The central point of our Christian lives is our deep, abiding relationship with Jesus, not our public usefulness to others. Our endeavor to become like Christ should precede our activities for Christ. If we spend lots of our time in over-activity instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s word, we will snap when the storm and stress come.
–Adapted from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest
Worship produces a marveling effect that deeply satisfies our hearts so that we come to a point where we don’t feel the need to sin just to be happy.
Every single sin we do is a result of the deeper sin of unbelief- unbelief in the ability of God to give us the satisfaction we are all looking for. When this happens,we feel that the burden falls on us to go out there and find something to satisfy our souls.
Our obsession… our scorecard must always must be shaped by a desire to see lives transformed by the power of Christ, not just to run certain mathematical formulas to grow.
…the focus of many in the Church Growth Movement was more on formulas than on faithfulness.
Randy Alcorn, in his introduction to Mark Galli’s book God Wins, wrote about how preachers should not skip the doctrine of hell just because it seems to paint a negative picture of God:
Our job is not to be God’s public relations manager or make Him popular. The Almighty doesn’t need us to give Him a face-lift and airbrush His image. “But surely it isn’t bad to try to make God look good, is it?” The question is, look good on whose terms? God has His own terms. Our task is not to help people see God favorably but to see Him accurately…
The 12-21-12 scare of the Mayan calendar is one practical reason why we need to pay attention to eschatology. I am not kidding.
As Christians, we can not afford to ignore these things while many misguided teachings fly around. Many of us have seen the tragedy of people believing erroneous teachings about end times. Some have even sold their properties and stopped pursuing the advancement of their careers in anticipation of the coming of Christ. It shouldn’t be that way. The coming of Christ is supposed to be our blessed hope, not something that causes us to stop being reasonable.
When I was in college, I personally know of a well-meaning Christian family who sold their properties (and carabaos!) because of a prediction that the world will end in the midnight between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000. The disappointment (and embarrassment) that dawned with the morning of the year 2000 was too painful to watch. While the neighbors sneered at their misplaced faith, I was struck with a sobering truth: wrong eschatology is no laughing matter.
Jojo Agot 