Inspirational Message: Understanding Jesus Through the Parables He Taught!

Luther’s goal in opening up this debate was to return the church to its origins. Kinlaw continues, “God wants us to imitate his lifestyle, not his attributes … to imitate the life of love that flows from self-sacrifice modeled by Jesus … to model the God we see on the Cross, the God who cares more for others than he cares for himself”.

Salvation in Jesus Christ is a life changing relationship based on faith, love, grace, repentance and forgiveness. “My conclusion was that both TB Joshua and other Christians actually read their Bible without proper understanding of what they are reading”. Nothing was jumping out at me, nothing prompted questions in my mind, and I felt like I was just missing it all completely. It doesn’t matter what you have done; He will forgive you and save you.

We are living by the grace of God so that mankind can repent from their wicked deeds and turn and follow after God. Very easy, but also very wrong.

To listen deeply to today’s lessons, I think it’s important for us to remind ourselves of last Sunday’s lessons. Pride says, “At least I’m not as bad as other people are”. This has been one of the most meaningful action steps I’ve personally taken. So in my case, he says ‘well, Christine, if God is good, why were you abused? This obviously will require of us a certain sportsmanship, a certain insensitivity that is of the kind that can welcome and accommodate the charity of God in our heart. In Romans 4:2-3, it says, “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he something to boast about-but not before God”.

“I was abandoned at a hospital, left unnamed, unwanted…” (The man is blind, in fact.) But then, with respect (instead of presuming what the man wanted), Jesus says, “What do you want?” It’s essentially saying, “I’ve got a few little weaknesses, and someone is going to marry me and make sure all those weaknesses are fixed”. It is only by the grace of God that you are saved, and that same grace will save them. When Jesus asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “It’s how we know Jesus”, Booz writes. It takes us back to Adams original sin. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:15, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” If this had been what Jesus meant it would be in direct contradiction to what Paul teaches in Rom. 5:8, “God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

The Islamic teacher said he regularly watched Joshua’s popular television channel Emmanuel TV, wondering why the prophet should address Jesus as God in front of thousands of his listeners.

“A lot of it was undermining the character of God… to make you think you can’t trust God”. A partial quote tells us in verse 13: “Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand”.

It was good to be able to see some old friends and to catch up with people we have not seen in decades. That’s how Jesus wants you live each day, confident that you are forgiven and confident that you are going to heaven because of Jesus and through faith in him. God is waiting for us to act. He replies, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Why do they have to put themselves right in front of us?

To interpret it in this way we miss Jesus’ point, and turn grace into law.