What's Written on Your Heart

This week we began our series “Etched”, which is a fresh look at the most well known social law system in history:  The Ten Commandments.

The 10 Commandments aren’t meant to break our backs with rules, but to break our hearts for relationships.    If we were to identify one ‘big idea’ for these set of commandments it would look like this:  “Together…let’s enjoy our REAL, RELATIONAL, REDEEMER.”

The 10 Commandments are designed to help us enjoy God…together, with other people.   So, the first 4 are vertical - they teach us how to fully enjoy (love) God.  The last 6 are horizontal - they teach us how to enjoy (love) others.

Remember…the Ten Commandments were written by a REAL God, who has loyally pursued a RELATIONSHIP with us, and has even gone to great extents to REDEEM us from our sins.  With that as a back drop, God has every right to demand from us these ten basic pinciples for life in community.

But, here’s the brutal truth:  if we don’t like God…we definitely won’t like His commandments.  We will never receive the message of the Ten Commandments until we first fall in love with the God who spoke them!

This week, I challenge you to put the Ten Commandments to memory.    ETCH THEM ON YOUR HEART and learn to ENJOY your REAL, RELATIONAL REDEEMER!

For further study of the Ten Commandments, here are some great books I encourage you to buy:

Hard Times are defining moments.    They will either make us trust God more, or they will make us trust God less.

That’s really all we have to know about Hard Times.  This is a moment that will change me.  No matter the outcome of this moment - I will either trust God more in the process, or I will trust Him less.

The question is:   How do I learn to trust Him more in Hard Times?

This week, we discovered that God takes great pleasure in watching us learn to trust Him more.  We learned from a mom in 2 Kings 4 who was facing a very hard time.   Using empty jars, God met her need in a UNIQUE way.  He COLLABORATED with a lot of people, and His miraculous provision was PROPORTIONATE to her faith.

Listen to this week’s message and then answer these questions for yourself:

1. What’s Your Jar Story?
2. Who will God collaborate with in your Jar Story ( OR  How will God use YOU in someone else’s Jar Story?)
3. How big will your jar story be?

Feel free to share your “Jar Story” below

Many requests have been made for the video teaching the last two weeks from Dave Ramsey.  Although we don’t have the rights to post the videos on our sites, Dave’s talks can be viewed online here:  Life.  Money.  Hope Videos

Find the “Upside” of the downside when you commit to learning new money behaviors…try it and see!