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What’s your mission in life? Is it to make more money and own more things? Wouldn’t you love to stop living for things? And to start really living the way God intended?
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave His followers a new mission to stop living things and to start living for God. We can follow Christ’s new mission to stop living for things and to start living for God.
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Do you run out of money before you run out of month? Do you get anxious about your debts, how you will pay them? As Ben Franklin said, “He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.” Are you experiencing the sorrow of out of control spending and indebtedness?
Wouldn’t you like to know how to manage your finances, so that you are able to get out of debt, meet your families needs and be more generous with God and others? In the book of Luke, Jesus taught his disciples a parable to illustrate how to wisely manage money and possessions with an eternal perspective. We can wisely manage our money and possessions with an eternal perspective.
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You already have a “mindset” about money. Everyone does. Some are spenders and some are savers. Some are givers and some are takers. What’s your mindset on money?
So how do you change your mindset? How do you get a new and good mindset on money? In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught his disciples a parable about being faithful with what He had entrusted to them until his return. We can be faithful with what the Lord has entrusted to us until his return.
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Like Charlie Brown, when we make Christmas about something other than the coming of Christ, we’ll always be disappointed. If we make it about spending money and giving and receiving gifts, sure we might be happy for a day. But the bill for the gifts we put on our credit cards in December, come due in January. After the gifts, the food and the fun, there’s the cleanup and the packing away of Christmas decorations and lights. Our holiday festivities that we looked so forward to, always quickly come to end. Where’s the meaning? Where’s the joy that lasts for more than a day?
The answer is only found in understanding the true meaning of Christmas, by seeing the Genuine Light of Christmas found in the coming of Jesus Christ.
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Do you ever feel alone? Christmas is just around the corner, and for many people that means family, fun, and a few days spent in the company of the people we love. Except that, for some of us, Christmas time represents none of these things. For some, it will be a time of loneliness, trauma and great anguish. Many of us will spend this Christmas grieving for the people we’ve said goodbye to since last year. The parents we’ve lost. The friends. The children. Others may be reminded of insurmountable fractures in their familial relationships – the people we no longer speak to, the parties we can no longer in good conscience attend.
How can we experience the true light of Christmas this year? A light that overcomes our broken hearts and broken relationships? The apostle John tells us that Jesus came to light up our lives, so that we might know and be made right with God the Father. Jesus offers to be the Light of your life!
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Understanding the true meaning of Christmas begins by understanding and admitting the darkness of our world. Not the darkness of winter’s short days, but the darkness of ignorance and evil, suffering and pain, fear and anxiety, dark despair and gloomy grief. These and more describe what the Bible means by “darkness.”
It’s not enough to recognize the darkness in our world, nor is it enough to think you can brighten it through your own good intentions and efforts. In fact, this is the very reality that the Light of Christmas reveals: That we not only live in a dark world, but we have a darkness in our souls that cannot be enlightened without a Light from outside ourselves, a Great Light that could overcome our soul’s darkness. In Isaiah 9, he encouraged the people of Israel with a Messianic prophecy of a Son who was to be born as a great light that would overcome the world’s darkness. We can believe that the great Light that overcomes the world’s darkness has come in the person of Jesus.
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Over the last three weeks, we’ve talked about the first two qualities of disciple-making. This week, we will focus on the third quality, Heart for Our World.
The gospel always goes against our excuses and our temptations. What’s the antidote for the sinful, “curved inward” bent of our souls? The gospel of Christ offers the antidote. And it bids us to turn our hearts outward towards God, each other and our world. In the book of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul challenged believers to answer Christ’s call to have a heart for their world. We can answer Christ’s call to have a heart for our world.
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This week, we will focus on the second quality, Heart for Each Other. We live in a time when it is easier to stay in touch, but people are starving for a in-person touch.
What’s the solution to our increasing loneliness and social isolation? A loving relationship with Jesus and through Him a loving relationship with one another. Jesus invites us to follow Him and belong to His family. In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he reminded them that as Christ-followers they were to show a heart for each other. As followers of Christ, we are to show a heart for each other.
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We are called to make disciples of Jesus. What should those disciples look like? The first and most important thing is they should have a growing Heart for God.
In Psalm 96, David taught the Israelites how to worship with a true heart for God. We can worship with a true heart for God.
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Whenever God wants to get a work done, He lays hold of a people who are willing to rise up. In the Old Testament, it was Nehemiah and those returning from Babylonian exile who answered the call of God to Rise Up. Today, God is calling us! In Matthew 28:19, Jesus called us to make disciples. But what should they look like?
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. We believe that’s the kind of disciples He wants us to make–– disciples of Jesus who have a heart for God, for each other, and for our world.