Love

Obedience to God

October 27, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

At its core, this blog is about discipleship. It’s about living your life wholly devoted to Christ so you can live out the life He created you to live. What this looks like in practice will vary from person to person, but the one thing all disciples have in common is obedience to God. By definition, obedience to God implies you have to do something in order to be His disciple. This isn’t a works based salvation; it’s works because of salvation.

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As A.W. Tozer once said, “Salvation without obedience is a self-contradicting impossibility!” Many people have bought into the teaching of salvation through grace alone to the exclusion of any responsibility for works of obedience. That’s a cheap and easy salvation never put forth by Jesus.

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Doesn’t Matter

October 24, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

I wrote a recent post about the upcoming Presidential election (see “Trump or Hillary?”), and I don’t want to belabor the point. Or maybe I do. The fact is Christianity is on the decline in America because people who call themselves Christians have misplaced their focus and lost their direction along the way. The upcoming election doesn’t matter. Your 401(k) balance doesn’t matter.

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The size of your house or the price of your car doesn’t matter. Your kid’s athletic participation doesn’t matter. Even the size of your church or your level of activity in it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is Jesus and you living a life He would find worthy of one of His disciples.

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Follow the Money

October 13, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

Do you want to know what’s really most important to you? Follow the money. Are you curious how close you are following the Lord? Follow the money. If you are wondering if your priorities are in order, well, you guessed it… follow the money. It’s easy to say we believe in something or hold some value important, but actions never lie. Neither does where we spend the money God has entrusted to our care.

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How we spend our money always tells the truth about who we are. Your bank account has no hidden agenda; it only has the mission you give to it. As pastor Aaron Brockett recently said, “Your heart will follow your money so send your money where you want your heart to be.”

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The Only Number Jesus Cares About

October 10, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

We live in a world obsessed with numbers. We count friends, likes, and shares of our posts and pictures on social media. We count the amount of money we have down to the last penny. Perhaps the place we most fixate about numbers is at church; we boast about attendance, number of people baptized, and even the number of programs available to the attendees.

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It seems even more incredible to me when you read the Bible and realize the only number Jesus cares about is one. It’s because one represents you, the apple of His eye and the passion of His heart.

Pray for Your Enemies

October 6, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

Jesus said to pray for your enemies (Matthew 5:44). I have a hard enough time making time to pray for my friends and family, so praying for my enemies has rarely made it high onto my priority list. I admit there was a certain sly satisfaction in knowing my prayers could heap piles of burning coals onto their heads (Proverbs 25:21-22). That’s more what I typically have in mind when I think about my enemies!

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Still, Jesus said if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. He didn’t say some of His commandments. His words certainly imply we keep them all. Thus, you must learn to pray for your enemies, and I must learn to pray for mine.