Bible Book: Matthew
When you include regular prayer and fasting as part of your relationship with Jesus, you will not regret it. God is faithful, He is just, and He always fulfills His promises. Especially for those who are closest to Him. You want to be closer to Jesus, start praying daily and adding in fasting for more urgent matters.
Today, more than ever in history, Christians need to understand the significance of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their heart. Once understood, the believer will begin to truly experience, not just His presence, but also His powerful work. There is nothing more reassuring and peaceful in life than experiencing the powerful presence of God’s Spirit as He works in our daily lives.
In this passage, Jesus continues to pronounce His seven “woes” upon the Jewish leaders of the day whom He repeatedly calls “blind guides,” “serpent,” and “hypocrites.” Toward the end of the passage, we find Jesus almost breaking down under the burden of His sorrow over His chosen people who just don’t understand the nature of His Gospel and failed to recognize their long-awaited Messiah in the hour of their visitation.
This message focuses on Jesus’ birth account, where He is referred to with an earthly name as well as an eternal and divine name. Do you see Jesus as “The Lord is Salvation” or as “Jesus the Christ”? In Matthew’s Gospel we see the use of Jesus’ human, earthly name, in conjunction with His divine name. When taken together, it is safe to conclude that Matthew wants us to know that Yeshua is ““The Lord who saves is the One appointed by God.”
In this passage, we find Jesus answering some “questions” posed to Him by the Sadducees and Pharisees who asked them not because they were genuinely seeking to learn from His wisdom, but because they desired to catch Him in His words so they could smear His character in the minds of His followers and the others who were crowded around listening.


