“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.” (ESV)
Have you ever wasted money and you knew it? That’s a frustrating feeling. Maybe it isn’t at the time (or else you probably wouldn’t have done it!), but eventually that little nagging sense of regret develops and you have to decide you’ll ignore it or else find a way to make amends. Read the rest…
This Sunday we kicked off a brand new teaching series called, “A Word on Reality.” For the next few weeks we are going to be working through 1 John and taking a close look at his invitation to be a part of the real world and what it looks like when we do. In this first part of the series we talked about what needs to happen before any movement in this direction can take place. Keep reading to find out what this is.
A Vibrant Realism
Have you ever tried to teach someone who thought they knew what you were talking about better than you did? How’d that go? It was pretty frustrating, wasn’t it? You probably kept trying to tell them one thing or another, but you could tell they weren’t really listening. Maybe they were hearing, but not listening. Then, when you sent them out to put whatever it was into practice they failed. Miserably. But then, instead of getting mad at themselves for not being a very good student, they got all upset at you for not teaching them well enough. The problem was: While they thought they were living within the bounds of reality on whatever the issue was, you knew they weren’t. But, because of their deeply ingrained false belief, they weren’t willing to listen. Have you ever been there? Read the rest…
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw–each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
What kind of work are you doing? If you are a follower of Jesus, you have a role to play in the advancement of His kingdom into the lives of the people around you. As Paul has described in the previous few verses, different people have different roles to play in the process. Read the rest…
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. . . .The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritual discerned.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Now we’re getting into some tough stuff here (and we’re only into the second of 16 chapters!). Let’s start with what Paul seems to be saying and then we’ll deal with whether or not it’s true and what it means. Read the rest…
“But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, ‘Do you think, because David has sent comforters to you, that he his honoring your father? Have not his servants come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?'” (ESV – Read the chapter)
According to the wisdom of the world, the best way for a new leader to establish himself in his position and among his peers is with displays of power and strength. Hanun was convinced by his counselors that in order to show the world that he was a king not to be trifled with, he needed to respond to David’s offer of sympathy after the death of his father by treating the servants sent to bring the message poorly and humiliating them. The message was: This is what will happen to your whole kingdom if you mess with me. His counselors apparently didn’t know much about David. Read the rest…
The Nexus 