What Is Jesus’ Top Concern?

Are you like me and never noticed a significant part of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep?
 

“So (Jesus) told them this parable, saying, ‘What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!”’” Luke 15:3-6


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Hurting for the Things That Break God’s Heart

 

I recently read an article by Ed Stezer, director of the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College, about change. In part, he said:

People hurt for their preferences when there’s change. But part of the role of pastors and church leaders is to help people hurt for the right things. When people don’t get things their way, it hurts them. That shouldn’t surprise you. But, instead, leaders have to help them hurt for the things that break the heart of God.

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Living for the Invisible

Living with Kingdom values requires a radical new perspective on life. Perhaps the first big step is adjusting our perspective to live for the invisible.
Let’s face it, life is hard! Obligations, responsibilities, expectations, duties, and all the stress that goes with them often doesn’t add up to the “abundant life.” The mundane and monotonous nature of life sometimes makes us feel like it’s not worth getting up out of bed.
 
Solomon, known as the wisest man who ever lived, hit the nail on the head in the book of Ecclesiastes. He had absolutely everything the world has to offer and a relationship with God, but he used one word to describe the emptiness we still feel:
 

“All is vanity” (Ecc. 1:2).

But Solomon also helps us understand the reason why we feel this emptiness. It’s because we are eternal beings temporarily trapped in time. Godly discontentment is built into our genetic structure because “(God has) set eternity in (our) heart” (Ecc. 3:11).


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