good works

Heavenly Assignments

“In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’” – John 5:17 As we talked about yesterday, non-work is not ideal, but our culture is bent towards thinking that leisure is King. We have come to believe that Heaven is a place where we sit around eternally and eat from a buffet, float on clouds, and fly. However, the truth is that there will be work for us to do there, too, but it will be the best kind of work. In the next life, we will have meaningful, life-giving assignments, the type that we were meant to experience before the fall. In short, it will be avodah. There are probably many of us who think seriously about the afterlife and at one time or another feared that it might be boring. The good news is

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Giving in Secret and Sinning in Public

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” – Matthew 6:2-4 Today let’s talk about the gift and power of secrecy. Now, before you get all worked up about how “cultish” that sounds, be assured that it’s an old idea with origins in Jewish culture. It’s something Jesus talked about in Matthew 6, when he told his followers to give without telling anybody else. I want to make it clear right away that this is not a

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The Blessing in Righteousness

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” – Matthew 6:33 For the next few days, I want to discuss three things that I believe lead to a blessed life. As Christians, we use the word blessed a lot, but I’m not always sure we understand what it means. Because I try to look at the Bible holistically, I’ve come up with a triad of virtues, which, based on the entire compendium of Scripture, seem to lead to the most happy and fulfilling human existence. While this is just my observation, I hope these next few devotions offer a point of focus as we seek to obtain the abundant life that Jesus died to give us. That said, the first thing that causes us to inherit blessing is righteousness. Though this can be an uncomfortable word, the reality is

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