Why "Hearts of Wisdom"?

In the Spring, we studied the gospel of Luke as Pastor Erik preached through it. We worked together on s a topical study of Jesus' name for himself, Son of Man, looking at each passage in Luke in which the Lord refers to himself by this title. Most of the references are found in Luke: 6:5 the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He is fully God. In 7:34 the Son of Man came eating and drinking. He is fully man. Luke 9:26 Jesus tells us,"Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when the Son of Man comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and the glory of the holy angels." He repeats this in his teaching on stewardship in Luke 12:8-10. "Everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God." Jesus is teaching us about the stewardship which all men have before him, the stewardship of our lives. Erik spoke of the primary accountibility we have as stewards of our confession. The Greek word oikonimos translated "steward" means the manager of the house. Webster's definition? The conduct of careful and responsible management of that placed under the person's care."

God has placed into each of our lives areas of stewardship. We saw in Luke 12 that we are stewards of life itself, we are stewards of our confession, the words of our mouth. We are stewards of the treasure God has placed in our hands. We are accountible for our maturity as disciples and in that light, we are stewards of our time in light of the coming of the Son of Man.
In Luke 12:35-48, gives us a sterm admonition and then encouragement and blessing. "Who then is the faithful and wise steward whom the master will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time?" Blessed is that servant whom when his master comes will find so doing."



Our desire for this 8 week time in the word of God is to learn how to be those faithful and wise stewards doing the will of the master until He comes. We will look tonight to Psalm 90 thought by many to be written by Moses. We will go back to Ephesians focusing on chapters 4 and 5 and examine our walk as disciples preparing for the Lord's return. We will examine what it means to be filled with the Spirit and the use of our gifts in ministry to the church looking at Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 - if we have time!

How? the mystery revealed

This word of encouragement from Shannon Pifer regarding working on the chapter overview with the 5 W's and H:
Just reading your blog I thought I'd share this with you. I have in the past thought the "5W's and H" of each chapter to be quite tedious and not all that important. I've tried going into doing it in Ephesians with a better attitude than that, with eyes opened looking to see what God is showing me in this part of the process. Well, I just finished Chapter 3 and my "How" column got me excited. This is what's on it:
-by revelation
-by the Spirit
-through the Gospel
-according to the gift of God's grace
-by the working of His power
-according to the eternal purpose that He has realize in Christ Jesus our Lord
-through our Faith in Him-according to the riches of His glory
-through His Spirit in your inner being
-according to the power at work in us.
What great statements about how God does just about everything, in us and through us and for us, and for His own glory!! All in one little chapter!!! Now I'm excited to see what Chapter 4 has to say!!!
Blessings-Shannon