LEARN TO SHAKE THE DUST OFF YOUR FEET: Let’s Talk About Matthew 10:14 NIV
© Photo Credit: @mrstupachenko
Good afternoon and welcome back my beautiful people! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted my last blog. I’ve been busy composing and writing Gospel music for God that I barely had time to do the daily blog. Anyway, welcome to Spring 2021 and I hope you guys are all safe and well through this ongoing pandemic. Today, I want to talk about a touchy subject that some people may not want to talk about and it’s about dealing with a society that doesn’t welcome true people of Christ in their domain. The verse of the day reads: If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. In the next few lines, we are going to discuss briefly about this verse and give an example of one incident that in relating to people who doesn’t welcome Christians into their community.
DUSTING OFF OUR FEETS
In the verse Matthew 10:14, it states, If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Simply put, this means if you are a Christian, you’d have to know when it’s time to leave a place where people don’t believe in your lifestyle. The lifestyle I’m referring to of course is, living the holy life. Even though God gave us a duty as Christians to help lost spirits turn themselves to Christ and acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, He doesn’t want us spreading the Gospel in rebellious places. For instance, there may be a group of missionaries on God’s assignment which is spreading evangelism in a town where most civilians are muslims. No matter how much the missionaries knock on their doors, go to a rally or some sort and start preaching the true Word of God with love, they all spew hateful words and rebuke their messages. The missionaries would leave town and come back tomorrow hoping that by the Holy Spirit they’ll be able to enlighten the muslims this time. Again, the muslims don’t listen and continue to vehemently spew hateful words, telling to them to leave and never come back. As God is pleased with the missionaries’ effort to spread His words in a tough town, He doesn’t want them to keep coming back and instead, shake the dust off their feet so that they won’t have to deal with the hostility and may I say demonic spirits of the town. It is bad for the Holy Spirits that dwells within the missionaries. In another words, the more we stay and preach to the unwelcoming crowd of muslims or anyone with strong disdain for Christianity, the more the Holy Spirit partakes into that wickedness. God wants us Christians to leave and forget about the unwelcoming towns and communities since the demons in them are stubbornly refraining from the messages and eventually would combat with our godly spirits. God sees the missionaries are trying, but He knows it’s not worth the fight. Now if the missionaries evangelize in a community or town where the muslims or other religions are more open and accepting of enlightenment, God don’t mind the missionaries staying there longer. It’s obviously much better preaching in a place where there is pure hostility or physical violence. Now hypothetically, if one of the missionaries died through the violent crowd for preaching the Gospel, God may (keyword may since I don’t know what God’s judgement on the said missionary would be) send the missionary to heaven for his righteous belief in Him, but He doesn’t want the missionary be in such a hostile crowd in the first place. He again would want the missionary or anyone of us to refrain from the hateful community by shaking the dust off our feet and go to a different path. Again, it’s good nature to spread God’s words anytime anywhere, but it’s not good to be in a community of hateful muslims or some sorts for preaching since they are NEVER going to listen. And with willful violence? No thank you, God loves us so much He doesn’t want us to die over that. I personally believe according to the verse we are discussing about, it is downright prideful and boastful to go in a violent community that doesn’t accept Jesus Christ and try to preach to them only so that you or I may be the next victim. Righteous death? Eh, I don’t know. I’d say a prideful death, and that’s not a good one. So once again, know when your time is up and shake the dust off your feet to go to a more enlightened crowd. Now if the death of a missionary wasn’t prideful but rather a righteous one, that’d be a different perspective. However, like I said God loves us so much He would want us to let it be and not have to deal with such community or towns. After all He does need us alive to keep spreading the Word. At the end of the day, God is basically saying “Let me deal with the unholy, unrighteous, and the coveted, you go on to the safer places to preach your Father’s Will for the unsaved.” So wipe the dust off our feet and let it be.
THE STREET PREACHER
I’ve watched a street preacher named David Lynn who is from Toronto, Canada. He is a true man of God and he’s on fire for God! Anyway, I’ve watched so many of his videos where he would preach to random citizens of Toronto in Youge-Dundas Square. Some listened, some walk by, and some are compelled to combat with the Word he preaches through the bible. Whenever the combatant shows up, a large group of pedestrians are gathered and circled around the two speakers. It’s a very compelling real life situation that happens everyday for David Lynn and I am proud of him. No matter what the combatant says, David isn’t afraid to boldly disagree. He sticks with the Word of God and preaches with love rather than hate or judgement. Even if they call him names and belittle his preachings, he still keep on going with the powerful Word of God speaking through him. There was a video where the topic was called Can Homosexual Change? Bold topic Tachief. Yes, I know, but in a it a way, it needs to be addressed. So anyway, in the video a small crowd is gathered around David Lynn and a young lesbian woman. Surprisingly, they were having a very civil conversation about this topic and there were no hate or name calling between the two. The lesbian was willing to listen and be respectful of David Lynn’s words and thoughts about homosexuality and exchange friendly debate with her stance on it. It was actually beautiful to watch. This is the exact environment God would want the missionaries or anybody with a passion for Christ to be in. Not violent, not hostile. In fact here’s a link to that video so that you can watch for yourself: Can Homosexual Change? Now, there is another video where David Lynn would preach the Word of God about condemning homosexuality, and a hateful homosexual person shows up in Youge-Dundas Square to ridicule everything that was said by David. Despite the hateful words from a challenging homosexual citizen, David remained calm and patient like Job would. Then as the crowd became larger into a group of homosexuals, it got hostile to the point where David was arrested for trespassing the LGBT’s territory. Now mind you, David was still calm and poised through the unrighteous arrest, and the crowd went wild over it. They were happy that a true man of God who was trying to preach how much God loves them despite their choices, and the community was just not having it. David was arrested for many times. Here’s one of the videos: LGBT Mob Assault Christians. Now, to bring up my point about verse Matthew 10:14, I would like to say missionaries and people like David Lynn are truly doing God’s work by spreading gospel through hostile communities and crowds and God will always command them for that. However, God want us to know the right time to shake the dust off our feet and walk away from unwelcoming communities of demons. This is so that the Holy Spirit that dwell in us don’t partake into the demonic environment. God loves us and wants us safe, after all like He said, the vengeance is mine, not yours-Roman 12:19
Are you ready to shake the dust off your feet, go to a more accepting town, and let God deal with the hostility?
Feel free to leave your thoughts, comments, or questions below,
Peace and Love
© Photo Credit: Slava Stupachenko / @mrstupachenko
