1. What is good fruit and bad fruit? Why is this important in recognzing false teachers?
2. How can a person recognize Jesus and perform great works in his name but not be saved? What is true faith?
Since this is the last week and the final verses of the Sermon on the Mount have to do with application of the Word I want each of you to come up with an "I will" statement. Something that is concrete and requires action. This might be something that you have learned during this study and Christ is urging you to act on it. Please share it with the group.
(1 & 2) Many people know Christ, know his work, and claim to be Christians, but have never been or allowed themselves to be transformed by God’s love. Jesus came to save the world, but he also came to destroy religion, and religion alive and well today, in all its different forms, can often become a substitute for Christ. People place their faith in formulas, traditions, prayers, and answers which are a reflection of their own desire for control versus a death to self and a fruitful life in Christ. I am not saying that prayers and spiritual practices are bad, or that anyone teaching from a religous platform is a false teacher just that they are meaningless if God’s transformative love is not at the core. Good fruit takes both faith and sacrificial action in order to be produced. Much of religion lacks one or the other. One additional point because transformation is a process it takes time and care to grow just like fruit.
ReplyDelete(I will statement) There are many specific things I can work on, but for sake of a wider view I will say: I will love my God because he first loved me and because of the abundance of this transformative love I will love myself as well as my neighbors and my enemies. If we love like Christ all else falls into place. I will come nowhere close to doing this perfectly, but I hope once I’m gone people will say I was a man who loved well.