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(SHARP): About 90 percent of us have "innies," adorable
little indentations where parents tickled us when we were kids. For
the rest of the world, the bellybutton is a protrusion, a small
nodule in one's mid-section that seems to scream to the world: the
doctor tied mine wrong! An outie is actually a hernia
-- a bubble of innards squeezing out the buttonhole, if you will. It
has nothing to do with how the cord is cut or tied. The umbilical
cord enters the baby through a half-inch hole in some fibrous tissue
between two abdominal muscles. When the cord sloughs off,
the muscles push the hole closed and scar material forms, closing
it permanently. But in some children, the hole doesn't close
and with the pressure of crying and straining, the umbilicus pushes
out the hole.
Point of View: We can and must be “innie” Christians.
Action Step: We must develop ourselves to be “innie” Christians
by cultivating the discipline of inner prayer.
Benefit: “Innie” Christians are transformed
into Christ naturally from the inside out.
Key Point 1: Christ dwells within us.
Subpoint 1.1: NAS John 14:17 that is the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does
not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He
abides with you, and will be in you.
Subpoint 1.2: NAS John 10:9 "I am the door; if
anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and
out, and find pasture.
Subpoint 1.3: NAS 1 John 2:27 And as for you, the
anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and
you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing
teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and
just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
Key Point 2: We are commanded to pray without ceasing.
Subpoint 2.1: NAS 1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray without
ceasing;
Subpoint 2.2: This is in the imperative in the Greek
Subpoint 2.3: We would not be ordered to do the impossible.
Key Point 3: Ask, Seek, Knock
Subpoint 3.1: Praying for our needs.
Subpoint 3.2: Praying the scripture.
Subpoint 3.3: Abiding in His presence.
Point of View: We can and must be “innie” Christians.
Action Step: We must develop ourselves to be “innie” Christians
by cultivating the discipline of inner prayer.
Benefit: The character of Christ will be formed within
us as naturally as grapes grow on a vine.
(SHARP): NAS John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are
the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much
fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. |
