"Do I know you? I don't think I know you."
Story about investment/Parable of the Talents. Delegated responsibilities. Gave depending on their abilities. Two who increased investment: "Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner." 3rd servant: "I was afraid I might disappoint you." Afraid. Through this "play it safe one" into utter darkness.
Sheep and Goats. Who did what Jesus did? And who didn't? How 'bout me? "Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me--you failed to do it to me."
Anointed for burial. You'll have the poor with you every day. Today, it is about me, Jesus. You can care for the poor tomorrow. I don't think that was meant to be a blanket, "Get over it--folks will always be poor." But rather, the call that says, if you're so indignant about this today, do something tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...
"I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators." It isn't me, is it, Master?
Take. Eat. This is my body. Drink this, all of you. This is my blood, God's new covenant poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.
Sacrifice: took, blessed, broke, gave. Will we allow our lives to be sacrificial: taken, blessed, broken, and given to others?
"Even if I had to die with you, I would never deny you." Oh, that it might be so. Oh, oh, oh...
Both eager and lazy...can't stay awake to pray.
"Friend, why this charade?" Ever heard the Holy Spirit say those words to you?
"I don't know the man."
Romans 7-9
Power of the law touches only the living. Law code started out as an excellent piece of work, until it got perverted. Temptation like, seductive. "Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own."
"I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. Can't figure it out, so God's command is necessary...I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway...Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time."
We live in a constant state of conflict. A fight rages within us. We determine to give up all those words and actions that promote our selfish desires. It's the enemy from within.
"The solution is life on God's terms. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. Jesus/God personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.?
Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God.
"The Christian faith isn't about new rules. It's the offer of a new Spirit--the presence and person of Christ. Jesus will deliver us. He will come into the disarray of lumber in our lives and work beside us. He doesn't stand over us urging better behavior and making us look up references in books. It's so much better than than. He's living in us, working with us. and that should encourage all of us." EP
"I'm absolutely convinced that nothing--nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable--absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us."
God's promised gave identity. God-determined by promise.
Compassion originates in God's mercy.
Who in the world do you think you are to second guess God?
Hosea: "I'll call nobodies and make them somebody. I'll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, 'You're nobody!' they're calling you, 'God's living children.'"
God is sovereign. We are responsible; we have failed to believe. Since God is absolutely sovereign, his most characteristic action is giving. God's relationship with humans can't be maintained on any other basis. God is giving. God can't owe us anything and so pay us back. God can't need anything from us an so reward us for what we do for God. God can only give. Grace is the characteristic attribute. All we can do is receive God's gifts, or reject them. Faith is a receptive response to God's gift. Unbelief is a refusal of that gift, and ultimately a refusal of the giver.
Are you able to receive? Are you willing to receive gifts from God? None of us are rejected because we're bad, ignorant, poorly trained, or evil. Rejection is always a result of failure to accept God's gift. Only the person who refuses God's give is in a state of rejection. We must receive God's grace.
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