Soap Box - You Have to Stand for Something

1. Wealth without work.

+ Shortcuts & laziness in life can set us up for failure. We often miss some of the best opportunities because they look like work. We want something for nothing.
+ Divine Process - The Law of 6 days - Creation. You can't skip steps!
+ God wants us to experience the joy of pleasing others, God wants us to enjoy our labor, God wants us to prosper.
+ Judgment & Justice are inseparable. As we stray from justice our judgment gets twisted into a sense of entitlement.
+ We owe the world nothing but goodness because we have God.
+ "The gold is in the stump lot"!

2. Christianity without compromise.

+ You have to stand for something!
+ My walk with God can be different today - God speak to me in a real and powerful way!
+ We all have a next step to take in our walk with God. We don't want just a growing Church, we want a Church of growing people.
+ A growing relationship with Jesus is intentional - you are either growing or dying.
+ Desire plus Discipline = the difference.
+ Anything that has value in life costs something.
+ God will never let you pray your way out of something you behaved your way into.
+ God is here to challenge us!
+ Act on what the word of God says!

3. Religion without relationship.

+ The Sabbath day became a substitute for, an obstacle to, spending time with God - an empty religion.
+ Everything that we can do can become sacred. Don't let prayer become "religious". Don't remove the life from serving God.
+ It's not a competition. Only God's work can fully satisfy.
+ Jesus hated the "spirit of religion" that robbed people of a true relationship with Him.
- Critical/Negative thinking
- Can't rejoice in what God is doing.
- Tradition is more important than
- You don't have to settle.
- You can live free from sin AND the
power of sin.
+ Live in the freedom and liberty of God's spirit!
+ Jesus shattered religion's control over His Purpose!

4. Pleasure Without Conscience

+ Conscience - the sense that drives us to distinguish between good and bad. It can be altered and twisted.
- It is not "truth" we cannot blindly follow
our heart's feelings.
- The Bible says, "it can become seared
as with a hot iron" - callused.
+ The "eye" is the lamp of the body.
(Greek - eye = conscience)
+ Sin does not come on us like a seizure.
+ We can't sin in one area and make up for it by over compensating in another!
+ How do we keep a clean conscious?
- Obey God without editing.
- Sacrifice/Service means nothing without obedience to God.
+ Nothing compares to the joy experienced through obedience to God.

5. Knowledge Without Character

+ Knowledge is important but education does not cure crime or immorality - or any of society's ills.
+ The Bible's definition of knowledge differs from society's. Experience is greater than data.
+ Knowledge in your head must fill/move into your heart - For a true transformation we must experience God on an intimate and personal level!
+ A personal relationship with God goes further than any Bible study.
+ A head full of Bible knowledge means nothing if we don't live it out in our lives!

Transformation takes place in steps:

1. It only happens during difficulty.
- The path of least resistance is society's answer but hardship makes us stronger - it develops our endurance. That endurance is necessary to develop character and integrity. Set-up the domino effect and let hope carry you through any adversity.

2. You can make it longer but not shorter.
- Compromise or "caving-in" starts the process over.
- God will test us again and again.
- We will be rewarded for years of faithfulness and endurance.

3. It becomes known in the darkness.
- Our true character is shown when no one is watching.
- Stay the course no matter what is happening in our lives.

Created about 1 year ago