This could be a big one (forgiveness, friendship with God, life to the full, life forever, etc, etc, etc) but I've just been amazed at how people can choose to follow Jesus and not realise how amazing grace really is and that God's forgiveness is total, complete and permanent. If you think following Jesus means you still need to work hard to earn God's love and not lose his forgiveness, think again because it's much better than that! Am I making it up? No! It's all in the Bible if we want to go looking (and we should - especially if we say we follow Jesus)...
Ephesians 1:3-14
Ephesians 2:1-10
The passages above are an incredible list of all the amazing things God has given everyone who has put their trust in Jesus. Have a good read and try and take it all in! It's better than you think and it doesn't depend on you! There's nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less than he does right now and if you've put your faith in Jesus, he's given you so much and it's a done deal! Jesus has saved you and there's no going back!
Loving that.
Mark 6:6-12 Bible study questions
- Jesus is sending his disciples on a mission. How is the mission organised and what does he give them for the job (v7)?
- The mission would involve some of the stuff Jesus had been doing. Have a scan back through the previous stories in Mark. What kind of things was Jesus sending them to do?
- What does he tell them to take with them (v8-9)? Why do you think this was all they needed?
- If the welcome was good, what should they do (v10)? Why do you think this is?
- If the welcome was bad, what should they do and why (v11)?
- Miracles were part of it but what was the main focus of the mission (v12)?
- What can we learn from this about our mission if we're following Jesus?
- How is our mission going?
- What kind of things should we be saying/doing? What kind of questions might help?
- What should we be praying for?
Small is beautiful?
I've been loving listening to 'Dinosaurs will die' by NOFX recently. Great band. Great song. Thoughtful lyrics too about the music industry.The punk in me loves bucking trends and leapfrogging right over the organised system of things, especially when they're driven by money. 'Underground', 'small', 'personal', 'real', 'honest' - these are all words that appeal to me and I think for good reason but is small always good? I admit I have a bias towards narrow appeal but what if there was something big that was good - even better than anything or anyone else?
As well as being a punk, I'm a Christian and that means (to start with) that I believe in God - the one who's bigger than any of us and better too. I believe he's the ultimate and that we can know him personally and live for him and expect big things to happen. Big but not big because of money or commercial success - just big because it's God and he does things big.
So what's this about? I'm not sure. Maybe that I shouldn't always be instinctively against things just because they're big and organised. We should be more discerning than that. Maybe when God has anything to do with anything, big budgets might be a part of it and maybe even commercial 'success'? Who knows? One thing's for sure though, only the best good things will survive when everything else dies out. Dinosaurs will die and in the meantime, I'll try not to be so skeptical.
1 John blog
- Is seeing believing? (1 John 1:1-4)
- Come into the light! (1 John 1:5-10)
- Living in the light (1 John 2:1-6)
- KNOW you are (1 John 2:7-14)
- Is our world really that bad? (1 John 2:15-17)
- Who is the 'antichrist'? (1 John 2:18-27)
- She's got her dad's nose! (1 John 2:28-29)
- Amazing love (1 John 3:1-3)
- Spot the difference (1 John 3:4-10)
- Being different (1 John 3:11-24)
- Who's right and wrong? (1 John 4:1-6)
- True love (1 John 4:7-21)
- Being is believing (1 John 5:1-5)
- A simple choice (1 John 5:6-12)
- Everything is different with Jesus (1 John 5:13-21)
Mark blog
- Intro - The action is go!
- Mark 1:1-8 - Big plans, big news
- Mark 1:9-20 - Drop what you're doing
- Mark 1:21-45 - The mission kicks off
- Mark 2:1-12 - Forgiving sin and proving it
- Mark 2:13-17 - Sick and stuck
- Mark 2:18-22 - Not so fast
- Mark 2:22-3:6 - Troublemaker
- Mark 3:7-12 - Pulling a crowd
- Mark 3:13-19 - Choosy
- Mark 3:20-34 - Forget about it
- Mark 4:1-20 - What does it take?
- Mark 4:21-25 - Show time!
- Mark 4:26-34 - Seeds
- Mark 4:35-41 - Quite a storm!
- Mark 5:1-20 - Not about pigs
- Mark 5:21-43 - Touch
- Mark 6:1-6 - Prophet or loss?
- Mark 6:6-13 - Over to you!
- Mark 6:14-29 - Herod's guilt
- Mark 6:30-44 - Feeding 5000
- Mark 6:45-56 - Walking on water
- Mark 7:1-23 - Religion sucks!
- Mark 7:24-30 - To the dogs
- Mark 7:31-37 - Ephphatha!
- Mark 8:1-21 - Miracle meal and missing the point
- Mark 8:22-30 - Opening eyes physically and spiritually
- Mark 8:31-38 - Cross words
- Mark 9:1-13 - A rare glimpse!
- Mark 9:14-29 - Prayer power
- Mark 9:30-37 - True greatness
- Mark 9:38-42 - Starting where people are
- Mark 9:43-50 - Cut it off!
- Mark 10:1-12 - Promises, promises
- Mark 10:13-31 - Childlike or richlike?
- Mark 10:32-34 - Monumental predictions!
- Mark 10:35-45 - The power of serving
- Mark 10:46-52 - Seeing things
- Mark 11:1-11 - Donkey
- Mark 11:12-26 - Angry like Jesus
- Mark 11:27-33 - Questioning authority
- Mark 12:1-12 - In for the kill
- Mark 12:13-17 - Right on the money!
- Mark 12:18-27 - Resurrection and marriage
- Mark 12:28-34 - Love God, love others
- Mark 12:35-44 - Looking carefully
- Mark 13 - The end of the world
- Mark 14:1-11 - Anointing and betrayal
- Mark 14:12-26 - The new Passover
- Mark 14:27-31 - Known failure
- Mark 14:32-42 - Suffering for suffering
- Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus is arrested
- Mark 14:53-72 - Unfair trials and bitter tears
- Mark 15:1-20 - And justice for all
- Mark 15:21-32 - Crucified and mocked
- Mark 15:33-47 - Jesus: dead and buried
- Mark 16 - Jesus is alive!
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