Mark 5:21-34, The woman who touched Jesus' garment
James 4-5
Can you trust God with our desires?
This is why you must be urgent about knowing your destiny and completing your mission. Jesus said, "All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, because there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end." (John 9:4 NLT)
When it comes to planning, many Christians act like atheists. They realized Jesus saved them, but they don't really trust him. They think they can plan their life any way they want to. But the reality is everyone is created by God, and he made each person for a unique purpose. He has a specific destiny for everyone.
This is why you must be urgent about knowing your destiny and completing your mission. Jesus said, "All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, because there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end." (John 9:4 NLT)
When it comes to planning, many Christians act like atheists. They realized Jesus saved them, but they don't really trust him. They think they can plan their life any way they want to. But the reality is everyone is created by God, and he made each person for a unique purpose. He has a specific destiny for everyone.
-he won’t give what you want of your heart until your heart is built to receive these desires
-life is meant to be lived by receiving, not giving
-Don’t we all know how everyone ought to live? I mean, we are not good at managing our own lives but managing others.
-you bring Jesus in, live your whole life as a living sacrifice. Don’t live in the arrogance of your own speaking.
-When we just say our dreams, we are not relying on God but opening an escape hatch for our own will
-because they weren’t expecting problems, they were unprepared for them- married people who God put together to marry
-the significance of our life is not that we are alive but because we are loved
-the gift is not the response to the gift, but in doing…it’s not our gift, it’s god’s business
-the recession has caused the arrogance in our financial resource has been ripped away. The thing is…what happens when everything turns around, will our hearts be aligned with heaven?
=we try to push belief onto people who have no capacity to believe. Jesus’ strategy is to push softly, little by little.
-sometimes all you can do is endure
-God is looking for feisty people, who are going to fight on, the world is not going to win.
James 5
Wealth has created an attitude of superiority, and they became wealthy by defrauding the poor
Money doesn’t get you what you think it gets
Don’t let your difficult circumstances turn you into a complainer
5:12-above all, don’t swear but yet your yes be yes and let your no be no so you won’t face judgment (integrity)
1. “Don’t make oaths” –(swear)
2. Supernatural roulette wheel- what are we trying to do? We are being superstitious, trying to control outcomes by various kinds of things that don’t necessarily flow from the patience that carry us through the day and the night.
1. This is the meaningless repetition that Jesus is criticizing
2. You are related to the father as the father is to son
3. Don’t try to manipulate God through superstition, it’s not magic, it’s faith.
God doesn’t work from a mechanistic world, but from a relational world.
-if you are person living from the inside out, living with integrity that you can take to the bank, then GOOD.
If we can’t complain or manipulate outcomes, what can we do?
1. pray
Don’t try to put God on the back end, put God on the front end
Bring God into the good times and the bad times, but whatever you do, don’t do it alone
When we are not suffering, what are we going to do?
1. When things are going well, give thanks
2. Know that God exists in the good and bad, so address him on both sides
Sometimes, sickness is related to sin
1. If your sick, don’t do it alone
2. The prayer offered in faith standing in the reality that God can heal, will raise him up
a. What happens when the healing doesn’t happen?
i. When standing in front of God and it doesn’t happen, something else must be going on here.
ii. If we pray for the sick in this way, it’s not the way that we do it, but it’s the Lord that restores it.
iii. There are people that haven’t respected the blood of the lord, and the sickness acts as punishment, not consequence
iv. Not every sickness is related to sin
v. God is not looking for ways to punish you, but for ways to forgive you
3. We think the only way think sins can be forgiven if we ask
a. Jesus asked on the cross for our sins to be forgiven
i. We enter the sin that has already been forgiven by Jesus
4. If the skeleton stays in the closet, it has power over you, if you get the skeleton out, it has no power in the present
-James ends his book in prayer (important)
-if anyone strays from the truth and you turn them back to the course of truthfulness, the one who turns the person away will turn their own soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin
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