Jesus Is the Light of the World - Part 2 — Joshua Daniel

How Childhood Forms Patterns of Theft

And soon they will say, why can't I help myself to some of this money sitting on the table? You see, who sewed that thought into the child? The father and the mother. They produce the thieves. And soon this thieving habit grows.

Identifying Ourselves as Followers of Christ

And when it comes to paying taxes, people like to cheat. They are thieves. That's all they learned from their childhood. Oh, my dear people, who are you? I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Bearing the Marks of the Christian Faith

You know, if somebody should go out into the street or the main street here and begin to say, hey, the sun has risen on Sebring today, people will reach for their cell phones and say, here's a madman loose on the streets here.

Someone come and quickly restrain him. But you and I are almost afraid to say, are you? I'm not. Here's the sun of righteousness. We are not ready to identify our savior. When you go to work, you carry your little identification with you, don't you?

Or you may not be let into the company. Everybody wants an ID, a photo ID, everywhere today. But what is the ID that you can provide? I am a child of Jesus Christ. You know, culturally, many people find it very difficult in their cultural habitats to come right out and say, hey, I belong to the Lord Jesus and remove from their families and from their persons all other marks which lead people or mislead people into thinking, oh, these are all still our people, the old heathen here.

We all worship these idols and we all bear these various marks and symbols. But you know, my dear friends, the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, if any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself.

Rejecting a Money-Centered Mindset

I do not know what are those particular sticking points in your life. Some people have all kinds of ambitions. And one of those ambitions, especially from people who come from a poor background, you know, they always feel deprived.

I never felt deprived in my life, never. My father was not rich. I was not born with a silver spoon. But I never felt deprived. Oh, I don't have this. I don't have that. What a mindset that gives people.

See, it's all a money-centered mindset. I can't see how such people can be Christians. I simply can't see it. See, some of my classmates, if you ask them, why did you choose this subject at the university, they would come out and say, you know, jobs are easy to find in this particular subject, which I am studying, and there's money to make.

So I'm, that's what I want to do. I never had that outlook in my life. I did not see it in my parents. And I never had that outlook. Why, it seems like a cursed outlook to me. It seems at the antipodes to Jesus to me.

The Love of the World and the Cost of Discipleship

If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Love not the world or the things of the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. A money-centered heart, how can it ever bear the cross?

The cross speaks of denying yourself. The cross speaks of death. Those things that were gained to me, I counted them as loss for Jesus. Yes. Let me tell you, there is a big deficit balance in your lives.

Abandoning Confidence in Money

And what is that deficit balance? What is that red ink, that feeling that money is going to do it? And as long as you have that feeling, you're just no good for Jesus. Don't you imagine you're a big patron of Jesus?

But that is the way people are groomed in their lives. That's the teaching that they receive from with the milk bottle. That's all they see in their parents. The high value which they place upon money.

Meeting the Financial Needs of Gospel Ministry

You know, folks, when I see the bills of the fellowship just soaring, my business is to preach the gospel. And if month by month our bills just keep soaring, well, it would be a natural thing to ask who is going to pay for it.

You know, we are just about to take up a teleconference.