Guarding Against His Usurpers
We must be vigilant and careful to not follow the trends of so many who attempt to leverage Christianity for their own selfish ends.
Luke
Admiring God’s Dynastic Plan
We must understand and appreciate the full humanity and the full deity of Christ as we admire his redemptive work and anticipate his coming kingdom.
Anticipating His Eternal Kingdom
We must think more often and more sensibly about our own mortality, preparing and shaping our expectation and hope by Scripture and not by the world, our feelings, or the culture.
Living as His Expatriates
We must seek to honor God by honoring and submitting to the earthly authorities he has placed over our lives, while being careful to never resist or defy Christ’s ultimate authority.
Fearing the Cost of Insurrection
It is entirely reasonable for us to trust and obey the words of the Triune God, not only in light of his character and authority, but also in view of the judgments meted out on those who rebel.
Submitting to His Sovereign Authority
We must be very careful that we do not evade our responsibility to submit to Christ’s lordship by seeking excessive information or unneeded confirmation when the application of God’s word is sufficiently clear.
Adopting His Regal Priorities
We ought to supremely value God’s truth the way Christ did – promoting it, obeying it, and prioritizing fellowship with those who do the same.
Lamenting His Rebellious Subjects
We will undoubtedly experience genuine grief if we truly understand the problem of sin and the consequences of rejecting Christ, yet it should also motivate us to continue to urgently and regularly share the gospel.
Embracing His Unexpected Majesty
Jesus fulfilled prophecy when he presented himself as the Kingly Messiah in Jerusalem – an event that should motivate us to respect God’s prophetic word and wholeheartedly worship and serve our King.
Living the Christian Life
True Christians must be fearless and faithful as stewards of God’s message of reconciliation in a defiant culture until Christ returns to reward his ambassadors.
The Impact of Repentance
Dig into the key verse for Book of Luke. We should rejoice in our salvation and pursue our sanctification knowing that when God works repentance in our lives his forgiving grace entirely covers our sins and permanently redirects our lives.
Christ's Life-Changing Power
Realizing our desperate need, we ought to trust the omnipotent Christ for salvation, willing to follow him in this life knowing that soon he will take his great power and begin to reign over all things.
God's Payment for Lawbreakers
Pondering God’s longtime plan of redemption humbles us Christians, as we realize that Christ’s horrible suffering was the judgment our sins and transgressions had earned.
The Law of God
To get right with God we must humbly admit we fall sinfully short of his absolutely perfect standards, knowing that our only hope is to fully trust his power to save and his right to lead our daily lives.
Biblical Faith
Christ calls us to trust him for salvation with the helplessness and full dependence of a little child, and in the process shows his special regard for children.
Seeing Our Need
We must never try to measure our worthiness before God by comparing our morality with others, instead we must honestly admit our utter sinfulness and embrace his amazing gift of unearned acceptance.
Confident in God's Justice
We ought patiently endure this present age with great faith, confidently working and praying for God’s will in everything, always looking with hope for the return of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom.
How NOT to Persist in Prayer
We must be mature in our praying, not continuing to pray for just anything, but knowing that the call to persevere in prayer is qualified throughout the Bible by a number of wise and godly factors.
Loving God's Gracious Patience
God’s pending judgment is the sobering aspect of Christ’s return that should make us grateful for its gracious delay, motivated by the current opportunity for evangelism, and thankful for our forthcoming salvation.
Loving God's Coming Kingdom
It is normal and expected that we intensely long for Christ’s coming kingdom as we seek to undistractedly obey the teachings of Christ in a deteriorating and rebellious culture.
Loving God’s Invisible Kingdom
Though the arrival of Christ’s visible kingdom is yet future, his kingly reign has begun over his people now, and so we must endure the present age with anticipation, devotion, and an evangelistic drive.
Loving God’s Undeserved Mercy
We must identify and thank God for his many acts of mercy toward us, remembering that these are small foretastes of the ultimate mercy of the eradication of our debt of sin by his cross.
Loving God’s Challenging Work
We must be continually mindful of the unique and exceeding authority of the Triune God we were created and redeemed to humbly serve.
Loving God’s Faithful Promises
We will become more ambitious and more optimistic in our prayers and service for Christ as we learn to wholeheartedly trust him to accomplish through us the things that he has commanded.
Loving God's Flawed People
We must remember that our friends’ sanctification is flawed, just like our own, and so we must continue to graciously forgive them when they sin and be wholeheartedly restored to them when they repent.
Loving God’s Holy Standards
If we love Christ we will love what he loves and hate the sins for which he died and which cause such great damage to the body of Christ.
Today's Opportunity for Economic Reform
Because the heart’s central loyalty will have eternal consequences, we must heed the warnings of Scripture and ask God to rewire our hearts to value him above any and all other treasures.
The Damning Lie of Monetary Success
Our material wealth is not an indicator of our spiritual health, instead our money and how we use it serves as an indicator of where our faith lies and who we serve.
Marriage as a Monetary Test Case
We must realize that the gravity associated with lust, adultery, and divorce in the Bible is an apt parallel to God’s concern regarding greed, covetousness, and materialism in our hearts and lives.
Godliness, Greed & God’s Word
We cannot allow ourselves to chase the world’s materialistic symbols of success, knowing they are meaningless and can deceive us into thinking we are doing well in life when we are in fact storing up wrath for ourselves.