Friday, June 7, 2013

1 John 4:13-18
¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Reflection

Read through the selection and mark all the references you find regarding the mutual, reciprocal, and deep connection that you can experience with God (the Trinity). Then, in

another color or different symbol, mark all the results and

implications of this deep, reciprocal connection.

What did you find and how does that apply to your life?

Thursday, June 6, 2013

1 John 4:4-12

⁴ You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

 Reflection

Read through the selection and mark all the references you find regarding the mutual, reciprocal, and deep connection that you can experience with God (the Trinity). Then, in

another color or different symbol, mark all the results and

implications of this deep, reciprocal connection.

What did you find and how does that apply to your life?

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

1 John 3:19-4:3

¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 

²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

Reflection

Read through the selection and mark all the references you find regarding the mutual, reciprocal, and deep connection that you can experience with God (the Trinity). Then, in

another color or different symbol, mark all the results and

implications of this deep, reciprocal connection.

What did you find and how does that apply to your life?

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

1 John 3:10-18

¹⁰ This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.¹¹ For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Reflection

Read through the selection and mark all the references you find regarding the mutual, reciprocal, and deep connection that you can experience with God (the Trinity). Then, in

another color or different symbol, mark all the results and

implications of this deep, reciprocal connection.

What did you find and how does that apply to your life?

  

Monday, June 3, 2013

1 John 2:28-3:9
²⁸ And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.²⁹ If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. ¹See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.⁴ Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. ⁵ But you know that he

appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. ⁶ No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.⁷ Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. ⁸ The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. ⁹ No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.

Reflection

This week we will read a selection from 1 John. The apostle John’s words in his letters possess much the same tone and flavor as his Gospel.  He focuses more than any other

apostle on the way each person of the Trinity abides, lives,  and indwells within one another. His well known vine and branches illustration in John 15 is another meditation on this vital area.

Each day this week, we will be reading through the selection and marking all the references you find regarding the mutual, reciprocal, and deep connection that you can experience with God (the Trinity). Then, in another color or different symbol, mark all the results and implications of this deep,reciprocal connection. What did you find and how does that apply to your life?

May 26 through June 1st Weekly Theme

God's Chisel

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

—Philippians 2:12-13

The greatest gift God gives us is salvation in Jesus Christ. When we accept God’s gift, we have eternal life. But God doesn’t expect us to sit back and cruise through the rest of life. God expects salvation to be worked out in us for the rest of our days. The longer we live as followers of Jesus, the more our lives should look like His because of God’s work in us and through us. Sometimes this process of becoming more and more like Jesus in every area of our lives can be pretty challenging—and even painful. It doesn’t take long before we’re faced with areas in need of improvement. Christians still struggle with issues such as anger, pride, jealousy, and bitterness. While those sins are indeed forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross, the effects and consequences of those sins remain. That’s why God desires that we deal with them constructively.

The idea of God with a chisel and hammer chipping away at our lives may not sound like a lot of fun, but such painstaking work is exactly what must take place for us to become the

people God desires. This process of God chipping away with a metaphorical chisel is known as “sanctification.” The Philippians passage (above) demonstrates that there’s a place for both God and people to work in tandem to fulfill the purpose and the pleasure of God’s intended relationship with us. God will continue to chisel His children; His children must continue to take responsibility by doing the good works that God already set up for us to do.

Watch this video from Sunday!

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Ephesians 2:1-10

¹As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the

cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in

transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s

handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Reflection

In our scripture today, we hear that you are God’s poem. The actual word that’s used for “handiwork” in verse 10 in the Greek is poiema, which is where we get the word “poem.” Isn't that amazing? The creator of the universe created you like a poet sits down and composes

thoughts to create a work of art. How special you are! It is true: God doesn't make junk.

 What does “being God’s poem” mean to you?