Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, you host for the daily challenges. These daily challenges are meant to help people explore what it means to follow Jesus even during our busy commuting lifestyle. If you’ve never looked into what that means in the first place, I’d really encourage you, check out our Christianity 101 course first. You can take it live in-person or through our mobile app; great introduction to the basic concepts of what it means to follow Jesus that we try to build on in the Daily Challenges.
Every day and week, we follow a rhythm to help us, as one community, learn what it means to follow Jesus even when we’re not physically together. Every Monday,we introduce the idea for the week. Every Tuesday, we see what the Bible has to say. Every Wednesday, we allow ourselves to be challenged in our thoughts. Every Thursday, we try to apply it and live it out in our lives. Every Friday, we take time to pray and reflect on the topic. Saturday is a day for rest and then Sunday is a day for community. We’re going to start gathering together as one community soon. We just recently had a great baptism service and celebration where a number of our members came together in one place to worship God. We’re going to do that more and more often over this year. So, stay tuned for some of our upcoming gatherings.
We’re in a series right now called, “Reset.” We’re looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets everything in our lives. We’ve looked at a number of areas that it impacts. This week we’re going to look at how following Jesus impacts our views of food and the body. That’s why I’m here in a Chinese buffet, a place where people indulge, enjoy a huge selection of food and can have as much as they like.
This kind of a topic about food and the body might surprise you. You might expect Redeem the Commute to be focused more on spiritual things, not having much to do with what we eat and what we do with our bodies, but the two are very closely connected. Tomorrow we’re going to see how the Bible says that these two are connected, but it’s probably something that you know from experience as well. Think of those times in life when somebody’s struck with a serious illness. You almost immediately turn to prayer. We have this sense that spirituality and our physical bodies are both connected.
Just look at people’s interest in yoga today. It’s amazing to see how people are longing for a way to connect spirituality and physicality in a way that Christianity has maybe neglected. Christianity does connect body and faith in a lot of different ways through things like the Lord’s Supper, breaking bread and wine, connecting Jesus’ death on the cross with actual bread and wine. There’s a physical sign of something amazing that happened a long time ago. Or, baptism where somebody’s washed cleaned spiritually, symbolized with water washing them clean on the outside. There’s a huge connection between the two. Maybe you can think of some others. That’s what I want you to think about today.
Question: I hope you’ll join with some other friends from the train or bus, or from the neighborhood, somebody else you can discuss our Daily Challenges with. Discuss with them today’s question, “How else do you think the spiritual and physical are connected for Christians?” What examples have you seen?”
Well, have a great discussion. Don’t forget, we’re reading the Bible in sync as a community. So, check our website or app to see what today’s Bible reading is. Have a great one. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host of the Daily Challenges. Today’s Wednesday, so it’s the day we try to let our thoughts be challenged and transformed by the words of the Bible that we saw yesterday.
We’re exploring how following Jesus resets our views of family. We acknowledged that family is a mechanism for providing good things: shelter, food, care, etc. But when a life is reset by Jesus, family becomes much more, it becomes a place for others to learn to follow Jesus themselves.
It’s here that family members learn, in a “lab” setting, what Jesus said was most critical: Love god and Love neighbour. At the baptism we had a few weeks ago for some Redeem the Commute members, I asked those who’d gathered to support an infant being baptized the following:
Today we are trusting God for her growth in faith. Will you pray for her, draw her by your example into the community of faith and walk with her in the way of Christ? In baptism she begins her journey in faith...You speak for her today. Will you care for her, and help her to take her place within the life and worship of Christ's Church?
That’s a good vision for any family who are trying to follow Jesus – the parent(s) and their community gather around the child(ren) in discipleship. In no particular order, here are some ways that might happen with various Christian values:
Sacrifice: Involve in kids decisions around activities (compromise), spending, vacations, etc.
Love: Children learn love from parents, learn father’s love for us. Uniqueness.
Pray/Worship: Pray for your kids, teach them to pray. Grace. Bedtime. Then special needs won’t be the only prayer they ever hear.
Practice Peace & Love – Teaching about hitting, lying, gossip, etc.
Compassion: Bring them to hospital, downtown, etc. Talk about what you see, how you react, how and why you help others or not.
Communion: Eat meals together when you can. Talk about your day, and pray in response.
Stewardship of body: Exercise, eat healthy, etc.
Stewardship of money and possessions: When money comes, teach them how you save & spend & give.
Christian Community: Give kids as many heroes as possible. Our own church community will be meeting in person soon.
Forgive: Can’t run away from family, ignore for very long. Hurts need to be dealt with through forgiveness or an unending cycle of vengeance. Teach them forgiveness.
Question: Think of your current schedule and activities as a family. What do they communicate is most important in life?
When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again?
The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate.
What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives:
Reset: Goals
Reset: Time
Reset: Money
Reset: Work
Reset: Body & Food
Reset: Sex & Marriage
Reset: Family
Reset: Compassion
Reset: Nature
Reset: Society
Reset: Death
Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.
