📖 Have you traded Jesus for the world?

I. Salvation is God’s work from beginning to end. We add nothing to it nor bring anything to the table.

In Ephesians 1:3–14, Paul uses phrases like “in Christ” and “in him” eleven times to emphasize that every spiritual blessing we receive is given by God and found in Jesus. We are told that God, through Jesus Christ:

Just remember that you were saved and redeemed through Jesus. Not based on how good you were this week or how good you promise to be in the future.

God does the work, and we accept the gift. But if we accept the gift, we should live worthy of the gift he has given.

Pursue holiness because you have been redeemed. There is no other way to live if you have accepted the gift God has given us in Christ Jesus! How could you not want to honor the Lord when you see all he has done for you?

Salvation is a gift from God. What a savior.

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II. You may know intellectually that you shouldn’t compromise your faith for lesser things. But does the way you live reflect that belief?

In Mark 8:34–35, we see these well-known words of Jesus:

“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it.”

We shouldn’t trade Jesus for the things of this world and lose our souls. We shouldn’t let the things of this world get in the way of our walk with the Lord. At least, we know these things are true. But knowing and doing are two separate things.

Here are some ways we slowly begin to trade Jesus for the things of this world:

Jesus always responds to repentance with grace, so we can, without shame, examine where we may be slowly drifting and trading Jesus for the world.

Don’t trade the temporary things of this world for the eternal blessing of being a part of the family of God.

John C. Ryler on living like a Christian:

"It is no use saying you are a Christian unless you live like one. Faith without works is like a tree without fruit—eventually, it just becomes dead wood."

If God answered every prayer you prayed in the last week, would the world be different, or just your world?

We should ask the Lord for our needs and desires, but not just for those things. We should pray for the salvation of those in our lives who don’t know Jesus. We should be petitioning God on behalf of those in our lives who need him to move in their lives.

What would be different about the kingdom of God if God answered all your recent prayers?

Keep that in mind as you pray, and may your answer next week reflect a greater concern for God's kingdom.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

The true story primarily follows the lives of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi pioneered the first practical, commercially successful system of wireless telegraphy around the turn of the twentieth century. This allowed people to send telegrams (messages sent in Morse Code) wirelessly, instead of needing wires.

While these men never met, as the book unfolds, you see how Marconi's inventions changed the world, but in a way that greatly impacted Crippen himself. As the author states in the intro, this is a book about a killer and an inventor.

The book was an interesting read. It was never boring, and it was neat to learn more about the development of wireless telegraphy (which helped pave the way for the radio).

At the same time, I was deep into the book and still curious about how these two separate stories were going to intersect. And while they come together in the end, I felt the ending fell a little flat given the back-and-forth detail spent on both men's separate lives.

Also, it was difficult to picture or imagine many of the details surrounding the various trials and experiments and the equipment Marconi was using. That's not necessarily the author's fault, but it makes it hard to fully place yourself in the story at times.

Overall, it is well written. But for much of the book, I wondered how the two narratives would eventually intertwine, almost like waiting for a punchline that never quite landed. While I found both interesting, after a while I didn't enjoy going back and forth between them because they felt largely disconnected for most of the book.

The writing itself is good, but I downgraded it a bit because the ending didn't quite make up for spending most of the book wondering how the two narratives would eventually intertwine.

7/10

On a scale of 1–10, how confident are you that you are going to heaven?

Did you know there are only TWO appropriate answers to that question? I explain what they are and why a lot of people get it wrong.

Click here to read some biblical thoughts on if you’re going to heaven.

P.S. Please do not call me…