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Be carful of what you ask God for!. Continuing in Sermon on the Mount:. We get a famous passage that can be very challenging to really put into practice. “Ask and you shall receive”. So Let’s Get Started. 1) Power of God 2) Passage & what does it mean to me?
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Continuing in Sermon on the Mount: • We get a famous passage that can be very challenging to really put into practice. • “Ask and you shall receive”
1) Power of God • 2) Passage & what does it mean to me? • 3) Results of Prayer; Personal & Conclusion
Francis Chan • Broad idea: We underestimate God. • Video:
In each case the prevailing wisdom: • 1) Too big to change • 2) Too powerful to change • 3) Impossible. • Many people made assumptions about the ineffectiveness of ‘good’ or ‘ethics’.
How I use Twitter • Tim Seymour @timseymour49m • For all #Yellens talk, #Fed's Evans doubts Fed funds rate will rise before middle of 2015
astro doughnuts @AstroDoughnutsMar 26 • GM Crystal City! We're posted up at 2450 Crystal Dr next Jimmy John's. The window is open and we've got plenty of doughnuts!
Kevin Kaiser @HedgeyeENERGY22m • "History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics." - B.R. Ambedkar
From WSJ: • French President François Hollande has found a new way to make his ministers focus: take away their cellphones during cabinet meetings. • Mr. Hollande made the call after his party took a hammering in local elections two weeks ago. Since the polling defeat, the president has one hangup: focusing a smaller team of ministers—although drawn from a wide spectrum of political sensibilities—on answering voters’ calls for change. • Mr. Hollande wants his ministers engaged fully on the fight to cut off the rise in unemployment by dialing back on red tape and tax on business. • The no-cellphone policy at cabinet meetings got a good reception, with government spokesman and agriculture minister Stéphane Le Foll confessing that a cellphone can prove a distraction even at times of extreme concentration. • “Everyone will now have to discuss and listen to what is said without typing away on this wonderful tool which allows us to communicate with one another in the most improbable of places,” Mr. Le Foll said. • Mr. Le Foll had already got the message and left his cell with his security staff before the cabinet meeting; others had to leave theirs at the door. Adults and Cell Phones
2) Matt 7 • 7“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door is opened. 9Who among you will give your children a stone when they ask for bread? 10Or give them a snake when they ask for fish? 11If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. 12Therefore, you should treat people in the same way that you want people to treat you; this is the Law and the Prophets.
What would you say to a younger sibling who wanted you to get them drugs?
If it was forecast to be warm, but is cold and they want a coat?
So you your siblings requests you could say: • 1) No. This request is bad for you. • 2) Later. You are not ready for it. • 3) Of course. • Well what do you think God might say to some of your requests?
Results of Prayer • Many times our prayers are answered but we don’t see it or remember it. • Actually seeing God at work in the world has to be found. God is subtle, not overwhelming.
More Info • When viewed head on, what at first looks like typography on top of a simple photograph reveals itself to be well-executed anamorphic typography by Chicago designer Thomas Quinn. The illusion is created using a standard light projector that projects the intended design on an uneven surface which is then carefully painted. From every other angle the work looks skewed and almost illegible, but when you stand at just the right spot everything seems to pop into place.
But some people won’t hear/see God. • Barbara Enrenreich (Author) And yet, she says simply of the revelation or epiphany she underwent as a high school student, "I couldn't put it out of my life." In the book, she explains in more detail: "[T]he world flamed into life. How else to describe it? There were no visions, no prophetic voices or visits by totemic animals, just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into me and I poured out into it. This was not the passive beatific merger with 'the All,' as promised by the Eastern mystics. It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once, and one reason for the terrible wordlessness of the experience is that you cannot observe fire really closely without becoming part of it."http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-barbara-ehrenreich-20140406,0,2464009.story#ixzz2yPb5B9xY
A few months later, I concluded it had been a bout of mental illness. It was the only rational explanation. But I kept asking questions in the journal: 'How do I get back to that level of awareness?' Reality seemed so mundane and deadly afterward."Part of the disconnect, Ehrenreich suggests, involved her atheism, which remains a proud piece of her heritage. "I was born to atheism," she writes, "and raised in it, by people who had derived their own atheism from a proud tradition of working-class rejection of authority in all its forms, whether vested in bosses or priests, gods or demons. This is what defined my people: We did not believe, and what this meant, when I started on my path of metaphysical questioning, was that there were no ready answers at hand."http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-barbara-ehrenreich-20140406,0,2464009.story#ixzz2yPdWECEj
Personal • My goals and requests
Sumary: • Really seeing God at work in our lives is not as easy as many assume. In fact, it can be very confusing. God is that you? Is a question many people ask during their lives. The technical term is “discernment”.
Lastly a scene from Revelation • Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3Another angel came and stood at the altar, and he held a gold bowl for burning incense. He was given a large amount of incense, in order to offer it on behalf of the prayers of all the saints on the gold altar in front of the throne. 4The smoke of the incense offered for the prayers of the saints rose up before God from the angel’s hand.
Conclusion: • God is powerful • We can ask him for what we want • But God has a ‘bigger’ picture and may say: • No • Later or maybe • Yes • But figuring out God’s response is not easy.
