Luke

Are Your Doing What’s Important Now?

October 31, 2019 by Tim Sherfy

It’s a sad truth of life we spend our time doing things that seem important now, only to discover over time we have missed out on the things that actually are. Often parents discover in the process of working long hours to provide the best things for their families, they miss out on seeing their kids grow up. People pursue careers that bring them wealth and prestige only to recognize they have no friends at retirement.

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And Christ-followers? We spend our days pursuing the American dream, or perhaps incessantly volunteering with our church, only to discover we’ve left Jesus out of the equation. It is a tragedy being played out across our nation and throughout the world. We are spending our finite time in pursuit of things that will pass away instead of focusing on our eternal Savior.

Follow Him

October 21, 2019 by Tim Sherfy

Did you ever wonder what it must have felt like for the original disciples when they first heard Jesus invite them to follow Him? We read the story too quickly. Indeed, in its condensed form, it is easy to miss the gravity of the moment. Jesus beckoned them to follow Him, and they dropped their nets and ran after Him. How cool it must have been to be one of the original disciples. If only we had the opportunity, we think, we would have maximized it for all it was worth.

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While the compact telling in the Bible is powerful and shows the great commitment and faith of these men, it doesn’t paint the whole picture of what happened at that moment. These men didn’t just make a decision about what they would do with the rest of their lives, but they were also choosing to walk away from everything they had known.

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Focus and Distraction

October 14, 2019 by Tim Sherfy

Do you feel as if you spend most of your time simply keeping up with the demands of life, or are you experiencing freedom and fullness? Jesus came to set us free (Luke 4:18-21) and to give us a full and abundant life (John 10:10). Knowing this, why is it so many of us feel stressed out, chained to our jobs, and like we are drowning under the weight of everything we must get done?

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I do believe we can live in the peace of Jesus even in our social media obsessed and frenetic world. But we won’t ever experience the life God intended for us to live as long as our focus is on anything or anyone other than Him.

Who is Loving?

September 30, 2019 by Tim Sherfy

I read a convicting teaching from David Platt on the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the passage of Scripture where we find the story (Luke 10:30-37), a teacher of the law had challenged Jesus’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus proceeded to answer the man’s question by telling the aforementioned parable.

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As Pastor Platt related, Jesus showed the answer wasn’t about who we should love, but rather the focus was on who is the one who is loving. And this is the point: all who claim to be followers of Christ must live in a way that is always marked by love. We are to be the one who is loving to all people at all times.

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Doing the Work

September 12, 2019 by Tim Sherfy

Without a doubt, we are saved solely by the grace of God; there is nothing we can ever do to earn our salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9). On our own, we are all disqualified from salvation, because each of us has sinned and fallen short of God’s standard for eternal life (Romans 3:23). If not for the loving grace and mercy of God, we would all be lost and without hope. Thanks to His love though, we need not despair.

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Because of His amazing grace and the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, we can be saved from the hopelessness of sin. We can have hope because death is not the end for those who place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. I believe the sincerity of our faith is proven by doing the work He has given us to do (Ephesians 2:10). Our salvation is free, but it is not cheap.

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