KEEP IT SIMPLE 11-15-13 VIDEO LIFE IN 6 WORDS SIMPLE- easily understood or done, presenting no difficulty. Pharisee made things hard so people would rely on them. Religion makes things hard.
Heb 8:11 They won’t go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They’ll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great.
12 They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
13 By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust. MSG
Ps 19:7 The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road.
8 The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy. The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes.
9 God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold, with a lifetime guarantee. The decisions of God are accurate down to the nth degree.
10 God’s Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds. You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring, better than red, ripe strawberries.
11 There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure. MSG
Gal 1:6 I can’t believe your fickleness — how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message!
7 It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head.
8 Let me be blunt: If one of us — even if an angel from heaven! — were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed.
9 I said it once; I’ll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.
10 Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or curry favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t bother being Christ’s slave.
11 Know this — I am most emphatic here, friends — this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism.
12 I didn’t receive it through the traditions, and I wasn’t taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ. MSG
Matt 23:13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces; for you neither enter yourselves, nor do you allow those who are about to go in to do so.
14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you swallow up widows’ houses and for a pretense to cover it up make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation and the heavier sentence.
15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes one [a proselyte], you make him doubly as much a child of hell (Gehenna) as you are. AMP
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They shut it up by teaching false doctrines respecting the Messiah; by binding the people to an observance of their traditions;
Matt 23:13 “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either.
15 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned. MSG
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Luke 11:52 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won’t go in yourself, and won’t let anyone else in either.” MSG
Luke 20:47 Who make away with and devour widows’ houses, and [to cover it up] with pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation (the heavier sentence, the severer punishment). AMP
Blind man healed John 9:22 (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place.
23 That’s why his parents said, “Ask him. He’s a grown man.”)
24 They called the man back a second time — the man who had been blind — and told him, “Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor.”
25 He replied, “I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see.” MSG
John 7:46 The police answered, “Have you heard the way he talks? We’ve never heard anyone speak like this man.”
47 The Pharisees said, “Are you carried away like the rest of the rabble?
48 You don’t see any of the leaders believing in him, do you? Or any from the Pharisees?
49 It’s only this crowd, ignorant of God’s Law, that is taken in by him — and damned.”
50 Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus earlier and was both a ruler and a Pharisee, spoke up.
51 “Does our Law decide about a man’s guilt without first listening to him and finding out what he is doing?”
52 But they cut him off. “Are you also campaigning for the Galilean?
53 Examine the evidence. See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee.” Then they all went home.
DIFFICULITY Mark 10:23 And Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, With what difficulty will those who possess wealth and keep on holding it enter the kingdom of God! AMP
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Mark 10:23 Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” MSG
John 6:39 “This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed — not a single detail missed — and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole.
40 This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time.” MSG
SPEAK THE WORD Matt 8:10 Taken aback, Jesus said, “I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works.
11 This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions — streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God’s kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
12 Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.” MSG
Matt 7:12 “Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get. MSG
Matt 18:4 Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.
5 What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
6 “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.
7 Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse — and it’s doomsday to you if you do. MSG
Matt 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]
29 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. AMP
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Matt 11:28 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
29 Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. MSG
VIDEO PATIENCE SIMPLE LIFE
John 14:1 DO NOT let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated). You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.
2 In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes). If it were not so, I would have told you; for I am going away to prepare a place for you. AMP
1 Cor 1:26 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.
27 Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,
28 chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”?
29 That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.
30 Everything that we have — right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start — comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.
31 That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” MSG
1 Cor 2:1 You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s master stroke, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.
2 I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did — Jesus crucified. MSG
Col 1:27 God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. MSG
Rom 5:18 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life!
19 One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.
21 All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life — a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. MSG
1 Cor 5:8 So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread — simple, genuine, unpretentious. MSG
Col 2:6 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. MSG
1 Tim 2:7 This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth. MSG
2 Tim 4:2 so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple. MSG
Isa 66:2 I made all this! I own all this!” God’s Decree. “But there is something I’m looking for: a person simple and plain, reverently responsive to what I say. MSG
Zech 8:17 Don’t cook up plans to take unfair advantage of others. Don’t do or say what isn’t so. I hate all that stuff. Keep your lives simple and honest.” Decree of God. MSG
1 John 3:10 Here’s how you tell the difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: The one who won’t practice righteous ways isn’t from God, nor is the one who won’t love brother or sister. A simple test. MSG
James 1:21 So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. MSG
Ps 119:45 And I will walk at liberty and at ease, for I have sought and inquired for [and desperately required] Your precepts. AMP
Prov 14:6 A scoffer seeks Wisdom in vain [for his very attitude blinds and deafens him to it], but knowledge is easy to him who [being teachable] understands. AMP
Rom 8:35 Who shall ever separate us from Christ’s love? Shall suffering and affliction and tribulation? Or calamity and distress? Or persecution or hunger or destitution or peril or sword?
36 Even as it is written, For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are regarded and counted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers,
39 Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. AMP
Ps 116:6 The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. KJV
Ps 31:6 I hate all this silly religion, but you, God, I trust. MSG
Gal 2:21 I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. MSG
1 Tim 4:7 Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God — no spiritual flabbiness, please! MSG
1 Tim 6:20 And oh, my dear Timothy, guard the treasure you were given! Guard it with your life. Avoid the talk-show religion and the practiced confusion of the so-called experts. MSG VIDEO REAL SIMPLE