Friday, June 10, 2005

Good Morning!

I am pretty sure that I will at class this week. Hope to see you there as well.

The new unit for this week is Unit 6, Good Stewards of Time

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Keep alert, stand firm in the your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Today's scripture: Psalm 119:121-128; Colossians 4:1-6; Ephesians 5:1-20

-- On Friday, I'm going to start listing the remaining three scriptures that we have in this unit, instead of just one.

-- That is partly because I'm drawing a bit of a blank about the Psalm's scripture, as it relates to our topic. The word 'time' is mentioned, but only once and not really in a context that I think applies to us. I think that the intended connection is this idea of asking God for discernment -- which I would define as the ability to see/hear/understand what God would want us to do in particular situations that we encounter during the day. It is the ability to translate our reading and prayer into the appropriate response to life. Discernment, to me, is the answer to the prayer -- God, show me the way I apply your teachings to my life.

-- I like the brief passage from Colossians -- it is a just a bit about how we should conduct ourselves. My favorite portion is verse 6, especially the part "let your conversation be always full of grace" -- that is actually a pretty high standard for us to reach. Note that I do not think that necessarily - or only - means that we should have a graceful way of speaking. It, to me, means that we should reflect in our conversation and opinions the grace that God has shown to us. "Seasoned with salt" is a bit more vague statement. I'm certain that it doesn't mean that we should fill our conversations with "salty" language. The commentary for my Bible opinion is that that phrase means make what you say "tasty" -- have meaning perhaps; not be bland?

-- the longer passage from Ephesians, has some instruction on Christian living, but I was drawn to verse 4, and it's connection with the Colossians passage. In the context of our lesson -- being good stewards of our time -- you could look at these last two passages and focus on the instructions about our speech. We spend a lot of time talking to others, and you could say that one of the ways we are good stewards of our time is how we spend our time talking. In the passage from Colossians, we have the positive thought -- "let your conversation be always full of grace". In this passage from Ephesians, there is the flip side of that thought -- "Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking" -- a bit more of some specific teaching and guidance about we shouldn't be saying.

-- both of these last two passages, in their instruction about our speech, is also getting at the idea about how we should spend our time -- if in every thing we do, we need to be advancing the cause of Christ with others, and living out a Christian life, then how we manage our tongues is a major part of that -- and it is a big part of how we spend our time each day.

-- so, if we were to rope all three of the key thoughts from this scripture into a single thought, I would say that should pray for God to give us discernment -- wisdom as to how we should live our daily lives, and how to translate what we read in the Bible into our lives. In this particular case, we are given a couple of specific instructions on how we should talk. Our takeaway then should be that going forward -- we are conscious each moment of how we speak -- striving for conversation that is "full of grace", that is devoid of "obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking" and that we are asking God for the discernment to see -- prior to opening our mouths -- how we can edit our words to meet those standards.


Today's prayer request: Nelson Ferreiro, a family friend of Megan Douglas

Nelson was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, and had surgery to remove the tumor. However, they could not remove all of it, and he was given 2 - 6 months to live. We need to pray for him and his family

Today's class member prayer:

Wes Russell

Have a great day.

Jay

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Good Morning!

Note that we have an Administrative Board meeting tonight at 7P at the church, if you are a member of that group.

The new unit for this week is Unit 6, Good Stewards of Time

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Keep alert, stand firm in the your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Today's scripture: John 7:1-13

-- to me, the scripture for today only has a passing reference to time and being a good steward of it. In this passage, Jesus is talking about not going to a major, public event because it was not the right time for him to reveal himself. Sometimes, stewardship of our time is not just about how we are spending our time, but when we spend our time, or devote ourselves to a program. In many cases, when we want to do something doesn't match up to when God wants us to do something. Making sure that we are applying ourselves at the time that God needs our time is another aspect of time stewardship.

-- the readings from Wesley are all around the various issues of time, and are illustrating how he evaluated how he was spending his time. He was constantly evaluating whether what he was doing was good use of his time. The passage that finishes at the top of page 56, at the end he mentions that he had thought about it, and that visiting a poor woman in town was a good use of his time. He also budgeted himself an "hour or two a week" to this visit -- this is an example of Wesley budgeting his time so that he could accomplish what was important.

-- the passage from Wesley on page 55, beginning "Yet it is certain there is business to be done . . ." This to me was an interesting passage, because Wesley is hitting a couple of topics -- time and money. He calls out and asks why someone might be working hard, and saving, and says that most people are working hard and saving up now so that they can living a life of ease -- so that they won't have to work. Wesley is hitting at that, because in his view, the time that is freed up due to retirement, etc. should be used for the work of the kingdom.

-- in that same passage, Wesley has a wonderful phrase -- he talks about treasuring up, or saving of silver and gold, for its own end, and says that that is about as useful as "treasuring up spiders, or the wings of butterflies". Just something very interesting about that passage and the language used.

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

Alex has been our list for a while, and I believe today (or yesterday), he was going to have significant surgery on his hip. He is probably going to be in a waist-down cast for a while as he recovers from the surgery.

Today's class member prayer:

Kelly Thaxton

Have a great day.

Jay

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Good Morning from Chicago!

The new unit for this week is Unit 6, Good Stewards of Time

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Keep alert, stand firm in the your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Today's scripture: Romans 13:11-14

-- this section of scripture puts a different spin on the topic of use of our time. When we think of the idea of being good stewards of our time -- the first thing we think (or at least, I do) is about being efficient with my time -- doing a good job with my schedule, doing things as efficiently as possible, saving time where I can, multitasking, etc. In the Monday section, I think I talked about John Wesley's use of time in that he seemed to stay busy -- he apparently did a good job with using every moment of his day. In short, my first take on the title of this chapter is that it is about productivity.

-- today's scripture is not about productivity. It's about prioritization -- about what we do with our time as regards our own spiritual lives. The John Wesley story from earlier this week is not only a testament to how well he used his time, and how he didn't waste time -- but it is also a story about what he used his time for -- in terms of social outreach AND in how he made time for his personal devotional life. Today's scripture talks about how we use our time in the context of living right, of making the correct choices, of living a life fully in alignment with the 'light'.

-- there is, in today's scripture, also a sense that time is short - that there should be a sense of urgency in aligning the activities and priorities of our life with those of God. In short, the sooner we arrange and prioritize our lives -- the sooner we "set aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light", the better off we will be.

Today's prayer request: Wes and Susanne Russell

They are traveling today for Italy, and will be gone about two weeks.

Today's class member prayer:

Brandon Herring

Have a great day.

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 6, Good Stewards of Time

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Keep alert, stand firm in the your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Today's scripture: Haggai 1:1-11

-- when was the last time you read anything from this particular book of the Bible? yet, it has a great message for the topic that we a studying this week.

-- for an Old Testament scripture, this is a very straightforward text -- the people had focused their time on taking care of their own needs, and they had neglected their responsibilities to God. As a result, the more that they were doing for themselves, the less results they were getting from those efforts, because God was not blessing their efforts.

-- "Give thought to your ways" is a great piece of scripture and advice. That is a great piece of scripture to keep in mind and keep in front of us. And really, it gets at the heart of what we want to do with this study and this class - we want to be in a mindset where we always are giving thought to our ways, and how we are following God in all we do.

-- My initial takeaway from some of the Wesley readings is how busy he kept himself -- it doesn't seem that he had much downtime at all, and he was constantly in motion it seems.

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway and her family.

Natalee is the girl who has gone missing in Aruba. Pray for her safe return, and for strength and hope for her family and friends, during this time of not knowing but expecting the worst.

Today's class member prayer:

Danny Walker

Have a great day.

Monday, June 6, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 6, Good Stewards of Time

Focus Scripture for the Week: 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Keep alert, stand firm in the your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

Today's scripture: Matthew 26:36-46

-- Reading the Reflections section this week, and then the scripture for today, I'm not sure how the scripture for today fits into the theme for this week's unit. There are a couple of possibilities in my mind:

-- There is the thought that Christ, even prior to his betrayal, in the middle of the night, made time for prayer. It was a priority for him. And he used every last moment for prayer.

-- For the disciples, the thing you note most is that they keep falling asleep. After the first time, Jesus tells Peter "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is week." From this verse, I see too possible connections to our topic -- (1) is instruction from Jesus how we should spend out time -- "watch and pray", which is what John Wesley made time for everyday. (2) is the idea from "the spirit is willing, etc." portion of the scripture, with the connection being that we know that we should spend some time in prayer and devotion, but simply don't get it done, maybe by simply being too tired.

-- Otherwise, I'm somewhat stumped for the connection.

-- From the Reflections section, I think that one of the most powerful parts is the idea that we all have the same number of hours in a day, and the idea that time is one of the few things -- if not the only thing -- given to all of us in equal measure. We have the opportunity to use it wisely, and, in a way, this study is all about time -- not just the few minutes each day we are committing to this study, but how we stay in tune with God the entire day, both in doing his will and in noticing how he is working in our lives. Sometimes, like the disciples, we are asleep when he is near.

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway and her family.

Natalee is the girl who has gone missing in Aruba. Pray for her safe return, and for strength and hope for her family and friends.

Today's class member prayer:

Jodi Findlay

Have a great week.