one step: Matthew 13.8

And they took offense at him.

Taking offense at Jesus happens more times than we would like to think. How often do we think that Jesus should do something, He doesn’t, and we get angry and hold it against Him? How often do we think that Jesus should heal someone, and He doesn’t? How often do we expect the Savior of this world to save us from our circumstances, and He doesn’t? How often do we take offense at Jesus?

The people of Nazareth watched Jesus grow up. In this community, they knew His family. They knew His habits, His humor, and His favorite foods. They knew He was human. Imagine their surprise when Jesus showed up as Savior of the world, Lord of the Sabbath, sage, Son of God, and miracle-worker? They knew that they knew Jesus, yet here He was being more than they could wrap their minds around.

How many of us think that we know Jesus? Because we have experiences with Jesus, we have read about Jesus, and we have heard things about Jesus, we think we know all about Him. What we know about Him allows us to build expectations for Him, and when He doesn’t fit into the box that we have created, we take offense.

Knowing a lot about Jesus without obeying Him brings a familiarity that causes us to take Him for granted.*

“I know Jesus,” we say. “I have Him figured out,” we think. Knowledge without faith and faith without action does not matter for much when Jesus begins doing the unexpected. When Jesus shows Himself as more to us than we can understand, what will we do? When He does things that break the mold of who we think we know Him to be, how will we react?

If we are disciples, if we are people who trust Him and follow Him, we will simply continue to do what we have always done: trust, follow, and share Him.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to forgive Jesus for not fitting into your box of expectation. Perhaps God wants you to allow Jesus to be Jesus. Maybe today God wants you to increase your trust in Jesus to follow Jesus into places unexpected. Perhaps Jesus is even greater than you can wrap your mind around, and He wants you to trust that He is who He says He is.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 364–367, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 13:53–58) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).

one step: water break

Break the arms of these wicked people!

If you have ever wondered if you are honest with God in your prayer life or not, just read Psalm 10. This Psalm of David is a part of Psalm 9, and it is cheerfully sung to the tune of “Death of the Son.” Now, I’ve not heard the old classic, “Death of the Son,” but I’m guessing that it’s not a cheerful ballad featuring a banjo and a harmonica-playing rodeo clown named Skip.

All kidding aside, David was a man after God’s own heart, and he did not hide the corners of his heart from God (1 Samuel 13:14). Being a person after God’s own heart does not require perfection. A quick survey of David’s life shows that he was anything but perfect. It does require honesty, however.

We must be careful who we label our enemy, or who we label as wicked. What we must never be careful with is our honesty before God. David threw his heart before the Lord and asked the Lord to examine it (Psalm 139:23-24). How often do we attempt to examine our own heart before bringing it before the Lord.

When we examine our own hearts, we cannot see all there is to see, and what we do see, we cannot heal. We can only cover it up.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to get real with Him. Perhaps it’s time to stop hiding the reality of your hurting and angry heart from God. He does not need a filtered, hidden version of you. Maybe today God wants to heal your heart. You have to show it to Him first. Be honest with God.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

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one step: Matthew 13.7

Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

Jesus shares these words after reemphasizing the worth of the kingdom and the cost of discipleship: everything. He shares parables of those who sell everything to obtain the thing of the greater value: the Kingdom. Certainly, the point of the parable is not to say that we can purchase the Kingdom, but to say that we must value being a part of the Kingdom and having ownership in it above all else.*

That said, membership in the Kingdom cannot end the journey for the believer. The disciple of Jesus must share the treasure of the Kingdom with others.

As we walk through life, we pick up treasure through reading God’s Word and through allowing Him to speak to us through nature, experiences, wise counsel, a whisper to the heart, and others. This treasure includes what is new and what is old. It’s like discovering new territory in the Kingdom that we did not know existed. Often times, we reject the new thing God is saying simply because it is outside of the old things He said. Other timer times, we reject what is old because we have learned something new.*

In reality, the treasure of old will support the new treasure, and the new treasure will provide greater revelation of what is old.* The new will not reject or counter what is old, but it will work in concert with it to bring us closer to God. If this is not the case, then the thing we have found might just be a counterfeit not fit for our sacrifice or purchase.

When I went to purchase the engagement ring for my wife, I went to a reliable source that I could trust to sell me something that actually had worth. I saved for a long period, skipping meals and avoided entertainment expenses for months to afford the ring. The ring looked shiny, but it had to pass the test of being weighed against other diamonds of quality. No matter how shiny the new ring looked, if it did not align with the standards of the rings that came before it, it was not worth much at all. Without the old to compare it to, I might have purchased a counterfeit.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to value the Kingdom of Heaven above all else in your life. Perhaps God is asking you to begin to share the treasure that you have found in Him with others. Maybe God wants you to remember the treasure of old so that you can discern if the treasure of new is from Him or a counterfeit. Perhaps God would have you listen for new treasure that helps you understand the old.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 358-363, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 13:44–45) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).

one step: Matthew 13.6

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

In our day, there seems to be a plague of fatherlessness. Metaphoric and literal orphans run through our societies, missing the touch of a father. In the familial structure God designed, the father of the home lead the family with conviction, love, humility, and service. The father called out gifting in his children before they even saw them. The father spoke identity into them, recognizing the strength, power, and purpose that God placed inside of his children. This has been lost.

The loss of fathers and the purpose of fathers in our society is not a simple reflection of human failure, but it’s the fruit of the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of satan is a kingdom of fatherlessness. When satan decided to be like God, satan left God the father in an effort to define himself as something other than what God called him and designed him to be. We see this pattern as a part of the growing kingdom of darkness in our world. We see people mimicking satan and taking his bate to reject the Father and choose identity outside of who God says that He made them to be. Bringing this truth to light is not to shame or villainize fathers, but to recognize that there is more at work than meets the eye.

Matthew 13:43 is one of the only places that we see the Kingdom of Heaven attached to the Father.* It tells us that in the Kingdom of Heaven, we live under the rule of the Father. This rule of the Father is not harsh or authoritative, but it’s loving and welcoming and protecting.

To live in the Kingdom of Heaven, and to see His Kingdom come and His will to be done, we must receive God as Father, thus allowing Him to define who we are, call out our gifting, and point us toward our purpose.

God desires this for all. God desires that everyone who has ears would hear this truth. God desires that all people shine like the stars out of the righteousness gifted to them by Jesus. We do not shine because of our efforts. Our efforts look a lot like the broken fathers that we have known or that we ourselves reflect. We shine when Jesus shines in and through us. His righteousness makes us glow.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to receive God as Father. Perhaps today is the day to forgive your broken father. Maybe God wants you to break the cycle of the fatherless kingdom of darkness by embracing the light of Jesus to transform fatherhood in your heart. Perhaps God is asking you to be His hands and feet in someone else’s life.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 358, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 13:36–52) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).

one step: Matthew 13.5

 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

While the mustard seed is not the smallest seed in all of botany, that is hardly Jesus’s point. Leveraging a metaphor of his day, Jesus uses the smallness of the mustard seed to cast light upon the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The mustard plants that grew beside the Sea of Galilee in the time of Jesus could reach as high as eight to twelve feet in height.* The contrast of such a small, functionless seed transforming into a large, shelter-providing plant spoke volumes as to the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus quickly follows this parable with another, explaining that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a piece of last week’s dough hidden in a large quantity of flour until all of the flour was leaven and rising.*

Certainly each of these two parables demonstrate that in the Kingdom of Heaven the very smallest can be used for great impact, but two other characteristics of the Kingdom emerge as well.

First, we must see that in the Kingdom of Heaven growth happens in obscurity. The seed is hidden under ground, beyond of the view of others for much of its growth. Only the gardener knows that it’s there. Even for the early and mid stages of its life, the mustard plant seems to be nothing more than a small shrub or bush. Eventually, over time, the mustard plant passes its peers and reaches into the sky, creating a home for sparrows and the like.

The leaven does its work, hidden in the flour in some dark place. No one knows that the leaven is there but the hands that placed it. The slow movement of chemical reaction permeates the entire mass. Not much can be observed until the bread is baked and it comes out warm and larger than expected!

Second, the seed and the flour have no power to change themselves. This transformation from small to big, from powerless to powerful, from least to great, from invisible to visible, from potential to impact comes only by way of an act outside of itself. The seed requires water, sunlight, and good soil. The flour requires leaven, the right temperature, and undisturbed time.

God has a purpose for you in the Kingdom of Heaven. Much of the preparation looks like quiet growth in obscurity. The change that needs to happen in your life comes from being hidden in Jesus and hiding Jesus inside of you. You cannot change yourself in the way that you need to be changed. The transformation that God wants to do in your life is so dramatic and radical that it moves beyond behavior and involves changing your very being.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to embrace the obscurity. Perhaps God wants you to lay down your efforts to earn your place in the Kingdom of Heaven by changing yourself. Maybe God would like you to take a step by allowing God to do His work in your life to change you at His pace rather than yours.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 351–353, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 13:31–33) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).