Parables

This is an excerpt form a devotional I am currently reading called His Parables.

"The parables are brilliant verbal constructs, traps for the unwary. They begin with common things: workers, master, mustard seeds. But each parable moves in a startling way from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Workers who labor for an hour are paid the same as those who've worked all day; a despised outsider shows more compassion for a mugging victim than do member of God's chosen people. The parables catch us out, force us to admit our petty, unimaginative ways of thinking. They cannot be absorbed passively; we must participate in them. Our response literally completes the story by making it our story....

Through the imagination we enact the fundamental principle that Jeusus came to teach: we must learn to see through the eyes of others. In allowing ourselives to be transported into the experience of others, art takes us our of ourselves, teaches us compassion. And because compassion means "suffering with," the imagination has to take into account the whole of reality including the existence of evil, death, and human folly."

-Gregory Wolfe

Proverbs 18

Proverbs 18:19,21
"An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city, and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."

Offending fellow Christians is a very dangerous thing. We are to work together to serve the Lord. Often times though we find ourselves having offended one another. How does this happen? We should help our brothers and sisters in Christ. And the way we should do that is not by criticizing but by helping eachother in our weak points. It is very frustrating to see a fellow Christian do something you are almost sure to be wrong. Even worse when you confront them about it, they get offended. We shouldn't condemn, just help eachother. Many times though we will find other believers unyielding like a fortified city. Don't be discouraged that many times they get offended. If a fellow Christian is wise, he will listen to what you have to say. The Proverbs say a wise man accepts a rebuke, and learns from it. Sometimes it isn't our fault they get offended, sometimes it is though.

Primary Goal Part 2

So what is our primary goal as Christians? Is it to do our best to save the world, in other words spread the gospel to every corner of the earth? Is it to become a pastor? Or is it to be really good, so that the unsaved will look at us and want to be like us? Well the answer happens to be choice four: None of the above. Now some may disagree and think that choice one is correct, didn't Jesus say to his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations? Well yes, he did. But that isn't our main focus. That statement sounds a little Bold and maybe wrong too, doesn't it? Well let's see why it isn't wrong, and that to tell the whole world isn't our main focus as a Christian.

In Mark 12: 28-30 it says, "One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, 'Of all the commanments, which is the most important?' 'The most important one,' answered Jesus 'is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all you soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

From this verse what do we see is our primary goal? To love the Lord with all we got, basically. Is that easy to do? No. It isn't. But after Salvation, the Holy Spirit cultivates a desire to love God in us. That, in and of itself, is assurance of our Faith. Loving God with all of our all is not easy, the Bible never promises an easy life for believers, the sin nature still resists and attempts to fight back.

From all this the question arises: How do we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? I believe that we must be willing to, that will open the door to allow the Spirit to cultivate that desire to better love and serve God.

James 4:8 is such an encouraging verse to me. "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
We have got to take the extra step to love God. Daily. If we don't live for God daily then we are just making it harder on ourselves to live for Him at all. The Bible says to love God with all your strength. That means giving all we've got to love God and to God.

Some may deduct from this that I am saying we should go live in a cave and read the Bible and pray until we die. Well that's isn't what my point is. Let's look at a verse.
Mark 12:30-31 "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.'"

Think about it, if we love our neighbor as ourselves won't we care about their eternal destination as we do ours? That is when we go to make disciples of all nations. In order to tell others of God, we need to know him first.