Month: August 2025

Matthew 13:44 – “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

⁴⁵ “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. ⁴⁶ When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it! (NLT)

In this short passage Jesus teaches about the kingdom of Heaven.  Matthew is the only Gospel writer to use this term, the other three Gospels have Jesus speaking of the Kingdom of God.  Why would Matthew use Heaven instead of God?  Matthew’s readers were Jewish Christians, and Jews would avoid writing and using the word God if at all possible.  Out of sensitivity to his readers, Matthew uses Kingdom of Heaven. 

The concept, however, is the same in all four Gospels.  Kingdom life is something that begins now, and we don’t have to wait for death to start experiencing Kingdom life.  Jesus told his followers many times that the Kingdom was near. In Mark 12:34, Jesus told a teacher of religious law that he was not far from the kingdom.  Kingdom life begins when we live under the authority of God, and in a relationship with God through Jesus.

In today’s reading, Jesus tells us that in all of life there is nothing that is more valuable than Kingdom life.  The first man comes across a buried treasure in a field.  Perhaps he had been working in the field.  Finding buried treasure was not uncommon in those days, as people had no safe place to keep their valuables.  When someone who had buried something of value died, or was removed by an invading army, their treasure was lost for the ages unless someone happened upon it.  The second man was a pearl merchant, and he was searching for something of value.  As a merchant, he probably had many fine pieces of jewelry, but when he discovers this one priceless pearl, he sold everything he owned in order to obtain it.

These two short stories not only tell us that Kingdom life is priceless, they beg the question: What are we willing to give up in order to live in the Kingdom?  Are we willing to give up our agendas, and adopt God’s?  Are we willing to lay aside selfish desires, and seek only the will of God?  Kingdom life is not only worth more than our own desires, kingdom life is more rewarding!

Today, let us lay aside our selfish desires and seek to live in the Kingdom.  It’s not just Good Stuff, it is Priceless! 

Posted by Ramón Torres

Psalm 47:1 – Come, everyone! Clap your hands!
Shout to God with joyful praise!
² For the Lord Most High is awesome.
He is the great King of all the earth.
³ He subdues the nations before us,
putting our enemies beneath our feet.
⁴ He chose the Promised Land as our inheritance,
the proud possession of Jacob’s descendants, whom he loves.

⁵ God has ascended with a mighty shout.
The Lord has ascended with trumpets blaring.
⁶ Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises!
⁷ For God is the King over all the earth.
Praise him with a psalm!
⁸ God reigns above the nations,
sitting on his holy throne.
⁹ The rulers of the world have gathered together
with the people of the God of Abraham.
For all the kings of the earth belong to God.
He is highly honored everywhere. (NLT)

Psalm 47 was written in celebration of a king’s victory, but it is also prophetic in that it looked forward to the Messiah’s reign and rule.  Verse one indicates that all people – not just the Jews – were invited to shout to God with a joyful praise.  The people were told to clap their hands.  Clapping hands was and is a way in which to celebrate, but it can also be used to draw people’s attention.  Likewise, our praise of God should draw attention to God.  Drawing the attention of people outside of the church as we praise God inside our churches might be difficult, but we are to live a life of praise.  Our praise of God should not be reserved only for our times of corporate worship, we should be ready and willing to praise God at all times and in all places.

Verse three tells us that our great king – our Messiah – has put our enemies beneath our feet. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12 – “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Our enemies are not flesh and blood. They are not of this world.  Quite often we live as if our enemies are the people we work with, or even people within our own homes.  Not so!  We need to seek strength to overcome these difficult relationships through Jesus, for Jesus has put our true enemy beneath our feet. 

Verse eight reminds us that God reigns above all.  I have a friend who, when hearing bad news will respond with, “Well, at least God still reigns.”  We must always be mindful that God reigns.  No matter what troubles we face, our Lord is king above all, and our enemies have been defeated.

Today, let us be ready to praise God at all times.  Let us praise God confidently, knowing that our king has defeated our enemies, and our king reigns! 

Posted by Ramón Torres

Matthew 13:10 – His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?”  ¹¹ He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. ¹² To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. ¹³ That is why I use these parables, For they look, but they don’t really see.  They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.   ¹⁴ This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says,   ‘When you hear what I say,
you will not understand.
When you see what I do,
you will not comprehend.
¹⁵ For the hearts of these people are hardened,
and their ears cannot hear,
and they have closed their eyes—
so their eyes cannot see,
and their ears cannot hear,
and their hearts cannot understand,
and they cannot turn to me
and let me heal them.’

¹⁶ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. ¹⁷ I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it. (NLT)

In the verses that come before today’s reading, Jesus had just told the parable of a farmer scattering seed upon the ground.  In today’s passage, his disciples wanted to know why Jesus used parables.  Jesus explains that he taught the way he did so that those who were truly seeking would discover the truth.  In verse twelve Jesus states:  “To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.”  I believe that there is a great lesson here for Christians today who seek to share the message of God’s truth with others.

The lesson is that not everyone is ready to receive God’s truth.  Perhaps we should note that we cannot just walk up to our friends who do not have a relationship with Jesus and say, “Jesus saves,” and expect them to believe this truth.  God’s truth does, indeed, save.  God’s truth does offer to us our ultimate healing, but not everyone is ready to receive this truth (verse 15).  Our challenge is to develop relationships with those who do not know God’s truth.  We develop relationships with them so that over time we can share the Gospel.  We must be careful in how we speak this truth.  As we develop relationships, we will be able to find opportunities to use events in life to gently reveal God’s truth. 

We are blessed because we have heard, and we believe (verse 16).  Yet we know that we are not blessed so that we can keep God’s truth to ourselves.  We are blessed to share this truth.  Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.”  As those who are ambassadors for Christ, we should take our lesson from Jesus.  Jesus knew that the ‘spiritual soil’ had to be cultivated within a person in order to fully understand God’s truth.  Let us be aware of this and let us do our part in cultivating the spiritual soil of those who are ready to listen.  They may not be able to understand the full message at one time, but cultivating soil often takes time and effort.

As Christ ambassadors, let us always be ready to give that time and put forth that effort. 

Posted by Ramón Torres

Matthew 12:43 – “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. ⁴⁵ Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation.”

⁴⁶ As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. ⁴⁷ Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.”

⁴⁸ Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. ⁵⁰ Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!” (NLT) 

In today’s passage, we have two difficult teachings of Jesus.  In the first teaching, in which Jesus spoke of a multitude of evil spirits returning to a person, Jesus was not just pronouncing a judgment upon of those in his day.  Jesus was speaking a word of warning to us all!  Our spiritual lesson is to remain on guard, remembering that in this life we will always be in a spiritual battle.  When we overcome an obstacle of life, we often become comfortable.  However, we must remain ready.  1 Peter 5:8 tells us that our great enemy prowls around like a lion, looking for someone to devour.  When we are feeling comfortable and at ease in our Christian walk, we have opened the door for evil.  And evil won’t come creeping back in, it will come roaring in like a lion! 

The second difficult teaching in this passage has Jesus seemingly overlooking his close family members.  Not so!  Jesus was not overlooking them, but including all who seek to do the will of God.  The Word of God tells us that we are “temporary residents and foreigners” of this world (1 Peter 2:11).  In other words, our true home is with God.  Just as our true home is with God, our true family members are those who seek God’s will.  We need not reject our earthly families, for they are God’s gift to us, but we are members of a larger family.  Perhaps, in light of this, we should all start trying to get along a little better! 

These two short teaching can be connected spiritually.  We should remember to stay alert, for the evil one comes like a lion to devour – and, we should always be ready to encourage and support our brothers and sisters in our struggle to stay alert, for we are all members of God’s family. 

Today, stay alert, and help your brothers and sister to stay alert, as well!

Posted by Ramón Torres