Mondays with Matt

Running on Fumes?
Sweet times of bible soaked, risky faith are memories of the Spirit’s past work. Telling the stories of His fading work gets drab. Was it high-school, college, just after you got out? The bible was alive, dripping from every thought. Faith was full of “are you sure, God, that seems a little risky.” With every risk, He was sure, faithful and present. He still is, but the love relationship is fading with the apathy of self deceit: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves, do what it says (James1.22).” Why is our faith not alive, and our relationship with God so dead?

My hope is that we take this week to listen. To listen to the wonder of His word, the other world truths that transform our ordinary lives. Maybe we’ve never known Him deeply, day in day out interacting with the Creator of the world. Let this week be a return to the past vibrant faith you once had, or a move towards life with Christ for the first time.

Three things are key. Time. Plan. Action.

Time: When will you meet with Him this week? Set aside twenty minutes each day, right now, when you will meet with Him. Write them on your calendar, block it out in your outlook, set aside time to be still slow and silent.

Plan: What will you read? Below we have set aside a piece of God’s word for us to read each day this week. You may want to interact with God in these passages, or you may want to pick your own. After this week is over, think about reading through the NT with our church www.northwestbible.org/read-listen-respond. Pray. Read the passage. What is God saying? How does it impact your life? See the above link for some helpful tools in your time with Him.

Monday: James 1.19-27

Tuesday: Luke 24.36-49

Wednesday: Matthew 13.1-9; 13.18-23

Thursday: Psalm 119.1-96

Friday: Psalm 119.96-176

Saturday: Psalm 1

Sunday: John 5.39-47
Action: God has implanted His Spirit in our hearts. The Spirit desires for God’s word to come alive for you, in understanding and action. Write down what God has communicated to you through His word, stick it on your dashboard, or mirror as a constant reminder through the day, to cling to and obey His commands.

Ps. If your love for Christ is waning, or you are unsure if you know Him, spend some time slowly working through the greatest story of all time, the gospel. Below you will see scripture that captures what we were created for, how we have screwed it all up, and how God has moved towards us to redeem our brokenness in His Son’s death and resurrection.

Slowly move through these passages if you like, all each day, or sections at a time. Ask God two things: What do you want me to learn about myself? What do you want me to know about you?

1. Created For and By Him: There is no life outside of God’s original intention for His creation

Malachi 2:10

Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

Psalm 100:3

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Acts 17:24-28

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. [26] From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. [27] God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. [28] 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

Genesis Ch1-2
2. All Have Sinned: Every one of us is born in enmity towards God

Psalm 51:5

Surely I was sinful at birth,

sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

(“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

And in sin my mother conceived me” NAS)

Romans 3:23

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things

and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

Isaiah 53:6

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

1 John 1:8

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Romans 5:12-14

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-- [13] for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. [14] Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

Exodus 20:1-17 Standard Broken/Lifestyle abandoned

3. Sin’s Penalty: Death physically and eternal separation from God

Isaiah 59:2

But your iniquities have separated

you from your God;

your sins have hidden his face from you,

so that he will not hear.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rev. 21:8

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

Genesis 3:19

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return."


4. Christ Paid the Wage: His death as sacrificial substitutionary atonement for our sins

Ephes. 2:4-7

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, [5] made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. [6] And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, [7] in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Mark 10:45

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

1 Peter 3:18

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

1 Peter 1:18-19

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, [19] but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

2 Cor. 5:18-19, 21

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: [19] that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation… God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Titus 3:5

he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

Ephes. 2:16, 18

and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Col. 1:19-20

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
5. We Must Believe: Place your trust in Christ the Messiah rather than yourself

John 11:25-26

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; [26] and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

John 1:12

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

Jn3.36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Ephes. 2:8-10

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- [9] not by works, so that no one can boast. [10] For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
6. Assurance: You have no need to fear, God has called you as His own from eternity

Ephes. 1:3-8

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. [4] For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. [7] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace [8] that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

1 John 5:11-13

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. [12] He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

[13] I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

John 5:24

"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

Ephes. 1:13-14

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.

1 Cor. 15:4-5, 57

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, [5] and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve... But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Matt