“As John Stott observed, “What stands out of Paul’s vision of the church is its God-centredness.”…Grasping this point will fundamentally change the way we think about church. We will think of the worship service less and less in terms of what it does for us, and more and more as an opportunity for us to glorify, praise, and worship God…We will view gathering together with other believers for worship less and less as an intrusion into our weekend, and more and more as an opportunity to declare our allegiance to the one true God.”
Mark 12:35-13:2
“Church, this is the ultimate question, there is none greater: Who do you say this Jesus is? Who is the Christ? …Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (quoting C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Mark 12:28-34
“Christian, the cross has freed you up, you have nothing else pressing. Because of Jesus, you can now love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Anything less shows you have not yet understood the grace and freedom you are now in. You are free now to fully obey and to love and to serve the Lord. If this is hard, your job is not to try harder, but to study the word and sit with God and his son more. Love cannot be forced, but when you know him more and more deeply, you will love him more and more deeply.”
Philippians 2:12-30
“There is no such thing as a lone wolf Christian…It’s only together, as the church, that we can, with fear and trembling, work out our salvation as God works in us. This message is not for individual Christians, alone and isolated from the church. That’s not what the promise is for…Christian: Accept that you are a small part of the whole. You are a cog in the machine of the church. It is only when you are plugged into the life of the church that you can fully embrace the blessed work of the father to will and to work for your benefit and for the benefit of those around you…"
Hosea 14:1-9
“Hosea calls us here to confess our sins, reject past objects of deceptive faith, and recognize that there is hope only in the sure character of God. Will we humbly admit our own need to receive from the only Savior?Genuine repentance is not bringing a gift in order to bribe or appease God, nor is it a feeling of sorrow or shame about getting caught for doing something wrong. It is not making a deceptive speech about turning over a new leaf when we can do nothing at all to change our own hearts. It is a genuine turning from a life of sin—a life lived for ourselves—to serve the one living and true God. Hosea’s final message to us is this: How do you read the words of this book? Do they enlighten or confound? Are they life or death?”
Hosea 13:4-16
“Even in these passages of terrible judgment, we are reminded that, while God’s character is revealed in both justice and mercy, he delights in showing mercy and compassion. Eight times in the Old Testament Yahweh is announced and introduced as in Psalm 86:15: ...a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…He is not quick to wrath, quick to judgment…Instead, in Hosea we see that God is prone to sudden rashes of compassion. You never know when he will just suddenly burst out in unexpected mercy…”
Hosea 11:12-13:3
“This passage also calls us to remember the past grace of God. We can ensure proper relationship with God and avoid his condemnations by remembering; remembering, and not forgetting, what God has done for us. This is the purpose for many of the songs we sing, as we recall to each other, and to ourselves, the goodness of God expressed throughout the ages to his church. Our need and God’s power and goodness fit hand-in-hand. Our awareness of each grows in relation to the other. The more I am honest about the condition of my heart, the more I increasingly rely on God. The more I am reminded of God’s goodness and mercy, the more I can afford to be honest with myself.”
Hosea 10:11-11:11
“God’s explanation of his commitment to continue the covenant beyond the judgment is both passionate and profound: the unique holy quality of his deity. His disposition and behaviour distinguish themselves from what would be the normal human pattern. He is God, and not a man — so he has the ability to decide when and how to exact just punishment in his fierce anger. Despite his terrible wrath, he has not lost control. If God was at the mercy of his emotions, Israel would be wiped from the face of the earth. But, thankfully, God is holy. He operates at a different level of action independent of human action and existence. And He has chosen to fulfill his sovereign plan that is guided by his love as well as justice.”
Hosea 9:10-10:10
“Church, those who genuinely belong to God are ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them’. All genuine people of God are created to be the fruitful extension of Jesus’ life and ministry, commissioned to bear the fruit of love. Jesus is the true vine. He is God’s promise fulfilled to Israel. For a long time it looked like Israel was cut off from God, but Jesus is the shoot that came from what seemed like a stump. Grafted into Christ, people from every nation, tongue and tribe become the true people of God.”