Do you expect God to use you to make disciples of other people? Yes, as a wider church community, we’re on about being transformed by Jesus, loving like Jesus so that we might impact the world for Jesus, but individually, what do you see as your role in this task? (more…)
In part 1, we asked of Jesus the question, “Who is this man?” The answer? The Messiah. Basically this means Jesus is a big deal. The biggest! He is THE King that God promised would come. But what does it mean for Jesus to be ‘The Messiah’? What’s his MISSION?In Mark’s biographical account of the life of Jesus, we see that after Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus then gets straight to the heart of his mission.
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. (Mark chapter 8 verse 31) (more…)
Check out this power-packed Jesus quote from Calvin: “Every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone. For he was sold, to buy us back; captive, to deliver us; condemned, to absolve us. He was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair.
He died for our life; so that by him fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal.
In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune.”
—John Calvin, preface for Pierre Robert Olivétan’s 1534 French translation of the New Testament
