As my wife and I were driving to the local YMCA office this morning to have our income taxes figured, we noticed the marquee sign in front of the Baptist church building which read:<\/p>\n
\nWith God, all things are possible, but not easy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The words of this marquee sign has to do with the text found in Matthew 19:16-26. Jesus had just concluded telling the rich young ruler what he had to sacrifice in order to be an acceptable disciple, but he was not willing to make such a sacrifice (Matthew 19:20-22; cf. Matthew 16:24).<\/p>\n
In His disciples hearing, the Lord then makes the observation that individuals who are materially rich, will find it very difficult [hard] (Matthew 19:23) (as the marquee sign stated, but not easy see commentary) to enter into the kingdom of heaven, because of their allegiance to material possessions. However, with the right attitude of heart<\/strong>, its not impossible.<\/p>\n
Our Lord then states, with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26) God always leaves an individual with the ability to choose allegiance to material things, or allegiance to Him to place our trust in uncertain riches (cf. Proverbs 23:5; 1 Timothy 6:17), or to place our trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6) the choice is always ours<\/strong>. Theres nothing inherently wrong with having possessions, if we dont allow them to possess us (Acts 5:1-11; cf. Matthew 6:33; 1 Timothy 6:10; 1 Timothy 6:17-19).<\/p>\n
The bottom line is this:<\/strong> Through the saving gospel of Christ, (Romans 1:16; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14) God has made it possible for anyone<\/strong> to be a successful disciple [follower] of Christ (John 3:16-17; 1 John 4:8-10). However, we must be willing to give God our whole heart, no matter the amount of possessions or money we may have (cf. Numbers 14:24,30; Numbers 32:6-13; Joshua 14:8-9). If God has our whole heart, He can use our possessions and money to help and bless others less fortunate (cf. Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:32-37; Acts 11:27-30; 1 John 3:17-18), thereby blessing us as well (cf. Proverbs 3:9-10; Malachi 3:10).<\/p>\n
To the rich young ruler, the idea of giving of his whole heart to the Lord, in order to follow Him, was too big a price and sacrifice to pay.<\/p>\n
Remember the marquee sign? With God, all things are possible, but not easy.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As my wife and I were driving to the local YMCA office this morning to have our income taxes figured, we noticed the marquee sign in front of the Baptist church building which read: With God, all things are possible, but not easy. The words of this marquee sign has to do with the text … Continue reading ““With God, All Things Are Possible, But Not Easy” – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}