Our meeting this time was something a bit different...we watched a movie called "Awakened" (winner of 2014 Best Documentary at the Christian Worldview Film Festival) and then had a discussion about it afterwards.
Some of the film's topics included using the years of your youth wisely, avoiding crushes, handling wordly influences and technologies with wisdom, evangelism, seeking a deeper relationship with God, and communicating with parents.
For more information on the movie (which I highly recommend to every family with young tween or teen aged girls!), go to the official page at:
http://awakenedthemovie.com/
A review of the movie can be found on the Christian Film Database site at:
http://www.christianfilmdatabase.com/review/awakened-2/
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Submission
Set 6 Meeting 7 –
Submission
Are we
compartmentalizing our Christianity? Do
we go to church for 2 hours on Sunday and consider our spiritual duty done for
the week? Are we living our lives in
submission to Christ and His will in everything we do, or do we seek to rule
our own lives? Do we have a vibrant
loving fellowship with the Lord, or an apathetic, distant one? Do we crave the things of the Lord, or the
things of the world? Are we feeding our
flesh or our spirits? Do we hear from the Spirit and often feel the presence of
the Lord, or have we quenched and grieved the Spirit to the point where we
can’t remember the last time we felt God working in us?
While we
know we’ll never be without sin this side of heaven, are we honestly, to the
best of our ablility, striving to choose to obey God’s will and Word?
The following testimony
was found here:
http://serious-things.com/testimony-obedience-his-presence-and-blessings/
Praise God
that He continues to persevere and have patience with me. Praise Him for His never ending love. Blessed be the Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord.. Thank you for sacrificing
yourself for my sins. I love you too. He’s teaching me that obedience is very
important. He has allowed satan to sift
me, repeatedly, on the same topics in my life.
I have found that these repeated areas are the lesson, that must be
learned. Now don’t get me wrong, we must not look at obedience in a fashion to
gain blessings.. That’s selfishness and not a heart for God. When I speak about
received blessings, a blessing is a result of having a right heart for God..
Having a right heart for God will result in obedience, out of love for Him and
reverence.. which results in blessings. If the blessings are first then it is
the me-first mentality versus God first.
I have had a
challenge with a certain sin that has repeatedly come up in my life, a lack of
obedience. I was quenching the Spirit
because I like what I did more than I liked obeying Him. Thank you for forgiving me Lord. I found that it boiled down to just heeding
His voice. It was a matter of
choice.. Choose obedience to God or
disobey. He has been trying to teach me
this over and over.. He has given me the “outs” every time.
And even though I have noticed the outs almost single time, I chose to
grieve the Spirit.. I did this cuz I loved what I was doing more than Him. Ugh, that’s hard to confess, but I had to
confess it to Him. It’s Truth.
At any rate,
here is a testimony or 2. I was going through the same cycle of this sin. My self-talk said “You’re good now. You’re more filled.. You’re stronger
now. He’s with you. You can do this.” Ah, then the sword of the Spirit came into my
thoughts..”Take heed lest you fall…”
Then I heard the Lord say… “Remember…. Remember all of these previous
times… You said the same thing and sinned every single time. These are memorials and they are there for a
reason. What makes you think this time
is any different that the previous ones?”
DING, the light went off. I have
continued to sin in this area because I kept deceiving myself into thinking I
was strong enough to overcome. This
time, I knew better, with the Helpers help.
Blessed be our Guide. So, I chose
obedience. Bam, the very next morning, 3
prayers were answered. Blessings.
This
happened a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t remember all 3. 1 was for a brother in-Christ who helped me
come to the Lord. He was falling and
then he ended up MIA. I couldn’t reach
him for around 6mo. I kept praying for
the Lord to help bring him back to Him.
Bam, 6:30 the next morning, he called.
“Joe. I’m back with Christ.”
Praise God! The other, also for
months, I was praying for a family member to draw near to the Lord. I talk to
this family member that day, bam, he starts talking about the Lord.. about
faith, etc. I didn’t have to do
anything.. God did it (that’s another topic on its own). I don’t recall the 3rd one, i should have
blogged about it when it was fresh. I do
remember 3 prayers answered the next morning.. Obedience and blessings.
This
happened again last week. An email went
out to the Body at our church. A brother
in-Christ who cannot see needed a ride to the dentist. I’m laid-off and had the time.. but I didn’t
want to do it. The Lord showed me that
if it’s something “I” don’t want to do, then do it. lol.
The night before the dentist appointment, I was convicted.. I called him
out of obedience “Do you still need a ride?”
He said “Praise God! Yes I do.”
The next morning, I pick him up.
He was going to a community college to have his teeth cleaned. I told him that I’ve tried to get in there
for a cleaning but they are so backed up and are not returning my calls. I dropped him off and decided I would go in
and talk to them when I came back to pick him up. As I drove off… I get a call from the receptionist
at the clinic from my friend’s cell phone: Blessings: “We have an opening today
at 3pm.. If you can make it, we’ll knock $10 off”. Praise God! But He’s better than $10 off.. I
said blessings.. not a kind gesture, haha:
I show up, they do the initial examination.. and then the instructor
comes over. She checks out my teeth and
said that they are having a hard time
filling 24 slots for the student’s final exams.
They only have 12 filled. She
said my teeth perfectly fit the criteria for one of these slots. She said that if I agree to it, all of the
xrays they just took and the cleaning will be free of charge. Of course I accepted.
Obedience
(hearing a doing) results in blessings.
Hearer and a doer. See somewhere around James 1:24. When I disobey the
voice of the Lord, I separate myself from God.
When I hear His voice and know what He wants me to do… I have to force
myself to be in obedience, regardless of what I want to do. That’s a heart
towards God and we will surely receive blessings. He says so.
Is He good
or is He good? I so love you Lord..
thank you for helping me. This testimony of how obedience and blessings work
can be witnessed in a real-life situation here as well: Faith in God’s
provision
God bless
you and yours,
Joseph
The following teaching
was found here:
Question:
"Why is obedience to God important?"
Answer:
Obedience to God proves our love for Him (1 John 5:2-3), demonstrates our
faithfulness to Him (1 John 2:3-6), glorifies Him in the world (1 Peter 2:12),
and opens avenues of blessing for us (John 13:17).
Faith is
necessary to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and if our faith is genuine and true,
we will live a lifestyle characterized by righteousness, modeling the example
set for us by Jesus Christ. We obey His commands, not because we have to, but
because we want to, because we love Him. We are enabled to obey because, once
we believe in Christ and are saved, we are remade. We are not the same people
we once were. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
When we obey
the Lord, we can live a life of joy, without shame, rooted deeply in the Lord
and confident in our eternal hope. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Our obedience is actually part of our assurance
that we truly know God (1 John 2:3).
When God’s
children obey their Heavenly Father, He is glorified. Jesus told us that the
plan is for others to “see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven”
(Matthew 5:16). Of course, performing “good deeds” requires obedience to the
One who calls us to good deeds. A Christian’s testimony of holiness is a strong
witness that God is at work in the world.
“Blessed are
all who fear the LORD, who walk in obedience to him” (Psalm 128:1). The Bible
often tells us that God blesses and rewards obedience. James 1:22-25 says, “Do
not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. . .
. Whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues
in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in
what they do.” See also Psalm 119:1-2.
God is gracious.
If we haven’t been living for Him, if we haven’t been following His
commandments, if we’ve been living in and for the world, we can be transformed
by the blood of Jesus Christ. We can ask God for forgiveness, and He will give
it. And He will choose to forget the sin, just as if we had never committed it
in the first place. God is glorified when He extends forgiveness, because it is
written, “I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their
minds. . . . Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Hebrews
10:16-17).
Watch the following
video on Submission to God
Scripture:
Philippians
2: 5 – 11
Hebrews
13:17
James 4:7
1 Peter 2:
13 – 25
1 Peter 3:
4- 6
1 Peter 5: 5
– 6
Main Concepts:
Submission
is more than just obedience. It is an
attitude from your heard; it’s joyfully putting yourself under someone else’s
authority and giving up your own way.
Our pride
often gets in the way and causes us to want to make our own decisions, be
independent, or do things our own way, instead of submitting to others
Submission
is one of the hardest things to do. But
God blesses and rewards us for choosing to obey Him. We will partake of His divine guidance,
protection, and favor when we choose Him as Master of our lives.
Craft
Tea
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