|
| Discussion
Questions
|
|
 |
|
 |
Discussion Questions:1. What exactly is meant by abnodnaing everything? By commanding us to sell all of our possessions and give to the poor; are we to physically sell our ALL of possessions, and blindly follow Him living off the land as we go; or are we being told to realign our sites to let go of our desires for earthly possessions, and follow Jesus by helping the poor? [A Call to Treasure, Pg 17] One radical thought that came to my mind after I read this is shouldn't we give Jesus to the poor first? 2. Devotion is the art of giving your all to, and living your every moment for the object of your devotion. 3. Quite simply, our dedication to our spiritual life should reflect on other areas of our lives, and help us direct our footsteps in the way they should go. 4. Plain and simple, Jesus should be worthy of our devotion. He will provide our every need. 5. Basically to forsake your family, and love only Jesus.6. Speaking for myself, the ways, and not necessarily the wicked ways, of the world had a tendency to get in the way. Working rotating shifts, and long hours on many occasions kept me from walking as closely as I could have walked otherwise. At the time, I felt led to do it to provide for my wife and family. Ephesians 5:25 instructs husband to love their wife as Jesus loved his church, and to gave himself for it.7. An aspiration is a strong desire to achieve a something of greatness. A goal is gazed upon as more of a target to hit or achieve. In other words, having the desire to achieve a lofty goal would be an aspiration. 8. Costs would be giving up one's family, bearing one's the cross, and forsaking all worldly possessions. I do believe Pastor Jon covered these verses in his sermon a couple of Sundays ago. 9. On the surface, one would be quick to say everything means everything; but in reality, I would think one should be able to retain enough for survival. Although it's a not biblical reference, even the squirrel stored forage for the cold winter ahead. 10. These verses should apply, well, let me rephrase that . . . I should apply these verses to my life better than I do. Okay, before I realized the questions were above, I jumped right in, and laid pen to a few thoughts. Thankfully, I found the questions before posting my response, so I thought I would share the following thoughts primarily to add to the discussion, and hopefully, elicit some response. I might add that my initial thoughts, or first paragraph, were incorporated into my answer for question #1, too. I want to share this true story to provoke some thought. Some twenty-five years ago, I knew of a man who professed to be a Christian, and he gave to his church very faithfully, and then some; or so I was told. He made an excellent salary, but one day, he failed to report to work. Later in the day, the call came in that his car's battery was toast, and he did not have the money to buy a new one. The message that some of his co-workers heard was why was he abandoned by God, and his church. Opinions?Falling into the trap of worshiping ourselves in the guise of worshiping Jesus on Sunday morning [ What About Us?, Pg 13], to me, is a re-take, or a slant, of the Sunday morning Christian, and Monday morning non-Christian comparison that has been preached from more than one pulpit since I was a young fellow. I would venture to say that even before I was even born, too. I would like to read the book, The Cost of Discipleship, that was penned by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the midst of Nazi rule. Just thinking about its ramifications is awe inspiring to me. It is very easy to lose sight of the goal, too. Undoubtedly, some preachers who start churches have the proper intentions of saving souls, and having their flock grow in size. On the other hand, other preachers either lose sight of the goal, or even worse, never had this goal in their sites; and concentrate on creating their little kingdom on earth. I stop short of referring to these kingdoms as mega-churches cause I do not know the hearts of all churches, and I am not the one to judge. As we all should know, God does the judging, and deals with everything accordingly. We do not have to remember too far back to recall the kingdom builders who felt God's wrath after they turned from God, and started worshiping themselves.
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
(VISITOR) AUTHOR'S NAME
Faris
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
16 december 2014, 10:55:18
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
157.7.210.36
|
|
|
|
