Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Good Morning!

Wanted to check and see who needs a study book. Email me and let me know by Wednesday and I will try to have new ones for you at church on Sunday.

The new unit for this week is Unit 11, The Means of Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Peter 1:2

May grace and peace be yours in abundance

Today's topic: Hebrews 12:12-17

-- we were talking in class on Sunday about good verses to remember -- verse 14 here is a good one -- "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy."

-- that verse also raises this issue of holiness, which we have talked about before. As the verse says, we are called to be holy, and that to me is an intimidating thing. But when you lay out or define what holiness is about, it really isn't. It is a lot about how we conduct ourselves -- our language, our actions, our relationships with others. We sometimes use a lot of different words for the concept -- living right, being moral, being a good person, doing the right thing -- but those tend to lessen our obligation, or better yet, tend to obscure our goal and/or the reason that we should live in certain way. We are called to be holy because we belong to God, and we are charged with living live like he has instructed us.

-- but part of getting to holiness is partaking of the means of grace that we outlined yesterday. Think about it -- if we pray daily, read our Bible daily, go to church regularly, it makes it much easier to live life as God wants us too -- the more often we connect with God, and the more different ways that we do it, the more we are able to do what he wants us to do. And think about the means of grace, communion and fasting. If we took communion every day or every couple of days, like Wesley did, how would that change how we live? The same thing for fasting - if we were going all day without eating, for the specific reason as an observance of our faith -- how much would that focus us on other ways that we should be living?

Today's prayer request: Alex Lloyd, Monica's nephew

Alex is still recovering from his hip surgery, and we still need to remember him as he has a way to go before he is fully recovered.

Today's class member prayer:

Megan Douglas

Have a great day.

Jay