The Final Goal: No More Tears
Read: Revelation 21:1-8 [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. – Revelation 21:4 For English football fans, one World Cup match lives long in memory. It’s the 1990 semifinal against West Germany. England lost the [...]
ODJ: embodied
We are many parts of one body (v.5).
READ: Romans 12:1-5
While serving as a professor at the University of Washington, sociologist Rodney Stark wrote his influential book, The Rise of Christianity, to answer the riddle of Christianity’s explosive growth during the first 3 centuries. How did this upstart faith, originating in a dusty corner of Palestine, expand to a globe-changing movement within a matter of years? Essentially, Stark’s answer was that Christians lived their faith in tangible ways. For instance, they treated women better than the broader culture; and when several waves of plague and epidemics ravaged the Roman Empire, it was primarily Christians who stayed, tending to the sick.
This is the very heart of the gospel: Faith as an embodied life, faith that takes on skin and bones, faith—not merely discussed and affirmed—but lived in the way of Jesus. The center of Christianity is not big ideas (though we have many) or overarching systems of belief (and we have these too). The center of our faith is a person, Jesus Christ, who brought God to us. Jesus is God in human skin.
And now, in a remarkable turn, we who claim Jesus as Lord are sent into our world, carrying Jesus with us. We are invited to bring God near to every friend and stranger. We, quite literally, are “the body of Christ.” And no believer in Christ is excluded from this identity as Jesus’ body; “each of [us] is a part” (1 Cor. 12:27).
God continues to work in His world to bring justice, to offer mercy, to love the forgotten. And He uses those who form the body of Christ, those He has transformed into new people (Romans 12:2). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminded us, “the body of Christ has penetrated into the heart of the world in the form of the church.” —Winn Collier
Where in the world do you see the need for Jesus to act? How might Jesus be asking you to be His voice or hands or feet in that place?
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Loading ...ODB: beware of what you want
July 7, 2010
READ: Exodus 20:1-17
You shall not covet. —Exodus 20:17
Sometimes I wonder why God didn’t list the Ten Commandments in reverse order, since the 10th commandment correlates to the first sin—desire. Eve’s sin wasn’t simply her desire for a piece of fruit; it was the desire for knowledge that Satan told her would make her like God (Gen. 3:5). Eve’s covetousness caused her to violate both the first and tenth commands that God later gave to Moses.
When we don’t covet, we pretty much eliminate our reasons to disobey the other commands. Wanting what isn’t ours causes us to lie, steal, commit adultery, murder, and refuse to honor our parents. We refuse to rest because we can’t get what we want in 6 days of work. We misuse God’s name when we use it to justify something that we want to do. We make gods out of wealth and relationships because we don’t want to have to put all our trust in God.
I have a hard time coming up with sins that don’t involve some form of covetousness. Yet because it’s the last in the list, we tend to think of it as being the least important. But it’s not. When we stop sin while it is still in our hearts and heads, we avoid making others the victim of our sin, and we avoid many of the serious consequences of sin. —Julie Ackerman Link
Contentment is realizing that God has already given me all I need.
Source: Our Daily Bread
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...God in nature
By Mary Yohanna, Nigeria For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things were created through Him and for Him. Colossians 1:16 Many people often wonder about God. Who is He? How can we know He exists when we [...]
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