Lessons:

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #1
The Good and Beautiful Life

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #2
The Gospel You May Not Have Heard

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #3
The Grand Invitation

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #4
Anger

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #5
Lust   

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #6
Honesty

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #7
Bless Those Who Curse You

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #8
Learning to Live Without Vainglory

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #9
Learning to Live Without Avarice

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #10
Learning to Live Without Worry

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #11
Learning to Live Without Judging

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #12
Living in the Kingdom

We live at the mercy of our ideas and our narratives.

What we think determines how we live. If we think God is an angry accountant frowning on us and would love us if only we are good enough, that narrative will be seen in how we live. Or if we think that being an angry person or hating our enemies are good things, then that too will be expressed in our day-to-day living. A lot of false narratives about God and human life are perpetuated in our world, sometimes even in our churches. The solution is to examine what Jesus thought, even before we look at what he did.

Jesus, the second member of Trinity, is intimately connected to God the Father and God the Spirit. Jesus reveals to us the character and nature of God, and his testimony is the best and most reliable the world has ever seen. So I believe that the key to beginning a good and beautiful life is to adopt the narratives of Jesus. I discovered that as I replaced my old, false narratives with the narratives of Jesus, my life began to change in many ways. I fell in love with the God Jesus knows. I began to see myself as someone in whom Christ dwells, as sacred and valuable. I started to treat people differently as I entered the kingdom, and learned that I really can pray for my enemies and bless those who curse me. Some of them even stopped cursing me!

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, The Apprentice Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 11.

Check out our Bible Study on The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.

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