How do we motivate ourselves to engage in Spiritual disciplines? In our last episode we said we need to make two important perspective shifts. The first, which we covered in Episode 35 is: The Bible is not about you! The Bible is about God and what he has done for you. Today we are going to look at perspective shift #2: Quality Time. Spiritual Disciplines of praying, fasting and giving in secret are all opportunities for spending QUALITY time with Jesus. Because You can never get enough of Jesus and Jesus can never get enough of you! Jesus is the Answer! Jesus is always the answer!

Spiritual disciplines are often duties before they become delights. If you only practice spiritual disciplines for immediate gratification then you’ll stop doing them. Spiritual disciplines require just that: discipline and delayed gratification. We have to press through this because when we practice these spiritual disciplines we are creating spiritual deposits of God’s resources that we need to navigate life well.

In order to motivate our hearts toward these spiritual disciplines we need two perspective changes about our time in the word & spiritual disciplines.

Today we focus on The First perspective shift: The Bible is not about you. It is about what God has done for you.

We have to confront the reality that when Jesus was born the spiritual realm was thrust into a great battle in the ongoing war between God and Satan. When Jesus came into the world, Spiritual warfare was at a pique. Yes, peace is coming, but peace has a cost—that cost is paid in battle! The birth of Christ was far more like God’s D-day invasion than an olive branch extended on a silent night.

Listen to all the way to the end for a special announcement!!

Teaching Fearless: Monica Gill’s Mission in a Culture of Compromise (Apple)

Teaching Fearless: Monica Gill’s Mission in a Culture of Compromise (Spotify)

Did you realize that whenever you pray, you are acting as an Agent of Rebellion? The Christian worldview sees the world as enemy occupied territory. As you pray you come to realize that you are in the heart of that enemy occupied territory and you are part of the rebellion to take back the kingdom. You are a member of “the resistance” much like the French or Dutch underground against the Nazi’s in World War II. Understand that when you pray you are in a state of rebellion against the brokenness of this world acting as God’s Secret Agent in the resistance!

What does this forgiveness and turning the other cheek look like on a practical level?
There is a tension in forgiveness that we need to understand. The tension is that it requires both the conjuring of the will AND the reliance on the supernatural power of God’s love flowing from our life.

Hebrews 9:22 says “Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” From Old Testament sacrifices to the death of Jesus on the cross, we see every sin is a trespass, a debt that must be paid for with blood. Forgiveness is not cheap. It is painful. What does extending forgiveness look like? It looks like Jesus dying on the cross. It looks like me and you doing the same for those who “owe” us for wrongs they’ve done.

When you look at Jesus’ sacrifice- how big is the cross? The greater we have a view of God’s Holiness the greater a view we have of our own sinfulness. If you see how big your own sinfulness is you have a much bigger view of the cross. The power to forgive comes from being transformed by his forgiveness. After his denial Jesus asked Peter three times “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?” He asked three times to unravel or “redeem” Peter’s three betrayals. Jesus stands before us and asks us each individually the same questions: Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?”

Today we are going to focus on the first truth about forgiveness- and that is there is No Forgiveness without Love- He loved you anyway! We examine this aspect of forgiveness by continuing to unpack The Lord's Prayer in conjunction with the Parable of the Prodigal Son.