Follow Instructions

Luk 17:3-4 LITV
(3) Take heed to yourselves. And if your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
(4) And if seven times of the day he sins against you, and seven times of the day turns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him.

Have we ever done this? Most of us have been offended. How do we tend to handle it? As for me, my tendency would be to just bury it. After all, maybe the offending party didn't mean what they said. Or maybe they misspoke. Or maybe I heard wrong.

Part of our problem with relationships within the church is that we do not follow instructions. These are very simple, but the intent is to keep division out of the church - a problem running rampant in today's congregations.

The definition of 'rebuke' is to reprimand or reprove sharply. Basically, you have to get on somebody's case. We always want to be the good guy, though, which is something that Jesus wasn't so concerned with. We need to buck up.

The penalty for not doing this is very Pavlovian: we get into vicious patters that gradually degrade our fellowships into non-fellowships. We become squabbling, dis-functional families at best - Satan's plan to remove the allure of the body of Christ.

Signs Will Follow

Mat 2:1-3
(1) And when Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men arrived from the east to Jerusalem,
(2) saying, Where is He born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.
(3) But Herod the king having heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.

After Jesus was born, He upset things right away. Scripture says 'all Jerusalem' was troubled. Wow! And He hadn't even learned to walk! This is significant because it reiterates a truth about who He is, and about who WE are. Jesus was the one the enemy had warred over and worried about ever since the Genesis 3:15 prophecy.

Joh 11:47
(47) Then the chief priests and the Pharisees assembled a sanhedrin, and said, What are we doing, for this man does many signs?

Certainly things did not improve for the enemies of Jesus. Everywhere He went He stirred things up. For the religious, the biggest problem seemed to be the signs. Miracles. It isn't difficult to get past any message that lacks power, but it's incredibly difficult to write off anyone whose message is accompanied by signs of great power. Religion in itself has no power, so it is offended by such a display.

Mar 16:17
(17) And miraculous signs will follow to those believing these things: they will cast out demons in My name; they will speak new languages;

Jesus said that the same signs (even greater) would follow those who believed and abode in Him. He did not say the signs would have to be sought after. He did not say the signs might happen to a few. He said signs would follow. Miraculous signs will follow - if.