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Follow Day 14 Faith To Stay: Digging Deeper

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Digging Deeper Days

Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!

Yesterday’s Journey Study connects with today’s!
Check out Faith To Stay!

The Questions

1) What does it mean to lose our lives because of Jesus? (verse 25)

2) In honesty, I can think of many benefits to not losing my life to Jesus, what it His point in these questions? (verse 26)

3) How are rewards tied in to Jesus’ questions? (verse 27)

Matthew 16:24-28

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. 26 For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each according to what he has done. 28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Original Intent

1) What does it mean to lose our lives because of Jesus? (verse 25)
We often have the wrong idea about who God is at His core. We might see Him as vengeful, waiting for us to mess up so He can mock us, condemn us, or ruin our lives. Some view Him as disengaged and entirely uninterested in the affairs of humanity. In transparency, I struggled for years with the idea that just because God “made us”, doesn’t mean He actually “loved us”. He is infinite while we are finite mortals, what could we bring to the God of all to cause Him to love us?! Before we can talk about “losing our lives because of Jesus”, it’s absolutely imperative we know exactly Who this Jesus really is. If I surrender to Him, am I giving Him free reign to be a dictator? If I lose my life to Him, will I hate my life and become strapped into stringent lists of “holy performance”? Who is the Jesus we are surrendering to? The disciple John answered this concisely for us in three words, “…God is love…”. (1 John 4:8) Preacher Paul helps us define what love looks like in everyday life as he penned a letter to the church in Corinth, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) When we realize the God who is calling for our surrender to Him is good, kind, loving, and trustworthy, we can “lose our lives” to Him with full confidence that He is for us and not against us. (Romans 8:31-32)

2) In honesty, I can think of many benefits to not losing my life to Jesus, what it His point in these questions? (verse 26)
“For what will it benefit someone if they gain the whole world….”, Jesus asks His audience. (verse 26) Perhaps like them, and me, I imagine His voice trailing off and my own mind running away with just this snippet of conversation. I quickly build reasons I feel are worth “gaining the whole world”. Wealth. Fame. Power. The allure for more, the lie that I don’t have enough, and the sick temptation to only satiate self, fuels me into reasoning away why I just can’t follow Jesus. At least not right now. I have things I want to do. I have my kingdom to build. Ladies, that isn’t just a collection of words right there, they are lies I have purchased and owned and fought hard to protect, even after I surrendered to Jesus. But this poignant question from the Lord isn’t a snippet in an overheard conversation. He doesn’t leave us to our imaginative interpretations. “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it.” (verse 25) Not perhaps. Not ‘by chance’ if the odds are against you. It’s a dead certain guarantee. If you want to save your life by yourself, live it your way, and build your own kingdom, you will lose it in the end. Jesus said it like this to a man who visited him under the cover of nightfall so no one would see him stepping outside the kosher norm, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6) There are not countless ways to “get to God”. There is one. Total surrender to Him, allowing Him to kill and remove our sin nature and ushering us into a new birth as new creations, born with His righteous DNA in place of our sinful set. Only here, in the sacred space of surrender, do we find the deeply radical truth fleshed out in real life, “…whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.” (verse 25)

3) How are rewards tied in to Jesus’ questions? (verse 27)
Jesus asks another question to help us think through the value of surrendering to Him and the rewards only He can offer, “What will anyone give in exchange for his life?”. Even if we had the whole world given on a silver platter and somehow achieved “it all”, when the blinking vapor of our life is over and all of eternity begins, what could we possibly give in exchange to the God of the Universe to “buy back” our souls? All of our wealth, knowledge, and possessions? What a mockery that would be to the God who owns all, knows all, and sees all. Jesus’ point is for His audience to fully understand how inescapable it is for us to save ourselves from the coming wrath we deserve because of our sin. No, the only possible way we can “earn” the rewards Jesus speaks of in verses 27-28 are by acknowledging that we truly are impoverished. We have absolutely nothing of value to buy back our souls, except one thing. Our soul itself. Our souls were crafted with tenderness, masterful creativity, divine love, and abundant joy, then given to us, in the hope we would surrender them back to the Lord God that we might experience life to the fullest. (John 10:10) Is there a grander dichotomy?! In laying down our life, we find it. In keeping it to ourselves, we lose it. Only in its surrender are we freed to live our lives in adoring love to the God who unshackled us from our sin. It’s these acts of love that are divinely rewarded.

Everyday Application

1) What does it mean to lose our lives because of Jesus? (verse 25)
We can lose ourselves easily to a myriad of important and worthwhile pursuits. Family. Raising children. Higher education. Career. Being the best version of ourselves. None of these, however noble, will save us from the consequence we have rightfully earned because of our sinfulness. Only faith in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross to crucify our sin nature and pay the penalty required for our sin will save us from an eternity of endless death, shame, and condemnation. To lose our lives for Jesus is to “lose ourselves” to the law of love. The simplest description of God is that He IS Love. (1 John 4:8) Every other aspect of His character and every action He takes is deeply anchored in radical, divine love. Therefore, to surrender ourselves fully over to Him, to lose our lives to Him, is to be ruled by Love. Every word we speak, action we take, body language we give off, or thought we think is to be ruled by this same radical, divine love of the God who broke our bondage to sin through His own death and resurrection. This is surely an impossible feat to accomplish on our own! Ask anyone who has “tried hard” to simply be consistently loving in only one instance of everyday life! Yet, because of His love, God graciously gives us His Own Power to live out His kind of radical, divine love every moment of every day through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we surrender our everything to Jesus, agreeing with Him that yes, the only way to save our lives is in giving them up to Him, then He gives us His Holy Spirit to live inside each of us for eternity. Living everyday lives governed by the law of love is precipitated by losing ourselves entirely within the love of Jesus. Who rules you?

2) In honesty, I can think of many benefits to not losing my life to Jesus, what it His point in these questions? (verse 26)
I have the gift of 3 teenagers living together with us in our current parenting season, and more on the way as time seems to move faster and faster. We have always encouraged our kids to “own their own faith”, whatever that looks like. Sometimes it means deciding to save up and pay their own way to attend summer church camp because they see the value of investing in their faith walk. Sometimes it means having random conversations about the inner workings, and honest messiness, of church, marriage, and real life through the lens of a good God who redeems. And sometimes, it means letting our kids wrestle with, and push against, the faith we have taught them since they were small. Being a millennial teenager certainly gives ample reason to ask hard questions. Ones that punch my gut, making me ache for weeks at their depth and heavy implications. “I want to follow Jesus, but I don’t want Him to, you know, take me to Africa and make me poor.” Or “I just don’t think there actually is a God, or if there is, we can each choose our own way to make Him happy.” Or, “There’s just a lot of ‘fun’ things I want to do that God wouldn’t approve of, so I’ll wait to follow Him until I’m older.” Each of these are real statements from my kids at varying stages, and they break my heart because they have missed the deep, unshakeable, utterly complete goodness of God. We have the conversation, and I praise God for the safety of our relationship that allows the “push back”. I listen compassionately, permitting their words to flow unhindered, knowing I do exactly the same to God in different scenarios and with different words, but I still wrestle against Him. Here’s the incredible thing, He always allows my wrestling. I cannot say the right words to “force” my children to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, but God is the author of every story. He will keep pursuing them, just as He has faithfully pursued me. Go ahead, girl, ask the big uncomfortable questions. Lay them out there. Know the Lord God is listening, attentive, and is pursuing you with love!

3) How are rewards tied in to Jesus’ questions? (verse 27)
Following Jesus comes at a high cost, total surrender. This kind of following guarantees discomfort, struggle, and persecution, but Jesus wants to remind us the benefit far outweighs the cost. In yesterday’s Journey Study, the man Jesus healed begged to follow Jesus far away from his hometown, but Jesus told him to stay and share what Jesus had done for him. Following Jesus is often unexpected, and when we face trial in the unexpected, we can begin to lose heart and become tempted to “go back” to living our own lives instead of continuing to daily surrender to Christ. Jesus’ words press in on our hearts, urging us to stay focused on truth. Christ will come again, and He will bring judgement with Him for all of us. No amount of our actionable effort to “do good works” will matter one bit if we have not first surrendered the whole of ourselves to Him for safekeeping. When we remember that our surrender is earning for us a life that cannot be lost and eternal rewards, we are encouraged to keep the running the race ahead of us in this life, difficult as it is, because our “momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (1 Corinthians 4:17-18)

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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!

1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!

Digging Deeper Community

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Why Dig Deeper?

Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.

In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!

Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.

Study Tools

We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.

Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!

Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))

Memorize It!

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Passionate Day 10
I Thirst

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Read His Words Before Ours!

Isaiah 55:1-3
John 7:37-39
John 4:13-14
Psalm 69:19-21 

1500 years.
40 different authors.
3 different languages.
One cohesive theme:
The redemption of mankind.

2500 prophecies.
With over 300 fulfilled solely through the lineage, birth, life, and death of Christ.

Consider the mind-blowing comparisons in the reliability of these historic documents:
Julius Caesar has 10 surviving manuscripts to provide evidence of his authorship.
Ancient historian, Herodotus, has 8 surviving manuscripts proving his authorship.
Homer has 643 surviving manuscripts of his Iliad.
Based on these grounds, no one debates or argues that these men didn’t actually author the works that bear their name.

And then there’s the New Testament, which has an astounding 5,366 surviving manuscripts!
The Bible is more historically and archaeologically accurate than any other historical book.

God’s redemptive plan wasn’t an afterthought, wasn’t a #lastminuteidea.
Meticulously orchestrated.
Divinely designed.
Thoroughly reliable.
For our salvation….yours and mine. Today.

Today as we drive our cars, clean up after kids, have arguments with our spouses, shop, drink tea and coffee, post to Instagram, and worry about what our neighbors think, how healthy our lawn is, and what we will make for dinner.
In the middle of our everyday mess, Jesus comes to save.

At the cross, amidst all the other un-foldings of history and the culmination of God’s redemptive plan
to restore the relationship between Himself and us,
Jesus leaves us with a spoken word.
In the presence of hundreds of eyewitnesses, both Gentile and Jew,
Christ again points to the unequivocal truth that He was indeed the promised Messiah.
“I Thirst.”

Two words that simultaneously point to Christ’s divinity and His humanity.

Thirst.
A human need that fulfilled yet another divine prophecy.
“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”
Psalm 69:21

A human need displaying that Jesus was truly the “with us” God.
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:14-15

A human need reflecting a God-sized vacuum.
Beyond the initial pointing towards the prophetic fulfillment, the irony lies beneath the surface in Christ’s words.
The Living Water had Himself become thirsty…..

“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again;
the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14
…because He’d been cut off from the Father.

“I Thirst.”
An emptiness and brokenness gripped these two words.
A separation existed, an impossible yawning chasm, between God the Father and God the Son
caused by Christ bearing the sin of the world.
And Jesus thirsted.

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
Psalm 63:1
These are King David’s words as he wrote about his passionate need for God.

Yes, I have no doubt at all that Christ was thirsty that day as he hung on the cross, that just a cool drink would have been a welcome relief.
But there was more going on than a parched throat and bloody cracked lips, his soul was withering.

Like yours and mine without the same sustenance of Living Water found in Jesus.

This messy, daily life we live?
The crazy schedules that toss us to and fro, the loneliness that seeps in, the emptiness that haunts the corners of our souls, the discord in relationships, the worries that crease our foreheads and hearts….
This is the dry and weary land where there is no water.
That Living Water?
It’s Available In The Middle of our Everyday!

And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who desires, take the water of life without price.
Revelation 22:17

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Isaiah 55:1

In Him is life in the middle of our death.
In Him is redemption in the middle of our brokenness.
In Him is hope in the middle of our unsolvable grief.
for He is the very Son of God.

He thirsted, so we would never have to.
He holds out truth; solid, reliable, authentic, time-tested truth.

Are you thirsty?

Ready for more? Dig Deeper!
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Don’t miss today’s Digging Deeper!     And we’d love to hear your thoughts from today’s Journey!    Comment Here!

Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus. Tap and hold from your mobile device to download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!

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Passionate Day 9
Forsaken: Digging Deeper

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Digging Deeper Days...are a pretty big deal at GT!

We search God's Word together, ask questions as we read, dig around to find the original intentions at the time of writing, and then make some applications to our everyday lives.
Along the way, we hope you'll pick up some new tools to study Scripture and you'll see truth in a new and accessible way!
Dig In!

The Passage

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Journey Study?
Check out Forsaken!

2 Corinthians 5:21 English Standard Version (ESV)

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The Questions

1) Who is speaking in these verses and to whom are they speaking?

2) What is the greater context of this passage?

3) Who is the “our” in this verse and who is the “him”?

4) How did Jesus become sin?

The Findings for Intention

1) Who is speaking in these verses and to whom are they speaking?
In this verse Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church. This is a letter that he wrote to them reminding them of the truth of the gospel. At the time that Paul wrote this, the Corinthians were dealing with false teachers who were persuading many to follow a false gospel.

2) What is the greater context of this passage?
In the greater context of the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul is reminding them of what they knew to be true and reiterating basic theology. Within the first part of this chapter, Paul describes our Heavenly dwelling place and reminds the Corinthians that one day we will be with Christ fully. The second part of this passage, which is where we find our verse, Paul reminds this church of their reconciliation with the Lord. He wants them to never forget the price that Jesus paid on the cross so that as believers they would be eternally right with God no longer under His wrath.

3) Who is the “our” in this verse and who is the “him”?
For our (humanity) sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him (Jesus) we (humanity) might become the righteousness of God.

4) How did Jesus become our sin?
In the previous verses Paul explains this. Specifically, in 5:19, Paul says, “that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,”. God sent Jesus to the cross and poured all of His wrath out for humanity’s sin on Jesus because of that every human has the ability to be in relationship with God if they choose. (John 3:16) Once Jesus died, death and sin were conquered, defeated once and for all.

The Everyday Application

1) Who is speaking in these verses and to whom are they speaking?
In this letter, we see the heart of a pastor, Paul, to his people. He desperately wants the Corinthians to remember what they know to be true, remember the one true gospel. He is going back to the basics so they are reminded of their firm foundation. Without the ministry of reconciliation between God and man through Jesus, we are lost! When we lose sight of the gospel, going back to the simple, authentic, and powerful truth of God’s Word sets us back on track to see clearly the truth of whose we are, who we are, and what God says about how we should be.

2) What is the greater context of this passage?
This verse could stand alone as a simple, yet powerful truth of the gospel message. When we read it in greater context, it makes this one line verse even more impactful. Understanding the reconciliation between God and man is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Knowing and believing what Christ did on the Cross is the transformative trajectory change all creation longs for and needs because without it, we are lost in our sin.

3) Who is the “our” in this verse and who is the “him”?
Paul, in his writing, sometimes makes it difficult to follow with his use of pronouns. It is important that we as readers of the Word know who is being talked about within the context of the verse. When we read it with nouns instead of pronouns, the verse may make more senses. “For our (humanity) sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him (Jesus) we (humanity) might become the righteousness of God.” The important thing to remember is God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that all of humanity would have the opportunity to be in relationship with God, the great I AM.

4) How did Jesus become sin?
Throughout Scripture we see that through Jesus’s death on the cross God was pouring out His wrath for the sin of humanity. Jesus’s blood was shed so that we might be cleansed of all unrighteousness. When we make the choice to passionately follow Christ, the Holy Spirit lives and works within us, and we are made right and we are set free. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2

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I Can Do That!

1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read through it (always more than a verse or two).
3) Write down your questions as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God in your everyday!

The Community!

Thanks for joining us today as we journeyed into
Passionate Week Two!
Don’t miss out on the discussion – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

The Tools!

We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources.  Just type in the verse you’re looking at and Boom! It’s right in front of you in English and Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament), which are the original languages the Bible was written in.

Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Find super awesome stuff like “origin”, “definition”, and even all the different ways that single word has been translated into English! If you want to be geeky, you can even click the word and hear its original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!

Want to get more background on a word or phrasing or passage? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))

The Why!

Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.

In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!

Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.

Embracing God’s fullness in our lives is rooted in scripture and memorizing His word is vital to our continued growth and depth with Jesus.
Download this week’s verse and make it your phone’s lockscreen!
Tap and hold on your mobile device to save.

Looking for other journeys from this theme?
See all past studies in Passionate!