29 Jun Comfort And The Cross
Deacon Hui Zhen - 5 June 2014
The Covenant Of God, Foundation Of Our Faith
The reason why we always fall back on our own strength, wits and ways to live our lives is because we have not truly understood and confirmed that the God we claim to know is indeed a true and living God, one who creates us to love us. Yet it is a journey of repeated confirming through all things that are happening in our lives, because God is always constantly revealing Himself to us through our experiences, especially failures. God was always revealing to Abraham his entire lifetime, even when he was ignorant of God's covenant; similarly, God is also doing the same thing to us today, always revealing to us through our encounters, failures and people in our lives. When we continue to seek God's presence and see how He is always inscribing the covenant deeper and deeper into our hearts, only then we will be bound by Him and desire to follow Him and live by the Spirit.
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1. The traps of Comfort.
- “Suffering”: Abstract
- The problem of “not having problems”
- Resistant to even little inconveniences
- Stay in comfort zones
- <Lk 9> 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
- Spiritual battles faced in comfort:
- People proud toward God (no need for Him)
- God-loving spirit put to sleep
- Flesh is stirred up
2. Be intentional about carrying the cross in the midst of comfort.
- [one slide] Cross and Comfort: Opposites or Correlated?
- If we do not carry cross intentionally:
- Devil will get us
- World will consume us
- Many things other than God will influence us
- Accusations grow
- Get listless about “God-stuff”
- Evangelism becomes non-urgent
- People who want to live by the truth will remain in a constant state of battling and tension
- Carry the Cross: Centre on God, Gospel and Kingdom
3. The importance of gatherings.
- <Heb 10> 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
- <Mt 18> 19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
- Value creates Momentum
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