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  • 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 True Discipleship: Boasting in the Lord

    True Discipleship: Boasting in the Lord

    Introduction: In the letters of 1st and 2nd Corinthians Paul mentions boasting 32 times. Both in the Gospel John and for the last number of weeks we have talked about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. In 2 Corinthians, Paul gives a much neglected description of foundation principles for being a disciple of Christ. Whether because the letter is typically neglected or because it is misunderstood, it would be safe to say that most Christians have not grasped the message.

    The key to the letter is the phrase boasting in the Lord. We read it easily enough. We say it regularly. But do we understand it in Paul’s context?

    1. 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Setting Up the Message
      1. As most of you are aware, the Corinthians had been beguiled by a group of false teachers. They had “tampered” with God’s word, preaching “plausible words of wisdom,” and using “disgraceful, underhanded ways” to commend and boast in themselves as “super-apostles.” Their message was that of health and wealth, perfectly fitting into the liberal culture of the day. Their boast was in themselves, using a carnal foundation of popularity to promote their agenda.
      2. The text before us is the conclusion of a detailed, argument Paul has waged against these boasters. He introduced his concluding triumphant argument in 10:17-18, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” Those very words are a repetition of how he introduced 1 Corinthians (1:31), indicating that boasting in the Lord is thematic through both letters.
      3. The key to this final text (11:1–12:10) is Paul’s attempt to show the foolishness of boasting in any earthly accomplishments. To illustrate this he contrasts the boast of the false teachers with his own boast. He calls it foolish to do so, but we quickly get the message when we see Paul’s boast, not in accomplishments, but in suffering for Christ.
      4. Before we discuss the details, let’s quickly highlight the overall message of the text.
        1. Paul’s final “boast” would have trumped anything these “super-apostles” could have imagined. Though Paul diverts attention away from himself, he speaks of visions and revelations he had received when he was caught up to the third heaven (Paradise).
        2. However, it isn’t the revelations that he intends as his boast (vs. 6). Instead, it was the “thorn in the flesh” he was given by a “messenger of Satan” to harass him. God used this to keep him from becoming arrogant (in the Greek, twice repeated in this verse). Of course, “conceited” or “arrogant” [NET] is the very thing that the false teachers were.
        3. Paul’s response to this “thorn” was to pray three times for the Lord to remove it. But the Lord refused. God’s answer was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 
        4. With that answer, Paul seems to understand all the more value in the weaknesses the Lord intends for him to suffer. In fact, he will now gladly boast in his weaknesses. 
        5. Boasting Is Reflected in How We View Living
          1. Let’s begin with the OT context of the twice quoted verses, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:23-24). “Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” 
          2. At the time of the writing, Judah was at the brink of destruction by Babylon. Those who boasted in their ability to escape exile or death because of wisdom, power, or wealth, would be destroyed. The only answer was knowing the Lord and boasting in him and his steadfast love and having confidence in God’s deliverance.
          3. While the context of Jeremiah is exclusive trust in God in the midst of trial, Paul uses the phrase “boasting in the Lord” in a broader sense of our complete dependency on God. This principle may sound easy, but the challenge of giving up control especially when threatened by severe trials goes against all our natural inclinations.
          4. 1 Corinthians 1:17–31 introduces for us how to live boasting in the Lord. We have already mentioned that Paul quoted Jeremiah 9 at the beginning of 1 Corinthians and at the end of 2 Corinthians. Therefore, Paul introduces both letters by the principles in this text. Notice the words & phrases that reveal the message of the text:
            1. Verses 17-18
              1. “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel…” Baptism is symbolic of a Christian’s death to self. 
              2. “Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power…for the word [message] of the cross is folly to those who are perishing…” Jesus death on a cross is symbolized in our baptism, but also is a “message” of how our lives are to be lived.
              3. Therefore, the preaching of the cross is emptied of its power when the gospel of health and wealth is preached and lived instead of taking up our cross.
              4. Verse 23: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” Why this reaction? Because living the message of the cross did not exalt Jews or Gentiles. It only exalts Christ (Verse 26). 
              5. Verses 27-31 The key phrase, “God chose… so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” In other words, we come to realize that whatever we accomplish comes to nothing, and only through living the cross of Christ do we find strength.
              6. John MacArthur states, “God’s wisdom is a kind of paradox. In human thinking, strength is strength, weakness is weakness, and intelligence is intelligence. But in God’s economy some of the seemingly strongest things are the weakest, some of the seemingly weakest things are the strongest, and some of the seemingly wisest things are the most foolish. The paradox is not by accident but by God’s design.”
              7. Only in Christ do we have that which is eternal and truly important: wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
              8. In 1 Corinthians 4:8-16 Paul condemns the Corinthian pursuit of a life of ease so that they could boast in themselves.
              9. In 2 Corinthians, Paul follows up with illustrations of living a life of boasting in the Lord. We only have time to summarize these illustrations to get the impact:
                1. 2:14 “God always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” We have been conquered by Christ, led in a procession by which some of us will die to glorify him, and the rest will live as his captives proclaiming him. 
                2. 4:6-12 We have the “treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ…in jars of clay.” Therefore, we are given over to death so that the life of Jesus can be visible in our bodies and others can be saved.
                3. 5:14-15 “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 
                4. 6:3-10 “…as having nothing, yet possessing everything”
                5. 2 Corinthians 12: Boasting in Weakness
                  1. To see the text clearly, notice three verses:
                    1. 11:30 “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” 
                    2. 12:5 “On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.” 
                    3. 12:9 “…Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
                    4. Anyone boasting in the defeat you experienced in your last trial? Anyone boasting about how your present trial is wearing you down and you don’t know how much longer you can survive it? Anyone boasting that when you prayed for deliverance, God said ‘no’? Anyone boasting about how difficult and inconvenienced you are to serve others, counting others as more valuable than yourself? Anyone boasting about how time-consuming serving God is, especially when he asks you to die so others might live?
                    5. Look carefully at these words: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Nearly every commentator admits, “This is the summit of the epistle, the lofty peak from which the whole is viewed in true proportion.” 
                    6. In verse 7, Paul said God gave him the “thorn” to keep him from becoming conceited/arrogant. What is “arrogant” in this context? It is Jeremiah’s context: relying on self. Why did God say ‘no’ to Paul’s prayers? “My strength is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 
                    7. I do not believe there is anything more difficult than to completely give up self. I want control, and so do you. It is a continuous battle, but God insists on control. How does that happen? Through weakness! But catch this, it is not simply through trials. It is through giving up our lives in the service to God. It is not complaining about “how hard it is” and “how much we must give up of ourselves!” 
                    8. There is something else. It is not just that God wants control, it is that you also want God to have control. You see, God has the higher ways and the higher thoughts. God is designing your life for glory. And when God is in control, all your cares melt away, because only then can you be confident in the outcome and only then can you truly boast in the Lord. 
                    9. Look again at those words in verse 9: “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses…” Again in verse 10, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong!” 
                      1. It is God, not you, that will bring you through every trial, as he sees fit, for his glory and ultimately for your glory.
                      2. Boasting in the Lord, you are content in your weaknesses, hardships, persecutions, and calamities because that is when God’s power rests upon you.
                      3. Final point: Paul did not reach this “summit peak” by simply understanding the principle. Even in this text, Paul is admitting that God’s refusal to remove the thorn was necessary for him to learn that when he is weak, then he is strong. Just like Paul, you cannot learn it any other way.
                      4. Therefore, boasting in the Lord means:
                      5. Conclusion: How many Christians have given up during severe trial and weakness because they claimed that God had disappointed them? Their ignorance of God killed them. Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it to make you strong so that the power of Christ would rest upon you!

                        Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” We must stop trying to save our lives! 

                        Berry Kercheville

                        The post 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 True Discipleship: Boasting in the Lord appeared first on Woodland Hills Church of Christ.

                        40 min
                      6. Understanding Sin and Forgiveness

                        Understanding Sin and Forgiveness

                        Introduction: Do you remember the sins of your past? Were some of them really “bad” sins? Do those sins concern you the most of all your sins? Are you acutely aware of the consequences of those sins, especially consequences that you cannot remedy. Maybe there were people who fell away or continued in sin because of your influence. Maybe it was something so ungodly, so out of character for a Christian, that you can’t even imagine how you did such a thing.

                        What about more recently? What have you done in the past few weeks that is not Christ-like, that you know you shouldn’t have done or that you neglected to do? 

                        Summed up, what sins have you committed that make you wonder about your salvation?

                        1. The Problem
                          1. Sin and falling short of the glory of God is a continual problem in our lives. Sure, on one hand we read passages that call on us to be confident in our eternity, but we also read passages that warn us in no uncertain terms that we can fall short of the goal (Cf. Hebrews 4:1). We feel foolish expressing our confidence in salvation when we cannot escape our failures.
                          2. I’m will suggest to you that our biggest problem is not so much understanding the promises of God as it is sin and what God means by forgiveness. Leviticus is very helpful.
                          3. For most Bible students, Leviticus would never be considered their favorite book of the Bible. In fact, it wouldn’t hit the top ten or twenty. We should change our view of that because ignorance of Leviticus is the reason most people don’t understand why sin is serious before God, when sin can be forgiven, when sin can’t be forgiven, and how sin affects our relationship with God.
                          4. Leviticus follows Exodus. Exodus was freedom from Egypt. The Passover Lamb illustrated their freedom from the curse of death. But their problem and our problem is not simply a one-time freedom. The problem of sin and death did not go away and was still present in them as it is still present in us. Every day we fall short. If it isn’t a direct violation of a command, it is living far short of the fruit of the Spirit.
                          5. God said in Exodus 25:8 “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.” But in Leviticus, God showed the people that he cannot remain in their midst unless they are holy. And not just “holy” a little bit, but holy as God is holy. Leviticus reveals a continuing problem with our sin! Most people that I have taught in my life were thrilled to hear how they could be forgiven, but were more concerned about staying forgiven. Were you more confident minutes following your baptism than you are today? 
                          6. When God brought Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, he was not just freeing them from Egypt, he was illustrating their need for a greater freedom. They were in bondage to the Serpent, just as all mankind. What soon became apparent, living in God’s presence in the wilderness and in Canaan was a greater challenge than escaping Egypt.
                          7. Leviticus answers two problems: (1) maintaining our relationship with God because of sin, and (2) becoming free from the guilt we have inside of us because of sin.
                          8. Defining Sins
                            1. Leviticus 4:2, “If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord’s commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them…” Consider the word “unintentional”: 
                              1. Hebrew: “And a person, when he sins in straying…” 
                              2. LXX: “involuntarily” 
                              3. Targum Onqelos: “by neglect” 
                              4. ASV: “unwittingly”  
                              5. Other versions: “inadvertently”; “by accident” 
                              6. KJV: “through ignorance”
                              7. Do any of those translations help you understand the word “unintentional”? Would you describe your sins as involuntary or accidental or inadvertent? Even the word unintentional is troublesome since there is often a knowledge and intentionality in our sinful actions. We would not say we are being defiant, but we could certainly describe ourselves as knowing better.
                              8. Romans 7:13-25 Paul’s description of sin in relation to the Law and a person who seeks to be justified by the Law, is helpful. It is obvious that Paul is referring to himself as one who desired to please God but found himself helplessly caught in sin even though he hated it (vs. 15). Surely this is exactly the kinds of sins spoken of in Leviticus.
                              9. Two quotes from Hebrews is also helpful:
                                1. Hebrews 9:7 “But into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins [sins of ignorance] of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing.”
                                2. Hebrews 7:27 “Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people.” 
                                3. In both these texts, the sins referred to must be the unintentional sins of Leviticus.
                                4. Defiant Sins
                                  1. We can more clearly see the meaning of unintentional sins when it is contrasted with “Presumptuous” or defiant, high-handed sin, which is unforgivable (Numbers 15:27-31).
                                  2. This parallels a number of NT counterparts:
                                    1. Hebrews 10:26
                                    2. 1 John 5:16-17
                                    3. Even David gives a similar differentiation: Psalm 19:12-13
                                    4. Initial Conclusion: The picture we are getting is that God is concerned about taking care of the sins committed by those who love him and are loyal to him. Cf. 1 John 1:6—2:2
                                    5. Motivation to Avoid All Sin, Even Unintentional Sins
                                      1. The worst thing we could do is to consider unintentional sins as unimportant sins. We cannot take the attitude that these sins just don’t matter that much. 1 John 5:17 “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.” Therefore, consider:
                                      2. The love we should have for what God did: Jesus went to the cross for all sins.
                                      3. Unintentional sins lead to high-handed sins. It is how we get caught in sin and fall. Sin is addictive. Cf. 2 Peter 1:5-11, it is important that we grow to avoid falling.
                                      4. “Be careful to obey…” (Ezekiel 36:27)
                                        1. Will I purposefully be careless? 
                                        2. Will I pursue God with a ‘your will be done’ attitude? 
                                        3. We are trying to please God
                                        4. Do you want to be with God or are you just trying to see how much you can get by with?
                                        5. Conclusion: How did Israel live and thrive in the wilderness? When were their failures highlighted so that their salvation is in doubt? It was not because of day to day failures. It was their defiant disobedience and their desires for the flesh instead of for God.

                                          Berry Kercheville

                                          The post Understanding Sin and Forgiveness appeared first on Woodland Hills Church of Christ.

                                          45 min
                                        6. Radical Love: Stir Up to Love & Good Works

                                          Radical Love

                                          Let Us Stir Up to Love and Good Works

                                          Introduction: We read it so easily, don’t we? “Let us stir one another up to love and good works…” (Hebrews 10:24). The word “stir” is translated different ways:

                                            • NIV: “spur”
                                            • ASV, CSB, NRSV: “provoke”
                                            • NASB: “encourage” 
                                            • NLT: “motivate”
                                            • Some older versions used “stimulate”
                                            • Further, stirring one another up to love and good works isn’t just done on occasions. The Hebrews writer indicates there are designated assemblies in which this stirring up is to happen. The question is, is that what we are doing? Answering that question ought to cause us to more carefully examine why we meet and what we are doing when we meet.

                                              Last Sunday night we sang for well over an hour, not because we had to or there was a written requirement, but because we were feeling and enjoying our shared love for God and for each other. This should be our motivation for all our togetherness.

                                              1. Foundation of Love and Good Works
                                                1. Our dedication to God and our Lord Jesus is directly determined by our thankfulness to our Father and our Savior and to the Holy Spirit for the beyond imaginable sacrifice they made so that we could escape the bondage of the Serpent and live forever in God’s presence.
                                                2. A Christian who gives little believes they were forgiven little. Jesus contrasted Simon the Pharisee with the sinful woman when he said, “She loved much because she was forgiven much. But he who is forgiven little loves little.” It is easy to spot. Simon was a good, moral, church going Jew, but his love for God did not come close to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.” However, the openly, public sinful woman could not stop saturating his feet with her tears and kissing his feet because she was so appreciative of his forgiveness. Which person are we, Simon or the woman?
                                                3. The Hebrew writer spent 10½ chapters telling the brethren of the Great Salvation that has been offered to them. As he did, he repeatedly rebuked their laziness because it was unbecoming of the great salvation they had been given. In 10:19-25, based on all that God had done through Jesus, he gave three concluding admonitions:
                                                  1. Vs. 22, You must draw near to God… [are we really “near?”]
                                                  2. Vs. 23, You must hold fast… [there is a natural “drift”]
                                                  3. Vs. 24, You must stir one another up to love and good works… 
                                                  4. Now, as we begin this lesson, each of us must ask ourselves two serious questions:
                                                    1. Am I stirring Christians up to love and good works? Do I intentionally meet here to worship in order to connect with and stimulate certain individuals to love and to serve God better? Just put it simply: who are you helping serve God better?
                                                    2. Do I have any intention to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and love my neighbor as myself? That’s the command. It’s the number one command, which if it is not first in our lives, makes anything else I do for the Lord worthless. 
                                                    3. Jesus called us to radical discipleship. He called us to radical love.
                                                    4. Radical Love Is Seen in God’s Purpose for a Local Church
                                                      1. It is striking that everywhere Paul preached, he left a local church. In 2 Corinthians 11:28, Paul said, “And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” We read it so easily as if God was concerned about people having a place for “worship services,” but we must take a deeper look.
                                                      2. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Prov. 27:17). If you are like me, you have often read this passage to mean, two friends get together and challenge each other to do better than they have done before; like two friends weightlifting. Nothing wrong with that, but let me offer you a more common scenario: 1 Cor. 1:10.
                                                        1. Imagine the challenge Paul gave the Corinthians in this verse. Imagine what the Corinthians had to do to obey this command. How many times would they have had to meet and talk out problems? How many apologies would have been necessary? How many times did someone have to forgive another (ch. 6)? How many people had to “come forward” and confess wrongs? Even harder, how many false teachers were in their midst who had held sway over the church with their charismatic personalities, but the church had to reject them?
                                                        2. When iron repeatedly grinds against iron, what is happening? When I sharpen my mower blade, both the blade and the grinder lose part of itself. When the blade loses its roughness, it becomes more useful; it is sharpened. But it takes the grinding and the loss to make it so.
                                                        3. When we come together, we are to sharpen one another. But that only happens when we each lose part of ourselves. The problem comes when one of us does not want to lose any part of themselves. They are proudly proclaiming, “I like the way I am.”
                                                        4. Notice another text: Isaiah 11:6-10. 
                                                          1. What was God predicting that he would create when the Messiah came? Wolf with a lamb – violent with gentle. Calf and lion, leopard and young goat – powerful with the helpless. A nursing child with a cobra and a weaned child with a pit viper. 
                                                          2. Then note the words of verse 9: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” What did God do when he sent his only Son into the world? He brought natural enemies together. He brought together in peace those who in ordinary circumstances would have devoured one another. In other words, the person whose nature was to be a wolf, no longer acts like a wolf and the lamb no longer needs to fear the person who was at one time a devourer. 
                                                          3. Where will they “not hurt or destroy?” In all my holy mountain? God’s church is to be a refuge from the hurt and destruction that is present in our world. We should not find hurt here! Here, we find healing. Here, we learn how not to be wolves and bears. Here, there is peace. But this requires us to act in ways that are not natural for us. 
                                                          4. How the Local Church Produces Radical Love
                                                            1. Now back to our original question. Why did God put us together as a church? It is because the design of a church is similar to the design of a marriage (Eph. 5:22-34). My boys often asked me how important compatibility is in choosing a mate. My answer has been that while having similar backgrounds can make things easier at first, all of us change in many ways. Therefore, adaptability and two people learning to grow in unity and love in spite of flaws and sins is the more important than compatibility. Marriage, just like the church, throws us into close quarters, causing us to learn about each other’s flaws and demand that we love, forgive, and renew our relationships anyway.
                                                            2. The reason God calls divorce a sin and places upon it harsh consequences is because when there is no way out, we must work it out. Ephesians 5:31-32 When Jesus quoted the words, “The two shall become one flesh,” he then concluded, “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” However, in our text, Paul tell us that the command goes beyond our physical relationships. Our  local church and our marriages are a preparation so that the Lord can present us to himself a bride of splendor.
                                                              1. God has used marriage and the church to cause us to learn to become more God-like; to learn to love like God. Marriage isn’t intended to be easy, nor is its primary goal to give us happiness. The primary goal is holiness. It is the same for having children. These independent “creatures” who have a mind of their own, offer us a mirror into which we see our own flawed image. They challenge us to lay down our lives and truly love even when they have acted unlovable. 
                                                              2. The same is with the church. God throws wolves, lambs, leopards and calves together into intimate quarters, not because it is going to be easy, nor because the primary goal is an idyllic paradise, but because our striving together for love and unity brings us to holiness and godliness.
                                                              3. This calls us to an accountability to one another. When the apostle said, “Let us stir one another up to love and good works,” (10:24), and “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (3:13), are any of us to sit by idly and watch another Christian slip/drift away! If I start drifting, you better not be silent!
                                                              4. How sad when a marriage splits up, and how sad when we church hop just because we can’t get along or someone treats us poorly, or even that we are embarrassed for how we acted and we do not want to face people. It is interesting that as bad as the Corinthian church was, Paul never told the few who were not in sin to move down the road and start another church. On the other hand, Paul expected change; he expected repentance, and he expected a church that learned to love one another (1 Cor. 13). There are some people we naturally & quickly love. Others, we must learn to love.
                                                              5. For example, in the parable of the good Samaritan, who loved his neighbor as himself? Was it the person who naturally would have come to the aid of a dying Jew? “The wolf and the lamb have been brought together.”
                                                              6. Catherine Anne Porter made this observation about the dilemma of marriage for a young bride: “This very contemporary young woman finds herself facing the oldest and ugliest dilemma of marriage. She is dismayed, horrified, full of guilt and forebodings because she is finding out little by little that she is capable of hating her husband, whom she loves faithfully. She can hate him at times as fiercely and mysteriously, indeed in terribly much the same way, as often she hated her parents, her brothers and sisters, whom she loves, when she was a child… And yet, she hides those contradictory feelings from him because as she goes on to say, ‘Above all, she wants him to be absolutely confident that she loves him, for that is the real truth, no matter how unreasonable it sounds, and no matter how her own feelings betray them both at times. She depends recklessly on his love.’”
                                                                1. In the same way we experience those feelings in our church family. We want to love and we desire to be loved and we demand of ourselves to love because of God’s love for us, but our flaws and our feelings often betray us. However, we must press on.
                                                                2. What will destroy us in marriage and in the church is expectations that problems and hurt feelings are somehow indications that this marriage or this church is not for us; that somehow we made a mistake. No, there is no mistake. Wolves and lambs have purposely been put together so that we learn to love like God loved us. Unless we do, we have not become like God and we do not love God.
                                                                3. Thus Ephesians 4:1-3. We act in such a way that creates an atmosphere of love. That is what we do to make a good marriage knowing that in so doing we will reap lasting benefits and deeper fulfillment from the one we love. Therefore, let’s face it, whether it is marriage, children, or that which we are all called to be, members of his body, his family, these relationships force you to face some character issues you would never have to face otherwise.
                                                                4. Matthew 25:34-40 Consider Jesus’ words, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” We are the bride of Christ, right? As his bride, we want to treat him with love, we want to know him and understand him, and be drawn close to him. Jesus said, the way we treat one another is how we are treating him. Every person who is married knows one thing, and every person who has children knows one thing: these relationships call upon us to confront our selfishness; they call us to a selfless life. That is exactly what we are confronted with in a local church.
                                                                5. Berry Kercheville

                                                                  The post Radical Love: Stir Up to Love & Good Works appeared first on Woodland Hills Church of Christ.

                                                                  42 min

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