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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Luke's Perspective of Jesus: Ch. 9 Message Outlines (Include Audio)

Luke 9:18-27 (12)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 9 Paragraph # 4 Study # 12
January 17, 2010
Lincolnton, NC
(Download Audio)

(588)

Thesis:   All "discipleship" exists under the constraints of the Disciple Maker.

Introduction:   In our study last week I attempted to establish this truth: there is an equivalent reciprocity in Jesus' future treatment of us according to our present willingness to be identified with Him. He said, in effect, that those who are, in this world, unwilling to identify with Him and His teachings will be denied the participation in His glory that such identity carries as its inevitable consequence. This declaration establishes the reality of a direct correlation between our Love/Faith choices/actions and our eternal experience. This correlation creates its own set of difficulties in that many have taken it to indisputably establish "salvation" as the outcome of human performance issues and to alter the perception of "grace" as a "giver without performance requirements".

It is, I believe, for this cause that Jesus made His final comment in this "discipleship" text. As His last statement regarding the issues of discipleship under the "self-denial, daily cross-bearing, active pursuit" thesis, Jesus simply declared that "some" of those hearing His teaching on that very day would not die before they actually "saw" the Kingdom of God. It is my contention that this parting "truth" is the biblical counter-balance to the error of taking the reality of a direct correlation between Love/Faith choices/actions and turning it into a full blown doctrine of meritorious salvation that inexorably promotes the conflict of pride in all of the relationships that it touches.


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