We saw yesterday how Jesus said one goal mattered more than even day to day concerns like food and clothing: his kingdom.  He said, “seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.”  What does that mean?

First of all, it doesn’t mean seek only God’s kingdom as some spiritual distant concept and ignore the realities of day to day life.  Jesus doesn’t meant we should never eat or sleep, or that those things are inherently bad.   He says quite clearly, when we seek first the kingdom, “then all these will be added to you.”  He knows we need them, and wants to be the one to give them to us, but in their proper perspective.

For example, consider food.  We need food to live, and good food is an enjoyable part of living.  But that good thing can be made into an ultimate thing, and when that happens, it becomes a very bad thing.  When we elevate food to become more than it was meant to be, and it becomes our source of comfort, emotional stability, we are in both physical and spiritual danger.

Instead, Jesus challenges us to seek kingdom of God.  God is the creator sustainer of the whole world, including its food sources.  He created, called it good, and wants us to enjoy the world’s sustenance so we can do our daily work and enjoy his provision.  When we find our true satisfaction in God, then we can enjoy good things for what they are…we don’t have to overdo it, and we don’t have to hate it.  This applies to food, and any number of other good things God created.

In the Christianity 101 course, we sometimes illustrate this with a wagon wheel.  The hub is special – it’s particularly strong, and has a unique shape to do its job.  The spokes are meant to be all connected with, and delivering power from the hub to the rim.

If we try to remove the hub and replace it with a spoke, you know what happens, it all falls apart.  It’s the same with our lives.  We were made to have God at the center of our lives, providing meaning and purpose to the whole.  Unfortunately the human race tried to remove God from the center long ago, and have been trying to shove spokes in ever since, whether it be money, career, sexuality, power, or any other good thing God created that can be abused.  This is a good definition of sin: When we take good things, try to make them our ultimate good, and that’s ultimately really bad for us.

Question: Make a list of good things in our world that can be abused.

Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.

Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting tonight. Register for you and a friend today!

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - February 17, 2014

Monday - A New Idea - Reset Body and Food

Reset

Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan, you host for the daily challenges. These daily challenges are meant to help people explore what it means to follow Jesus even during our busy commuting lifestyle. If you've never looked into what that means in the first place, I'd really encourage you, check out our Christianity 101 course first. You can take it live in-person or through our mobile app; great introduction to the basic concepts of what it means to follow Jesus that we try to build on in the Daily Challenges. Every day and week, we follow a rhythm to help us, as one community, learn what it means to follow Jesus even when we're not physically together. Every Monday,we introduce the idea for the week. Every Tuesday, we see what the Bible has to say. Every Wednesday, we allow ourselves to be challenged in our thoughts. Every Thursday, we try to apply it and live it out in our lives. Every Friday, we take time to pray and reflect on the topic. Saturday is a day for rest and then Sunday is a day for community. We're going to start gathering together as one community soon. We just recently had a great baptism service and celebration where a number of our members came together in one place to worship God. We're going to do that more and more often over this year. So, stay tuned for some of our upcoming gatherings. We're in a series right now called, "Reset." We're looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets everything in our lives. We've looked at a number of areas that it impacts. This week we're going to look at how following Jesus impacts our views of food and the body. That's why I'm here in a Chinese buffet, a place where people indulge, enjoy a huge selection of food and can have as much as they like. This kind of a topic about food and the body might surprise you. You might expect Redeem the Commute to be focused more on spiritual things, not having much to do with what we eat and what we do with our bodies, but the two are very closely connected. Tomorrow we're going to see how the Bible says that these two are connected, but it's probably something that you know from experience as well. Think of those times in life when somebody's struck with a serious illness. You almost immediately turn to prayer. We have this sense that spirituality and our physical bodies are both connected. Just look at people's interest in yoga today. It's amazing to see how people are longing for a way to connect spirituality and physicality in a way that Christianity has maybe neglected. Christianity does connect body and faith in a lot of different ways through things like the Lord's Supper, breaking bread and wine, connecting Jesus' death on the cross with actual bread and wine. There's a physical sign of something amazing that happened a long time ago. Or, baptism where somebody's washed cleaned spiritually, symbolized with water washing them clean on the outside. There's a huge connection between the two. Maybe you can think of some others. That's what I want you to think about today. Question: I hope you'll join with some other friends from the train or bus, or from the neighborhood, somebody else you can discuss our Daily Challenges with. Discuss with them today's question, "How else do you think the spiritual and physical are connected for Christians?" What examples have you seen?" Well, have a great discussion. Don't forget, we're reading the Bible in sync as a community. So, check our website or app to see what today's Bible reading is. Have a great one. I'll see you tomorrow.

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

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