Austin Chinese Church

In the past week, hopefully all of us have had some time to pause, reflect, and thank God for the people, circumstances, and lessons He has brought into our lives. At the same time, perhaps this annual exercise caused us to realize that there are some people in our lives who have slipped our minds, who we have not appreciated, or who we have taken for granted this year. Many times, these people have silently suffered to some extent, and the feeling of not being known/seen has been a burden that is tough to bear. Perhaps you are one of these people. How can we as a church family grow in blessing these people and appreciating them? At the same time, if we have felt forgotten or hurt, how are we to respond in a Christ-centered, life-giving way?

The women went to the tomb to see a crucified body. Instead, they saw an empty grave as they were told the body was alive. How we follow Jesus is faithfully demonstrated in believing that Jesus is the risen Lord - he is still working in bringing the dead back to life.

As lies and deceit were spitted out against him, Jesus' response was to remain silent. What would it mean for us to place our entire faith upon a man whose silence ultimately testified to his eternal victory?

Sometimes when we ask God something...He doesn't seem to answer directly. When a few of the disciples asked Jesus, "When will these things be?", they were referring to the fulfillment of events associated with the end times and the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom when the Messiah would be King. Jesus' had a long answer that was punctuated by the phrase, "Be on guard!" Sort of a weird reply...or was it? What was Jesus trying to teach His disciples, and teach us?

We are moved by people's love for us in various ways - affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, receiving gifts. As followers of Christ, how must we love in order to reflect God in our broken world?

Different responses are elicited when an influential person enters a room. How we respond to Jesus' entry into our lives determines how we follow him for the rest of our lives.

One of the most important steps between "intending to do something" and "actually doing something" is that we take personal inventory of the cost. If we only have a general idea of what is being asked of us, but don't take the time (or don't want to take the time) to examine what is truly being requested, we will probably decline. So as Jesus says,"follow Me," we must pause to understand the depth of this command.

Every Sunday in church we talk about Jesus’ death. But sometimes, just like the disciples we don’t fully know why exactly Jesus had to die. Mark 9 points us to some of these reasons and how we as followers of Jesus can more fully live into his life, death, resurrection.

To follow Jesus is to have the proper understanding of his identity and mission in this world. In that way, we will pursue him purposefully and faithfully.