Spiritual Transition from MarvMas

Striving for Eternity Videos

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Again, the Spiritual Transition Game is a game that we play. Those who watch live at the

00:06

Striving for Trinity Academy every Monday night at 8 o 'clock Eastern Time get to give me something to transition to the gospel from.

00:15

And whatever they give me, I have to see if I can transition from that to the gospel.

00:21

And it is a game that we play so we can sharpen our skills to be able to transition through conversations basically to see if we can learn the skill of taking anything from the natural to the spiritual.

00:33

Most people can handle sharing the gospel with someone once it gets into a spiritual discussion but how do

00:40

I get it there? Well this game is a game we play to practice that. Just given any object, anything, can we transition to the gospel.

00:50

So, tonight's topic is Marvmas. And you're saying, wait a minute, what in the world is

00:56

Marvmas? Okay, let me give you the history of Marvmas. Marvmas is a make -believe holiday made up by Marv Plementoff.

01:05

He's made it up because, well, it's his birthday and it happens to actually be today is his birthday,

01:11

November 23rd. It is close to Christmas and so any kid that has his birthday close to Christmas, yeah you don't get too many presents for your birthday.

01:20

You get really big Christmas presents. In other words, everyone kind of goes cheap on you, right? So he decided to make it his own holiday focusing on, well, himself.

01:29

Now he is a little different than Santa Claus because Santa Claus is known as giving gifts.

01:35

Marv ships them. Of course the difference is Santa Claus in the fairy tale gives you gifts just free of charge.

01:43

Marv ships them after you buy them. That's right. Marvmas is when you go to 1milliontracks .com

01:51

or to go to his Marvmas site and you buy things and he ships it to you.

01:56

He gives you discounts, I think. And so that is what Marvmas is.

02:02

So how would you transition from Marvmas to the gospel? Actually, you could do it pretty easy because, see,

02:08

Marvmas is a self -created holiday by a guy who is focusing on, well, himself.

02:13

And the reality is, though we have a lot of fun with it, we like to play and people are always asking, what is

02:20

Marvmas on Facebook, those that are friends with him. Well, the reality is Marvmas is a made -up holiday where one person focused on, well, getting everyone to celebrate himself.

02:31

That's actually no different than any other human being, is it? That's exactly right. That's what everyone does. Everyone ends up coming into this world focused on self.

02:41

And then what we want to do is think that we're going to go to heaven because we're really good people. The reality is, focusing on self is the thing that got us into the mess that got us into being in a sinful state in the first place, right?

02:55

It was the focus on self and selfishness that got us into trouble. Well, got

03:01

Adam and Eve really into trouble, but we've been following that trend ever since. But the reality is that a lot of people think that if you tell people about hell, they're going to be scared into going to heaven.

03:15

No, they're not. Because if people try to avoid hell because they're afraid of it, what are they doing?

03:21

They're still trying to come to God on their terms with them being the focus. No, we come to God on His terms, that God alone and only

03:30

God can save us by what He did on the cross. When God Himself became a man, died on the cross to be the punishment of sin, it is only through the work of Christ that we can get in a right state of God.

03:42

Not by us thinking that we can do it on our standard or our way or focusing on us.

03:49

We come to God on His terms and not ours. That's how I would focus or transition from, you know,