What does it mean to follow Jesus?
I appeal to you therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2
What does it mean to follow Jesus? Jesus said that if you want to follow me, you need to die to yourself. He also said, no servant should expect to be greater than his master. We shouldn’t expect as Christians that somehow we will escape trials and tribulations. In fact, the aim of a Christian should not be the pursuit of comfort, but rather the pursuit of things that honor God which often involves things that make us decidedly out of our comfort zones.
Jesus said trials and tribulations would come but He did also say that He had overcome the world. We see that in Jesus’ live and His death and resurrection. Every day we can make choices to put aside our desires, our agenda and preferences in favor of others. Every day we can choose to die to ourselves and, in one of those great ironies of life, be victorious.
Click here to go to our forums to read and share your thoughts about what does it mean follow Jesus.
Asking yourself hard questions
It’s ok to take a critical look at yourself. By critical, I mean examining with a fine-tooth comb as opposed to just getting down on oneself. If you start thinking you are stupid or dumb because of your actions, that is not helpful.
I recall meeting with a young man for the purpose of mentoring several years ago. During the first time we met, as we were talking about some of the things we might do as part of the mentoring process, one of the things I asked him was to list some of his weaknesses. There was silence and then he told me he could not think of any weakness. It concerned me greatly that he was not able to identify any weakness in himself as young Christian man who wanted to be discipled.
I suppose that it was possible that he had never been asked to think about that. I knew him quite well and knew his heart. He had a strong desire to follow God and do what God wanted him to do. As with all of us, there were blind spots.
Putting your body on the line
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. - Romans 12:1
This is more than just saying to God, “I will give you a portion of my day, or a portion of my income, or a portion of anything.” It is very all encompassing, it’s everything. It is also physical and action-based. It is not promising God to think nice thoughts about Him, and hopefully feel good inside.
Think of medic in a battle putting their own self at risk to rescue and care for the wounded. Think of a secret service agents taking a bullet for the president. Think of the mother who forgoes sleep to care for a sick child.
This is more than just thinking nice thoughts about God or even just not doing anything sinful or believing the right doctrine. It is giving yourself over to God and living as a sacrifice. What does it mean to be a living sacrifice for God? That is something worth exploring.
Discussion Heads Up
The microsite that meets at the White's house will be discussing Psalm 20 this Sunday.
One of the big questions we will be exploring is "How do we talk to God in times of trial?" and "What types of things does He want us to learn in the midst of those trials?"
Meeting time is 9am. Click here for more info and RSVP.
Baptism Party - Oct 9
Today we baptized two people - Hannele and Emily. You can watch their testimony videos in a featured videos section. It was great venue using the outside baptistry at Clovis First Baptist and a wonderful celebration as we prayed for them both as they took there next step in their journey with God.
Here are a couple of photos of the ceremony.....
Psalm One picture
Last Sunday we discussed Psalm One. Here is the picture Hannele drew inspired from the discussion. If you click on the thumbnail it will open up the graphic full size.
How messy failures can succeed
When we rely on organization, we get what organization can do. When we rely upon education, we get what education can do. When we rely on eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. But when we rely on the Holy Spirit, we get what God can do. — A.C. Dixon
This quote reminds us that while things like being organized, well informed and well spoken are certainly helpful and important they only get us so far. If pursued to the exclusion of God they will end up limiting us. It is also an encouragement that our life success is predicated more on who God is rather than who we are.
Wish you were more organized? Talk to God about what your priorities should be (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Feel stupid half the time? Remember that the fear of the Lord is the sou
rce of all wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).
Can't put two words together to save yourself? Find out how God would have you serve and go do it because actions speak louder than words (Proverbs 20:11).
Let's encourage each other to seek God more and take on board more John the Baptist's attitude of "he must increase, I must decrease". (John 3:30)
Welcome to the new site
So. We have a new site. There are a number of improvements from the previous site and we have some plans for even more features in the pipeline. We'd love your participation and input. There are a number of things you could do....
Register on the site. This will give you the ability to participate in discussions on our forum. You could comment on blog posts or open up other threads for discussion.
If you haven't already "like us" on Facebook - that way you can see important announcements via your feed
Follow our Twitter prayer feed.We use this as our way to make people aware of specific prayer requests throughout the day. Let us know if you have things you'd like posted. By the way, if you don't happen to have a Twitter account you can always see what's being posted by looking on the right column on this site's home page
Are you on Meetup? We have a Meetup group that you can be part of
Got any ideas of things that would good on the site. Drop us line and we can add to our ideas list. Thanks for the visit and we hope to see you again soon.
Many blessings from all of us in Network Fellowship!