Friday, August 12,, 2005

Good Morning!

Hope everyone had a good week, and look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

The new unit for this week is Unit 15 -- Holiness of Life

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Peter 1:15

As he who called you in holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct.

Today's Scriptures: Romans 12:1-8, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 25:31-46

Today's Discussion:

-- the last three readings for the week.

-- this week has been one where I think that the scripture readings, and the sequence of them, had a very clear pattern. The unit this week is about holiness, and I think that the scripture gave us a very good perspective of all the aspects of what that means, especially in the Wesleyan tradition.

-- the passage from Romans, especially the second one, really gives us instruction on holiness as regards our relationships with other people. Mostly, when we think about personal holiness, we then to think of it as strictly things related as things we should or shouldn't do -- our language, our honesty, etc.

- the passage from Romans extends that to our relationships with others, all under the banner of love and how we deal with others, and how we are to reject evil, especially as it may poison our relationships with others. I think that the passage from Romans is just a wonderful set of life instructions -- ones that I especially think we should remember is the call in verse 21 -- "do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" and verse 17 "do not repay anyone evil for evil" -- great wisdom that you can apply everyday to your life.

-- the passage from Matthew, I think in the context of our unit, extends this idea of what holy living is about to concern and care for others. As we have read, Wesley felt that reaching out to others, especially the poor, was a key part of the Christian life. We can think of this passage as outlining the idea that personal holiness is not just about not doing bad things, but proactively doing good things.

Question for Sunday:

-- in the past week or two, do you remember a moment where your actions were specifically guided by scripture that your remembered?

Today's prayer request: Ron Ray and Brad Douglas

Ron and Brad go down to Auburn University today and begin the weekend Executive MBA program. Its tough to go back to school and keep working and do everything else you have to do in life. Just need to remember them over the next few months as they juggle all these responsibilities

Today's class member prayer:

Kyle Findlay

Have a great day.

Jay