Moments of Reflection
Taking God seriously is not only having a sensitive heart towards Him. It’s an inner craving to know Him more. Do you hunger and thirst after God?
Taking God seriously is not only having a sensitive heart towards Him. It’s an inner craving to know Him more. Do you hunger and thirst after God?
Living for Christ is a moment-by-moment lifestyle, giving what you have for God's service.
Sometimes it seems like your situation is hopeless and your life is unredeemable. But the truth is, there is freedom. In life there are two masters. One is an enemy, who will put you into bondage and a deathlike existence. The other is your Redeemer and Friend. You can only serve one, and the choice is yours.
As we share with God every worry that weighs us down, our circumstances may not change but we will. We begin to let Him carry the heavy loads that we can’t bear. We start to trust Him to handle the problems that we can’t control.
Life is not static; things are constantly changing. Have you ever stopped to thank God for not telling you the future? He dispenses life one day at a time and that’s how He wants us to live—trusting Him for each moment of every day.
And it was this intensity that caused prayer to degenerate from a flowing spontaneity to a rigid, packaged plan, dispensed routinely by the religious leaders. Prayer changed from privilege to an obligation.
It’s difficult to make sacrifices and give others our time, possessions, and money. But it’s in the giving we learn to rely on God instead of ourselves and it’s in the process we learn faith.
We live in a world full of jargon. Chuck studied the Scriptures and found Psalm 23 has 73 per cent single-syllable words. The Lord’s Prayer has 76 per cent single-syllable words. First Corinthians 13 is 80 per cent single-syllable words. What does that teach us about communication?
In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus took on the hypocrites with both guns blazing! Drawing on common examples of showy righteousness, He instructed us on the importance of being people of quiet sincerity, seeking to glorify God rather than impress others.
To summarize Scripture, the issue is not that possessions are wrong. It’s our attitude toward them. It is the LOVE of money and things that Scripture condemns. Anything we trust in besides God is an idol.