"Always Turn the Cheek?" So What Do You Do? by Steve Martin

Always Turn the Cheek?

So What Do You Do?

Steve Martin

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'  But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Matthew 5:38-39, NKJV)

“Love, love, love. All you need is love” were popular song lyrics growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, made famous by a foursome who needs no introduction. So, I won’t. At one time they declared they were more popular than God. I wonder what some of them believe now.

In this edition of “So What Do You Do?” I want to write of another common thought that has been held by believers in the Living God for far too long. It is that false misconception that Christians are to simply allow others to walk over them, give out “love, love, love’, and all will be just dandy.

Jesus Himself did say, as quoted above, “whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” And yet when the Sadducees and the Pharisees spoke out loudly against Him in the public market, what did He do? In Matthew 12:34, He spoke right back at them, “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” (NASU)

Jesus was no coward and did not walk in fear.

There are plenty of examples in the full Bible, including what we call the Old Testament, where God the Father, whom the Son of God revealed to us when He, Jesus, walked this earth, destroyed those who broke His laws and killed His people. Did He just “turn the other cheek” and let His everlasting love overrule His righteous acts of judgment? He certainly did not.

God the Father and Yeshua (Jesus) are the same. “I and the Father are one," Jesus said. (John 10:30, NASU)

We are to take the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, as the roadmap to life. One verse doesn’t give the entire picture of the Lord’s heart. If we are to know Him and follow after Him, we must understand Him and His ways.

When people and nations resist, reject, and seek to remove the eternal laws that the God of the Universe has put in place, for our protection and well-being, we also are not just to turn the other cheek and let them have their way. While we are certainly to pray against the forces of darkness that envelope the hearts and minds of people, at the same time we must take proper and righteous stands to uphold what we know to be right.

Am I calling for civil war? No. Am I seeking to speak the truth and be heard? Yes.

We are called to speak out against those who seek to murder unborn babies; steal and destroy the lives of innocent children for sexual pleasure; and force on us ungodly social media propaganda as “rights” people have.

We are called to stand against anti-Semitism and racism.

When we allow “whatever will be to be”, we continue to lose the solid ground founded on true freedom, of living within safeguards in place for both ourselves and our children. When we let the ungodly take over our schools, government, and religious institutions in the name of “tolerance” and unholy “love”, we face the reality that our choice in seeking and obeying the heavenly Father will no longer be allowed, as it will “inhibit the freedom” of others, or so they will have us to believe.

When we let down our guard, and not give any resistance to those who seek to take away what we have been given by God to us, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

There are times when we are to turn the cheek and take what comes as being believers in the Lord. They hated Him. They will and do hate us.

There are also times when He will direct us to stand up, declare the truth, and not back down when the enemy comes at us. I wouldn’t let someone come into my house and kill my family without putting up a fight. Neither should you.

Our American founding fathers fought the good fight – literally behind the pulpit and on the front lines. So did our grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, and mothers give their lives to stop evil from taking over other nations.

Martyrs throughout history gave their lives speaking out against those siding with the devil, who was killing, stealing, and destroying lives.

I expect to be martyred someday. Many of our fellow brothers and sisters in other nations are already giving their lives even now as they have lived for the Lord and now die in His arms. But until that day comes, I will not go down, sitting around, letting our world go to hell, without putting up the glorious fight of faith.

Be one wanting to know His full ways, always, and then share them with the world He has put us in.

Ahava and shalom,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People ministry

Charlotte, North Carolina

P.S. If you think I am stopping my regular messages, Now Think On This, have no fear! I certainly am continuing those, and they will appear on our current website, Love For His People, and our new one that will be in the works this summer, for its fall debut.

These messages will also be posted on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. Yeah!

I ask for your support so we can continue, and reach more. Please donate online safely through our website, using PayPal or Givelify.  Or you can use the DONATE  buttons on the Love For His People website.

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.) 

Please share So What Do You Do? with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.  Others will be thankful you did.

“Always Turn the Cheek?”, #4 - in the year of our Lord 07.16.19 – Tuesday, 6:45 pm

"Know What You Need To Know" - So What Do You Do? by Steve Martin

Know What You Need To Know

Steve Martin

"Make me know Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day.” Psalm 25:4-5, NASU

In this edition of “So What Do You Do?” I want to write of a common thought that has been held by believers in the Living God for far too long. It is that false misconception that being God is God, we are to just sit back, let Him do it all, and all will turn out all right.

It is the same thinking for many who think the local pastor is to do everything. No wonder they quit in droves.

Where in the Bible does it say that you and I are to go our merry way, seek our own pleasure daily, and care not about the world around us? How many pray the prayer, “Bless us four and no more?” Or to put it in these modern terms, “Me and my dog, O Lord, is who I care about today. Bless us two.”

I find it amazing that Christians in America have been so focused on their own prosperity and well-being that they don’t even know the names of other countries that exit is the world; how many are being martyred every day in other nations; or what is happening to the people and land of Israel, which the Almighty God speaks so much about in the full Bible – both in the Old and New Testaments, as we call it.

Stick my head in the sand. Pray a one-sentence prayer as I walk out the door. Be concerned only about my life and maybe my family, if I give them a thought today.

Just so you know, that is NOT what our Creator has made us to be, especially once we have acknowledged our sin, received His forgiveness, and have been shown to some degree at least His ways and purposes. If we are not involved in the lives of those He puts us in contact with every day, to be lights and salt in this earth, then why not just stop life now and go to heaven?

If our time here on this planet is to just live for ourselves, we are the ones who are missing the mark. And we will be held accountable for that. The time will come when everything we say and do with the time we have been given here will be looked over as we stand before our Creator on that day.

Jesus (Yeshua) spoke a very clear word to those who would listen, about what each of us do with what we have been given and entrusted with in our life. In this following passage of Scripture, He was speaking to His disciples - those who call themselves His followers. He did not mince words.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents.  And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord's money.

After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

"So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, 'Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.'  His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'  

He also who had received two talents came and said, 'Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.' His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.' 

"Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.'

"But his lord answered and said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed.  So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.

'For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'” (Matt 25:14-30, NKJV)

I encourage you to find out what your gifts and talents are (there are many ways to do that) and give yourself wholeheartedly for the purposes that the Lord has given you life to do with them.

There is far more to life than fulfilling your own pleasure and thrills.

Know what you need to know in order to fulfill that which you have been called to do. Don’t be among those who sit back, put in your 8 hours or whatever on the job, and then call it a day done.

Be one wanting to know His ways, always, and then share them with the world He has put you in.

Ahava and shalom,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People ministry

Charlotte, North Carolina

Photo: With my grandson, Levi! I want to help make sure this world, for him and his generation, is safe and following hard after our Lord Jesus!

P.S. If you think I am stopping my regular messages, Now Think On This, have no fear! I certainly am continuing those, and they will appear on our current website, Love For His People, and our new one that will be in the works this summer, for its fall debut.

These messages will also be posted on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. Yeah!

I ask for your support so we can continue, and reach more. Please donate online safely through our website, using PayPal or Givelify.  Or you can use the DONATE  buttons on the Love For His People website.

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.) 

Please share So What Do You Do? with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.  Others will be thankful you did.

“Know What You Need To Know”, #3 - in the year of our Lord 06.30.19 – Sunday, 8:00 am 

So What Do You Do? "Train Up A Child" - Steve Martin, Love For His People

So What Do You Do?

"Train Up A Child"

Steve Martin

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6, NKJV)

You can add "grandchild" to that verse too, for that also is in the Lord's heart.

Having given some time in caring for our youngest grandson, Levi Avalos, for a few times each week the past two years, I recall the times when raising our own four kids that I wish I knew then what I know now. If you are a grandparent, you may be thinking the same thing.

Life is really more difficult I believe for these past two generations. No longer is "black" black, nor "white" white as we use to say. Now everything seems to be blurred and wacky. No wonder kids these days bury themselves in video games and YouTube, with parents gone, neighbors unknown, streets unsafe to play on. You name it, things are not what they use to be.

So true are the Bible verses stating, in 2 Timothy 3:1-6, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,  treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these." (NASU)

So what are parents and grandparents to do?

Just what the Bible says to do, which never changes even as everything else changes around us. We raise them up according to His Word. We teach them, by example, in word, and in deed, what it means to be honest, work hard, love others rather than self-love, give out before wanting to receive all the time, share, and obey the Ten Commandments. (Yes, they still are true and need to be adhered to.)

Kids need a solid rock. They need to know that it isn't, "What you feel today that guides you", but rather what His Word speaks eternally that guide us. If you can't personally do that, as parents do struggle with speaking the guidance our kids need, then get them in a Sunday School, or in the synagogue where truth is being taught. It is our responsibility to make sure they hear the truth, rather than the bombardment of lies and "do as you want" junk that is taught to them each day in schools and in social media.

We will be held responsible for the training up of our kids, held accountable to God. Not the government, teachers, entertainers, or whoever speaks the loudest. You and I must take a stand for our kids, fight for them, and give them the opportunity to make good choices as they go up.

So that is what you do. You do what you know is the right thing to do. Teach and train your children in the ways of God, and they will experience the life He indented all along to give them.

There you go. Now you have an answer as to what to do when you aren't sure what you and I are to do.

Be watching for the next one!

Wanting to know His ways, always, and share them with the world,

Steve Martin
Founder/President
Love For His People ministry
Charlotte, North Carolina

Photo: With my grandson, Levi! I want to help make sure this world, for him and his generation, is safe and following hard after our Lord Jesus!



P.S. If you think I am stopping my regular messages, Now Think On This, have no fear! I certainly am continuing those, and they will appear on our current website, Love For His People, and our new one that will be in the works this summer, for its fall debut.

These messages will also be posted on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. Yeah!

I ask for your support so we can continue, and reach more. Please donate online safely through our website, using PayPal or Givelify.  Or you can use the DONATE  buttons on the Love For His People website.

Contribution checks can be sent to: 

Love For His People, Inc. 

P.O. Box 414   

Pineville, NC 28134

Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.) 

Please share What Do You Do? with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.  Others will be thankful you did.

So What Do You Do?, #2 - in the year of our Lord 06.21.19 – “Train Up A Child?" – Friday, 8:00 am