Gerbrand van Schalkwyk

What indications does Jesus give in this passage that he will suddenly come in his Kingdom without further warning? Both examples are of dissaster that came suddenly. The people were warned, but when it came, it came suddenly. When Jesus comes again it will be suddenly as well. For those of us who are saved it will be a glorious day, for the rest it will be another dissaster. What are the implications of this for our attitude? Our attitude should be to ignore our material things and focus only on God at all times For our lives? Since we dont know when Jesus will return or when we will die we must always live as if Jesus will come again tomorrow. Be ready

What do Jesus' words about lightning teach us about the nature of the coming of his Kingdom? It will be visible, suddenly and powerful. Jesus say we as Christians must be the light of the world, when Jesus comes again, all will see the way, all will know what is the rightious way.

In what sense was the Kingdom of God present in the Person and ministry of Jesus? Jesus came to restore God's Kingdom on earth. Just like a King taking over new or lost territory. To claim territory as your own a King had to have a representative in the new territory. When Jesus was on earth He Himself represented God on earth. This was before Jesus restored the Kingdom on earth because He has not yet defeated death. So the Kingdom was just present in Jesus Himself while He did the preparation to defeat death. In what sense is the Kingdom of God present today? After jesus defeated death He gave us the Holy Spirit. He 1st restored the earthly territory back into the Kingdom of God Then He gave us a Representative to ensure that the territory remains in God's Hand. All of us are now also representatives of God when we accepts Christ as our Saviour.

What does it mean in verse 33 to �seek first his Kingdom�? To accept Christ as your Saviour and then to build your relationship with Him. To seek and do God's will. To learn more and more about God all the time, to seek Him in everything you do and experiance. What does it mean to �seek first � his righteousness�? To do His will. To change yourself with His help to become righteous as well. To chance your character to reflect his Character. How can we both seek the Kingdom and support our families? By seeking the Kingdom 1st, He will provide What is the promise found in verse 33? If we seek Him and His Kingdom 1st God will give us all we need.

Why is continual asking, seeking, and knocking so essential to our looking forward to the Kingdom? We must built our relationship with God everyday. We must keep our focus on Him all the time. We must be aware of the Kingdom constantly. Asking, seeking and knocking can be seen as prayer, it is one step in building our relationship with God. The next step and just as important is to red the Bible, the 3rd step is to do God's will, to follow His comand, to be obediant Why do we give up so easily? Lazyness, impatience, no proper commitment. God is a patient God, He want us to be as well. He doesnt give us what we need imediately, He want us to reach out to Him all the time so that we can learn where our help is coming from, so that our relationship can grow. Very often we dont want to fall into God's timing for our life, and then we give up and lose so much. How do we gain boldness and persistence in prayer? Experiance. Faith. Practice. Obediance

(Matthew 11:12; Luke 16:16) Admittedly, this is a hard passage to interpret. However, if you take the �forceful� or �violent� people as seekers who are doing whatever it takes to press into the Kingdom, then what is Jesus teaching us here about the nature of the Kingdom? The nature of the Kingdom is so great and unbelievable that we must be willing to do anything righteous to enter it. Also i believe that we will receive different rewards or responsibilities in heaven. If you just accept Christ as your Saviour, but you are not an active force for Christ, you rewards and responsibilities will not be much. But if you are hard working, actively pushing your boundries all the time you will forcefully enter God's kingdom deeper and deeper all the time, pennetrate the Kingdom more and more and experiance more and more His love and mercy

Jesus seems to make it sound like you can�t seek wealth and God simultaneously. Does he really mean this? Yes! You will seek the one and leave the other. It is very clear, seek God nd He will give to you all that ymore, not less, but what you need. What you receive will depend on His plans for you and how well you show Him that you are ready to receive it. If He wants you to spread the Word among the wealthy, He might give you material things to make you fit in. He might also not give it to you so that you can show those how fulfilled and happy you are without these things. It is God's will whether you have or not, we are not to seek it, or we will lose our focus on God. Is this hyperbole? No Figurative? Definately not Literal? Yes Can wealthy people serve God in actual fact? For sure!! But our posessions must not be important to us. Jesus said with the rich man it is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The desciples asked how is it then possible for anyone to enter the Kingdom of heaven. A little bit later Zacchaeus showed us the answer. He repented completely, gave money away and changed his life. He was still wealthy, but his money was not important to him anymore, God was. That is why we should not preach the blessings of Abraham, we must be thankful when, but it must never ever be a way to convince people to accept Christ. Because then you are not teaching them to let go of money, you tell them "Use God to serve Mammon", a very wrong teaching indeed!

What did Jesus intend the Parable of the Soils to teach us about the �message of the kingdom�? The message is the same, but it will be received differently. Different people respond differently, and we are not responsible for their reaction, we are responsible to give them the message Why are these truths so important for keeping disciples from becoming disillusioned? We cant control people, we cant work in their harts. God can take over once we have done our part. We are responsible for our own salvation and for spreading the Good News. We must know not everybody will take their responsibility seriously

Why, according to Jesus� teaching here, do some people fall away so quickly? They have not formed a proper relationship with God yet. Their root must be in God. You build your relationship by experiance, learning to respond to God's calling and doing His will, constant prayer and regular deep Bible study. You must study your Bible so that you can learn to know Who God is. All relationships need comunication, thus prayer is critical. Without action nothing will ever happen. You must pray to God for guidance and then respond. As you go through life, look back at what happened so that you can recognize God's hand in your life. As you learn more how to recognize God's voice and guidance, your relationship will grow, your trust and faith will grow and you will develop deep roots of faith. These people gave up before their roots could develop. What is their problem? I think their problem is that they have not commited their minds to God. They still want to solve problems by themself, so when hardship comes, they try to pray, but with no trust or faith or comitment to God's will. When things dont go as they planned in the near future, they dont hang on to learn God's lesson for them, but rather falls away and try to get results the old way.

Q2. (Matthew 13:22; Luke 8:14) Which of the thorns that Jesus mentions do you think is the most dangerous: Riches, worries/cares, or pleasures? These torns have a different effect on different people. Some people almost never worry about anything, yet others can worry about anything. Some people can make money and not becontroled by it while other people's main focus is on how can i make another dollar. The same is true of pleasure. It is a personal thing. Each one of us will be tempted on our weak points. Whatever removes your focus from God is dangerous for you. Whatever you rely on yourself to supply for you instead of relying on God for is your danger. Why do you think so? Anything that removes your focus from God, removes you from God. Satan will try until he finds our weak spot and then work on it to remove us from God. We have to give our weakness to God and work with Him to improve our character until it is not a weakness in our armor anymore

When we repent we change our ways, we change our thinking, we admit God’s authority over us. We humble ourselves before God. We show true remorse for our sins. We bow down and re-enter into God’s will and let go of our will and pride. To repent is not to just admit i have done wrong, but to turn away from the behaviour completely Baptism shows our commitment to God, our obedience to God, it is a public declaration that we accept Jesus as our Saviour. We admit we need Jesus’s Blood to clean us, we cant do it ourselves. We enter into the grave with Jesus, hand over our sins to Jesus and are born again, as we rise out of the water as a new person. No, if we don’t repent, we didn’t accept God’s authority, we didn’t let go of our will. Our pride is still in control, not God.

John introduced the nation to a new type of baptism, he prepared the way that Jesus took further. Jesus regularly also instructed us to be baptised in water, to continued what John began, but in a far more complete way. This leads us to accepting the Holy Spirit in our lives. Accepting the Spirit is one thing, then to be baptized with the Spirit is raising it to another level. The point is to show us how the progression works. Repent, forgive others, be washed of your sins, receive the Holy Spirit, be baptized, cleaned by the Holy Spirit. It all began with John who led the way. We should all long for being overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, it is part of our spiritual growth. We not only receive Jesus’s forgiveness of our sins, we receive our continual Guide and way to rise above sin. Our pride, or persistence in sin can prevent it. Also if we don’t ask for it, or open ourselves up for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Disobedience to God’s commands. Finally, reaching out to God constantly will encourage it. Searching the truth, reading the Bible constantly, prayer and taking action. Doing God’s will, will encourage it.

The Jews saw themselves as a nation raised above all other nations. With reason, they were after all God’s chosen people. Therefore their pride told them that they didn’t have to admit their sins in front of “lower class” people or nations. They prided themselves in their ability to keep the law, thus they didn’t think that they had to repent, they they had to change their ways. People who humbled themselves welcomed his baptism. People who could admit their pride, their sin, that they did wrong. Gentiles who didn’t saw them as someone who was above others, and Jews who saw the truth in what John preached. People who was in touch with God, who was already searching for God Those with pride resisted it, because it whould have ment that they had to admit that they could not upheld the law all the time, and they had to admit that the law alone was not enough. The religion that they were taught and followed all their life was not complete, a scary thought if you compare it to us. What would you do if somebody told you that you had to add to Christianity to have a complete relationship. The Jews were God’s chosen people, yet John told them that this was not enough.

Without repentance there is no real salvation. This is the “deal” the covenant Jesus made with us: Repent your sins, forgive those who has sinned against you and your sins will be forgiven. You will have reconciliation with God. People like to say God will accept you as you are. This is not completely true. God didn’t accept Saul’s offer when he was disobedient. God didn’t accept Cain’s offering. God accepts us when we repent, when we accept and bow down under His authority. Then His love, grace and mercy is so unbelievable that He accepts us, doesn’t matter what we may have done. People avoid repentance because of pride, because they don’t want to accept God’s authority. They deceive themselves that they can accept God’s love without obeying God. They want to stay in control, accepting God’s gifts on their own terms. The last part of the question I don’t know how much. We must have a burning desire to bring people to Christ, but whether they accept Christ on God’s terms is between God and them. We must ensure that we teach them as correct as possible, but it stays their responsibility, just as my salvation is my responsibility. You can’t do it for somebody else. I am worried at how many people say, “God will forgive me” as if we can tell God what He should do, not the other way around”. Once we accept Christ as our Saviour, we must take responsibility for our actions. We can’t do it from ourselves, but God gives us His Spirit as guide and teacher. With God’s help we can live a repentant and a sin reduced life, the stronger our relationship grows with God, the easier it becomes to resist temptation.