One Thing!
3 Amens
‘ONE THING’
Phil 3:7-14
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish (dung), that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: (here we go, have you ever thought what one of the greats would say if they were asked to offer one piece of advice. Or what would they reply if they were asked to sum up their entire ministry, calling, purpose and aim in one sentence? Well here he is, he has already outlined his unimaginable credentials than threw them in with a pile of manure and said it’s all dung anyway, the next sentence is his life work summed up in one powerful statement about how his philosophy on life:) Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Sydney with some people who I hardly knew so I was being my natural quiet self. (I'm think I'm kind of like a pepper corn in that I can be in the food but you don’t really notice me until you bite me than I explode in your face) So they were just talking and I was quite disinterested in their topic of discussion until someone asked: “Hey what ever happened between Brook Frasier and Joel Houston.”
Read More“This one thing I do…”
Luke 10:38-42
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he said. But Martha was distracted with all the preparations she had to make, so she came up to him and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work alone? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the best part; it will not be taken away from her.”
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Phil 3:7-14
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish (dung), that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: (here we go, have you ever thought what one of the greats would say if they were asked to offer one piece of advice. Or what would they reply if they were asked to sum up their entire ministry, calling, purpose and aim in one sentence? Well here he is, he has already outlined his unimaginable credentials than threw them in with a pile of manure and said it’s all dung anyway, the next sentence is his life work summed up in one powerful statement about how his philosophy on life:) Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Here’s the power of the apostle Paul; he said, “This One Thing I do…” Not; ‘these many things’ I do to build my little kingdom just one thing.
Do we live for ONE THING or do we run to and fro all over the place occupying ourselves with stuff? We call this stuff; ‘life’ but the gospel calls it the ‘cares of this life’.
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Be not entangled with the cares of this life…
The biggest enemy in living for your ONE THING is entanglement in the cares of this life.
2 Tim 2:4 “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
Have you ever been entangled in something, like fishing line or a net or something like that?
Than you know what the worst part about being entangled is. It’s just about impossible to break free. It seems the more ferociously you fight the more tangled up you get. It can be so frustrating. Like really sticky gum when it’s stuck on your fingers and you just try and pull it off but it just sticks to those fingers as well and so you use other fingers to pull it off both and those get tangled too.
Is this ringing a bell for anyone???
Can you see how subtle it is? It’s so sneaky it creeps up looking all innocent.
Ø Gossip= “Oh we are just sharing about … they wouldn’t mind, it’s not a secret.”
Ø Anger= “Oh no I'm not angry I'm just impatient. (Road rage)”
Ø Slander= “Oh I just say little swear words I’d never say one of the biggies.”
Romans 1:28-32 “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind; to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death…”
So subtle and crafty are these entanglements that you can hardly see them creeping up on you. I was in a hotel room in
The reply was: “Oh man, apparently it was almost on hey!”
Well I chose here to burst forth with my peppery assault and I said: “Who cares!!! What is this ‘Hillsong woman’s weekly or something.”
They were all like: “oh yea, who cares hey. I mean that’s just stupid.”
The more you indulge in it you are tangling yourself tighter and tighter in a net that will cost you everything to get out of…
There is only one way to be free from these kinds of sticky entanglements. That’s to step back, take a breath and intentionally think about your every move. It takes a lot of time and effort.
It’s a slow and arduous process, but you have to realise you can’t just go to a meeting and get all fired up and hyped up about being free from your entanglement- sin, addiction, pestilence, relationships- Than go nuts trying to rid yourself just because your inspired.
How many have tried that??? You’ve been there spending the next half an hour at an altar kicking and screaming about how your getting free while flailing your arms around. The only fruit that produces is fatigue. So here you are all worn out and still stuck in your mess.
And this is where people say DUMB things like:
» “Oh it’s no use for me I’ll always be like this.”
» “What's the point, this bible stuff doesn’t work?”
» “I’ve tried that repentance thing before.”
» I’ll always be an alcoholic, drug addict, sex addict. I cant be free”
» I’ll always be addicted to porn, video games, food.”
Well I want to help you tonight. It’s never going to be over with one flurry of vehement effort, if it was that easy than no one would be stuck in their sin or failure. That kind of preaching only leads people into defeat and failure.
You have to imagine your sin as hard a bear trap and ask yourself what price, am I willing to pay to be free.
What if I have to remove a limb??? Jesus Himself said to go for it!
To be truly free from the entanglement of this life takes your entire will power and more. You must step back out of the situation than start, as slowly; as it may take, and begin to untangle yourself with gradual definitive movements.
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Jesus demonstrated perfectly how to live for the ONE THING!
“…He said, ‘It is finished’ and bowing His head He gave up His Spirit.” John 19:30
The word used here in bowing His head is the same Greek word used when He said “Foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Matt 8)
Meaning He wouldn’t rest His head until He had fulfilled His divine purpose for being, until He had gone to the very place He was always going to go and that’s the cross on Calvary’s hill. That’s where He belonged. That was His resting place. He had no where in this whole world to lay His head except in death on a cross. That’s what He was saying in Matt 8, not that He wouldn’t find a good enough hotel with soft enough pillows. He pointed through the corridors of time at a standing cross and said: “That is where I belong… That’s my calling and my destiny, my resting place when I can finally cry out: “It is finished!”
His One Thing was love.
What do you think kept this star breathing God to the cross? The mocking crowd were right to claim: “He saved others, let Him save Himself if He is the Christ…”
They were witnesses of this power He demonstrated in and through them by casting out devils, healing the sick even raising the dead and yet here He is stricken, fixed and fastened tight to a tree of execution. They knew something many times we forget. He had every power in and under heaven at His command, if He didn’t want to be there than He could come down at any point. So what was it? If He could bring Himself down than why wouldn’t He?
Because that was His ONE THING!!!
…To give His life as a ransom for many. Can you picture intentionally holding your face in a fire until the skin peels right off and your eyeballs become so hot they burst from the expanding liquid within? No! Because your will power could not allow you to do that; your mind would race into autopilot and force you to pull it out as a simple natural reaction. Yet those 3 nails had even less power to hold the Keeper of eternity than you would to do yourself intentional damage.
It is bad enough enduring all the agonies of the crucifixion yet try and imagine the self control to refrain from unleashing those 12 legions of the fiercest fighting machines ever concocted in the mind of God.
Yet He never flinched in the face of extreme adversity and overcame, than He bowed, laid and rested His head and cried out it is finished.
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Can you truly say “One thing I do!”
“Oh yea I follow Jesus and all that, I'm just too busy right now with my boyfriend to be able to go to youth or church.”
“Nah, I love God in my heart but He just wants me to have fun doesn’t He? So I can live how I like and He’ll be cool with it. He sees the heart.”
Or maybe your one of those Martha(s) who spend all their time trying to worry about a thousand things and yet Jesus never disciplined her like most preachers seem to want to He just sighed and said: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed.”
There is a real freedom in being uncomplicated and honestly saying: “One thing I do!” not a hundred things so I look more spiritual or more holy than others. Not entangled with the cares of this world always looking behind me to see if someone is talking about me now, worried about image and reputation. No, no, no… Just one thing!
30 Day D+L
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Craig C. Ireland
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Francisco Zubia
When you fuse two precious metals together you get another one. I don't know what bronze is made of but it's in between something else. It's second place. The gold is first place. Maybe silver is second or third.
It's a toss-up between first and second, but not first-gold. If we want the golden cup we have to finish the race. Those who race keep their hopes ahead in front of them. They don't look to back sight.
The apostle Paul told someone or many "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith". Jesus told Martha your eyes are not focus on me, but on something else. That something else will get you something but not the one thing, the golden crown that demand one total attention to what Jesus hasth to say.
Martha was serving, Mary was listening...How can we dicern? Jesus told the church at Laodicea," You say, I am rich and have not need of anything, but I tell you, you are poor, naked and blind!...Get salve for you to see and buy me gold so you won't be poor!"
A periless situation: a serving christian and a listening christian! Someone saith don't be hearer only but doers so you be blessed!
A serving christian brings the gospel but a listening christian brings the truth. So don't bring the gospel unless your have listened and brought the truth.
Wheu! Remember this one thing, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free!"...
So those who bring the gospel have better had spent many hours with Jesus and his word, like Mary, before they pretend to give advice on the word and serve like Martha!"
Get wisdom, but above all, get understanding! So what about Paul's one thing, to look ahead and not look back, the golden crown, it is to take the truth that was so precious for salvation for many who lived in error.
Jesus saith," I'm the truth, the way and the life" and that's what Paul wanted to embrace ahead of him, the truth, the way and the life, there no other name under heaven under which men can be saved. So to embrace Jesus is to embrace the only way to life. So that's why we have to look ahead and embrace the truth, namely Jesus himself.
Have you embraced the truth himself? You have to run and not look back. Remember Lot's wife and don't repeat her mistake and look back. Look to Jesus. Do it now. Amen
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