Hey Clawson Family!

Song:

Scripture:

Matthew 13: 31-32 NLT

Parable of the Mustard Seed

31 Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”

Matthew 13:33 NLT

Parable of the Yeast

33 Jesus also used this illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

Matthew 16:6,12 New Living Translation

6 “Watch out!” Jesus warned them. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

12 Then at last they understood that he wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Devotional:

I think in the church world one of the biggest mistakes that we make is looking outside the church, seeing all of the evil that is going on, and having this church vs. the world mentality. We believe that inside the church is the safe place but outside in the world is where the attacks are going to come from. 

 When we do that it numbs us to the fact that the thing that is the most dangerous to the church is not the world. Sinners sin, that is what they are going to do. They don’t try to hide it, and those people are not our enemies. The thing that is the most dangerous to the church is when a wolf gets inside the family and looks like a sheep. Hiding who he is, with the intention of taking out as many of God's people as he can.

We see this Matthew 13. The birds that are trying to devour the seed, and stop the expansion of the Kingdom are coming to rest inside the tree representing the church. They are living within, not without.

The Attack was coming from within. From those we would have classified as in the church, in the Kingdom. Most of our warnings about attacks that are coming show that Satan's most effective attacks are coming from within.

Beware of wolves coming into the sheep fold, beware of false prophets, false teachers, false doctrines.

 Have you ever played the game Tug of War. The goal of tug of war is to be able to have enough power to pull everyone on the rope your direction, and if you can pull everyone your way then you win. 

Well what Satan likes to do inside the church of Jesus the family of Jesus is to come in, and begin to gain influence.  If he can begin to gain influence in the church then what happens is the more influence he gains the more tug he has on his side of the rope. His goal is to gain influence with as many as possible so he can destroy the whole church. If we are not careful then what can happen is, without us even knowing it, we begin to help Satan. We allow him to influence us. Now we can be helping Satan in his attack instead of fighting him on it.

The Devils goal is to gain traction inside the church to pull us away.He is super good at it. He infiltrates the church and begins to tug on our minds, use our sins to do a little tugging, tug on our beliefs, and our kids, tug on our families.

And if you think for 1 minute that Satan is not good at tug of war I want you to look at the state of the church around us. We are not violently taking the Kingdom by force, but the Kingdom is being violently taken by force. 

The most effective attacks on the church are the ones tugging the church in the wrong direction. The fact that there are churches and denominations of churches that are giving into things that go against the bible will show you how accurate this is. Churches that are super prideful about them being the chosen few, churches that have given into this woke agenda lets just be sexually against the bible and its ok, churches that look like the pharisees that killed Jesus instead of loving like Jesus. 

All of this started with Satan gaining a little bit of influence in the church and playing a little game of tug of war. He violently is taking the church, and it is time for the church of Jesus to recognize the influence of the enemy inside the church. It is time for us to grab ahold of Jesus’ bride and violently take it back by force. It is time for us to make sure as we are tugging, we are tugging on the right side and violently take the Kingdom by Force. 

Journal: 

In your journal today, write down influences in your life that you need may be from the enemy? What is stopping you from violently taking Satan by force?

Training:

Father 

We know that judgment must begin at the house of God.  Help us, Father, to be warned and aware.  Lord, preserve this church for Your glory alone that it might be a continuing testimony to Your grace.  We’ve seen so many churches around us die, so many fade away.  Lord, that’s not our desire at all.  That doesn’t bring You glory. God help us to be faithful, to maintain that first love, never to compromise with the world, never to tolerate sin, never to substitute reality with form and program and function and organization, never to be filled up with those who are lukewarm pretenders. Help us to be real.  Do Your work in our midst.  As You move and trim those lamps, may ours be one that shines bright for Your glory. 

 In Jesus’ name.  Amen.