Jesus told his helpers, I tell you the truth, Some who are standing here won’t taste death until they have seen the kingdom of God come with His power. Then after six days Jesus took His three closest helpers up a high mountain and right in front of their eyes they saw Him change to His full beauty and shiny brightness and His clothes were whiter than snow.
Then a cloud came on the mountain making a shodow over them and God talked to them from out of the cloud, He said, This is My Son that I love with all My heart, hear the words that He says. Then suddenly they looked around everywhere and the shiny brightness was gone and Moses and Elijah were gone and only Jesus was there with them.
As they came down from the mountain Jesus told them not to tell what they saw until after He came back from being dead. They kept thinking about it and didn’t understand about coming back from being dead. They asked Jesus, Why do the writers say that Elijah will come first. Jesus told them, Elijah will come first to get everything ready.
When they got down the mountain and went to His other helpers there was a big bunch of people around them making a fuss. When the people saw Jesus they were amazed and one of the people came and said, I brought my little boy because he has a bad spirit in him but your helpers couldn’t get it out of him. It hurts him a lot. Jesus said, How long until you will believe? Jesus said, It can happen if you believe. The boy’s father said, I believe, help me to believe.
Then Jesus asked His helpers, What were you fussing about on the way here? The didn’t tell Him because they were fighting about which one of them was the best. Jesus told them, If you want to be first, you must be the one who serves everyone. Jesus brought a little child and put him in the middle of the helpers and told them, Anyone who helps a little child in My name is helping Me, and not just Me, but the One who sent Me.
When Jesus was gone out into the road a young man came and bowed down to Jesus and said, Good Master what can I do to get to live forever with You? Jesus said, Why do you call Me good? Only God is good. Don’t love other men’s women, don’t kill or steal or lie or cheat anyone or think or do bad to your mom or dad.
The man told Jesus. I have always done all that from when I was born. Jesus loved him and said, Only one thing you need to do. Go and sell your stuff and give the money to the poor and that will build you treasure waiting for you when you get to heaven. The young man went away sad because he had lots of stuff he didn’t want to sell.
Two of Jesus’ helpers came and asked of they could be the ones to sit on both sides of Jesus’ in His shiny brightness. Jesus told them, My Father will say who sits there. Then the ten other helpers were mad at those two for wanting the best place. Jesus quieted them by telling them, In this world the best place is to be king, but in the next one the best place is to be the one who serves people.
When Jesus got close to Jerusalem he sent some helpers to go get a little donkey for Him to ride. The men asked, What are you doing with the donkey and the helpers told them, The Lord needs him. So the men let them take the little donkey. Then they put Jesus on it and spread out their clothes on the road and branches from the trees and yelled, Happy is this one coming in the Lord.
Then they went into the temple and Jesus threw out the men who were selling stuff at His Father’s house and said, My house is called by all countries a house of prayer, but you make it a cave for robbers. When the leaders heard it they tried to make a plan to kill Jesus, but they were scared of the people because the people were amazed at the things Jesus told them.
That night they went past the fig tree and it was dried up. Peter said, Master, look, the fig tree you cursed is withered away. Jesus told him, Trust God. I tell you that if you tell this mountain to move and be thrown into the sea it will happen for you if you believe and don’t doubt in your heart. Whatever you want, when you pray, believe you have it and you will get it.
They thought about it and realized that if they said it was from heaven then Jesus would ask them, Why didn’t you believe him? And if they said it was just from men, the people would be mad at them because the people knew that John was giving them words from God. So they said, We don’t know. Jesus told them, Then I won’t tell you who said I could do this stuff.
Then Jesus taught them a story about a man who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a pit to smash the grapes in and then rented the vineyard to some men to work while he went into another country. When it was time for the grapes to be ready, the man sent a servant to get the fruit from his vineyard, but the ones who rented the vineyard to work in it killed the servant.
The owner sent lots more men and they killed them all. Then the owner sent his son and thought they would respect and obey him, but they killed him too. So what will the owner of the vineyard do to those men? The leaders told Him, He will come and kill those men and give the vineyard to others who will give the owner his fruit.
Jesus asked them, Didn’t you read in the special writing from God how the stone that the builders threw away became the most important and beautiful one? The Lord does this and it is wonderful to see. Then the leaders tried to arrest Jesus to kill Him but they were scared the people would not let them, they had to find a sneaky way to do it so they sent men to try to trick Jesus into saying a bad thing against the king, Caesar, but Jesus trapped them in their own trick. Jesus told them, Give to Caesar what is for him and give to God what is for Him.
In one of the sneaky traps they asked about a woman who was married to seven brothers and they each died. Who’s wife will she be in heaven? Jesus told them, You are so wrong about stuff because you don’t know what the special writings from God say and you don’t know how big and how strong God is. You are really wrong because people do come back to be alive after they are dead. God is not the god over dead people, but living people.
One of the writers saw that Jesus told good answers to the tricky questions so he came to ask Jesus, What is the most important thing to do? Jesus told him, Our God is One Lord over everything and the best and most important things is to love Him the most and best, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Then Jesus wasacross from the offering box watching how people put money in it. Rich ones put in lots but He saw a poor lady put in just two pennies. Jesus told His helpers, See that lady who just put in two pennies. She put in more that the rich ones who put in lots because she put in all that she had.