Climb this Mountain (Follow-up)
A Christian Living Article from All-Creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth.

FROM Photos and Article by Pasquale R Mingarelli

The top of Longs Peak. It doesn’t look all that exciting. The peak is flat. What kind of mountain is that? Well, okay, it does look a bit impressive. It’s snow covered, rugged looking and the smooth face to left looks like it would make some great rocking climbing challenge. But there is more that draws thousands of hikers to come to Rocky Mountain National Park to climb it every summer along with the other 100,000 people that stop and hop out of their cars to just grab a photo of it. What really makes this mountain impressive is what the second photo shows. It has a massive base and is 14,259 feet high.

I heard my Sunday school teacher, Pastor Ray Mahew, say, “It’s not the top of a mountain that makes it impressive. He was making the point that it’s not the top that makes a mountain, but what the top is built on. Without all that is below it, a mountain peak would be nothing but a big rock.”

Pastor Ray went on to say that in the Bible the New Testament is the peak of the mountain and the Old Testament is the base of the mountain. We cannot fully appreciate the New Testament without first having a good understanding of the Old Testament.

Too many Christians are illiterate when it comes to understanding the scriptures and it is even worse when it comes to the Old Testament. I believe this may be from the whole “feel good movement” that has hit the church today. People do not want to study God’s Word. They just want to know how the Word makes them feel good. Many of the hottest Christian books, typical messages from many pulpits and the lack of time the average Christian studies God’s Word reflect this. As a result, many Christians have a very weak faith, worldly lifestyle and a poor witness.

The Old Testament is the rock foundation for the New Testament. If you have never read the complete stories of Nehemiah, Mordecai, Jeremiah, the Rechabites, Hanani, Hannah, Elijah, Manasseh or Josiah, you may want to! Understanding their lives will give you a better understanding of the mountain of God’s Word, what God is like and how He may work in our lives today.

Go on to: Commentary on the Lectionary – Colossians 3:11: Child Abuse
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