Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

Daily Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek

31 January 2025

Reading From Matthew 20:17-34

 ^“Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”

–Matthew 20:17-19

     Jesus Christ is the greatest Prophet of all time.  A prophet is one who speaks the Word of God with authority.  The Lord Jesus not only fulfilled over three hundred Messianic prophecies from the Law and the Prophets, He also delivered prophecies such as this one in Matthew 20 and fulfilled those too.  Another prophecy He made was that the physical Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed.  This happened in AD 70, around forty years after Jesus ascended into Heaven.

     These prophecies are theologically connected in that God the Son fulfilled the requirements of the Law with its sacrificial temple worship and brought about the fulfillment of God the Father’s desire to dwell within and among His people through the power of God the Holy Spirit.  The death, burial and resurrection of the Lamb of God makes it possible for us to become temples of God as we are spiritually washed in the blood of Jesus to be born again. 

     Through the process of sanctification, our spiritual growth as we become more and more like Jesus, we are brought into ever greater unity with our fellow brothers and sisters as the Body of Christ to become a massive, mighty Temple in which God dwells by His Spirit.  Jesus is not only the greatest Prophet, He is God.  Only God could accomplish the incredible miracle of the atonement and guide us into our amazing eternal destiny as the Father’s eternal family.

“Thank You Jesus for Your blood that was shed from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross of Calvary.  You are the greatest Prophet in the history of everything!  You confirm Your Word the Bible to be true by Your fulfillment of prophecy.  We worship You for You alone are God and only You have the power to bring together all things at Your Second Coming.  We look forward to that glorious Day with great anticipation.  In the Name of the Soon Coming King, Jesus Christ, I pray these things, Amen.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

 –John 4:19-24

Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

But he spake of the temple of his body.

 –John 2:19-21

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split

 –Matthew 27:51