Why Study

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Imagine your walking down the street and someone just walked up and pushed you from behind.  They would very easily push you over.  But if you were prepared, say you had taken Karate or Gymnastics and your balance was impeccable even if they hit you with a sneak attack you could recover quickly and not fall.  That is what bible study is to our lives.

Bible study prepares us for the journey through life.  When we read the bible on a regular basis we are more capable of withstanding the onslaught of attacks we receive.  Romans 12:1-2 is one of my favorite scriptures.  In these verses Paul reminds us to renew our minds.  Through this renewal we will become less and less like the world we live in and more and more like Christ.  will we become perfect this side of heaven? No.  Will all the bad stuff that happens in life stop? No.  But we will be able to handle it better.  Jesus never promised it would be easy, He just promised to be there for us.

Why Give Our Talents To God?

You have different talents from mine. The body of Christ is made up of many parts. You have a function. One of my talents is not understanding complex things. I just don’t. I am not willing to put the time in to learn because I am busy building up my gifts. When we understand that building up what we can do instead of trying to work on what we can’t do will increase our contribution to the kingdom. If you work on what you can’t do you will spend hours just spinning your wheels. But if you build on your gifts you will see fruit quicker and better because that is something you are good at.

I was a copier tech for twelve years and I could never troubleshoot what was wrong with a machine. I had to call someone every time I had a major problem. I never forgot the symptom and the fix after I was told what it was but I could not just troubleshoot a problem. The KISS principle is my motto. Keep it Simple Stupid. I work on what I do best to make it better. Look at Michael Jordan. He was the greatest basketball player of all time. He was one of the worst baseball players of all time. He should have never tried to play baseball because that was not what he was gifted in.

What you bring to the table is like what no one else brings. We need each and every person here to use what God has given them and it will bring glory back to Him who has given it.

Who or What Do You Worship?

What Is The Chief End of Man? Man’s Chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever!

That is the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Apply that to your life. Do you glorify God in all you do? Do you enjoy being with him? We attribute worship to what we love.

Today we most commonly think of Christian Worship as only one thing; Sunday morning church service. We have had a change over the last twenty years, like never before, in how the Sunday morning worship service is going to be acted out. We have seen churches split apart over the style of music used in the worship services. We are now seeing a new kind of service, and churches for that matter, that is modeled after what some believe to be the book of Acts model.

But is Sunday morning the only time we are to worship God? Do we worship him in our daily lives and work? Do we give our all to honor him? Lets explore worship and see what it really is.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27)

What Do You Worship

Not everyone that says they worship God actually worships Him. We see so many people today that go to church only show up there because they get a good feeling from the experience or out of duty to someone (maybe to God maybe grandma).  They go to a church but do not actually worship the God they go to see.  How do we determine this? Look at the divorce rate or the teen pregnancy rate or the drug and alcohol abuse rate in the church at large.  For every pastor that gets caught with drugs or porn there are ten more that have not been.

So what does this have to do with worship?

Look at the verse above. We worship what we love. We pour or affection into what we love. One of the reasons I say the Church in America has become a laughing stock is because we love the world and all it has to offer and we put God and Jesus on the back burner. When we say yes to Christ we begin a discipleship where we learn from him. If we do not love Him then how can we learn anything from Him?

Let’s go back for a minute. If you came to this lens from the Spiritual Disciplines lens then you know that I asked you to read the 23rd Psalm during the week. Verse 1-3 says:

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (KJV)

How are you going to let someone lead you if you do not love them? How can you read this and worship him for leading you if you do not love him? in verse 4 it says, “thy rod and thy staff comfort me.” How can you say that if you are trying to buck the system and lead yourself.

Worship is about love, we will worship and need what we love and we will shun and deny what we do not.

Urban Exile: Re-discovering Justice? | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders

I receive a weekly newsletter from Leadership Journal and I usually just go through the main articles then file it in my leadership folder for future reference.  Today I scrolled through it and decided to go to their blog called Out of UR.  David Swanson has written a very good article about the new move toward a social justice in our conservative churches.

About four years ago we had a guy come to our church to help us discover our mission and try to figure out how to reach our community.  During one of these session I pointed out that our church does no mission work either in our neighborhood or abroad.  I was met with a resounding what are you talking about our this and we that.  So I knew we were going to get no where.  Yes we give about 13% of our budget to missions but we do no missional work what so ever.  But I digress

This article points out what I was trying to tell our congregation 4 years ago.  We need to see the hurting and get involved.  Unlike the social gospel movement in more liberal churches we are equipped to share the gospel when we do these missional projects.  My point is that we need to get involved.  Read the article I think you will like it.

Urban Exile: Re-discovering Justice? | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders.

Some More Prayer Blog Posts

If you are looking for the insight of others on prayer here are four good links:

http://www.twelvewitnesses.com/2007/07/31/spiritual-disciplines-prayer/

http://blog.wordsarenotenough.com/2007/07/31/the-spiritual-disciplines-creative-prayer/

http://www.sacredvapor.com/?p=293

http://tikesbestfriend.blogspot.com/2007/07/on-prayer.html