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Bible Study
Fr. Dawood Lamei
139 – 10 August
* “ And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire ” (MT 3: 10)
- There are two kinds of fruit: One is concerned with your life and behavior, and the other is concerned with your relationships and your message in life
When love grows, there is fruit - when happiness grows, there is fruit
“ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness ” (GA 5:22)
All virtues are fruits of repentance.
For instance, when a selfish person changes and becomes loving, this is a fruit;
When a miser becomes generous; this is a fruit;
When a lustful person becomes spiritual; this is a fruit.
There is another kind of fruit which is:
getting souls to Christ our Lord
because a repentant person is the one who is capable of bringing people to God.
When one repents and his/her life changes,
the fruit of his/her repentance attracts people to God -
people’s lives can change because of his/her repentance.
Ask yourself:
If I really repented, is there any personal fruit in my life or not!??
Is there any fruit in my life with the people surrounding me or not!??
Did I really change or not!??
Did people around me change because of me or not!??
These questions are important because
“ the ax is laid to the root of the trees ”;
it is as if God is telling you:
“ Is there any fruit in your life or shall we cut it off and throw it away into the fire? -
is there any results for your repentance
or is it a fake repentance and thus there are no results? ”
The Pharisees and the Jewish tutors' repentance was fake, as they used to practice the spiritual practices externally but they were not spiritual at all from inside. There was hypocrisy, pride, and no real change inside the heart - the heart was still impure and the relations were ineffective although they looked religious from the outside.
God is not that of appearances
“ bear fruits worthy of repentance ” (MT 3:8)
God is concerned with the heart
“ For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds ” (Psalm 7:9)
God is waiting to see a real change in your life
because only then, your repentance will be real and it will bear fruits
“ every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit ” (JN 15:2)
Repentance has no end and it grows inside each one of us
throughout our entire life and thus it increases
love, kindness, joy, and the winning of souls to God.
* “ I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire ” (MT 3: 11)
As a human, what is your source of strength!?
Is it in your health!? Remember: health is temporary;
Is it in your money/wealth!? Remember: money has no value;
Is it in your prayers, fasting, love, repentance, and purity of the heart ... !???
This is the real strength which caused John the Baptist to affect people and bear fruits -
tens, and may be thousands, repented because of him.
This fruit is linked with his spiritual strength.
Words are easy, but spiritual strength is an inner thing.
“ For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power ” (1 CO 4: 20)
It is possible that someone is a good preacher and has some talents, but the issue is not so - spiritual strength is something, the appearance is another, and words are yet another.
Prophet Moses told God:
“ I am slow of speech and slow of tongue ” (EX 4: 10)
but God told him that He will give him strength:
“ So the LORD said to him, “ Who has made man’s mouth?…Have not I, the LORD?
Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth
and teach you what you shall say ” (EX 4: 11-12)
Our Lord Jesus Christ has all strength and is the source of strength of every Saint.
Moses became stronger by his love to God, his faith, his prayers, his fastings -
These were his strength but of course, the saints’ spiritual strengths
are not comparable with the strength of Christ the Lord -
the Lord’s strength is not only in His call for our repentance,
but also in the fact that He can change us with His spirit,
give us a new nature through baptism, and create us anew -
this is the gift of the New Testament
* “ fire ” : Baptism of the New Testament turns us into a temple for God’s Spirit (Spirit of fire). This fire burns anything bad within us, thus causes each one of us to be unable to bear sinning and unable to accept it, because we are spiritually hot and there is a fire inside us.
On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of divided tongues of fire - this fire refers to purification and burning of all flaws and sins, as well as the heat of the Spirit, Godly love, and the yearning to the salvation of one’s soul and the others’.
* “ And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “ If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread ” (MT 4: 2-3)
- We can see here that the devil steps into our lives when we are weak
When one is hungry for worldly dignity, or food, or earthly encouragement
or is deprived of love, or …. etc, the devil enters -
i.e. when one is hungry, the field of temptation gets wider and more difficult to fight.
But NO, you've got to be strong and not let hunger drives you -
God’s Spirit has to be the One which leads you.
Sometimes when the devil sees you happy with God
and filled with Him, he waits for a while
and as soon as he finds you starting to be hungry again or a bit troubled by the world,
he starts to whisper in your ears and confuse your mind and tempt you to sin.
Are you going to listen to him or not??
Are your going to fight him back and push him away or not??
The devil causes you to have doubts in the most precious thing you have and tells you:
" if you were the son of God, God would not have left you hungry,
and if you were the son of God, how come He leaves you suffer from
these problems, troubles, and sorrows,
and if you were the son of God, why doesn't He answer your prayers,
and if you were the son of God, why are you getting hurt, sad,
in pain, or experiencing temptations.
The devil’s plan is to cause you to doubt the grace God has given you
because he wants to steal it away - he wants you to lose it.
But NO! you've got to stop him
because if your faith is lost and you gave up to doubts
and lost your trust in God, His fatherhood,
and His being responsible for you,
you will fall and lose this lovely grace you have.
Our Lord Jesus did not have to do this conversation with the devil to defeat him -
He could have defeated him by His divinity's strength
but He wants to teach us the way of defeating him
If you ever had a thought of doubt, reject it and kick it out at once
by what is written in the Holy Bible -
if you know/memorize the Bible and are occupied with it,
you will find that the Holy Spirit immediately rescues you
and when a thought of doubt comes, a thought of faith fights it back.
When the devil tells you:
“ God has forsaken you ”, tell him that God says:
“ Can a woman forget her nursing child, …? Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you ” (IS 49: 15).
When he tells you:
“ God has left you ”, tell him that God says:
“ do not fear, for I am with you ” (GE 26: 24).
And when he tells you:
“ If God loves you, He wouldn’t have left you hungry”, tell him:
“ We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God ” (Acts 14: 22)
When one reads the Word of God and is filled with the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit helps him/her remember God’s words
“ He will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you ” (JN 14: 26)
It becomes easy to the person, who is living by the Holy Spirit,
to respond back to any thought of doubt
and every single devilish challenge, even in times of weakness and hunger.
“ man shall not live by bread alone;
but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD ” (DT 8: 3)
The lesson that Lord Jesus is giving us here is:
when you are filled with God’s words, you will defeat any devil
because the word of God is able to kick out every devilish thought,
whether it was a thought of anger, condemnation, lust, fear, worry, or bad grief, … etc. All of these can be defeated by God’s words.
Are you filled with God’s words??
A verse to memorize: “ for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness ” (MT 3: 15)