Filling Your Life With God

There is a special lesson that God taught the Israelites, in particular the Pharisees in Matthew 13 that applies to our lives today and forever. It’s a timeless lesson that we would do well to heed (any lesson that Jesus teaches, the observer should heed, because it is for the benefit of the listener if they will just listen to God).

The religious leaders of Jesus' time were, one day, asking Jesus for a miraculous sign to prove that He had the authority of God. This request came, despite the fact that Jesus had already shown plenty of miracles before this request. Jesus had already done these things and more:

1. Jesus healed a man's hand on the Sabbath (Matt 12:9-14)
2. Jesus healed the two blind men as he left the leader of the synagogue's house (Matt 9:27-30)
3. Jesus healed the bleeding woman as she reached out in faith and touched his robe (Matt 9:20)
4. Jesus raised the leader of the synagogue's daughter from death (Matt 9:18, Matt 9:23-26)
5. Jesus heals the paralyzed man (Matt 9:1-8)
6. Jesus calmed the storm while in the boat (Matt 8:23-27)
7. Jesus heals the two men possessed by demons (Matt 8:28-34)
8. Jesus heals Peter's Mother-In-Law and many others (Matt 8:14-17)
9. Jesus heals the Roman officer's young servant (Matt 8:5-13)

And no doubt that the teachers of the law and the Pharisees saw most if not all of these miracles. They seemed to be present with Jesus on a lot of occasions, not because they believed in Him but because they were looking for something to accuse Him of.

Having already seen the miracles that evidenced that Jesus was God, they should have known who Jesus was (and is). But, as Scripture records, they continued on with their attempts to catch Jesus in some sort of untruth, so that they could continue in their disobedience to God. And this unbelief is the subject of the immensely valuable lesson that Jesus gave them then, and gives to us now.

Jesus rebuked the religious leaders wanting to have a sign that He had the authority of God. He said in Matt 12:39 that wanting signs was a characteristic of an evil and adulterous generation. The sign that they wanted wasn't sincere because they had already seen, at the very least, the nine signs listed above. They really wanted a sign because they were in disobedience and wanted to know when they absolutely had to cease their unfaithful lifestyles.

Anyways, Jesus had already proved who He was and who He was sent from, through the miracles that he'd already done. In addition to that, Jesus had already taught, with authority, the things of God with the Sermon on the Mount. These were teachings that held authority from God, not anything that men thought up.

As proof that many already knew that, Matthew 8:28 records that crowds were amazed at the authority in which Jesus taught. And the religious leaders should have known, at the very least, that Jesus was from God because He'd already taught with authority that was unlike anything they knew, for the crowds affirmed this when Scripture mentioned that the crowds already knew that Jesus' teachings were unlike the teachers of religious law.

After rebuking the teachers of the law, Jesus went on to confirm that the only sign that they really needed to see was the miraculous resurrection of the Son of Man after being in the earth for three days and three nights (Matt 12:39-40).

Then Jesus gave evidence that his teachings were real. He stated that both Ninevah and the Queen of Sheba would be standing up and speaking against (condemning) those that didn't believe Jesus. Jesus said that both Ninevah and the Queen of Sheba repented (the Queen is implicitly thought to have repented because its mentioned that she, in addition to Ninevah, would condemn the generation in which Jesus came) from their sins and believed the preaching from Jonah and for the Queen, the wisdom from Solomon. But Jesus said that although He was greater than Jonah and Solomon, the religious leaders refused to obey Him. These are the religious leaders who counted on their "clean" and "right" life by obedience to the Law of Moses to make them righteous.

But Jesus gave them this lesson. He said the following:

3 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

In other words, its not enough to clean yourself up by following laws to the letter. Following laws will not save a person. In fact, when a person relies upon his or her own strength to be righteous without filling your life with Jesus, it leaves all kinds of room for Satan to get a foothold in. The book of Ezra records how the people rid themselves of idolatry but failed to replace it with love of God and obedience to God. Folks that are unfilled with God's Word and commands and obedience are asking for trouble because they are easy targets for Satan's schemes.

The lesson then is pretty simple and straightforward but yet, many will get caught up in if they don't heed Jesus' warning. You'd do right to turn away from sin and unrighteousness, realizing that that's not the way to live. But your next step is the really important part: turn away from sin and unrighteousness and to or back to God.

What we've just described is true repentance. If you don't include God, your cleaning up of yourself (worldly repentance or sorrow) is certainly futile.