Ownership and Worship

An excerpt from "Your Money Counts."  author- Howard Dayton

The Bible clearly states the God is sole owner of everything.  “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains”  (Psalm 24:1)   Scripture even reveals specific items God owns.  Leviticus 25:23 identifies Him as owner of all the land: “The land…shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine.”  Haggai 2:8 reveals that “the silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of hosts.”  And in Psalm 50:10, the Lord tells us “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.”

The Lord is the Creator of all things, and He has never transferred the ownership of His creation to people.  In Colossians 1:17 we are told that “in Him all things hold together.”  At this very moment the Lord literally holds everything together by His power.  Recognizing God’s ownership is critical in allowing Jesus Christ to become the Lord of our money and possessions.

Ownership or Lordship?

If we are going to be genuine followers of Christ, we must transfer the ownership of our possessions to the Lord.  “No one…can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33).  In my experience I have found that the Lord will sometimes test us by asking that we be willing to relinquish the very possession that is dearest to us.
Scripture’s most vivid example of this is when the Lord told Abraham: “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love,  Isaac…and offer him there as a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2).  When Abraham obeyed, demonstrating his willingness to give up his dearest possession, God provided a substitute ram for the offering, and Issac was no harmed.

Outstanding author Larry Burkett observed, “When we acknowledge God’s ownership, every spending decision becomes a spiritual decision.  No longer do we ask,’Lord, what do You want me to do with my money?” The question is restated, ‘Lord what do You want me to do with Your money?”  When we have this perspective, spending and saving decisions are equally as spiritual as giving decisions.

(pages 16 -17)

What Radical Abandonment To Jesus Really Means

An excerpt from "Radical, Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream", author - David Platt

And this is where we need to pause.  Because we are starting to redefine Christianity.  We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with.

A nice, middle–class, American Jesus.  A Jesus who doesn't mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have.  A Jesus who would not expect us to forsake our closest relationships so that he receives all our affection.  A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are.  A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who, for that matter, wants us to avoid danger altogether.  A Jesus who brings us comfort and prosperity as we live out our Christian spin on the American dream.

But do you and I realize what we are doing at this point?  We are molding Jesus into our image.  He is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is whom we are most comfortable with.  And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible.  Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.

(pages 12 -13)

You Are Eternal

An excerpt from "The Divine Conspiracy",  author - Dallas Willard

The hymn Amazing Grace was found in a recent USA Today poll to be America's favorite hymn.  It is sung at Boston Pops concerts and played at military and police funerals.  It is now a solid part of American if not Western culture, and it accurately presents the future of redeemed humanity:

When we've been there ten thousand years, 

 Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise,

Than when we first begun. 

When Mickey Mantle was dying of diseases brought on by a life of heavy drinking, he said that he would have taken better care of himself had he only known how long he was going to live.  He gives us a profound lesson.  How should we 'take care of ourselves' when we are never to cease?  Jesus shows his apprentices how to live in the light of the fact that they will never stop living.  This is what his students are learning from him.

(pages 98-99)

Justifying Doubt

A excerpt from "SCANDALOUS The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus", author - D.A. Carson

Sometimes doubt is grounded in systematic moral choice.  Consider the following passage from the famous writer and social cynic Aldous Huxley in his book Ends and Means.  In this passage, Huxley unpacks themes that, historically, pushed many people to adhere to a philosophy of meaningless, of a valueless world:

For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation.  The liberation we desired was simultaneously  liberation from a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust.  The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (the Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world.  There was an admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.

COLLISION: 6 Tips in Helping People Encounter Christ in Small Groups

 1.SHEPHERDING: Before you shepherd others, continually abide in the power of the Chief Shepherd yourself. Let your teaching be the overflow of the love, joy, peace and patience that you supernaturally gain when you rest in His presence. Among other things, this will prevent you from making the bible study about your own personal issues. There is a time when every leader needs support, but it shouldn’t be every meeting. A shepherd puts the flock’s needs above his or her own (See John 15, Phil 2:1-4).

2.GRACE: Before preaching the gospel to others, preach it to yourself. Remember you were once lost, blind, broken and dead in your sin. Let your gratitude for God’s grace well up in you and let that reminder of your own lostness shape the way you love lost people. Jesus attracted sinners not only because of his teaching but also because of his compassion. In the end it’s simple: grace attracts, pride attacks (Matt 9:9-13, Titus 3:3-8).

 3.PURPOSE: Why are you doing this? What is the end goal? Is the purpose to convey how much you know or is it to help others know Jesus? Is your purpose simply to convey information (which is hugely important!) or is it to allow that information lead to transformation? If the end goal is transformation, then it is crucially important to ask questions and make applications to people’s daily lives. Sometimes sheep need to go slow and sometimes sheep need you to connect the dots for them (See 1 Corinthians 1:18-25).

4.LISTEN: Pause. Ask. Listen. The awkward silence is ok. Listening not only forces your group to engage with the Scriptures and wrestle with its truths, it also communicates that you value your group as people. While it is crucially important to prevent the bible study from devolving into a superficial support group, the leader should be known as a good teacher and a good listener. As a general rule of thumb, the leader should not be doing more than two thirds of the talking (See Matthew 5:37, James 1:19-25).  

5. AVOID MINUTIA: Keep the main thing, the main thing. The tragic temptation of any small group is for the conversation to go negative - quick. You can sense it when you leave a negative conversation. Instead of the dialogue giving you joy; it robbed you of it. By God’s grace, try to keep your focus on His glory, His grace, His cross, His Word, His Spirit, His commands. Try to avoid gossip, religious snobbery, theological rabbit trails, scapegoating the culture and divisive political issues. Don’t assume your flock has the same views on some of these secondary issues as you. A tragedy would be someone being turned off to Jesus because we elevated minutia above the message (See 2 Timothy 2:22-26).

6.COLLISION: Remember your flock is struggling with sin, doubt, worldliness, apathy and pain. They need the Word of God. Don’t shy away from it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Please get them into the Bible! Workbooks, videos, bestselling books are all well and good – but they are not the powerful, penetrating, inerrant Word of God. As you lead your flock take them to a place to where they don’t want to go. Force them to collide with God’s majesty and mercy as revealed in the Gospel and the Bible (Romans 1:16-17, Hebrews 4:12-13).

The Beginning of Temptation

An  excerpt from "Imitation of Christ", author Thomas A. Kempis

Many people try to escape temptations, only to fall more deeply.  We cannot conquer simply by fleeing, but by patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies.  The man who shuns temptations outwardly and does not uproot them will make little progress; indeed they will quickly return more violent than before.

Little by little, in patience and long-suffering you will overcome them, by the help of God rather than by severity and your own rash ways.  Often take counsel when tempted; and do not be harsh with others who are tempted, but console them as you yourself would wish to consoled.  

The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways.  Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just.  Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are.

Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused  admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.  

Someone has said very aptly: "Resist the beginnings, remedies come too late, when by long delay the evil has gained strength."  First, a mere thought comes to mind, then strong imagination, followed by pleasure, evil, delight, and consent.  Thus, because he is not resisted in the beginning, Satan gains full entry.  And the longer a man delays in resisting, so much the weaker does he become each day, while the strength of the enemy grows against him.

(pages 12-13)

No Cross, No Christianity

An excerpt from Classic Christianity, author - Thomas C. Oden

To preach is to announce the cross.  

To worship is to come to the cross.  

To believe is to trust in the One crucified. 

It is impossible to imagine Christianity without a cross.  Christian worship is spatially ordered around it.  The history of Western art and architecture holds the cross before us constantly.  In death the graves of Christians are marked by a cross.

A flood of impression and images collide and meld in the portrayal of the rugged power meaning of the cross.  In a burst of ecstasy, many of these are amassed in a single passage by John of Damascus.  In Jesus death,

Death has been brought low, the sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to scorn the things of this world, and even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God, and we made children and heirs of God.  By the cross all things have been set aright...It is a raising up for those who lie fallen, a support for the wandering, perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, an averter of all evils, a cause of all good things a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection, and a tree of eternal life (John of Damascus, OF4.11).

(pages 402)