Q: Did you find it? The bible says, he who has "found" his life will lose it and he who has "lost" his life for my sake will find it..What does that mean?
A: Matthew 10:39 says, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Salvation is the restoration of the life of God. We are spiritually dead in sin before we come alive to God in Christ. Prior to that point in our life our desires are our own; driven by the flesh. We don't have any alternative, but to sow to our flesh. However, when God restored His life to us, that we lost in Adam, and we became new creations, our whole life changed, including our desires. We begin to see the world through the eyes of the Lord and realize the importance of sharing the Gospel. In this process the life we once lived of trying to gain the world slowly starts to disappear. We have gained eternal life and lost our earthly life. We now live "for [his] sake" and not our own. We may suffer the loss of friends, family, careers and more for the sake of Christ, but we have been given so much more in Him. We have lost our lives, but have been given the very life of God!
Q: As a Christian what is our ultimate "purpose"?
A: Purpose, by definition, is an end to be attained. Our purpose as Christians is to allow the Lord to live the Christian life through us so as to be a light to the dark world. The reason God has given us everything for life and godliness and blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ is so that we can rest from our works and become living sacrifices to Him. In this way we don't spend our lives trying to get earthly and fleshly blessings from Him, but rather be a blessing to others for Him. As we live a life of trust and dependence on Him we can be the ambassadors of Christ that we truly are. We are representatives of the Kingdom of God here on foreign soil. In this way the scriptures can be fulfilled when it says, "His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility (Eph. 2:15-16)." God's purpose is for Jew & Gentile to be one in Christ.
Q: "Move out my way"! The bible says "speak" to the mountain and it shall "move"..How do we apply that statement to our lives?
A: We don't apply it to our lives. We aren't little gods with the power to move mountains. Jesus said, "if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there and it will move (Mat. 17:20)." This wasn't a statement that we have faith to move mountains, but a statement of how small our faith is. Besides, it isn't how big our faith is, but how big our God is. Faith is only as good as the object of our faith. And the object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Paul said that "if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2)." Even if you could move mountains with your faith it is nothing apart from love. And we cannot love apart from knowing that "We love because he (God) first loved us (1 Jn 4:19)." Again, it all comes back to God, who showed us what love is by sending Jesus Christ. And it is Jesus who is "the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2)." We have faith in Him and His ability, not in ourselves.
Q: I DIDN'T MARRY YOU! The bible says honor thy mother and father. Should your parents have the "right" to make decision in your marriage?
A: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (Gen 2:24)." When a man, or a woman, leaves his or her parents it is to be "united" with his wife. United means to "form a single whole or unit." Therefore, they "become one flesh." This means that the married couple makes the decisions. Parents, depending on the situation, can and should be a resource for the marriage as they have wisdom and experience to offer. But, they don't have a "right" to make a decision in your marriage. If a parent has done their job and trained a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it (Prov. 22:6;Eph. 6:4). In the best case scenario, you will have a Christian marriage, grounded in the Lord, with parents on both sides available to offer guidance when asked. Parents must trust the Lord to guide their children when they've been married as well as trust Him themselves to guide them away from controlling the marriage.
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