Welcome.
Despite a very fruitful night examining Sunday’s message What Do I Need Most From God Today? There is a check in my spirit as I type this. I would ask you to walk along for a bit, and bear with me.
Sometimes there is just no hope for the eyes. We trek through a dark, desolate landscape, and spend our time in a futile sort of mental fencing. We stab at our woes with visions of increased wealth, health, inner peace, knowledge, skill, or self-discipline. At best we gather ourselves, and maybe even arrive at some considerable milestone, only to again run afoul of our own fallen natures. And so it goes.
The heart of the problem, our shared tragic flaw, is insoluble. For anyone reading who has genuinely and permanently solved life, I submit that this blog post is not for you. I would very much enjoy coffee and conversation with you sometime. For the rest of us, the promises found in this sermon amount to a Life-hack. It contains the answers to all questions and the key to each and every situation in the game of life.
Understand and apply the Christ-spoken, red-letter guidance found between Matt 5:1 – 6:33, and you will not only beat the game, you will dominate it. The hack, however, is the most counter-intuitive, courageous, and difficult course of action imaginable. Even a quick read of The Beatitudes will leave you dubious about following its wisdom. The overview goes something like:
1. Give Up
Ask Jesus to save you from your sin and from yourself <John 3:16-18>. Understand that anything you say, think, or do that doesn’t begin, remain, and end in the heart and mind of God will be (must be) utterly destroyed. <Hebrews 12:26-28>
B.L.U.F. – God’s people NEED God’s power to do God’s work.
2. Lose your life.
When His will is your heart’s desire, at every turn, whatever flinching your soul and body does, you are on the path. Sufficient hunger and thirst for Him draws you further up and further in, clearing all obstacles en route. <John 12:25>
3. Give, Up
Cheerfully give all you are for the Kingdom, up to your Father, pouring out all within you. Turn to more important matters than transporting gold to your grave. Bravely face each moment as if it were your first, yet treat every life you touch as if it will end at midnight. Be unafraid; nothing here can harm you except yourself.
B.L.U.F. – we MUST be salt and light throughout the journey; walk (as a church & an individual) in mercy, purity, and peace.
4. Don’t Mess with Your Mission
God’s will for your life only comes in two flavors: His perfect will and His circumstantial will. That is, His original, pristine mission for you before you ever once went off course and His will for you from where you are today. They are lived in precisely the same way; with purity and abandon. We don’t try to create our own solutions <Isaiah 50:10-11>, nor do we accept the comfort of the enemy <1 Cor 5:6>, or take the counsel of our fears <2 Timothy 1:7>.
B.L.U.F. – Work the promises and the promises will work for you
The Life-hack, straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. It’s that simple and that difficult.
Our Hope is so great.
><> d & n
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