Favorite Book Friday, June 4,2021
It’s been like a month since #favoritebookfriday because it takes the longest to do and I finished up college and took a few weeks to rest up. I’m still on my excitement high from Law and Order SVU so bear with me. Let’s get to reading.
So Judah opens up with the idea that we love grace when it comes to us but we hard when it comes to other people. We like to feel control when it comes to justice and fairness. We have this idea of you get what you deserve but Jesus doesn’t do grace that way. The story told from the Bible is the laborers in the vineyard. The way Jesus does justice is backwards. The domain of the king is different than we think. We have to trust God is good and takes care of us if we believe in his justice. If you think about this parable, it doesn’t make logical sense neither is it fair. Unless you’re the group of workers that came at the 11th hour workers. We love ranking things. Like working a day and getting paid for your work is fair. When these next groups of workers come in the owner said he’d pay them what’s right. The owner pays the last group first the same wages as the first group. That’s pretty frustrating. It’s kinda off the first group we’re too busy looking at the other groups being paid as much as they were. Well we like to think we’d rather have justice. I don’t think we’d want to have a contract with God. If you want that then the wages of sin is death. That’s what we earned. Let’s just work in the vineyard instead of comparing. We can’t enjoy God if we’re concerned about if he’s given up what’s good. We have to trust God and relax in his goodness and grace. We’re those 11th hour people. God asks us what we’re doing and we sure don’t know. He takes us home and makes us his. We go with him and his gives us what’s right. Can we spend our lives reminded that God loves us and we’re completely forgiven by him. God is good and I am grateful. Working in the field isn’t supposed to be hard. It’s just supposed to be a joy to follow Jesus. He’s good. We relate to God based on his Grace so just enjoy God. Let’s stop basing it on what we deserve and instead of his infinite goodness and love for me. It will be greater than I imagine. This is a lasting and free relationship with God so let’s not reduce it to legalism.
That’s it for Instagram loves! See ya on the website(which I need to update) with chapter 8 “A Passerby”
Judah’s intro story about exercising. Like we like the results but not the work behind it. Let’s go to Mark 8:34-37. If you wanna follow Jesus, you have do deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him. Taking up your cross seems pretty crazy though. Sometimes we think it means pain and suffering but it’s not supposed to. It does give us hope for the abundant life both now and eternally. We access this life by giving up control. We’re not the hero in the story, Jesus is. Jesus doesn’t say die on your cross, he says carry it. Jesus did the dying on the cross so we won’t have to. On the Via Dolorosa, a innocent passerby helped Jesus carry his cross. Simon did nothing plan on carrying the cross for the savior of the world. This interruption would be part of the greatest act of love in human history. We wouldn’t know about Simon and him taking the gospel to Africa without this event. Let’s test Jesus to lead us. We find life in Jesus. When we lose ourselves in the goodness of God, we find out what it means to be truly alive.
Chapter Highlights (Chapter 7-8)
If we are going to trust God and enjoy God and love life, we have to understand how God views justice and relationships.
If we try to relate to God based on what we’ve done, what we deserve and what we think he should do for us, we’re going to be as confused as the vineyard workers
God doesn’t give us what we think we deserve. He gives us what he wants to give us and he asks us to trust him that it is right.
So let’s stop talking in terms of what we deserve and what we’ve earned and what is just. If that plays out we’re all doomed. We’re all products of grace. We’re all saved by grace. Let’s remember and celebrate that.
I would much rather live in the ambiguity of God’s grace and goodness than in the strict measures of legalism and whatever he deems right will be enough.
I want to follow a God who blessed me beyond what I could dream up. He knows me better than I know myself. He loves me more than I love myself. He sees every detail of my past, present and future and he’s taking care of me.
Jesus is giving us an invitation to life. The invitation is to truly live: not just to exist, not to just breathe but live life the way it was meant to be lived.
The point of this passage is not what we can do for Jesus: it’s what he does for us when we trusts us completely.
Jesus is encouraging us to identify with his death and resurrection because that is the source of abundant, satisfying life.
We need to learn to welcome God’s interruptions because his interruptions and inconveniences are portals to truly living.
God wants to include you in a story far bigger than yourself.
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