602 c enemies of intimacy

Market place facts: Enemies of intimacy with ChristMarket place facts: Enemies of intimacy with Christ

MARKETPLACE FACTS

Enemies Of Intimacy With Christ

Module 602 C

Mario Denton

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Overall purpose of this series on Marketplace

To understand and learn from various marketplace facts so that you can: • Be more effective and anointed wherever you are in the marketplace.

• Adapt and benchmark your marketplace practices and principles discussed in this series.

• Use these material to facilitate the work of evangelism.




• Your Enemy, Satan, is perfectly happy to have you busily engaged in 'Christian' activity – as long as it keeps you from sustaining an intimate relationship with Christ.




• You see he knows that you and I can confuse activity with fruitfulness.




• He is also aware that the condition of fruitfulness is intimacy with Christ: Jesus: It is the man who shares my life and whose life I share who proves fruitful. For the plain facts is that apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5 – Phillips Trans.)



So…what are some of the enemies of intimacy with Christ?

• What will keep you from developing a fruitful ministry that will stand the test of God’s consuming fire of evaluation on that Day? (I Cor. 3:10-15). (See Rom 2:1,16; 2 Thes. 1:7-10; 2 Tim. 18; 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 20:4)



Complacency:

• Cultivating a kind of know it all, 'been there, done that' attitude.

• The wonder of God and his mysterious working dry up into a stale familiarity.

• Surely the root of complacency is pride



Complacency:



Complacency:• Assuming we have climbed the mountain

and there are no more peaks to surmount. Jesus: You have forsaken your first love…So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. God: I hate pride and arrogance… (Rev. 2:4b; 3:16; Prov. 8:13a) (See Jer. 2:2; Mt. 24:12)



Professionalism:

• Allowing preparation for ministry responsibilities to take precedence over my quest to spend time with God.

• The accomplishment of the mission has usurped priority over intimacy with the Captain of the mission.



Professionalism:• Many will say to me on that day,

'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers! (Matt. 7:22,23) (See Ps. 5:5; 6:8; Matt. 25:41; Luke 13:25,27; Rev. 22:15)



Rationalization:• Losing one’s radical commitment to the

word of God and sensitivity to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

• Expecting a higher standard of others than I demand of myself, (which, by the way, usually degenerates into secretly pandering myself with comfort, the love of money and sensuality).



Rationalization:

• Jesus: And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (Luke 11:46b)



Ministry demands:• Allowing the good to become the enemy of

the best. • Let’s admit it: There is a certain addiction

to the ministry. People need us. We are put on a pedestal. We have the answers. We love the rush of it all. The subtitle tendency is to allow the ministry to serve as an escape from facing the true inner problem of spiritual dry rot.



Ministry demands:

• Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. (Matt. 23:27)



Success/pride:• Success always runs the risk of

dulling us into a jaded sense of reality because we become blinded by our messaged pride. How many truly successful people do you know who are genuinely humble? Very few I suspect. Paul stated, God forbid that I boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal. 6:14)



Question:

• Is it time for you to stop?



Question:

• To reevaluate? • And then determine once again that

your main mission in life is to intimately know Jesus Christ?



Question:

• Perhaps it is time to ask God which activities are really sanctioned by Him, and then have the courage to ask the ones that are not, so that you can get back to your first priority of intimacy with Christ.



Prayer Focus• Father, In the name of Jesus, I

surrender myself to walk in the Word in the marketplace. Your word living in me produces the Life in this world.

• The word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It makes my way plain before me.

• I boldly and confidently say that my heart is fixed and established on the solid foundation – the Living Word of God! Amen



Learning, application and commitment: James 1: 22-25

• “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.

• Do what it says. • Anyone who listens to the word but does not do

what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

• But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does.” (NIV)



Learning, application and commitment

• One of the principles that I have learned from this lesson was …

• I intend to apply this principle in my market place by: …..

• With the help of the Holy Spirit, I will begin applying this truth immediately.



Jesus said: Take what I have given you and change the world!



Sources and acknowledgementCHRIST@ WORK NEWSLETTER

• Copyright Notice• FCCI- Limited permission to copy without altering text or

profiteering is granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice. Copy is limited to member and/or FCCI small group use.

Unauthorized use of FCCI, Christ@Work, Crown Companies, their trademarks or logos is strictly prohibited.

• The “Facts of the Matter” is also available through the Internet: www.factsofthematter.org. R. Dwight Hill.

• Slides compiled by Mario Denton. • Please commit yourself to inform us of the results regarding the

effectiveness thereof should you wish to use this material.

http://www.factsofthematter.org/



Let's keep the good marketplace vibes alive. Let's network.

Become a member of the Crown Companies Marketplace Coaching Forum.

Tel (w) + 27(0) 82 88 29903. e-mail address:[email protected]

Website: www.crown.org.za

Blessings from Dr Mario Denton as the Africa: Continental Program Director - Marketplace


602 c enemies of intimacy

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