Sloth

TheCandel

just some Sermon notes I'd thought I would share. don't be lazy, read it! lol



Sloth: an Indifference towards what is good.
Sloth is not just laziness. It’s indifference; it’s when you just don’t care.
Ex: Matthew 22 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22&version=NIV
The Difference between a Vice and a Sin …. Is Habit. Vices are those things that become a part of us.
If sloth is not defeated it makes all other virtues impossible.
slot is weakness and sadness about that which is good, It’s something that drains us from life and strength. What God wants to do is remove that from you and give you a hunger, thirst and passion for righteousness. Again we see here he wants to give us a desire to seek the image of God. What has been lost to us because of our ways.
Someone that loves doesn’t force, he woos 
Pastor Steve expresses this thought then asks a question; what is wrong in our lives is not our circumstances. Isn’t the real problem inside of us?
Diligence (a Latin word) that competed against Sloth; diligence is the virtue that can overcome Sloth. To be Diligent is to work hard as we understand. The Latin word for diligence means for Love; it means to love something. The concept is when you love something; you will be diligent with it.
Like having a child, you have to wake up in the odd hours, feed it, bathe it, cloth it, burp it, change its diapers. Diligently we were cared for or care for our children, why? Why, because we love them, and we show this love in a diligent manner.
Mark 10:45 For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom of many. The Bible talks about the Son of Man not even having a place to lay his head, in his own creation. We see him washing the feet of servants. Do you see the queen of England doing laundry for her servants, can you fathom the president of the US working on our car problems or cooking a dinner for us? No. These people of power and royalty do no such thing.
I think inherently we disregard this teaching and new life because it’s given to us and we feel like we cannot obtain it unless we earn it and to earn it is just too hard so we become indifferent at times. We cannot ever earn what God has done for us but we can do right for ourselves as he wants us to do right for ourselves. He wants us to seek him to be a reflection of his as much as possible because he is perfect and in him there is no darkness. The work involved is being called to grow in faith. To learn the scriptures and absorb the teachings and walk in a new life free from vices as much as possible and of all people to understand GOD UNDERSTANDS.
Jesus stepped in for us in human form and knows firsthand what it’s like to experience our erosion and void. He knows firsthand what it’s like to live in a world where we are tearing away from him because of our own pride and our own standards based on our free will. Look where it has gotten us.
Some people say we are taking vegetables and engineering them in a way that makes them better and we are nailing it, but at what cost? Meanwhile: as we fail as a species…. Who’s standards are we following? The problem today is that it is very easy to be indifferent in the things that matter while working hard and “chasing” the things that don’t matter the most. We’re caught in a world where we cannot survive unless we fall in. God knows this first hand we can still walk tall and proud and give God glory even while being in this world. That’s the whole symbolism behind Christ’s death. God took upon the burden for both sides of our responsibility. This is not to say we do what we want, but we stand for what is righteous according to God’s laws.
Sloth is a sorrow about Goodness. Just don’t know what to do with my life. I’m not really tired but I don’t want to get out of bed. As a child we couldn’t wait to go outside and play and stopping to eat or sleep was agony.
We are amused. Amused is to distract in order to deceive. We are amused so we dare not focus on what is going on. What drives us to sloth is to understand our commitments and not wanting to fulfill them, we see them as a burden. Want to be loved unconditionally but many of us do not want to go through the work it takes to become the kind of person that will love others unconditionally.
These are two very different things.
For me to be loved unconditionally doesn’t require anything of me at all. But, what does it take to become the person that can love others unconditionally? What battles of one’s self must you go through to hammer and forge this virtue of character? What all must you fix to come even close? What conditions do you have in order to love someone else?
We want everyone else to have a virtue in me that we have no interest in building in our own life, and that is sloth. Not wanting to face the commitment you are bound to. Sloth makes you opposed to the joy of God. It opposes Joy, we want happiness on our own terms. We want to stay the same and everything else around me wants to change. Sloth is opposed to the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s opposed to us dying to our old self, rising and putting on Christ. It wants to stay the same and desperately doesn’t want change. It’s opposed to the activities and the people that want to help us to bring us to a new life.
If there is a person or an activity that helps you surrender to the Holy spirit’s work in your life that helps transformation take place, Sloth will be opposed to it. Sloth sabotages satisfaction.
It is at the heart of the 7 deadly Sins and the first one to battle. When Sloth attacks, it attacks your loves. Are you ready to endure the suffering that it takes to make your family healthy or make your marriage whole? Sloth is opposed to it but diligence or Love battles. It’s is our first commandment. Our first commandment is to love.
We are stuck between a self we cannot bare to be and another self that we cannot bare to become. “Sloth will let us dream big dreams because in the end our lives will never take the shape of our dreams anyway but of our disciplines and our decisions”~ Steve Deneff
How do you fight Sloth?
Courage: With every gift God gives requires submission because these gifts aren’t something we possess but what we are or can become.
It takes courage to submit to God in order to be transformed to your new self. Be a men or woman of faith. Forgive and understand forgiveness is yours and rid yourself of shame in order to change. This takes courage and submission.
• Define your Values: what are you going to love and care about. If they are thing God loves it will be eternal.
• Throw out the things that entangle: Sins, habits and distractions (technology)
• Take a Sabbath: slot is rest defiled, real rest is worship.
• Finish: Get things done.
2Tim 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, for of power, love and self-discipline.

greenbaymichk

Thanks!
I needed this!

Contrarian

I love sloths! So cute and so lazy!

belladonna786

They are soooo lazy and slow moss grows on them, true story

BrettPGH

love Chunk!

TheCandel

this is what motivates me to fix the real problems

SageGoddess320

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