Did Jesus really walk on water?
The Paradox of our Time

Simple Life

Simple life Right now our church is going through a series of messages based on the recently released book Simple Life. Jesus said that he came that we might have LIFE - not just an average mundane life but a full and abundant life (John 10:10). Are we experiencing this? Life is definitely getting busier but is it becoming more rewarding? If we’re honest, many of us feel stressed. We’re often struggling to juggle all of our various responsibilities of our life.

The book is based on a study of 1,077 people and it looks at four areas of their lives:

1. Time: the majority of people wanted more time for areas in their lives that really mattered to them.

2. Money: financial strains were pervasive with most people in this study; struggles included overdue bills, limited income, inadequate savings and increasing debt.

3. God: these people, above all, saw a big void in their relationship with God. They saw clearly that they were too busy for God. They needed a simpler life in order to get closer to God.

4. Relationships: without a doubt many of the respondents struggled with balance in relationships. The simple life for them meant having better and closer relationships.

The authors identify four steps for moving closer to the abundant life Jesus promises - Clarity, Movement, Alignment, Focus - and refer to these in the introduction to each topic.

1. Clarity: means that you know where you are going.

2. Movement: congestion in life means that you are not making progress. You can have a clear plan of where you want to go (clarity), but until you move you will not experience the goal.

3. Alignment: when a car's wheels are out of alignment it becomes difficult to drive; alignment refers to addressing the challenges that interfere with progress.

4. Focus: it will require focus for us to move past good intentions and toward making the tough decisions that will help us move towards a simpler life.

How's life? Consider simplifying your life ... it could be a revolution.

Comments

On the basis of this text, I've decided to try this book for some Christian vacation reading. Thanks very much for the suggestion,

Ken Hudson
Editor, Schiel & Denver
http://www.schieldenver.com/
http://www.schieldenver.co.uk

The comments to this entry are closed.