We’re looking at how following Jesus impacts our view of money.  I sat in Chapters a couple weeks ago, next to some guys talking about motorcycles.  They all rode one kind of bike or another, and were talking about insurance, alarms and more.

One man was about to sell his house, and wanted to use the profit, all of it, to buy his dream bike.  His friend got upset, and said, this is because you’re single.  I could never spend like that with a wife and kids, I have too many responsibilities.

The motorcycle buyer said, “I Know, there are a lot of better ways I could spend the money, too, but this is my dream bike, I just have to have it”.

These guys had significantly different values about money.  Partly this is because of their different experiences – the guy with a family had to change his spending habits to support something more important than his dream bike.

I do have to wonder, though, if this will remain his buddy’s dream bike, or if there’ll be a new dream in five, then, twenty years while this one sits in the garage.  Or what happens when he can’t ride anymore, and has to sell a depreciated bike.  Will this still be his dream, or is the dream always changing?

In yesterday’s passage of scripture, Paul uses the same language Jesus is known for using – he refers to storing up treasure in heaven, instead of on earth.

In other words, we need to dream bigger dreams than motorcycles and vacations.  They’re not bad in and of themselves, but when they become our dream, prioritized over all else, we’ve made them into our ultimate good, and that’s very bad for us.  A few weeks ago, I defined sin in this way, as when we take something good, make it our ultimate good, and that is ultimately bad for us.

We free ourselves from slavery to false, empty and fluctuating dreams by gaining and saving in order to give generously.  In our series on Becoming Like Family, we talking about three ways to give: to Christian ministries like Redeem the Commute, to other work consistent with God’s kingdom values, and to save in order to directly help friends and family in need.

Challenge: Write, sketch, or imagine God’s dream for you in his kingdom.  What lasting impact has he positioned you to make on the world?  What financial changes would you have to make to do it?

 

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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