MTSCOE Ministries

Heavenly Father, help us to receive Your love today.

Holy Spirit, help us to let God love us.

In Jesus name, Amen. 💜✝️💜

5 days ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

The Father spoke before the devil did. That is the whole war.

At the Jordan the heavens were opened, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

Jesus had not preached a sermon. He had not healed a body. He had not taken a city. He was named and loved before works.

Then He was “led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil” (Matthew 4:1; Luke 4:1-2).

He did not enter the wilderness trying to discover who He was. The Father had already spoken. Now it was time to show what it looked like to live as the Son He already was.

Satan does not deny the word. He agrees with it, then tells you how he thinks a son should live.

“If thou be the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3; 4:6; Luke 4:3).

In the Greek, the title is not in doubt. It is used as a weapon: since You are the Son, do this, on my terms. The attack is not on the name. It is on what you do with a name you already have.

Do you still feel like you have to prove yourself?

“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

Jesus said, “I will not leave you comfortless,” and the word is orphans (John 14:18). He will not leave you fatherless.

Matthew and Luke record the same 3 tests (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13), but they end in different places.

The 3 tests line up with the world’s 3 hooks: “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). Luke walks them in that order. Matthew puts pride before the eyes, because he is climbing toward worship and the kingdoms.

First Test: Bread | The Lust of the Flesh

“If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3).

Jesus is hungry after forty days (Matthew 4:2; Luke 4:2). The need is real. The lie is that a son has to feed himself to stay a son.

Jesus answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3).

Israel failed this in the wilderness. Forty years. Jesus does forty days and does not break (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). He is the Son where Israel, God’s first son, was not (Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15). Every answer He gives comes from that same book, the words Israel was given and did not keep (Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:16; 6:13).

The last days will squeeze provision. The question will not only be whether there is food. It will be who you have to bow to in order to eat. In Joseph’s famine they said, “Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:19). Bread bought people.

An orphan reaches for what he thinks he has to provide for himself.
A son trusts the Father.

Second Test: The Pinnacle | The Pride of Life

“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee” (Matthew 4:5-6; Psalm 91:11-12).

Satan quotes Scripture and skips the next words: “to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalm 91:11). A stunt is not one of the Father’s ways. Satan wants a show on “a pinnacle of the temple” (Matthew 4:5) so the crowd has to say God showed up.

Luke puts this test last (Luke 4:9-12) because his Gospel keeps moving toward Jerusalem. That order warns us about the last days: people will use God’s house as a stage, “with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). The man of sin will sit “in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

Jesus answered, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16).

The angels Satan quoted are real. They are not a trick you cash in on the temple wall. Protection is promised “in all thy ways” (Psalm 91:11), not in a stunt.

An orphan needs to make the Father prove He is there.
A son trusts Him without demanding a sign.

Third Test: The Kingdoms | The Lust of the Eyes

“All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:5-7).

This is the last-days deal. “The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority” (Revelation 13:2). “They worshipped the dragon… and they worshipped the beast” (Revelation 13:4). Take the throne. Skip the cross.

Jesus would not grab the throne early. “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:8-9).

Obedience first. The name and the throne after.
The orphan heart always wants the throne early.

The nations already belong to the Son: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance” (Psalm 2:8). He will share that rule: “To him will I give power over the nations… even as I received of my Father” (Revelation 2:26-27).

Jesus will not take it from Satan. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13).

Most of the church will not be dared to jump off a wall. We will be offered safety, platform, money, influence, and relief if we will just shift the knee. The test is worship. The prize named is authority. The cost is the Father.

Then, and only then: “the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him” (Matthew 4:11). Jesus waited. He did not force it. What Satan offered as a show, the Father gave when the test was over.

An orphan reaches for the throne before the Father gives it.
A son waits for what the Father has promised.

Satan left “for a season” (Luke 4:13).

The same line came back from men: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40; 27:43). The wilderness was not the last test.

In the wilderness Jesus answered with Scripture.
On the cross He gave that taunt no answer, and He stayed.
The last test got no reply. The answer was the cross.

Love God first. Then go.

The Great Commandment first. Then the Great Commission. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Matthew 22:37; Deuteronomy 6:5) stands before “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

The baptism is the Father’s love spoken out loud (Matthew 3:17).
The wilderness is the Son refusing to live like an orphan.
Only after the devil left does Jesus return “in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14).

Ministry is not how you get a Father. Ministry is what a son is released into after he will not trade the Father for bread, applause, or a crown.

“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21).

The kingdoms Satan offered early, the Father gives rightly, and the Son shares.

Remain a son, a daughter, when the tests come.

I declare:
The Father has already spoken over me (Matthew 3:17).
I will not feed myself apart from His word (Matthew 4:4).
I will not force Him to perform (Matthew 4:7).
I will not buy a throne with worship that belongs to Him (Matthew 4:10).
I will not come down from the cross to prove a name I already have (Matthew 27:40).
I will not trade sonship for bread, applause, position, influence, or a crown.

The Son passed the test. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12). I have received Him. I am a child of God. In Him I stand. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

1 week ago | [YT] | 3

MTSCOE Ministries

ALIGN WITH HIS APPOINTED TIMES

“…a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:24 KJV).

Tonight at sundown, the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, begins. Scripture names this day a memorial of blowing of trumpets. Later tradition also calls it Rosh Hashanah, “the head of the year.”

Same appointed day. Two names. One call:
Wake up. Return. Stand ready before the King.

This day opens Tishrei and the Lord’s fall appointed times, the mo’edim.

September 11–13 | Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets
The trumpet calls. Listen. Wake up. Return. Stand ready before the King. Shema!

September 20–21 | Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement
We humble ourselves. This is the appointed day for afflicting the soul, traditionally through fasting from evening to evening. Not to earn what Christ already finished, but to examine our hearts, confess, remember His sacrifice, and set ourselves apart to the Lord. Jesus, our High Priest, entered the true Holy Place by His own blood and obtained eternal redemption. We do not repeat the offering. We remember it. (Hebrews 9:12)

September 25–October 2 | Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles
We rejoice and dwell. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. He still dwells with His people. Rejoice and abide as we celebrate His presence and look toward the day of His return.

That is the progression: Call. Cleansing. Dwelling.

Align with His calendar.
Hear the trumpet.
Return.
Rest in the finished work.
Make yourself ready.

The King is coming.

Shanah Tovah U’Metukah

“How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! O LORD, they walk in the light of Your countenance” (Psalm 89:15 NASB).

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

Nothing Wasted…

In my house, I have a rule: if it cannot be reheated and eaten the next day, we turn it into something that can.

Tonight I made mozzarella sticks for the first time. When I finished, I had leftover flour and egg mix. I could have thrown it out. Instead, I asked, “What can I make from what I already have?”

I whipped it together, made some ancient-style flatbread, and topped it with garlic butter.

It was honestly good.

And that is when it preached.

After the crowd had eaten, Jesus told His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” John 6:12 KJV

Twelve baskets from five loaves.

Jesus did not look at what remained and call it trash.

We look at our lives and see scraps: the years that did not go as planned, the mess left in the bowl, the pieces we would rather throw away.

But God does not see wasted material.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 KJV

He is not limited by what we think is unusable. He takes what remains, puts it in His hands, and makes something we never would have ordered off the menu.

Don’t be so quick to discard what does not look like enough.

What looks like lack in our hands is not lack in His.

Give it to Him. He may already be turning it into bread.

And apparently, in my kitchen, flatbread with garlic butter. 🙃✝️

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

MTSCOE Ministries

This was such a beautiful message about humbling yourself and really asking, “Am I as mature as I like to think I am?”

Yesterday’s devotional talked about the difference between taking and receiving our inheritance. Oftentimes, we can feel like we’ve been waiting too long, so we try to take what we believe is ours rather than allowing God to patiently do the work of transforming our hearts and teaching us to trust Him and His timing.

The story of the prodigal son is such a powerful picture of this. The inheritance wasn’t bad. The son simply wasn’t mature enough to steward it well. What he took before he was ready ended up destroying what he had been given.

Sometimes the waiting isn’t about God withholding something from us. It’s about Him preparing us so that, when the time comes, we’re mature enough to receive and steward what He has already prepared for us without it crushing us or causing us to squander it. 💜✝️💜

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

When something has been weighing on you for a long time, where do you feel it in your body? Most people can point to the spot, and most have stopped mentioning it.

Oberammergau, Bavaria | Kolbensattel Alpine Coaster

Proverbs 17:22 (KJV): "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."


Solomon is not giving a command here. He is making an observation, which is what a proverb is, a line about how the world actually runs, written down so a young man recognizes it before it happens to him. Picture the men he is writing for. They are about to run households and stand in courts, in a world where a man's body is his living, where the ground has to be worked by hand, and where a man who has dried out cannot bring in his own harvest. Nobody in that room thinks of the soul and the body as two separate things. Hebrew has no seam between them. What happens in the inner man shows up in the frame. And Solomon had watched it from both sides: when the temple he built was finished, the crowds went home glad of heart for the goodness God had shown them (1 Kings 8:66), and he also wrote three separate lines in this book about the spirit that has been hit.

Proverbs 17:22 (MTSV): A gladness set in the inner man makes the healing go well. A spirit that has been struck dries a man out from the inside. Not the skin. The bone. The frame he stands on.

The heart of it: Most people live in the second half of this verse.

"Broken spirit" here does not mean you failed, and it does not mean God is waiting for you to cheer up. The Hebrew word is nake, and it means hit. It is the word Isaiah uses for a country after an army has come through it (Isaiah 16:7). Something struck you. Solomon never asks how it happened and never blames you for it, and in another proverb he says outright that a wounded spirit is more than a person can carry (Proverbs 18:14). So if you have felt that in your body for a long time, Scripture is not scolding you. It is naming what you already know. Some weights are too heavy.

The first half is not a pep talk either. The word behind "medicine" is gehah, and it is not a bottle you go get. It means healing that actually takes. A glad heart helps the body mend. That is an observation, not an order.

And this is not the same "broken" God draws near to in the Psalms. That is a different Hebrew word, shabar, a shattering, and He stays close to it (Psalm 34:18, Psalm 51:17). Solomon is talking about the hit that dries you out, and he never says God walked away from it. The ache in your body is real. You are seen in it. Healing is not you manufacturing a better mood. It is the cure finally going well.

Faith Declaration: When my spirit has been struck, that is not the same as being at fault. God is near the shattered, and He said so before I ever needed it. I do not manufacture my own healing, and no one ever has by trying harder. I receive it, and gladness returns to my inner man because He is the one restoring it. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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4 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

What have you done that nobody ever saw? Not the thing you are hiding. The thing you did well, that no one thanked you for.

Oberammergau, Bavaria | Village streets & Lüftlmalerei (painted house)

Proverbs 15:3 (KJV): "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."

Solomon is writing to young men who will soon run households and stand in courts, and this line drops into a long stretch of sayings about the mouth: a soft answer, a wise tongue, a healing word. Then he stops talking about speech and says something about where God is. That mattered more than it sounds. When Syria lost a battle to Israel, its officers told their king that Israel's God was a god of the hills, so the next fight should be picked on flat ground instead (1 Kings 20:23). A young Israelite could carry that same instinct without ever saying it out loud, that God is present at the temple and on the mountain, and that everywhere else runs unwatched. This verse closes that gap in one line.

Proverbs 15:3 (MTSV): Every standing place. Every spot where a foot comes to rest, every room, every road. There already is the pair of eyes that belong to the LORD.

They are a watchman's eyes, the man on the wall leaning out over the parapet, straining down the road toward whoever is coming. He is not scanning for one kind of person. Wicked men and good men, He is watching them both, with the same eyes, at the same time.

The heart of it: Jacob slept on a rock in open country, and when he woke he said the LORD was in this place and he had not known it (Genesis 28:16). The Hebrew word he used for "place" is maqom, which means a standing place, a spot where something comes to rest. It is the same word here. Solomon takes the word Jacob used for the one spot where he was surprised to find God, and puts "every" in front of it. There is no unwatched ground. Not the drive home. Not the room where you were kind and nobody was looking.

Now hear what kind of watching it is. The word translated "beholding" is the Hebrew tsaphah, and of its 37 appearances the King James translators rendered it "watchman" 20 times. It is the man on the roof over the gate who lifted his eyes and saw a runner coming (2 Samuel 18:24). It is the word Laban used at Mizpah when he and Jacob parted: the LORD watch between me and thee (Genesis 31:49). The verb by itself does not tell you the intent, since Psalm 37:32 uses it of a wicked man watching a righteous one in order to kill him. It only tells you someone is leaning out and looking hard. Who is doing it tells you the rest. So notice what Solomon does not say. He does not say God watches the evil to catch them and the good to reward them. One verb governs both, and no verdict is attached to either. That silence is mercy. You are not being graded in every place. You are being seen in every place, and those are not the same thing. The good you did that nobody witnessed was not unwitnessed.

Faith Declaration: There is no standing place where God is absent. I am seen by the watchman on the wall, not by a camera in the corner. He was in the room when no one else was. What no one saw, He saw, and it was never lost. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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4 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

When was the last time you walked out of a room different from how you walked into it? Not busier. Different.

Bavaria, Germany | Steingaden & Wieskirche

Ecclesiastes 5:1 (KJV): "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil."

Solomon is warning you about the house he built himself. He raised the temple in Jerusalem, and his own heart later turned after other gods (1 Kings 11:4). That temple was crowded and loud and never quiet: pilgrims, priests, animals, smoke. A man could go up with an animal, do every part of it correctly, eat well, and come home the same person he was. That is the man this verse is watching, and it stops him at the door rather than at the altar.

Ecclesiastes 5:1 (MTSV): Post a guard on your own foot as it crosses into the household of God. Not a guard on your offering. On your foot. At the doorway, before it comes down.

There are two ways to come near. One man comes near leading an animal up to the altar. The other comes near with his ears open, and what he hears, he will do. The second man is standing closer.

The thick and comfortable never learn this. They hand over the animal, carry most of it back to their own table, and walk home full. They never find out they did a wicked thing.

The heart of it: Notice where the guard gets posted. Not on the offering, not on the words, on the foot. By the time you are inside with something in your hands, the decision was already made in the doorway.

The word translated "keep" is the Hebrew shamar, and it is guard duty. It is the word God gave Adam when He set him in the garden to work it and guard it (Genesis 2:15), and it is the word the priests were told to speak over Israel: the LORD bless thee and keep thee (Numbers 6:24). 

He guards you. You guard your step. Those were never the same size, and He did not hand you the larger one.

It is easy to hear the second half as God preferring effort over ritual. But the language is more deliberate than that. The words rendered "be more ready" come from the Hebrew qarov, meaning "near" or "near to," and here the nearness in view is nearness to hear. The word comes from the verb used for bringing an offering near to the altar.

So both men in this verse are approaching. The difference is that one came to hand something over. The other came to be handed something.

Nobody earns his way through that door, because He opened it.

The only question left is which way your hands are turned when you cross it, and whether you leave different from how you came in.

Faith Declaration: I guard my step at the door. I come to hear before I come to give. I do not buy God's attention, because He gave it before I ever arrived. My ears are open, my heart is ready, and I do not walk out the way I walked in. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

What are you doing on autopilot that you never actually sat down and chose? Somebody cut that track, and it may not have been you.

Bavaria, Germany | Country roads toward Wieskirche

Proverbs 4:26 (KJV): "Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established."

Solomon is passing on what his own father gave him. Earlier in this chapter he remembers being a boy in David's house, the tender and only beloved son of his mother, sat down and taught by his dad. The end of the chapter walks down the body one part at a time: ear, eyes, heart, mouth, lips, and last of all the feet. Feet come last because feet are where everything else finally shows. Israel had no paved roads, and a traveler studied the ground before he trusted it, because the wrong track in the dark could break an axle.

Proverbs 4:26 (MTSV): Look at the wheel-track your foot is about to drop into. Weigh it, then roll it flat. Do that with one step, and every road of your life is planted upright and holds.

The heart of it: A rut is not a decision. It is the shape a hundred small choices left in the dirt, and after a while the wheels find it on their own. So Solomon does not tell you to fix your life. He tells you to look at one step. Not the ten years behind you, not the ten ahead, just the next one. Then the verse quietly changes hands. The ways are "established," and in Hebrew that is something done to them, not something they do for themselves.

You are also not the first one doing the leveling. The word translated "ponder" is the Hebrew palas, and it appears only six times in the whole Old Testament. In two of them God is the one doing it. Solomon says God weighs the tracks of a man, and Isaiah says He levels the way of the just. He is not waiting at the end of the road to grade you. He is out ahead of you with the stones cleared, asking you to look down and take the next step on purpose.

Faith Declaration: I do not have to fix the whole road. I weigh the next step and I take it on purpose. The rut I was walking is not the track I am kept in, because my God goes out ahead of me and levels the way. My ways are made to stand because He makes them stand. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 1

MTSCOE Ministries

What did you plan out carefully that ended up going a completely different way, and where did it actually land you?

Munich, Germany | Isartor, Isar River & Hilton Munich City

Proverbs 16:9 (KJV): "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps."

Solomon writes as a king whose whole job was planning, running a kingdom, ordering trade, building a temple, and he is speaking to young men being trained to carry that same kind of weight. This chapter is full of the same tension: commit your works to the LORD and your thoughts shall be established, the lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposing is of the LORD. Israel's neighbors read omens and consulted diviners to try to force the future open. Solomon tells his readers something different and harder. Plan well, then walk, and know that the LORD, who binds Himself to His people by name, is the one actually setting your feet down.

Proverbs 16:9 (MTSV): A man sits down and works out his route. He reckons it up carefully, like a man counting his money or weaving a pattern into cloth, and he is right to do it. But the LORD is the one who sets each step down and makes it hold.

The heart of it: Notice this verse never tells you to stop planning. The word for what the man is doing is the same word used for careful reckoning and skilled design, and Scripture praises that everywhere else. The man with the map is not the problem. The problem would be thinking the map is what gets him there.

He plans the road. God handles the step. You are looking at the whole route, the next five years, how it all has to line up, and God is holding the one place your foot is about to land. That is why He rarely shows you the whole thing. He is not being withholding. He is giving you the step you actually need.

And God does not "overrule." The word used is kun, meaning to set something so firmly it cannot be shaken, the same word used of God founding the earth so that it cannot be moved. Your plans are not in a wrestling match with Him. He is underneath them. So the times your plan fell apart were not Him ignoring you. They were Him setting your foot on ground that would actually hold.

Faith Declaration: I will plan with all the wisdom God has given me, and I will hold it loosely. My road is mapped by me, but my steps are set by Him. Where my plans fall apart, I trust that He is putting my foot on ground that will hold. I declare this by faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 1