27. Wala ka sa Lolo ko. He has been given the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.
19 September 2020
A secret to the heart of my mother-in-law, top right.
We gifted her with a brand new wide screen android phone for video chat.
Matthew 13
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
13 This is why I speak to them in parables
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
Matthew 13
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
Before dwelling on heaven's secrets, let me expound on the android phone we gave my mother-in-law.
About a month ago, my wife Marlou and I thought of having regular video chat with my mother-in-law given the quarantine. We thought we would provide her with a mobile phone, it should be wide screen and brand new in order to encourage her to take the challenge to be techie. So since then, we have been able to have video chat with Mommy regularly.
Now going to the main topic, the parables are the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.
I did not discover the secrets on my own.
Kuya Nani Perez and wife Ate Becks, and Pastor Dan Guzman and wife Myrna, were the people who shared with me the secrets.
You must have also heard the same secrets before, and I am retelling them here hoping they would make heart-sense to you now.
Matthew 13
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’”
Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom
1 Corinthians 1
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
1 Corinthians 2
Now if you have come upon a secret and it makes good sense to you, then you will embrace it into your life for its obvious benefits, and will even share it with family and friends.
Let me dwell on two instances in the Bible pertaining to secrets, one involving four friends who were lepers, and the other a husband and wife who were well off, and you judge their wisdom how they handled secrets, respectively.
2 Kings 7
8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
9 Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
The Siege Lifted
3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die?
4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there,
6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!”
7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
You may want to read the whole chapter for better appreciation.
These four men discovered silver and gold and they want to share the good news with fellow Israelites, even if they were considered outcasts.
Now the other one.
Ananias and Sapphira
Acts 5
1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.
2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?
4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.
6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
The Death of Ananias, by Raphael
Raphael • Public domain
The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
Acts 11
The Church in Antioch
25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,
26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews.
20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.
21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.
24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.
Saul is no other than Apostle Paul, his name after becoming a disciple of the Lord Jesus, from being a persecutor of believers in Christ, years earlier.
The secrets of the kingdom of heaven are the parables as told by the Lord Jesus, and as seen in the life of Apostle Paul.
In the words of Apostle Paul, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
1 Corinthians 11 New Living Translation
1 And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.
2 I am so glad that you always keep me in your thoughts, and that you are following the teachings I passed on to you.
3 But there is one thing I want you to know: The head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
How to live as a Christian.
There are no rituals needed.
Galatians 2 New Living Translation
Paul Confronts Peter
11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.
12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.
13 As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles.
16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not!
18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.
19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God.
21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
My children's children will one day say, wala ka sa Lolo ko, he has been given knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.
My Dear Friend, if you feel like wanting to be enlightened about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, you may just send me a message. I will be most willing to help.
God bless you My Dear Friend, and I pray that the Holy Spirit speak to your heart as you contemplate coming upon this blog. Amen.
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