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Pray Together

Toni spoke on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Matthew 16:24 says "Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Share with one another how God spoke to you on Saturday or Sunday, through Toni's teachings?

Anything God asking you to follow through on? If so what?

Share.

On Saturday night Toni broke down 4 key doctrines that have found their way into the church. Read and discuss (perhaps confess) how you have seen this to be true.

Here they are:

1. Essentialism

Essentialism essentially means that what you feel / desire is your essence. The core of who you are. And to deny following these feelings, or acting on these feelings is to deny your essence. To deny your feelings is considered bad, not true, and even evil. The core belief here is that these feelings define who you are; becomes our identity.

Some examples of this would be:

i. I feel tired to so need to follow through on my feelings. To not respond to my feelings of tiredness would mean I would be be denying myself (a distortion of what Jesus taught).

ii. I feel same sex attraction so therefore I need to respond to my feelings. The feelings define who I am so therefore I need to act on it to be fulfilled and satisfied.

iii. I feel sexual attraction towards another person (not my spouse) so I need to respond to my feelings and sabatoge my marriage in order to follow through on my feelings.

iv. I feel anger, therefore I need to follow through on my feelings and ...

So what is the biblical truth in contrast to this?

Who are we at our core? Do our feelings define us? 

What is your identity in Christ, if you are a follower of Jesus?

2. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

i. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

ii. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

iii. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

iv. Good people go to heaven when they die.

The authors say the system is "moralistic" because it "is about inculcating a moralistic approach to life. It teaches that central to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person."[5] The authors describe the system as being "about providing therapeutic benefits to its adherent" as opposed to being about things like "repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering..."[6] and further as "belief in a particular kind of God: one who exists, created the world, and defines our general moral order, but not one who is particularly personally involved in one's affairs—especially affairs in which one would prefer not to have God involved."[7]

The remoteness of God in this kind of theism explains the choice of the term "Deism", even though "the Deism here is revised from its classical eighteenth-century version by the therapeutic qualifier, making the distant God selectively available for taking care of needs." It views God as "something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he's always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process.

So what's the biblical truth in contrast to this?

Why do you think this belief has become pervasive even in the church?

Who is God in light of scripture compared to this belief.

3. Toni said that "In regards to the thought of resisting or denying our feelings (including our sexual attractions), we have come to believe that Jesus is often seen as the consolation prize."

How does this speak to you?

Does this resonate?

In what way has Jesus come to be seen as the mere consolation prize and not the ultimate treasure worth laying down our life for?

Remember, Jesus is not a set of beliefs, concepts, doctrines. He is a person. 

Where are you at with Jesus?

Are we ready to follow Jesus in this way? Count the cost of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus?

What are you afraid of?