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This week, we return to the pursuit of God’s will and His pleasure.
In recent weeks, this journey has taken us into the realm of suffering, where we have found that His will may well include undeserved suffering, and that He is pleased when we handle these experiences well. His pleasure is not sadistic, but is a Fatherly pride. When we behave this way, we look like one of His children – like His Son.
What …
As I begin this week’s article, I am traveling across the plains of New Mexico with the Wild Bunch, a group of guys who are a significant part of my journey. We are returning from a backpacking trip to the Pecos Wilderness in the mountains northeast of Santa Fe.
As I was anticipating this trip, I knew it would complicate my regular writing schedule. My original plan was to get this article written before I left, …
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In our pursuit of knowing God’s will and enjoying His pleasure, we have discovered that undeserved suffering may be a part of His will for each of us, and that He is pleased when we handle these experiences well. His pleasure springs, not from the fact that we are suffering, but from the family resemblance that is evident in those times. Because when we behave this way, we look like His Son. Like one …
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In our pursuit of God’s pleasure, which is to say, our pursuit of His will, I have tried to make two important points these past two weeks. First, God’s will is not, at it’s core, about a list of predetermined decisions that we have to get right. It’s about representing Him and reflecting His character.
Second, God does not score us against some standardized scale of performance. He is not our Examiner, He is our …
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In our pursuit of God’s pleasure, we’ve discovered that this pursuit is not a leisurely endeavor, as though it were over and above the pursuit of His will, but that the two are one and the same. The pursuit of God’s heart, of His pleasure, is the pursuit of His will.
And, we’ve discovered that His will, His heart, is not a mysterious list of questions for which we must get the answers right. Simply …
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So, we are exploring how we pursue God’s pleasure. We’ve discovered that this pursuit is not a leisurely endeavor, as though it were over and above the pursuit of His will, but that the two are one and the same. The pursuit of God’s heart, of His pleasure, is the pursuit of His will.
But this discovery has not made our pursuit any easier. We are still left with the question how we can know …
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So, if we are going to do the things which speak to God’s heart, that means that we need to know what those things are, right? But how do we do that? Where do we even begin? I mean, we’re not even sure what God’s will is most of the time, much less the things that speak to His heart.
I think that there are a couple of problems here.
The more obvious one is what …
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Ok, so we have begun to think of the marks of a disciple as commitments, and key to our transformation as disciples. And we have an idea of how these might look in our daily lives.
So we begin to think, “This commitment is a good thing. And if a little is good, more is better.” In the process we turn into the spiritual equivalent of Navy Seal wannabes.
This longer, faster, higher, harder approach can …
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So, our commitments mark us as a disciple . . . or not. And the core of those commitments is the type of unconditional submission that Jesus demanded in Luke 10:57-62.
But Jesus isn’t here today, walking the earth, compelling us to literally drop everything to join Him as He treks around Israel. So, what might this kind of commitment look like in our lives?
Honestly, although we may not recognize it, we regularly encounter situations …
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Now that we are thinking of the marks of a disciple as commitments, let’s explore the relationship between them.
To review, the commitments are:
Supreme Love for Jesus – Matthew 10:37-39; Luke 14:26
Regularity in His Word – John 8:31-33
Renunciation of My Agenda – “deny yourself” – Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23
Submission & Sacrifice – “take up your cross” – Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23
Pursue His Agenda – “follow me” – Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; …
