Zeph.2:3

“Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what He commands.

Seek righteousness, seek humility: perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.”

These are two lines from this Psalm that are punctuated by the word ‘seek.’ And these two lines reach out like searchlights into the heart. Over and over again the context of the Psalm calls for an expectation, an awareness, an awakening to the coming Day of the Lord, what it will bring, who will…

Men’s Retreat 4/28/12

Theme: Sermon on the Mount

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Heart

Explanation about the retreat.

Five sections:

1. 9-9:30 Introduction---Matt.3-4 to set the stage.

2. 9:30-10:45 Two by two

break

3. 11:00-12:15

sharing

lunch

4. 1-1:30 morning summary and most significant personal learnings

5. 1:30-2:15 Prayer and Laying on of Hands for All Souls and individuals

Introduction

The…

This passage is famous having made popular the epithet, ‘Doubting Thomas.’ Right or not Thomas has become the historical poster child for doubt. Perhaps we need to rethink the cultural image and see him in Scriptural reality.

Thomas was not with the disciples during the second appearance so they told him they had seen the Lord. His retort? He would not believe unless he did three things, saw the nail marks in Jesus’ hands, put his finger where the nail marks were and put his hand in…

The world hates you. Subtle though it be, it hates your mind, heart and spirit. That is the final truth about ‘the world.’ The reason will emerge here shortly. Also we want to make clear the world we’re talking about is not the earth. When God created everything He said it was good. It was what happened after that that changed everything. So when the New Testament talks about ‘the world’ it’s describing a spiritual structure of thought, principle, spirit and behavior operating apart from…

He is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Hallelujah!!!

The stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the neatness of the collapsed grave clothes, the appearance of angels, Jesus speaking to Mary Magdalene, His many appearances, the beginning and growth in the hearts and numbers of His followers, the changed world after and His still emblazoned touch on the present.

What happened 2000 years ago is still happening in the hearts and minds of those who believe He is not only risen and alive…

The religious, political and cultural authorities executed Jesus. They gave His body to His friends who took Him down from the Cross, laid Him in a tomb and removed from the world the greatest threat mankind faced in its attempt to keep God out of the human mind, heart and spirit. Man’s religious systems couldn’t accommodate the One God who became man while remaining God in Jesus, who faced down the devil, exposing him as the author of sin and evil and offering a relationship with Him in…

The Resurrection of Jesus is the most important, significant and dynamic event in all of human history. The brutally crucified itinerant rabbi-carpenter from an obscure province and an obscure people rose from the dead to be the central focal point in all of human existence. There is nothing that supercedes Him. All human existence, past, present and future, has to be sifted through Him, who He is and what He came to do. Our perception of life, its meaning, structure and purpose, can never…

The Resurrection put the final seal of approval on the life, the claims and the identity of Jesus. Each of these made sense out of the unseen, the spiritual dimension. What we are really doing here is what the disciples of Jesus did when they recorded His life. They were looking back in order to look forward. It was His presence they were called to proclaim and live. It made the Scripture the authority lifitng up the importance of the individual, gave every heart its true identity, its…

There is no more lingering shadow across the landscape of history than that of the Cross of Jesus. Wherever any person walks the daily pace of existence that shadow falls in front, behind, over and under the path they take. The Cross is the continuing reminder of four things. First, death takes us all. Second, Jesus, the One who hung upon it. Third, a question---why did He die? Fourth, the decision every heart has to make about Him. But the Cross is also a reminder that without it, without…

Three guys were tried for crimes against humanity.

Two guys committed crimes.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were given government trials.

Two guys had fair trials.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were whipped and beaten.

Two guys had it coming.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were given crosses to carry.

Two guys earned their crosses.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were mocked and spit at along the way.

Two guys cursed and spit…

Having a mind and having a heart are two facets of being human images of God. The third has to do with spirit, that which drives us into action. Everything Paul writes aims at bringing the spirit of a man in line with God the Holy Spirit. 1Cor.2 tells us that not only does God have the Holy Spirit but that man, being an image of God, has a spirit as well (vs.11). But there is another spiritual reality and that is the spirit of the world (vs.12). It is generated by ‘the prince of this world’,…

So the need to be right in the heart brings with it the need to be right in the mind, to justify why we respond to the need to be right the way we do. There is a real problem here because no matter how successful we are by worldly standards there is no ultimate satisfaction. We always seem to ask ‘What if?’ What if I had done things differently? What if I had been a better person? What if I had done a better job? What if I had tried harder? What if I had done something different with my…

People are created by God to be like Him. They are images of God having a mind, a heart and a spirit. They have the ability to believe, trust, have faith and justify why they think, decide and behave the way they do. Belief, trust and faith are what make us human. But, as Adam and Eve have shown, if what makes us human is used apart from God the end is disastrous. They learned the hard way that taking control apart from God and trying to justify why they did just doesn’t work. In fact the…

The natural sequence is from the heart to the mind because we are looking for a way to make reasoning sense out of what goes on in our heart, in the hearts of others and in the world around us. It’s in the mind that we build a system of principles to organize the way our heart responds. It’s the mind that sorts out our experience. It’s the mind that needs truth to build a stable belief. Without belief the heart doesn’t know what to trust which in turn opens it to living only for survival in…