Initiate meaningful conversation with your family no matter how long the commute with Joe White's age appropriate short talks on scripture, parenting, culture, and community.
Episodes
Saturday Mar 16, 2019
Saturday Mar 16, 2019
To believe is to receive. To receive is to follow. Your heart has got great big arms. Christ wants to come into your heart and be that gift to you, and you can actually receive him.
Family Discussions:
- What does it mean to believe in Jesus?
- What happens when a person puts their faith in God?
- Why did the blind man instantly worship Jesus when he believed in him?
- As a believer, with whatever it is that's going on in your life today, how do we respond?
- How are you going to respond to the fact that you've received Christ into your heart as his gift to you today?
Episode Transcription:
00:14 I want to tell you today about a gift, and a boy whose life was changed because of that gift. We're going to be looking at John chapter nine, verse 30 through 39, and it says this, "'Now,' the man answered, 'Now that is remarkable. You don't know where He comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing,' To this, they replied, 'you were steeped in sin at birth. How dare you lecture to us?' And they threw him out. Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and he said, when he found out about that, he said, 'Do you not believe in the Son of Man?' 'Who is he, sir?,' the man asked. 'Tell me so that I may believe in Him.' Jesus said, 'you have now seen Him. In fact, He is the one speaking to you.' Then the man said, 'Lord, I believe.' And he worshiped Him. Jesus said, 'For judgment, I have come into this world so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.'"
01:31 You know, I had a teenage friend and his name was Tim, and we were, you know, I was kind of counseling him. His parents were moving to a new town. Man, this guy was so mad. His anger got him into fights with his friends. I confronted him in love. You know, I said, "Tim, why are you striking out at everyone?" He mumbled with hot tears in my eyes, "My Dad's moving. He's moving me from my friends. I'm mad. I don't even like God. I don't believe in anything anymore." Man, I knew that Tim needed Christ. And I've been in conversations like this on airplanes and in cars and in trains and buses, but in this case, it was with a teenage guy. So I did what I've done so many times with so many people of different ages. I just took off my watch and I handed it to him, and Tim looked up with a kind of "whatever" look in his eyes, and I said, "Tim, here, hold this." I said, "Whose is it?" He said, "Yours." And I said, "But you're holding it." And he said, "It's still yours." I said, "Well, I want you to have it. Take it. It's a gift." "It is? For me? Your watch?" I mean, he was pleased and he was puzzled. Who wouldn't want a Timex ironman watch? I said, "Whose is it now, Tim? I've just given it to you. Whose is it now?" He goes, "Mine, I guess? Yeah, I guess it's mine." And I said, "Tim, when did it become yours? When I handed it to you or when you accepted the gift into your heart?" Tim smiled softly. He understood belief. He understood faith. He said, "I guess it's mine when I accepted it into my heart."
03:07 You know, to believe is to receive. To receive is to follow. Your heart has got great big arms. Christ wants to come into your heart and be that gift to you, and you can actually receive him. And then when you receive him, you believe in him. And when you believe in him, you follow him.
03:25 So the questions for the day are this: what does it mean to believe in Jesus? And secondly, what happens when a person puts their faith in God? Thirdly, why did the blind man instantly worship Jesus when he believed in him? And then here's the big question. As a believer, with whatever it is that's going on in your life today, as a believer, how do we respond? How are you going to respond to the fact that you've received Christ into your heart as his gift to you today? And here's the lifeline that we can think about together as a family. You know, unconditional love gives a family God's gift of faith. That's what love does in a family. It gives God's gift of faith to each other. How are you going to do that today?