Thursday, July 28, 2005

Good Morning!

Last email until next week -- leaving for Chicago today. I won't be there on Sunday, but I hope that everyone else will attend class, and discuss the lesson for the week. I've been including some discussion questions with each day's email, so those could be some thought starters.

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: Mark 4:1-9

Today's Discussion:

-- this scripture about the parable of the four soils is familiar. I like it in particular because it is a parable that Jesus himself explains to the disciples. You can read Jesus' explanation in Mark 4:13-20.

-- at first, couldn't see how this fit in to our unit, but actually, it fits very well. If preventing or prevenient grace is something that God makes available to all, then you can see how this parable applies. Not everyone responds to prevenient grace, and they respond differently, depending on the circumstances of their life.

-- for the purposes of this lesson, I think we have to exchange "the word" for "preventing grace" to help us fit it into our lesson, and that isn't a substitution that changes what Jesus is saying, because I think that we are mostly talking about the same thing, just using different words. I've often heard this parable preached on as a way of understanding how people respond to Jesus' offer of salvation But the parable can be correctly read and understood as a discussion of how people respond to God's call to people to come to him.

-- I think that for us, the purpose of this class is to make ourselves into good soil, the kind that responds fruitfully to God's message. This parable outlines three specific barriers to our receiving God's message -- we can be deaf to it because of our devotion to Satan, we can not know how to act on it because our belief is shallow, because we have not spent any time nuturing our faith through prayer and study, or because we allow other concerns to crowd out and take priority in our lives. If we can keep up our daily prayer and bible reading, and the other means of grace, we are preparing ourselves into good soil that will be ready to act on the seed of God's grace that is being spread over us.

Question for Sunday:

Where do you fall on the good soil scale? What are your particular challenges to becoming good soil? In the past couple of months, do you have a sense that you are becoming more receptive, more aware of God's grace?

Today's prayer request: Natalee Holloway's family

They've been in Aruba for 2 months now, and it looks like they may get some resolution to the case now, or this may turn into another false alarm. They just need our continuing prayer for strength to get through this difficult time, and prayer that they will be able to someday get closure to Natalee's disapperance.

Today's class member prayer:

Michelle Ray

Have a great day.

Jay

Wednesday, July 26, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:2-18

Today's Discussion:

-- back to the Old Testament. Quick summary of the context -- Eli was the high priest of Israel, and Samuel was one of his assistants. Eli had two sons who were also his assistants, but they were corrupt in their execution of their priestly responsibilities, they took more from the sacrificial offerings than they were supposed to (essentially, stealing from God), cheating other people, and sleeping with the women who were also servants at the Tent. All the way around, they were bad guys, and Eli was unable and/or unwilling to do anything about them.

-- this scripture is essentially about God coming to Samuel and letting him know that God was going to severely deal with Eli's sons.

-- for the purposes of this week's lesson, to me this is about giving us an example of how God might call out to us. In the case of Samuel, he wasn't quite expecting God to talk to him, so he assumed that it was Eli calling him. Once he understood that God was talking to him, he simply said "here I am" and listened to what God's message was. And notice that God came to speak to Samuel in the evening as he was laying down in the still of the night.

-- I think we have a couple of takeaways from this reading -- one is that we need to be listening for God to talk to us -- Samuel wasn't listening for God originally, he was listening for Eli. We miss God talking to us many times because we are intentionally or unintentionally not listening for him. Second, note that God often speaks to us when our souls and body and mind are still. That is one of the reasons that our template for the study is about finding a quiet place and spending some quiet time in contemplation, so that we can listen for what God is saying to us.

Question for Sunday:

-- How and where do you listen for God?

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

Haven't heard any updates on Alex lately, but he is a long-term "prayer project" due to the nature of his hip condition. We just need to continue to pray that his recovery continues on track.

Today's class member prayer:

Monica Harbarger

Have a great day.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Good Morning!

I'm going to try again to get books to those who need them. Since I'll be out on this Sunday, I'm just going to leave our extra copies in our Sunday School room.

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: John 16:1-15

Today's Discussion:

-- verse 2 of today's passage is chilling in the light of the daily news -- "a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God." -- while Jesus is talking to his disciples there, it could be for any Christians today who are in danger from misinformed zealots of other faiths.

-- the main thrust of the passage for us is verses 5-15. This are some of Jesus' last moments with his disciples before Judas's betrayal and the beginning of the Good Friday drama. In general, Jesus is talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. In verses 8-11, Jesus outlines the main tasks of the Holy Spirit, as noted by the commentary from my Bible -- (1) "convicting" the world of its sin and calling to repentance, (2) revealing God's standard of righteousness and (3) demonstrating Christ's judgment over Satan.

-- then in verse 13, Jesus talks of the Spirit guiding us into truth.

-- so, how have we experienced the Holy Spirit? We tend not to think of it in these terms, but think back to your conversion experience, or the times when you "knew" that you had done something wrong OR knew that doing something was the wrong thing to do. Those are feelings that we often attribute to "our" conscience, which is the conventional wisdom. But that power to know what is right and wrong, or the power to know what the right thing to do is doesn't come from us, it comes from God. And the idea of prevenient grace is all about that -- that spark that God supplies to let us know --even those who are not Christians -- what is right and wrong.

-- it goes back to the idea that some people have that "people are basically good". I think that what this unit is teaching us is that people are basically good only because God's prevenient grace is acting in everyone, and giving them the impulse to tend to do the right thing.

Question for Sunday:

What is your experience and view of the world? Are people basically good?

Today's prayer request: Shuttle astronauts and their families

The space shuttle is going to make another go at a launch today. We need to pray for their safety, and for courage for them and their families as they face this exciting yet very dangerous work.

Today's class member prayer:

Brad Douglas

Have a great day.

Jay

Monday, July 25, 2005

Good Morning!

I'm so sorry I could not make it on Sunday. Rachel played a softball tournament on Saturday up in Athens, AL, and as it worked out, things ran late and we did not get home and in bed till 3A. Just note that I'm going to be traveling to Chicago this coming weekend, so I will miss this coming Sunday as well.

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: Acts 16:6-10

Today's Discussion:

-- this week's discussion is about preventing, or prevenient grace. Here is a definition from the UMC website to help understand this concept:

Prevenient Grace

Prevenient grace is the grace that comes to us before we know God. In prevenient grace, God takes the initiative. The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 1996 defines this grace as “the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses” (Section 60). Even while we were yet sinners, separated from Christ, God’s grace was already active in us, perhaps in ways we could not identify.

Younger children can most easily grasp the concept of prevenient grace. Though they may not yet be able to verbalize the concept, they can understand the idea that their parents loved them before they were born, and in that way, God has always loved and cared for us. Youth and adults can begin to understand that prevenient grace is also that force that awakens in us an awareness of our sin, our need for repentance, and the possibility of a joyful and abundant life.

-- note that John Wesley named three aspects of grace -- again, here is a bit from the UMC website to help understand these three:

"Grace pervades our understanding of Christian faith and life. By grace we mean the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever-present Holy Spirit. While the grace of God is undivided, it precedes salvation as "prevenient grace," continues in "justifying grace," and is brought to fruition in "sanctifying grace."

-- overall, this week's unit is about understanding the dimensions of this grace that is there for us, even before we know about God.

-- one of the interesting things mentioned in the Reflections section of this week's unit is this idea of our perspective about God's grace as we look back on our lives, and then we can see some of what God's grace has done for us, protecting us and guiding us in ways that we can't see at the time.

Question for Sunday:

Where can you look back and see where God's grace has been at work in your life in ways that you couldn't see at the time?

Today's prayer request: Chris Wagnaar, brother of Ron Ray's co-worker.

Wrecked his truck on Wednesday night and in a coma. Need prayer for him and his family.

Today's class member prayer:

Wes Russell

Have a great day.

Jay