We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
On Renunciation
Jonathan Kos-Read via Compfight
We are bombarded daily with messages that urge us to satisfy every desire we might have. That’s what consumers do. And that’s exactly what the world has reduced us to: consumers. But what about Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23:
Then Jesus said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
Richard Beck posted a piece today on renunciation, something we hear less and less about. Renunciation asks us to be the very opposite of consumers. It demands that we lay down our rights and our desires for the sake of our love for God and our love for others. Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard’s post. We hope you’ll take the time to read the whole piece.
You aren’t denying yourself in order to earn your way into heaven. Self-denial isn’t about collecting spiritual merit badges. Nor are you denying yourself because God is a Puritanical Judge waiting to zap you with lighting bolts if you eat chocolate, dance or have an orgasm.
No, the reason you deny yourself is so that you can make yourself increasingly available to others.
Love requires self-mastery. Love requires a denial of the self.
Love requires discipline.
Love is discipline.
Love involves the renunciation of sin in our lives. A renunciation of wickedness and the Devil.
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Love, Renunciation, Sacrifice
Related Reading
Sermon Clip: Tough To Love
Learning how to love the people in our life that we find challenging to deal with is often very difficult. This week in Heart Smart Greg Boyd looks at some biblical examples and instructions on how to love our enemies in the same way we love our friends. Full Sermon Here: http://whchurch.org/sermons-media/sermon/tough-to-love
Enemy Love
Rob Hogeslag via Compfight Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus shared the story of Paul Keane who offered his own burial plot to Tamerlan Tsarnaev if his family could not find a cemetery that would accept his body. You’ll remember that Tsarnaev was one of the men who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings and…
God’s Kind of Holy War
This is part three of a series on Revelation. You can find part one here and part two here. While there will come a day when the sacrificial victory of the Lamb and of his people will be apparent to all (5:13; 15:4; 21: 23-4), only to those who embrace the perspective of the heavenly…
Twenty Arguments Against Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
On March 4th, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired James Cameron’s much celebrated documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The documentary basically gives a new spin on an old discovery. In 1980, a first century tomb was discovered in Talpoit (a southern suburb of Jerusalem) that contained 10 ossuaries (that is, boxes that contain the remains…
Jesus, the Center of Scripture
Paul declared that Jesus was nothing less than the very embodiment of all of God. This distinction of “all of God” is important for us to understand what it means for us to see Jesus and God rightly. Battling proto-gnostic teachers who were apparently presenting Christ alongside other manifestations of God, Paul declares “in Christ…
The Cross Above All Else
The way to know what a person or people group really believes is not to ask them but to watch them. Christians frequently say, “It’s all about Jesus,” but our actions betray us. Judging by the amount of time, energy, and emotion that many put into fighting a multitude of battles, ranging from the defense…