Cost of Discipleship

Discipleship comes at a "high cost", are you willing to pay it? 

Jesus talked about the differences in the easy way that most of the world wants to take and the hard pathway of following Him. Accepting Jesus and the salvation He provides is easy, but actively growing and following Jesus will impact every part of our lives and takes time and effort.

The choice to follow Jesus may cost us a high price in earthly terms, but when we are determined to follow Him, the Lord will change our desires. Discipleship is a lifelong process! We will never learn all we can about our Precious Jesus! Becoming a disciple is free; there is nothing we can do to buy our salvation. There is nothing we can do to earn it, but we WILL have to make sacrifices in order to follow Jesus. The cost of being a disciple comes from those sacrifices. We may have to stop doing some activities because we know they are not pleasing to God. 

We need to live differently than the world around us. This will not always be easy, but it will always be worth it. Jesus paid the ultimate price for us, and we can honor Him by listening to His Word and following Him.

Is there anything you or your family needs to give up for Christ?
I can promise you, if you totally give up everything for Jesus, you will never regret it.

Make sure HE is in the #1 place in your life and in your kid's lives today. Let HIM be in control of all that your family does! 

 (Today's blog is paraphrased from Elements Kids Worship Discipleship Lesson 2)

 

Sin Separates!

We have been studying Genesis in Sunday School for the past month and one thing that keeps popping in my mind is...Sin separates! It separated Adam and Eve from God walking with them in the cool of the the day and from living in Eden. It separated Jonah from the people of Nineveh to the point of him being in the belly of a giant fish. It separated the whole world from Noah and his family when earth was flooded. My D6 Forward Sunday School teacher's book made some great points this past week:

"One of sins's consequences is isolation. It pulls us away from God and others. It causes us to withdraw because of guilt, shame, and fear of being found out or called out. Sin is a deception that tries to make us think we can lead successful, godly lives on our own, in our own time, and in our own way. However, this lie only separates us from those who love us and who want what is best for us."

Sin hinders relationships with others and with our Holy God. It leads us to lie, deny, and make excuses. Sin can lead to more sin and that causes separation. Are you feeling separated from friends or loved ones? Do you have unconfessed sin that is separating you? Are your friends or family living in unconfessed sin and it's causing separation? If so, repent or pray for your family to repent, daily until they do. Being tempted isn't a sin, it's when we give in to that temptation that sin occurs. To resist, we must follow Christ's example and overcome it with The Word of God. Pray for strength, literally run away from sin if you have to, say no and allow your Christian friends and family to hold you accountable instead of separating yourself from them. Temptation presents us with a choice: will we obey God or succumb to Satan's trickery? As soon as we leave God out of our plans, we place ourselves above Him, thinking we know best, and that's exactly what Satan wants us to do. People usually choose wrong things because they are convinced that those wrong things are good for them. Our own sins don't usually appear ugly to us, and "pleasant or fun sins" are the hardest to avoid. One of the realities of sin is that its effects spreads. Eve sinned and then brought Adam down into sin. We do the same sometimes. When we do wrong, we try to remove our guilt by involving someone else. We need to recognize and confess our sins before we are tempted to pollute and bring others down around us. The effects of sin makes us feel guilty and embarrassed and so sometimes we run from God and those that love us and hold us accountable instead of repenting. A guilty conscience is a warning signal from God placed inside of us through the Holy Spirit to bring us to repentance. The worst thing we can do is get rid of our guilty feelings without eliminating the cause of those feelings. Then we are getting comfortable with the sin, instead of repenting. That is like taking pain pills instead of fixing what's causing the pain. Guilt can make us aware we need to repent and seek forgiveness so we can correct wrongdoings and get back in fellowship with God and those we love. So is sin separating you today? Jesus is the definitive solution to our sin! He paid the price for our forgiveness, we just need to sincerely ask.

Sin will take us farther than we want to go, keep us longer than we want to stay, and cost us more than we want to pay! We can't prevent temptation from coming, but we can cling to knowing that there is a way of escape. Sin may be crouching at the door but we can always choose to do right.

Genesis 4:7 says "if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

What triggers me to sin? What triggers you to sin?...anger, jealousy, greed, boredom, envy, hatred? It's desire is you and me, we must overcome it! Ask God for strength to overcome temptations today. Gods greatest desire is a restored relationship with us. 

1 Corinthians 10:13 says “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

1 John 2:16-17 “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

Don't allow sin to separate you today...cling to the promise that God is faithful to not let you be tempted beyond what you can withstand with Christ's Strength and Power!

D6 Sunday School Titus 3

Tomorrow we finish our study of Titus in Sunday School. In chapter 3:1-2, Paul gives Titus and the Cretans 7 guidelines to being good Christians, good citizens, & good neighbors. Can you find them? Do our actions show the world that we are Christians or is there enough evidence in our daily living to prove it? We don't do these good works to "earn" our way into Heaven but to show gratitude for God's grace and to show thanks for Jesus' willingness to die for our sins.  It's a response we should want to have to reflect Christ' Love in us. We should strive to be a fruitful follower of God, producing good fruit and leading others closer to Christ - not devoting ourselves to things of this world but instead devoting ourselves to His Kingdom and doing good for others. 

Let me sum it up...

We are NOTHING without Jesus. 

HE is EVERYTHING. 

HE became NOTHING, so

We could have EVERYTHING!

NOTHING should be more important than us giving HIM our EVERYTHING! 

He deserves our gratitude and a life of total devotion. He came to earth, died, and arose again to give us eternal life. Our good works and obedience show our gratitude to Him.