Grace over Religion

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” Luke 5:36-39 ESV   There has been a lot of discussion about “Change” lately, especially during the resent presidential campaign and upcoming presidency. A recent Twitterer asked the following   question – “ What is your opinion about change? ” and I quickly answered, “ Change is a necessary element to fullness of life, without it we grow stagnant... ”. As I was pondering my response I decided to see what God would have to say about this discussion.   Here is my conclusion: Change is an absolute! With out it, we will in...

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Jesus, “Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?” Jesus answered them, “How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! You are hypocrites, just as he wrote: ‘These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!’ “You put aside God’s command and obey human teachings.” Matthew 7:5-8 GNB I have been a believer for more than 14 yrs and I have been involved with several mainstream denominations while on this journey. One thing that I have learned so far is that no one movement has all the answers. In fact, the reason we have so many denominations and movements is because leaders come to the conclusion that whatever piece of truth they have come to understand and so they must go off and teach this truth under a...

Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. Matthew 26:30 I hope that I grabbed your attention with the title – Lol! There is great debate regarding this subject, especially here in the south. I have known the Lord for more than 14 yrs. now and I have heard numerous times that the only true offering of worship is in the form of "hymns" meaning, those songs which are found in the "Hymnal". Well, this morning as I was reading in the book of Matthew, I came across the word HYMN – I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before but I saw it today as clear as could be. They sang a hymn … as I looked at the word hymn I realized not only that hymns are Biblical but that they were here way before KJV was even a thought. Then I noticed something even more incredible… Jesus was right there with the disciples singing a hymn to His Father – WOW! Right then and there I realized that I can no longer speak of “hymns” as just some antiquated form of worship and that all “...