It’s fine to be youthful at heart, but as believers, you and I are likely to be growing. The phrase instructs that it should be clear to everyone who interacts with us that we are growing in our love for God as well as for each other. Talking the truth in love, we … Ephesians 4:15 reads, “ are to grow up in every way into Him who’s the head, into Christ.”
As a follower of Christ, I shouldn’t be the same here person day in, day out, year in, year out, stagnant in spirit and devoid of growth, and neither should you. But growth isn’t around bearing down and driving maturity. That tactic fails every time. The great news is that the prescription for growth would be to spend time with Jesus, in prayer as well as in His Word. Hang out with Jesus and you’ll be ever growing and transformed, along with the first person surprised from the change will undoubtedly be the one doing the altering.
A Word From Your Christ Embassy; Jesus Teaches Us to Sit Down With Our Enemies!
Outwardly every time he turned around, there they were, the Pharisees, that Jewish religious/political group that hounded Jesus. They were inexorable, and finally, they conspired to have Jesus put to death.
In the Gospels there are 89 references to the Pharisees (Matthew-31, Mark-12, Luke-27 and John 19) and the majority of them usually do not speak into a cozy relationship; there are four references to the Pharisees as a “brood of vipers,” which helps to define the sort of relationship they had.
All the same, there are three references, all found to Jesus having dinner using a Pharisee, in the Gospel of Luke. This willingness to truly have a meal together with his enemies is indicative of Jesus’ willingness to love his enemies (Matthew 5:43-48).
Humanly speaking, we usually do not often break bread with those we hate or mistrust — to share a meal is close, something allowed for our friends and trustworthy comrades. However, there we have it; Jesus going out of his method to dine together with his enemies. This is a message that we at Christ Embassy must come to understand.
This readiness to share a meal with those who hated him speaks volumes of Jesus’ want for people to carry on socializing with those with whom we disagree.
Before we possess the chance to make choices that result in further isolation we are isolated. It is, therefore, more mandatory than ever to heed the call of Christ and actively encounter “our enemies.”
This call to encounter our enemies isn’t restricted to Christ ’s example of eating with the Pharisees; to what Christ decided not to do it extends.
With infinitely less effort than it takes my fingers to snap, Jesus Christ, God-made-man, could have wiped the Pharisees from the face of the planet earth. Not just that, he might have removed all memory of them.
It’s not really difficult to feel warranted in our hate of “our enemies but the only one who is actually warranted gave us a living example of mercifulness. As opposed to obliterating the Pharisees, Christ shared a meal together, and ultimately died for them.
We hear if we live in the 14th chapter of Romans that “, we live for the Lord, and when we die, we die for the Lord.” Jesus shows us that with “our enemies” sharing a meal isn’t the limit of how far we may be requested to go — expiring for “our enemies ” isn’t outside the realm of possibility.