Weekly Challenge -Philippians 3:15-21

Life Group,
Paul told the early Christians (and us) to:
1. Continue maturing (pursue God the Son)
2. Watch Paul, imitate Paul, and follow the example of other growing believers
3. Avoid the practices of the enemies of the cross
4. Live as citizens of Heaven

Can people listen to you talk and know that you are a citizen of Heaven? 
Can they observe your actions and recognize that "you are not from around here"?
Reminds me of the clip we discussed in LG...  How Ya Doin'.  Everyone in the bar knew that guy was not from around here!

Challenge: Identify who is watching you (your children, spouse, other family members, co-workers, younger believers, etc.) and adjust your living so you they can imitate you.

Be intentional this week.
Travis

Weekly Challenge: Philippians 3:1-14

Life Group Family and Friends:

Many people ask me what I like about our life group.  I tell them 2 things: 1. We are very real and don't hide behind masks of what we want others to see.  2. We have great discussion during LG. 

Saturday evening was no different.  Thank you for the great discussion. 

Paul was very real in describing the Judaizers.  Dogs, evil, mutilators.  (Tell us how you really feel Paul!).  But he did not want "works salvation" to muddy the water and force people to lose joy of a true free gift.  Remember how he compared all of his great works, which use to matter so much, as garbage, rubbish, dung, bodily excrement, dog poop, etc.  (might have used the Message version in there somewhere).

Paul is telling us not to be dumpster divers.  But to focus on "knowing Jesus".   During discussion we used the following to describe "knowing": learning, studying, journey, on going, pursue, what Travis D. said, closeness, relationship, confidence, intimate, and oneness. 

My challenge to you this week is to focus on KNOWING your savior.  Do something different this week, talk to your spouse about what it means to know Jesus, pursue Jesus and enjoy the journey. 

Be intentional.
Travis

Weekly Challenge: Philippians 2:19-30

Life Group Family & Friends:

Thank you for stepping up to read during LG and for the great discussion we had. 
After we went through the background story of the church formation in Philippi, we looked at the examples of Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus.
We discussed servant-leadership, why we should use the expression "Lord willing", and honoring spiritual role models. 

My challenge to you this week is:
1. take time to find a way to honor your spiritual role model through prayer, phone call, or a note.
2. Maybe it is time for you to become somebody's spiritual role model.  Step out and work with someone.  Grab a coffee.

Be intentional.
Travis

Weekly Challenge: Encourage - Be Encouraged

Life Group Community,

Saturday night we began our Philippians study in chapter 1 with verses 1-11.  In his letter to the church of Philippi, Paul opens with encouragement. Here is how he do it. (you'll get it in a second)

He tells them how thankful he is for them.
How happy just the thought of them makes him.
How he misses them.
That he prays for them daily.
He lets them know that they are in the fight together and that what they are doing is right.
That they are worthy to be in this fight.
And he ends with telling them in what specfic ways he is praying for them.

WOW!  What if we did this for each other, weekly or even daily.  As believers we desperately need this encouragement to keep fighting the good fight (Galatians 6:9) and not get beat down by the day to day happenings of this fallen world (John 16:33).  As believers we are also commanded to do this for others (1 John 4:19).

So in the immortal words of Montell Jordan "This is how we do it".  (haha! get it now?)

This week - encourage at least two people each day - the first being someone within your close circle (spouse, kids, bff, co-workers, all of the above) and the second either someone you haven't connected with in a while or even a complete stranger.  

Remember, you can go above and beyond two - there may be bonus points involved. 

"Be awesome today and give the world a reason to dance!  You've been Pep-talked!" - Kid President

Be intentional, it's contagious!
J

Weekly Challenge: Identify the Real Enemy

Life Group Community,
We ended the Spring bible study series with 1 Peter 5:1-11.  In the first 7 verses,

• Peter reminds us (spiritual leaders, elders, pastors, etc.) that we have a responsibility to shepherd, guide, & protect.
• We need to serve out of desire, not obligation.  
• We, and the young leaders are encouraged to seek counsel and be humble. 
• We must give our anxieties and worries completely to God.  Because worry constitutes pride since it denies the care of a sovereign God. 

But wait, there's more!

We have all heard about Satan prowling around like a lion waiting to devour someone (verse 8).  But it is more than just imagery.  It is real.  The name Satan, means adversary.  He is our enemy.  He was given limited power (Job 1:8-12), but his mission is to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10).  He will do this through lies (John 8:44).
We must identify the real enemy.  It is not your spouse.  It is not your family.  It is not your church community.  It is not your job.  It IS Satan, the great deceiver.

My challenge to you this week is to spend time getting to know your adversary.  Know his names, his attributes, his methods, his characteristics.  I suspect that you will begin to see that he is real, but he is not original.  Once you identify the enemy and the simple tactics, you can begin to prepare to fight the enemy with the power of God.

Verbal Kent, from The Usual Suspects, had a great line when he said "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he does not exist".

Be intentional.
Travis

Weekly Challenge

Life Group Community:

We are ending our Spring series with several lessons on end times and being ready for judgment. 

We can be certain that judgment will occur for believers and for non-believers.  There are only 2 destinies for humans; one is to be with God forever and the other is to be forever separated from God.  This fact is our motivation for telling others about the good news, whatever the cost. 

This is the application from the lesson.  Are we doing everything possible to inform and challenge people to receive Christ before it is too late?

Who are you going to tell the good news to this week?  Start by asking God to show you and provide for you open doors of opportunities.  And ask Him to help you see those open doors. 

It may start with “Praise God for the rain” or “We had a great message at church this week”.  Or maybe it is praying for a member in your family or asking a co-worker if it is ok for you to pray for them.

We are on the winning team and we have an exciting message to tell in joy, not in fear.

Be intentional this week.
Travis

Weekly Challenge: Are we Immature?

Life Group family and friends:

We studied 1Corinthians 3:1-4 and Hebrews 5:11-14 during LG on Saturday.  Many Christians were not growing.  Paul called them immature and still babies in the faith.  They were jealous, lazy, selfish, living in fear, not teaching others, and not applying what they have learned.  Other Christians were being intentional and growing.

During LG, we came up with these words to describe the maturing Christian:

Connection, training, authenticity, bible studies, self-discipline, sacrifice, action, community, mentors, and choosing to be intentional.

We read a paragraph from For the Love of God, by D. A. Carson written in 1999.  This is the excerpt:

People do not drift toward holiness.  Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.  We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith.  We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

 

My challenge to you this week is to read this excerpt every day.  Make it your call to action and maturity.  We will not drift into Christian maturity.  We must make a decision.  It will take an effort on your part.  We have to be intentional.  

 

Travis