Enjoying Life Under the Sun

  A.  He (Christ) also watches over me in such a way that not a hair on my head can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. John 10:11, 27-29 I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father's hand. Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. A.  Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. Romans 8:2-3a,16 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has fr...

Q.1 What is your only comfort in life and in death? A.  That I am not my own but belong - body and soul to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ... Psalm 46:1-3 God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam.  Let the mountains tremble and surge. A.  He (Christ) has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood... Isaiah 43:1b-3a Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.  I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through the deep waters, I will be with you.  When you go through the rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you...

Jesus’ two-stage healing of a blind man (Mark 8:22–26) is a metaphor for Christians who have some spiritual sight but lack clarity, So, how can I move from confusion to clear, whole vision? The biblical picture: between blindness and sight In the unusual miracle where Jesus first touches the blind man, the man then says, “I see men as trees, walking”, and only after a second touch sees “every man clearly.” This was intentional: Jesus is illustrating a common spiritual condition—people who are not wholly blind to the gospel, yet do not see it distinctly or personally. The phrase “men as trees, walking” thus becomes a label for a hazy, half-healed state: some knowledge, some experience, but distorted and unclear. 1. Many Christians live in a dangerous middle state It is “sad and tragic” for me to remain miserable and uncertain, neither fully blind nor fully seeing. I may: Know doctrines but don’t grasp how they apply personally. Understand that Jesus is Savior in general, but not clearly...

How am I to live wisely and faithfully in the “whirl” of life’s changing seasons? Life’s seasons are appointed by God; our task is trust, not control Ecclesiastes 3:1 (“To every thing there is a season…”)  Times and seasons are under God’s sovereign ordering.  The spiritual lesson is not to master the timetable of life but to learn to trust the One who appoints each season— birth and death, planting and uprooting, weeping and laughing, war and peace.  This calls me away from anxiety-driven control toward faith-filled surrender. The “whirl” tests whether my faith is in God Himself or only in His blessings True spirituality is revealed not in ideal conditions but “in the soup of actual circumstances.”  The whirl of events exposes whether I love God for who He is or merely for what He gives.  Spiritual maturity is clinging to God even when circumstances contradict my expectations of comfort, success, or clarity. Redemption transforms how I experience time and chang...

Discouragement is not mainly a circumstance to escape, but is a spiritual exposure:  It reveals where hope has quietly become centered on my expectations, success, or control rather than on God.   Instead I am to address life’s apparent futility through the reality of God’s redeeming love. Discouragement exposes self-focus Discouragement can be “disenchanted egotism”:  I become crushed because events have not unfolded as I  believed they should.  The spiritual lesson is not to deny pain, disappointment, or grief, but to let disappointment uncover any demand that God must fulfill our preferred timetable or outcome. A helpful question in a discouraged season is: “What expectation am I treating as indispensable, and have I placed it above trust in God Himself?” Darkness can be discipline I need to learn to see some seasons of obscurity as God’s training in attentiveness, not automatic evidence of divine displeasure.  He compares this to songbirds taught to sin...

How do I develop a faith that meets real life? Ecclesiastes 2 is the place where Solomon tests life by pleasure, achievement, wisdom, and wealth— only to conclude that, apart from God, even the best of human experience is “vanity” (futility).  Spiritual truth is proved not on the mountaintop but in the messy, ordinary pressures of actual circumstances. The test of faith is in ordinary pressure, not in spiritual highs Visions, mysticism, and “mountain-top” experiences are tested when I am “in the soup” of actual circumstances.  In other words, the real measure of my relationship with God is how I live when life is complicated, disappointing, or morally ambiguous—not when I feel spiritually elevated. “The test of mountain-top experiences, of mysticism, of visions of God and of solitariness is when you are ‘in the soup’ of actual circumstances.” Truth to learn:  I shouldn't judge my spiritual life by my best moments;  judge it by how Christ’s reality holds when I'm...