their mouth. Well, that wasn't good enough for the rich young ruler, and it ought not be enough for you either.

Do you really want these things? Because if you want them, if you received them, the seed is in you. It's inside you. And if you'll yield to that, when troubles come don't stand up and curse the devil don't go trying to bind satan but gather that that misery in and embrace it and say this is going to make me into the person i need to be i'm not going to perish by this i'm going to come out better well you know what's happening here? What's happening here is

you're taking on the attributes that have reward. They have reward because they were a part of what you did as well. They are a part of your decision to follow God. Your decision to be the person that you ought to be. Man, that's exciting. I just love to even think about this kind of thing because it's not God just doing salvation to you. It's a matter of you and the Lord working out your own salvation

with respect and fear, trembling. You see, this is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But if you're going to call it all instantaneous, bow your knee, ask the Lord Jesus to come into your heart, ask Him to save you. And, well, I don't feel saved. Well, you asked Him, didn't you? Yeah.

He said He would, didn't He? Yeah. Well, is he a liar? Look, if that's the basis of your salvation, you need to turn on your heel and walk out and go spend some time before the Lord because we get so much misinformation on this thing. Because we insist that salvation is instantaneous,

we believe that if we're going to be Christian or we're going to do something for Jesus or whatever else, we go and we get saved. And then nothing's really changed, but they're going to convince you that you ought not ever mention that. You ought not ever mention that you don't feel saved. Why? Because that's Satan lying to you.

Really, since when did Satan become the evangelist that tells people that they need to be saved? When did that happen? This is so ridiculous. When you look at it in the proper light, you're thinking, yeah, how did that happen? Satan's telling me that I need to be born again? Look, the truth is that being born again is called born again

because it couples itself with, it parallels itself to, it's a metaphor of pregnancy. A woman gets pregnant, she doesn't have a baby the next morning. No, there's nine months of gestation, of growing this infant until it becomes a baby, and then finally it's born. That's why we use the term, because it's a process.

It's something that you decide to do now. The Lord works with you on this. Now look, I'm not saying that a person who wants to be a part of the kingdom of God, wants to be a child of God, that he's in some kind of danger until he becomes perfect. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Because Ezekiel gave us this in no uncertain terms

that the moment you decide to quit going your way and go God's way, here's God's promise to you. I'll never remember anything you ever did wrong. There's the instantaneous part. It's that atonement. It's the coverage. It's covering your sin until you become the man that you need to be. But there's a time when you're born again. Man, when you're born again, you know what the Bible says about you? You don't commit sin. You cannot sin because you're born of God. Can I see a show of hands? You see, all of a sudden being born again is something

wow, man, that's out there somewhere. That's not something I got last Wednesday night at the there somewhere. That's not something I got last Wednesday night at the revival meeting. That's something in my future. That's something I can look forward to. That's something that I can do that me and the Lord will work on. I love it in Revelation

when the angel is explained to John who these particular people are. And he says these are the called, the chosen, and the faithful. Just real quickly, if you can remember this and contemplate it during the day, it'll scare you a little bit and then it'll comfort you a little bit and then it'll frighten you and then you'll comfort you a little bit and then it'll frighten you and then you'll feel you know that that warmth and that covering of the lord and you'll go back and forth on it a couple of

times but boy when it settles in you that salvation is something that he instituted that you both work on and you're going to finish you hear me heuted it. You're both going to work on it, and that you're going to finish it. What does that mean? He says, these are the called. See, God calls not everyone. Not everyone is called of God. I know you've been told he came to save the whole world,

and God loves you. It doesn't matter who reads the bumper sticker. He loves everybody. I know you've been told that, but Jesus said, you keep my commandments and I'll love you and my father will love you. That sounds conditional to me. Oh, I guess I'm just dopey. I don't know. I don't see in that that God loves everybody, but I know this, he doesn't call everybody. Or Jesus would have said, you know, all are called and few are chosen. Wouldn't he? No, he didn't say that, did he? He said, many are called. I don't know if many means every one but one, or if it means one

out of a million. I don't know what it means, but I do know that not everybody's called. And there's not a thing in the world you can do about whether or not you're called. And so if you are called, boy, you should cherish that. How do I know if I'm called? We'll talk about these things as time goes by. But he's saying that there's a calling that takes place that you don't have anything to do with. And then he says there's the call of the chosen.

Who's the chosen? These are the people that acted on that call. These are the people who are mixing works with their faith and faith with their works. And he's helping them. It's just like he might plant the seed of being poor in spirit. He might plant the seed of humility, of being of purity of heart. But it's you who works on it. And there comes a time when these things come to fruition and we become chosen. But right now we may, as the Bible says, differ nothing from a servant. And then

it says, the called, the chosen, and then it says the faithful. You know there's nothing in the world that the Lord God could do to keep you faithful. It's all you, friend. You're the one that's going to have to finish this thing. He started it. You're both going to work on it, but you're going to finish this. You, you are going to finish this by being faithful to him until the end. This is why Jesus said, he that endures to the end shall be saved. I don't think any of us have any right or reason to tell somebody else that we have been saved. Why don't we use the scriptural definitions and understand,

should you read your New Testament in Greek, you would find it doesn't talk about your salvation being a done deal, a one and done kind of a thing. It talks about us being saved. You know, somebody asked me if I'm saved, and I said, well, no, not yet. But I'm being saved. Now, being saved, well, what does that mean, brother? Well, I'll tell you what that means. I keep his commandments. I love my brother as myself,

and the Spirit of God witnesses within me that I'm a child of God. Now, I have not endured to the end. I don't know what's in my future. I don't know. But if it gets screwed up, it'll be me that does it. It won't be him. He's not going to be unfaithful. He's not going to drop me for no good reason. He's not going to forget my name. So salvation, it's a long process. It's okay. And you're totally safe from the day you start. Well, how do I start? By keeping his commandments. How do you answer the call of God in your life?

By keeping his commandments. Read this in Ezekiel 13, 18. Read this. He says, when you decide to go my way and not your way, you're going to keep my commandments. He says, And as you receive that, you don't have to worry about going to hell or worry about being destroyed, being held accountable for your sins and all this stuff. No, no, no. You don't have to do that. He says, go my way. I'll never remember anything you ever did wrong. You know what I say? You've got a deal. I'll take it. I'll take it. Well, there's a little caveat on the end.

You want to hear that before we go? Time's almost gone. This is going to be rough on you. But he says, if you ever turn back around and go your way again and forget my way, I'm not going to remember anything you ever did right. Sorry, friend. There's always the other side of the

coin. Time's gone. And that's it for this time. But we'll see you here next time. I want you to do something for me. I want to hear from you. I want to know what you think of the broadcast. And where you're listening. What time you're listening. And if you have a question about what we're talking about, would you please send that to me?

I'd love to deal with it here on this show. TRI Radio. Think Redding TV. We'll do those kind of things just simply write to Don at thinkredding.com we'll see you next time, bye bye you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you