Author: Craig

Key Verse ~ Work

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The Gospel redeems you and your work.

23Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.   Colossians 3:23-24

Our relationship to work is to flow from our relationship with Jesus. Therefore what we do is an offering to Him.

What’s your work? Who’s your work for? “Working only for the man” or the dollar, can rob work of meaning, generate bitterness in relationships, and truly make us slaves of rotten bosses and systems.

What’s your work? Do it heartily for Him. Let Him redeem your time, energy, passion, skills, and heart.

Study heartily for the Lord.

Solve problems heartily for the Lord.

Serve heartily for the Lord.

Lead heartily for the Lord.

Teach heartily for the Lord.

What do you believe about stress?

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For the most part my friends at UBC are not too stressed… yet. However, I’ve been thinking that before it gets tough it might be good to pre-load some different thinking about stress.

How you think about stress even what you believe about stress makes a difference.

Jesus was straightforward with His disciples on the matter encouraging them not to think that following Him was the end of stress. He said, “In this world you will have troubles.” Through the Gospel of Jesus we are encouraged to consider our troubles as an opportunity to grow in our faith. James writes,

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  James 4:2-4

Activating our faith in Jesus gives meaning and resets our outlook to being God-centered rather than self-centered.

I have wondered if our faith affects us physiologically, all they way to a cellular level.

In the talk below Kelly McGonigal, who has been talking about how bad stress is for us, shares how recent studies have changed her message.

 

 

 

Key Verses ~ Jesus

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Key Verse s~ Jesus

John 14:6-7

6Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. 7If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”

Jesus had been talking with the Disciples about His impending return to His Heavenly Father after he would suffer on the cross. He told them, “you know the way to where I am going.” But Thomas said, “No, we don’t know. We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

But they did. He was returning to His Heavenly Father. They knew Jesus so they knew the way. They had seen Jesus, so they had seen God.

Revolutionary.

God’s Spirit and the Frontiers of Your Soul

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Years ago I read Dallas Willard’s phrase “the unexplored frontiers of the human soul” and his encouragement that we go there as pioneers. I want to go there with God. The Apostle Paul joyfully reminds the church in Corinth of God’s gift of the Spirit to take us into the expanse of God’s love, His thoughts, and His free gifts for us.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined

what God has prepared for those who love him.”

10But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. 12And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.  1 Corinthians 2:9-12

Crowd-Sourcing Obedience

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Waiting for the crowd is tempting.

Who’s in your crowd? You know… its the people you worry about and give energy to managing their approval.

Crowd-sourcing obedience to Jesus is deadly.

Jesus warns against waiting for the crowd before responding to His grace and call to follow Him.

13“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.  Matthew 7:13-14

Thankfully Jesus assures us of His Presence as we seek the grace to obey Him. The conviction to obey Jesus over the approval of people is sourced by our acceptance of  His Lordship and His promise to be with us.  See John 14:15-21:

15“If you love me, obey my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. 18No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. 19Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. 20When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”