The in-out work of God

http://rdcramblings.com/

To know Jesus,

To be like Jesus,

To make Jesus known

If your church vanished, would your community

care?

Matthew 28:16-20Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The church is called to an inward and outward work:inward - making disciples, becoming more like Jesusoutward - reaching the nations, seeing the lost saved

Mission in the manner of Jesus

Jesus really loved God

“If we do not love God first and with the greatest of our energies then all else becomes maladjusted in our lives. We live in half heartedness, selfishness and compromise”Jn 5:19Matt 26:37-46

"When God gives a vision by His Spirit - of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of the vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view our Lord never had - you can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ, or for going back as a deserter."

Oswald Chambers

Are you obsessed with Jesus?

Jesus only wanted the Fathers will

Jn 4:34 -35, 5:19Time in the presence of the FatherJesus prioritisedJesus sacrificed

E Stanley Jones,

“Someone once asked me how I maintained my spiritual life - certain hours do not belong to the day - they’re out. They belong to getting strength for the day. If I let down these hours, the day lets down with them. I am better or worse as I pray more or less. The day sags if the prayer hour sags.”

“We are uncomfortable with

silence because silence forces us to

face God.”Robert Solomon

“The question that must guide all our organising activity...is not how to keep our people busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence”Henri Nouwen

Jesus ministered out of compassion“...it was a word coined by the evangelists themselves. They did not find one in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one. It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the bowels—a yearning of the innermost nature with pity”

CH Spurgeon

Mark 1: 40-42A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees,“If you are willing, you can make me clean.”Jesus was indignant. [Moved with compassion] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said.“Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

Matthew 15:32 - Feeding 5000Matthew 14:14 - Large crowd - compassion on healed the sick.Matt 9:36 - large crowd without a shepherdMatt. 20:34 - heals two blind menLuke 7 - the son of the widow of Nain

Jesus hated the works of

the devil

1 John 3: 8, 9Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God."to obliterate, to dismember so it can never be put together again".

Rom 12:9,10Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.Honor one another above yourselves.

Proverbs 8:13To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

Jesus ministered in the power of the Spirit

Luke 4:1ff, 18,19Acts 10:34,

Jesus ministered Salvation

Luke 19:10Mark 10:45

• “Doing the ministry of Jesus is a bit like climbing Mt. Everest...The vast majority of people who attempt to climb Everest never make it to the top. The physical challenges include miles of strenuous hiking, thousands of feet of climbing, negotiating glaciers and treacherous ice fields, and fighting the most extreme weather conditions on earth. Most difficult of all is the lack of oxygen near the summit - called “the Death Zone.” If you and I were flown to the summit of Everest right now, we would pass out in a few minutes, and die shortly thereafter.

•Through the wonder of acclimatization the human body is able to adapt to extreme oxygen deprivation. If you take enough time at high altitude, your body will adjust to the limitations of the air. So, climbers of Everest hike to base camp at 17,000 feet. There they must wait for several weeks, making only short forays to higher altitudes. If they wait patiently, eventually their cardiovascular systems will be empowered for the challenge ahead. But waiting is the key. If they rush ahead, the climbers will fail, and most probably die.

•No matter how enthusiastic the first disciples might have been, no matter that they had spent three years with Jesus and had conversed with him after his resurrection, they were not yet ready for the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical challenges of proclaiming the good news of Christ to all nations. They had to wait in Jerusalem until their preparation for ministry was complete.