Jesus' pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for God matters infinitely more than we do.
Worship plays a major role in the Christian daily life. Throughout Scripture we see worship from David dancing before the Lord to Jesus rejoicing in the Spirit.
It's easier to keep your stuff then it is to expose it, because some people don't get it. At the cross, at the feet of Jesus, there were some people who said, "Good! I'm glad that you're dead. " Then there were some that were crying and saying, "Why are you doing this to this innocent man?" It is not easy to do.
If I had 300 men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and were determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, I would set the world on fire.
Discipleship is the art and science of helping people find, follow and fully become like Jesus. Discipleship happens as God's people show love, share truth and live life with one another, making new disciples along the way.
All our language about the future. . . is like a set of signposts pointing into a bright mist. . . the New Testament image of the future hope of the whole cosmos, grounded in the resurrection of Jesus, gives as coherent a picture as we need or could have of the future that is promised to the whole world, a future in which, under the sovereign and wise rule of the creator God, decay and death will be done away with and a new creation born, to which the present one will stand as mother to child.
In other words Luke's story is historically impossible and internally inconsistent. He lied to fudge the fulfillment of Micah's prophesy and to provide a villain to play off Jesus in his fictitious drama. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling.
