Have You Ever Heard of the 13 Verse Challenge? Wanna play?

Gideons300

Our awakening is beginning. Prepare to be amazed.
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The 13 Verse Challenge

Ok, guys, thank you for opening up this thread with the intriguing title, LOL. I will get straight to it. The premise of this challenge is this:

“Can you read 13 connected verses straight out of the mouth of Jesus and not freak out?”

LOL. No, I am not joking. I am dead serious. I mean it.

Hopefully all here reading this are followers of the Lord, and though we come from all sorts of different Christian denominations and backgrounds, we all believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died for our sins.

He is the one who God said "This is my beloved Son. Hear Ye Him." So that pretty much means that when He talks to us, it might be good that we pay attention. ☺️

But....before you read the verses…. (if you dare).... let me warn you, and I am being deadly serious again…. (That makes two deadly seriouses in ONE post so pay attention! Your life is going to be turned upside down in the most wonderful way if you take them to heart and can figure out how to read them with no visible shaking or eye-twitches. And when I say ‘wonderful’, I mean like the-mother-of-all-paradigm shifts- type of wonderful.

Ready for your challenge? Hey don’t say I didn’t warn you. Read on...

The Dreaded 13 Verse Challenge-

This is a discourse Jesus gave in Matthew 7.

1) Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

2) Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

3) A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

4) Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

5)Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

6)Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

7) Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

8) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

9) Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

10) And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

11) And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

12) And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

13) And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

Matthew 7:16-28

LOL, did you read that? It says the people listening to Him were 'astonished'. Yeah, me too. LOL. Man, if they were dismayed at the difficulty of the route the Pharisees offered, they had to be flat-out slack jawed at these words. No wonder they were 'astonished'. . Astonished does not even begin to touch it.

Are you reading the same words I am reading? LOL. Those verses ain’t no joke. No fluff. Straight truth, both barrels. Why do they seem so….. well…hard? I thought grace made all that unnecessary? No, guys, grace is what makes reading these verses with peace in our hearts possible. Grace is what connects the demands of what we are reading with the actual fulfillment God has promised to flow out of us in fulfillment.

So, here are my thoughts on these verses. If any here can read these words out out of Jesus’ own mouth, and refuse to ‘interpret them’ or try to water them down so that they dovetail into things we have been taught… and not freak the heck out? You are either walking in the Free Indeed He has bought for us …. or…. you are insane, lol, or walking with a hardened heart, blind to the danger you are in.

This is the dilemma these verses present to us.

How do we bridge the chasm between hearing and doing?

What is the solution? We need obedient hearts! We need brand new natures! We need the salvation where God promises to actually ‘cause us’ to obey Him. Whoa.

And before you begin to grab the nearest fist-sized stone as you call me a heretic, because you are convinced that God never causes people to do anything, we need to read God's word to us, we who are under the new covenant, for that promise to 'cause us' is a foundational part of our new covenant. And praise God, we are about to be awakened to it as a promise we can count on. Read this, oh ye of little faith with stones in your hands. Oh, and please put the stones down. Pretty please?

“And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."

- God


By the way, that was Ezekiel 36:27

So, freaked out? No? Guys, if we do not possess those natures that can survive the 13 verse challenge and yet still contend that "We have need of nothing", then we are on spiritual life support just as surely as Laodecia was. How can it be even possible to read these verses and not…. well... freak out??

But do you really want to freak out? Wrap your head...... no.... your HEART... around this next revelation. He actually does have a new nature for each of us. All kidding aside. No 'theory'. No 'playlike'. No. I mean, REALLY!! A brand new heart. If you truly are one of His, you already have it. But having it wrapped up in its original packaging sitting on your shelf for emergencies is not going to cut it. You have to take it off the shelf and put it on, LOL.

I am talking about a nature that... to our amazement... as we wear it, it begins to bear real visible fruits in us, fruits that God grows in us from the inside out. What a concept!

We can stop scrubbing from the outside in! Yahoo! Man, it is tough to get dirt out from the outside in, lol, ya know? The deeper you go, you just keep finding new layers of yuck, don't you? Ever cut into a big perfect looking Vidalia onion and see several big soft brown onion layers hidden inside? Ugh. But you see? We are like that Vidalia onion. We may look presentable on the outside, but the deeper we try to go to get clean, we never get cleaner, just more yuck.

Are we just brainless, lol? The outside-in method of trying to be good is a flat-out failure, but boy, have we fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Why can't it deliver? Because the harder you try to "do better", and the harder you try to pull away from sin, self digs in its heels and resists even harder, and whispers "Unh-unh" as it nods its head from side to side in assertiveness. It is sort of like those Chinese finger puzzles. The harder you pull, the more trapped you get. Self will NOT go quietly into the night.

You laugh, but that is how we are approaching it, isn't it? Aren't we all trying to clean up our old nature, one miserable stubborn sin at a time, to finally get US under control? Have we not been taught we need to feed the white dog, and starve the black one? Well…. How is that working out for us? LOL. It will make us shout "Who is sneaking out at night feedings that big black beast! His muscles have muscles!"

Listen! We have been duped! We do NOT have two natures battling it out inside of us, like that cute little angel and devil sitting on our shoulders trying to sway us. If we are true children of God, then inside every single one of us is an overcomer, a child of the Most High God, but we are facing an adversary who wants us to believe otherwise.

You see, we, His elect, we have not two but ONE nature..... and a whole lot of unbelief that God is about to see that we get rid of. And the snarling we hear is not our “bad self’, our black dog but rather our adversary who is doing his best to try to get us to continue to believe we still have fallen natures. Well, not according to God.Take it up with Him! LOL.

All God asks of us is to yield ourselves to Him and believe that as we stand on the truth, by the authority of God, with shields of faith held high when satan comes accusing or tempting, He will cause us… with our brand new natures fresh out of the box….. to be kept by the power of God.... through FAITH!

The real obstacle that is standing in our way is that we are simply not yet convinced we really need to escape the grip of our flesh. We want to tame it, domesticate it, so to speak. We are sinners, yes, but hey, we are not as bad as those darned ________ (which ever denomination we think is closer to being an abomination). We want to lean on grace but just enough to get us forgiven, but not so much that it actually changes us, LOL.

Look, I pray you believe this. Temptation is about to be ratcheted up a huge notch and fleshly efforts and resolve to stop sinning and to never deny Him will simply not cut it. You might have survived with 6” waves in the kiddee pool but that will simply not cut it with the Tsunami waves of darkness that are approaching on the horizon.
And don’t tell me that God will increase our resolve to not deny Him when that time comes. Heck, you do not batten down the hatches and board windows when the hurricane arrives. You prepare before hand!

We better learn this is truth. The flesh is gonna cave when needed because the flesh is gonna survive…. at all costs. We need to FLEE IT, and NOW!

I will say it again….and again if needs be. There is but one way to deal with the flesh. Reckon it dead. Put it off in a bold and desperate act of faith that that old person we used to be DIED when Christ died. Hey, we have been dragging around that corpse since the day we were saved, LOL. Leave it behind, ‘cause we are beginning to stink!

Ready for a grand adventure? Ready for free indeed? Free from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh? Free to read these 13 verses and not freak out? Then stop trying to knock off the bad fruit as fast as it grows. Grab the ax and kill the tree that the bad fruit is growing from …. by faith!

Oh, do you see? God has given us a way out!! A way to leave our carnal nature behind like a dirty rag!
Yet people will exclaim “What?? How could you think that can even be possible?”.. as they begin heating the tar and plucking the chickens. Easy, oh ye of little faith. Because unbeknownst to us, we already have new natures, God -in-us natures. But as I have said, we must put them on. And we do that by planting our flag of faith just outside the gates of Hell, letting satan know that WE know he is a liar, and we are not buying any more. Praise God, the old us is gone. Thank God and good riddance. LOL.

There is a verse we have oft quoted written by the apostle Paul. Will you read it with me?
Let your ears hear your mouth utter pure truth… YOUR truth. .

“I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ now liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the grace of the son God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Are we finally getting it? Our entire walk is to be a walk of faith! The prayer of faith that saved us is not the end of our faith journey but the beginning, our starting line! Our race has started and here we are all gathered around the starting line wondering what time they are handing out the trophies. ☺️

PS. Although I use a little humor, this subject is no joke. It is the crux of our Christian faith. BORN AGAIN? Get it? We really have been! How crazy it is? We have been using those two words and never ever in our wildest dreams did we ever think it was like… well…. real. Well, we are about to fully understand what those two words actually mean.

I pray you see the magnitude of these 13 verses. Read in the right spirit, they will usher us into valley of decision type choices such as. “Who are we going tp believe? . . Time to wake up.

Oh, and if you are thinking after reading this post “This dude has issues…” lol, I simply ask for one favor. Read those thirteen verses again… out loud… and slowly. Savor each word. Roll them around on your tongue. Ok, do that and then get back to me, ok? ☺️


So, how did you do on your 13 verse challenge? I am all ears. ☺️ And if you like it, see how your friends and family like it. I am sure they will thank you, but duck just in case.

Blessings,

Gideon

 
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SaintNick

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I dig it.
I agree an I did not freak out however I did recollect back and ponder on what kind of fruit I am actually bearing. I'm at the "stage" I guess you could call it where I am constantly threatened with death or imprisonment by wicked men. But it builds faith. With out it the fear would cause many to turn back to their old self in order to live instead of truly giving their life to Christ.

As for my family... well they'd only roll their eyes.
 
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Hammster

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Not freaked out. Why?

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
— Jude 24-25
 
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Gideons300

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Not freaked out. Why?

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
— Jude 24-25
Thanks for sharing. Just one quick comment. That verse you quoted is flat-out awesome. If we truly believe that, we are blessed beyond measure.

However, our Christian culture seems to love getting us out of any conviction by simply mouthing promises like this, yet without seeing it actually work in real life.

If it has not been true for us up to this point in our walk with the Lord, we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking Jesus has it all covered for us in the future, should we need it, when in truth, we have not even seen Him protect us in the past from the temptations of the enemy.

blessings,

Gids
 
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Hammster

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Thanks for sharing. Just one quick comment. That verse you quoted is flat-out awesome. If we truly believe that, we are blessed beyond measure.

However, our Christian culture seems to love getting us out of any conviction by simply mouthing promises like this, yet without seeing it actually work in real life.

If it has not been true for us up to this point in our walk with the Lord, we can easily deceive ourselves into thinking Jesus has it all covered for us in the future, should we need it, when in truth, we have not even seen Him protect us in the past from the temptations of the enemy.

blessings,

Gids
If one can get out of conviction, then the verse doesn’t apply.
 
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