Pastor Chuck Swindoll shares how the kingdom shatters religious hypocrisy and performance while centring on the King Himself who unfolds the path to true happiness, effective living, and intimacy with God.
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.
As we go deeper into His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ words turn our attention from all the circus-like pizzazz of performance to the simplicity of prayer and fasting, two disciplines all-too-rarely done His way for His glory. Let’s seek out His counsel so we can carry out His instructions.
If your work has become your all-consuming interest, you need to plan some fun into your schedule. Give yourself permission to make leisure a priority in your life.
Do you become paralyzed by “what if” questions? What if it happens? What if it doesn’t? That’s what I call living hypothetically. There is a better way! Here are four ways the Bible instructs us to think.
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