"That's My King!" In Matthew 13!

Christ Jesus Is And Sowed The Seed

He Is The Word We Are To Heed
The Greatest Sower Who Will Plead
Repent And Trust And You’ll Be Freed
From Sin And Hell, It’s True Indeed
For Jesus Took God’s Wrath Decreed
To Save Our Souls He’d Die And Bleed
Then Rise Again To Life He’d Lead
He Won’t Let Satan Truth Impede
The Rocky Soil He’ll Change With Speed
All Thorns He’ll Crush And Cleanse And Weed
He’ll Make Good Soil Guaranteed
By Faith Alone We’re Just And Feed
Upon His Word, He Is Our Creed
We’ll Bear Much Fruit In Word And Deed
For Christ Is All! Our Every Need!

That's my King!

Christ Jesus Gives The Eyes To See

The Ears To Hear, The Hearts To Be

All That God Commands With Glee

In Parables Christ Spoke So He

Would Hide The Secrets Lest They’d Flee

From Their Sins, Be Healed And Free

Yet Those He Chose Like You And Me

He Gives The Secrets That Are Key

To Knowing Him In Deep Degree

He Died For Us Upon That Tree

To Buy Our Faith, Desires To Flee

From Sin To Live As His Decree

He Rose Alive, We Bow The Knee

Confess Him LORD, The One In Three

By Faith Alone We Now Can See

He Saved Our Souls And Set Us Free!

That's my King! Do you know Him?!

Christ Jesus Rids Of Every Weed

He’s Son Of Man Who Sows Good Seed

God’s Children Of The Kingdom Freed

From Sin And Hell By Greatest Deed

He Bore God’s Wrath, He’d Cry And Bleed

He Died And Rose, Life’s Guaranteed

By Faith Alone We’re Just Indeed

Every Sin And Evil Breed

That Jesus Holiness Impede

Will Be Cast Out In Fire Concede

There’s Weeping, Gnashing Teeth Decreed

But Righteous Ones Who Christ Do Heed

Shine Like The Sun, Their Father’s Seed

So Trust In Christ With Earnest Speed

For He Alone Meets Every Need

All Other Joys He Will Exceed!

That's my King!

Christ Jesus’ Kingdom Starts Out Small
Like Mustard Seed, But Then Grows Tall
Birds Come And Nest, All Nations Call
The Kingdom Leaven Spreads To All
Each Prophecy Fulfilled, The Gall
And Wrath Of God, He’d Curse And Maul
His Own Loved Son, His Judgment Fall
Christ Died And Rose To Death Recall
Now He’s Our All And Does Enthrall
His Grace Shields Us Like A Great Wall
So Good Alone On Us Befall!

That's my King! I wonder if you know Him today?!

Christ Jesus Is The Treasure Great

We Will Sell All And All Else Hate

Compared To Him Who’s Joy Innate

To Live Is Christ For He’ll Elate

To Die Is Gain For He’s The Gate

To Greatest Joys We Await

He Died And Rose There’s No Debate

A Whole New People To Create

Who Find In Him Our All And Wait

On Him, His Word, He Cuts It Straight

He Shall Forever Fascinate

In Him All Pleasures Culminate

He Is The Kingdom’s Treasure Weight

So Trust The Son And Contemplate

His Boundless Beauty Celebrate!

That's my King!

Christ Is The Pearl Of Greatest Price

No Other Lover Can Entice

In Each Desire He’s All Suffice

He Took God’s Wrath In Sacrifice

He Died And Rose For Every Vice

So We Are Cleansed If We’re Born Twice

All Things For Good He Works Precise

Down To The Detail His Device

He Gives Commands Not Mere Advice 

And Fills Your Life With Pleasure Spice

So Trust The Son Who Paid The Price

You’ll Be With Christ Our Paradise!

That's my King!

Christ Jesus Astonished All Who Heard

His Wisdom’s Great, Their Hearts Were Stirred

His Mighty Works Confirm The Word

Offense They Took, Their Hearts Absurd

His Father Gave These Things Transferred

For He Himself Is God The Word

No Honor From His Home Conferred

A Killer To His Life Preferred

He Suffered All God’s Wrath Unheard

He Died And Then Rose Up The Third

Now Rules And Reigns O’er All Occurred

By Faith Alone No Wrath’s Incurred

So We Are Free And Undeterred 

To Trust, Obey His Every Word

For Our Whole Life He’ll Undergird

And Be Our Joy Never Deferred!

That's my King! That's my King!

Christ Jesus Astonished All Who Heard!

Christ Jesus Saves From Furnace Fire!

 

My First Wedding, The Naval Academy Chapel, The Gospel, Answered Prayer, And A Faithful God

 

Photos by Karen Santilli Photography

This picture is a testimony to God's faithfulness in answering prayer - me preaching the Gospel at my first wedding ever in the Naval Academy Chapel. Thank You LORD! 

Christ is all!

In 2011, before I came to the first and only church God has called me to pastor (Olney Baptist Church), I visited the college I attended (a small trade school on the Severn River I sometimes tell people): The United States Naval Academy. During my visit, I walked through the chapel again. I remember sitting there on the first Sunday of Plebe Summer: that's the summer when the upperclassmen leaders treat the freshmen really harshly for 6 weeks like a military boot camp. I was crying my eyes out and asking God to please help me through this military indoctrination! 

As I walked through the chapel again in 2011, I was moved by God to pray and plead with Him to allow me to preach the Gospel in this place someday to the multitudes of people who could fit in this humongous building. I really thought this actually happening would be impossible, but you pray it because our God can do the impossible! As John Newton wrote:

Thou art coming to a King

Large petitions with thee bring

For His grace and power are such

None can ever ask too much!

It's also always good to keep praying, no matter how long it takes, and do not lose heart.

Photos by Karen Santilli Photography

After my visit, I moved up to Philadelphia and began my pastorate in Olney. A year or so later, I got a message from a friend I went to college with, Greg Chestnut. He told me that he and his fiancée, Anastasia, had been listening to my sermons, and they would love for me to officiate their wedding and preach the message. They drove up to Philadelphia so we could meet and discuss the details. 

Get this: they were going to be married at the Naval Academy Chapel! And, they told me they would love for me, in my wedding message, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ because that's the message they wanted all of their friends and family to hear. I was amazed at God's kindness to me! God had answered my prayers! I was going to get to preach the Gospel in the Naval Academy Chapel - and it would be my first wedding ever! My parents even came for the occasion.

God is good!

God is faithful!

God answers prayers!

God knows best!

And He answers our prayers even better than we ask!

Trust Him. Trust Him. Trust Him. 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

On April 20, 2013, (as you can see in the first photo above) God answered my prayer and allowed me to preach the Gospel (a message like this one) to many souls in the Naval Academy Chapel. May He continue to bear fruit from the preaching of the Gospel and through the faithful prayers of His people. Oh Father, please let me preach the Gospel there again someday soon! For Jesus' sake, Amen!

Please hear the amazing Gospel message in this documentary: American Gospel: Christ Alone.

You can also watch the full version of this documentary here with a free, 3 day trial. 

Related Articles

On Evangelism: Go To Hell! and Titanic: John Harper's Last Convert

Christ Is The Pearl Of Greatest Price!

Elisabeth Elliot Grew Up Less Than Four Miles From Where I Live!

Yesterday I was excited to learn that one of my favorite authors and Christian role models grew up less than four miles from where I live. Elisabeth Howard (later Elisabeth Elliot) grew up at 103 West Washington Lane in the Germantown area of Philadelphia. I took a field trip today to see what I could see and to meet who I could meet. Sadly, the home she grew up in is no longer there, but I got a picture with all of her books I own in front of the property where the house used to stand. A neighbor near the house kindly took my picture, and I was able to give her two of Elisabeth's books. I was also helped by another young man who lived nearby, and I was able to give him a book on the cross, a Gospel tract, and send him several of Elisabeth's books through the mail. His mom made a comment to the effect that this encounter we had was sent from God. God uses everything. Praise Him! Please pray that all of these people will read the books and pursue Christ as Elisabeth did. 

In the picture above, her home is the left side of the duplex - the picture is from her book, The Shaping Of A Christian Family. Elisabeth wrote: "Over the front door bell button hung a little copper plate with these words:

​Christ is the Head of this house,

The unseen Guest at every meal,

The silent Listener to every conversation."

Above is the property today. Only half of the duplex is still standing (101 West Washington Lane). The home where Elisabeth lived (103) had to be removed because of an unsafe collapsed wall from 2007, according to License and Inspection records. Google Street view shows it came down between 2014 and 2018. 

In one of her talks, Elisabeth noted that when she was three years old, she sat in this house and heard the testimony of Betty Scott Stam. Betty was headed to China to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Later, Elisabeth heard from her father that Betty, along with her husband, was beheaded in China because of their bold witness to Jesus Christ and His life, death, burial, and resurrection. Betty's radical prayer was answered by God:

Lord, I give up my own plans and purposes, all my own desires, hopes and ambitions, and I accept Thy will for my life. I give up myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. I hand over to Thy keeping all of my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me now and seal me with Thy Spirit. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, for to me to live is Christ. Amen.

 

This photo of Elisabeth is taken from the article, "Peaches In Paradise: Why I Love Elisabeth Elliot" written by John Piper on the occasion of her departure to be with the Lord Jesus Christ on June 15,  2015.

The three photos above are of Sister Lena and I at "Birdsong" - this is the name of the home Elisabeth Howard grew up in at 3 Maple Avenue in Moorestown, NJ, after they moved from the Germantown home when Elisabeth was about 9 years old. This home is about 12 miles from where I live in Olney. Jim Elliot came to visit Elisabeth here on Christmas break in 1947 while they were at Wheaton College.

Above is a photo of the five widows and their children. Elisabeth's husband, Jim Elliot, along with four other missionaries, were speared to death by a tribe in Ecuador that they were trying to reach for Jesus Christ. After her husband's death, Elisabeth and her young daughter, Valerie, went to live with the very tribe and men who killed Elisabeth's husband in order to reach them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They departed for this mission on October 6th, 1958. Below is the letter she wrote to her supporters two days before she and her daughter left:

Eventually, many in the tribe came to faith in Jesus and began to follow Him. Elisabeth wrote this about her marriage to Jim and his death:

"Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him" (Isaiah 25:9) was the verse given us on our wedding day. We could not have waited in peace had we known that our marriage would last only 27 months. But God gives us our "daily bread" (Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3), enough grace for a day at a time. When Jim died in January of 1956 the grace was there. He had gone with four missionary friends to take the gospel to a tribe called Auca, but they were taken for cannibals and speared to death.

Books were asked for then. The whole world was interested in that story, and that is how I began to write. I was a missionary before I married Jim and there was no reason to stop being a missionary when he died. I went ahead with the work we had been doing in the Quichua tribe, fitting in the writing whenever I could find the time. An opportunity came to go and live with the Aucas — I had "asked for it," I had prayed, "Lord, if there's anything you want me to do about them, show me, I'm yours," and He took me up on it. Of course I did not really expect Him to. I was a widow with a 10-month-old child. What could I do that five men did not do? But we went. Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the missionaries killed, went too. After two years in an Auca settlement Valerie and I went back to the Quichuas, then returned to the United States for her schooling when she reached fourth grade (Love Has A Price Tag, Pages 8-9).

She wrote this poem while in college:

Perhaps some future day, Lord,

Thy strong hand will lead me to the place

Where I must stand utterly alone;

Alone, Oh gracious Lover, but for Thee.

I shall be satisfied if I can see Jesus only.

I do not know Thy plan for years to come.

My spirit finds in Thee its perfect home: sufficiency.

Lord, all my desire is before Thee now.

Lead on no matter where, no matter how,

I trust in Thee.

As this article notes: "Thirteen years after Jim’s death, in 1969, she married a professor at Gordon Conwell, Addison Leitch, who was 18 years her senior. Three years after they married, he was diagnosed with cancer. He died less than a year later." Then, she married her third husband, Lars Gren, who was nine year her junior and a seminary student. You can read about her final days here, and watch memorial services for her at Wheaton College here and at Gordon College here.

Her books and lectures have helped me in some of my darkest times in life. Some of her other books include:

1. Passion And Purity: Learning To Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control (I have probably read this book more than any other book besides the Bible. She gave several talks on this same topic here.)

2. Quest For Love: True Stories Of Passion And Purity

3. A Path Through Suffering: Discovering The Relationship Between God's Mercy And Our Pain

4. Shadow Of The Almighty: The Life & Testament Of Jim Elliot

5. Through Gates Of Splendor

6. The Path Of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through The Wilderness To God

7. Discipline: The Glad Surrender

8. Let Me Be A Woman 

9. Elisabeth Elliot's two-part biography, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, and part 2, Being Elisabeth Elliot, was written by Ellen Vaughn

You can find all of her books here, and many other resources on her website here. You can learn more about Jim's death for the sake of the Gospel here.

By God's grace, may we follow Jim and Elisabeth as they followed Christ!

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

To learn more about the glorious Gospel of King Jesus that captivated both Jim and Elisabeth's hearts, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the whole documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

To learn more about Elisabeth Elliot and her remarkable story, see:

Through Gates Of Splendor

Beyond The Gates Of Splendor

Elisabeth Elliot Foundation Videos

Family Life Interview, Part 1

Family Life Interview, Part 2

The Howard Family at their home in Germantown, PA

Jim, Elisabeth, and Valerie

Elisabeth and Valerie

Elisabeth and Addison Leitch

Elisabeth and Lars Gren

Titanic: John Harper's Last Convert

Image from this article

Pastor Mark Dever opens his excellent book on the Gospel and personal evangelism with this inspiring, true story:

Let me tell you an amazing story about a person you want to be like. And please hang in there through some of the details. I can’t tell stories any other way.

John Harper was born in a Christian home in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1872. When he was about fourteen years old, he became a Christian himself, and from that time on, he began to tell others about Christ. At seventeen years of age, he began to preach, going down the streets of his village and pouring out his soul in passionate pleading for men to be reconciled to God. 

After five or six years of toiling on street corners preaching the gospel and working in the mill during the day, Harper was taken in by the Reverend E. A. Carter of Baptist Pioneer Mission in London. This set Harper free to devote his whole time and energy to the work so dear to his heart—evangelism. Soon, in September 1896, Harper started his own church. This church, which he began with just twenty-five members, numbered over five hundred by the time he left thirteen years later. During this time he had been both married and widowed. Before he lost his wife, God blessed Harper with a beautiful little girl named Nana.

Harper’s life was an eventful one. He almost drowned several times. When he was two-and-a-half years of age, he fell into a well but was resuscitated by his mother. At the age of twenty-six, he was swept out to sea by a reverse current and barely survived. And at thirty-two he faced death on a leaking ship in the Mediterranean. If anything, these brushes with death simply seemed to confirm John Harper in his zeal for evangelism, which marked him out for the rest of the days of his life.

While pastoring his church in London, Harper continued his fervent and faithful evangelism. In fact, he was such a zealous evangelist that the Moody Church in Chicago asked him to come over to America for a series of meetings. He did, and they went well. A few years later, Moody Church asked him if he would come back again. And so it was that Harper boarded a ship one day with a second-class ticket at Southampton, England, for the voyage to America.

Harper’s wife had died just a few years before, and he had with him his only child, Nana, age six. What happened after this we know mainly from two sources. One is Nana, who died in 1986 at the age of eighty. She remembered being woken up by her father a few nights into their journey. It was about midnight, and he said that the ship they were on had struck an iceberg. Harper told Nana that another ship was just about there to rescue them, but, as a precaution, he was going to put her in a lifeboat with an older cousin, who had accompanied them. As for Harper, he would wait until the other ship arrived.

The rest of the story is a tragedy well known. Little Nana and her cousin were saved. But the ship they were on was the Titanic. The only way we know what happened to John Harper after is because, in a prayer meeting in Hamilton, Ontario, some months later, a young Scotsman stood up in tears and told the extraordinary story of how he was converted. He explained that he had been on the Titanic the night it struck the iceberg. He had clung to a piece of floating debris in the freezing waters. “Suddenly,” he said, “a wave brought a man near, John Harper. He, too, was holding a piece of wreckage. 

“He called out, ‘Man, are you saved?’

“‘No, I am not,’ I replied.

“He shouted back, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ [Acts 16:31]

“The waves bore [Harper] away, but a little later, he was washed back beside me again. ‘Are you saved now?’ he called out.

“‘No,’ I answered. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ [Acts 16:31]

“Then losing his hold on the wood, [Harper] sank. And there, alone in the night with two miles of water under me, I trusted Christ as my savior. I am John Harper’s last convert.”

(Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 13-15. For more on John Harper, see Moody Adams, The Titanic’s Last Hero: Story About John Harper (Columbia, SC: Olive Press, 1997), 24–25. Thanks to Nick Roark for posting this on his blog.)

For another great article on evangelism, read "Go To Hell!"

To listen to the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, please watch: American Gospel: Christ Alone

You can watch the whole documentary with a free, 3 day trial here.

Twenty Reasons To Sell Everything With Joy To Receive The Treasure Of The Kingdom Of Heaven!

 

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Jesus (Matthew 13:44)

1. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because It Is A Kingdom That Will Never End

Luke 1:32-33: He will be great & will be called the Son of the Most High. & the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, & he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, & of his kingdom there will be no end.

Hebrews 1:8: But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. 

Revelation 11:15: Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." 

2. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because The Least In This Kingdom Is Greater Than The Greatest Man Ever Born At Jesus' First Coming

Luke 7:28: I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

3. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because It Is Our Father’s Kingdom

Luke 11:2: And he said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.’”

1 John 3:1: See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

4. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because If You Seek First This Kingdom, Everything Else Will Be Added To You

Luke 12:22-34: And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

5. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because You Will Receive Great Reward In This Life And In The Life To Come Eternal Life

Luke 18:18-30: And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'" And he said, "All these I have kept from my youth." When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, looking at him with sadness, said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." And Peter said, "See, we have left our homes and followed you." And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life." 

6. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because You Will Be With Jesus In Paradise

Luke 23:42-43: And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Philippians 1:21: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

Luke 14:26: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 

Philippians 3:8: Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 

7. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because It Is A Matter Of Righteousness, Peace, And Joy In The Holy Spirit

Romans 14:17: For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 

John 3:3: Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

8. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because There Will Be No Sin There

1 Corinthians 6:9-11: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 

9. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because All Of God’s And Our Enemies Will Be Destroyed

1 Corinthians 15:23-26: But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 

10. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because We Will Receive New, Glorified, Immortal, Imperishable Bodies

1 Corinthians 15:50-57: I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

11. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because It’s The Kingdom Of God’s Beloved Son Where There’s No More Darkness, There’s Redemption, And There’s The Forgiveness Of All Our Sins

Colossians 1:13-14: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

12. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because The LORD Will Always Stand By Us And Ensure We Make It There Safely

2 Timothy 4:16-18: At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

13. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because It Is A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

Hebrews 12:28-29: Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

14. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because There You Will Worship The King Forever And You Will Reign On The Earth

Revelation 5:9-10: And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."

15. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because The Accuser Of The Brothers Will Be Thrown Down And Accuse You No More Forever

Revelation 12:10-11: And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."

16. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because God Is There

Psalm 16:2, 11: I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you." . . . You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

17. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because There You Will Enter Into The Very Joy Of God

Matthew 25:21: His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

18. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because In This Kingdom You Will Realize That All Suffering, Tragedies, Losses, And Sadness's Will Only Multiply Your Everlasting Happiness

Genesis 50:20: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good

Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 

Romans 8:18: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

19. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because In This Kingdom You Will Be Given Everything Needed To Fill You With Greatest Joy And Satisfaction That Will Never End And Will Increase Forever

Romans 8:32: He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

1 Corinthians 3:21-23: So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 

Ephesians 2:6-7: and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

20. The Kingdom Of Heaven Is A Treasure That Brings Greatest Joy And Is Worth Sacrificing Everything To Receive Because There Will Be No More Tears, Death, Crying, Or Pain There Anymore Forever

Revelation 21:4: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Christ Jesus Is The Treasure Great
We Will Sell All And All Else Hate
Compared To Him Who’s Joy Innate
To Live Is Christ For He’ll Elate
To Die Is Gain For He’s The Gate
To Greatest Joys We Await
He Died And Rose There’s No Debate
A Whole New People To Create
Who Find In Him Our All And Wait
On Him, His Word, He Cuts It Straight
He Shall Forever Fascinate
In Him All Pleasures Culminate
He Is The Kingdom’s Treasure Weight
So Trust The Son And Contemplate
His Boundless Beauty Celebrate!

That's my King! Do you know Him?!

Please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone to hear the Gospel of the Kingdom.

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Christ Jesus Is The Treasure Great!