Thank you to everyone who was a part of the putting together of this lesson. God definitely used you to say what He needed to be said. Here is a preview of what the lesson is going to look like sunday night! I pray God says what needs to be said! :) 3 challenges... Challenge #1: Stop focusing on "doing" and get back to the "being" 2Corinthians 5:16-21 Genesis 1:26 Galatians 2:19-21 Too much emphasis is placed on how much we do as though we need to "do" in order to be saved. We focus on rules, the “thou shalts” and the “thou shalt nots” and we forget that we weren’t called to DO anything but we were called to BE! 2Cor says that we are a new creation, who we were we no longer are. Genesis tells us that we are created to be the image of God in His likeness. In Galatians we are told that we died to the law so that we might live to God. Paul explains that it is no longer US that live but CHRIST who lives IN us. He finishes his thought by saying that if righteousness came through works (or works of the law) than Christ died for nothing. If our salvation came from our works than Christ died for NOTHING. There is a skit performed by a group called the “Skit guys” and in this skit a man is talking to God and he is constantly talking about how much he has to DO and how if he could just DO more, and in this skit God stops him and says to him, “I didn’t create you to be a human “doing” I created you be a Human BEING! Challenge #2: Stop “GOING” to “church” and start “BEING” the Church 1Corinthians 3:16 1Peter 2:9 There is a mindset out there, a teaching that says if you are not at a certain place at a certain time certain days of the week, you are not a faithful Christian. People believe that if we aren’t in a building sunday morning or any other day and time we are “forsaking the assembly” and therefore no longer a faithful Christian and expect us to repent and change our ways. What if I told you that if you never set foot in a building that said “CHURCH” on it, you could still go to heaven? What would you say if i told you that if you never showed your face or invited anyone else to show up at a building with the word “CHURCH” on it, you could still go to heaven? Our salvation, our worship, our evangelism is not limited to one building. In fact, it’s not limited to any building at all. And when we limit it to a building, not only do we cripple our ministry, but whether we mean to or not we make the building holier (in our minds) than the reason we meet at the building. Don’t we know that WE are the temple? (1Corinthians). Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to “GO” to “church”... because we ARE the Church. When we place emphasis on the building and place the burden of obligation on people to be here, it causes division, because as soon as someone breaks one of the rules, we come down hard on them. We are not united by the fact that we all meet in the same building. We are united by the fact that we all LOVE God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength! We are united by CHRIST! How much division would there be if we looked at our “church buildings” as just a convenient place to gather and to worship together? How many more people do you think would be here when we gather if we stopped requiring people to be here and let their love for God lead them to worship the God almighty with us? During our time in Lubbock while learning how to work together as a team, we learned that even though we may be separated from each other doing things here and there, we weren’t divided, we were still a team united by the common goal that is glorifying God. Though we weren’t together we were still growing as a team working together, playing off each others strengths and weaknesses. NOT divided but united. Though at times we may not all be in the same building, studying the same things, hearing the same sermons or singing the same songs and saying the same prayer, we are united by the common goal that is glorifying God. we are still the Church, growing as the Church, working together as the Church, playing off of each others strengths and weaknesses NOT divided but united! Challenge #3: No longer focusing on serving God for a reward (which is heaven). But serving God only because we love Him Job 1:9 As humans we often do things in order to get something out of it. Even when we serve, we are taught to serve because our reward is in heaven and because it feels better to serve than to be served. We press on and fight good fight because we want to go to heaven. We get caught up again in the “trying to earn heaven” mindset. But we forget that we have already been given heaven! as soon as we decided to follow Jesus and we were baptized we received the promise of eternal life! there is a quote amongst our AIM teachers that would say over and over again, “you can’t get any saveder!” while we would laugh at the saying and how funny it sounded, it is 100% true! The question is often asked about Job, How was he able to go through everything he went through, how was he able to lose everything and still have an unwavering faith in God! The answer is in a sarcastic question asked by satan in the beginning of Job. Satan sarcastically asks God, “Does Job serve You for nothing?” although it is a sarcastic question, satan receives a very real answer. The answer to his question is YES! and the answer to our questions is that Job didn’t serve God because he was expecting a reward in the end. He served God because he loved Him with all of his heart, soul, mind strength! How would we live differently than we do now if we served God ONLY because we loved Him and not because we wanted a reward!? These are my challenges to you. If we take these challenges seriously, what in our life HAS to change?
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 09:02:14 +0000
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