Kyle Idleman

Following Jesus isn__ something you can do at night where no one notices. It__ a twenty-four-hour-a-day commitment that will interfere with your life. That__ not the small print__hat__ a guarantee.

We expect God to be an angry father who demands justice, but through Jesus, He gives us love and grace when we don't deserve it.

Paul tells us that, "The wages of sin is death." That's the bill. Our choice to sin has created a barrier between us and God, taken a toll on our relationship with Him that we can't fix, repair, or pay off on our own. Let's not minimize the situation. We've lived in offense to a holy, righteous God, who reigns in justice. We deserve death for what we've done. Like the Prodigal Son, we've robbed honor from our Father. We have scorned His provision and fled from His house. We have chosen wild living with strangers over a relationship with Him. Like the Prodigal Son, we've told God we'd be better off if He were dead. We've lived in ways that prove our distrust and disbelief in Him. We've chosen a path that leads to starvation and death, so that's what we deserve. Despite all of this, God offers us a brand-new inheritance -- one that has been reclaimed and redeemed by His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died for our sins. The bill was totaled up, and Christ died to settle that bill. After being crucified, He rose to life again, and He now beckons us home, having prepared a place for us. In the fullness of our sin, God responded with the fullness of His grace through Jesus Christ.

Just as a father hates cancer, because of what it does to his child, so God hates divorce, because of what it does to His children.

Try taking five minutes for meditation. Close your eyes and in your mind picture Jesus. Watch Him turn, look at you and hear Him...

Close your eyes, and with Jesus, journey back through your day. As you do, confess sin as you see it...

God cannot and will not give us a sense of lasting pleasure apart from him, because it violates his purpose and our design. Psalm 34:8 reads, __aste and see that the LORD is good.

These religious types were the fans that Jesus seems to have the most trouble with. Fans who will walk into a restaurant and bow their heads to pray before a meal just in case someone is watching. Fans who won__ go to R-rated movies at the theater, but have a number of them saved on their DVR at home. Fans who may feed the hungry and help the needy, and then they make sure they work it into every conversation for the next two weeks. Fans who make sure people see them put in their offering at church, but they haven__ considered reaching out to their neighbor who lost a job and can__ pay the bills. Fans who like seeing other people fail because in their minds it makes them look better. Fans whose primary concern in raising their children is what other people think. Fans who are reading this and assuming I__ describing someone else. Fans who have worn the mask for so long they have fooled even themselves.

There is no life without death.

It's much easier to talk about following Jesus when you are making general statements rather than specific commitments.

And I want you to know, before we go any further, that Jesus came to free you from religion. To those who have been hauling around a long list of rules. To those who are pretending to be more than they really are. To those who are weighed down with the fear and guilt of religion. To all the fans who are worn out on religion, Jesus invites you to follow him.

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ and author of the Four Spiritual Laws chose three words for his tombstone: "slave for Jesus".