Category: Teaching

Ways to Tell Your Story

Posted on by

We often believe that evangelism is only for pastors and my Sunday School teacher, but when we begin to realize that we are simply telling our story, the pressure melts away. We need to become tour guides helping people on a spiritual journey more than salesmen trying to close the deal.

Quotes:

Lord, make me a crisis man. Let me not be a mile-post on a single road, but make me a fork that men must turn one way or an other in facing Christ in me. — Jim Elliot

Knowing that we are fulfilling God’s purpose is the only thing that really gives rest to the restless human heart. — Charles Colson

Top 10 Ways to Tell Your Story:

  1. Keep a running journal of your journey with Jesus.
  2. Share your turning points in your story with your close friends.
  3. Look for the felt needs in people who live and work around you.
  4. Look for people who are different from you (ethnically, socioeconomically, culturally) and listen to their stories and share yours.
  5. In your relationships, don’t just share truths; share your story of learning truth.
  6. Consider how God interweaves your story with the stories of others.
  7. Travel through third-world countries to enlarge your view of the human story.
  8. Study the stories of biblical heroes to apply their lessons to your story.
  9. Earn the right to speak by being a great listener.
  10. As you share your story, always be respectful of other people’s stories.

The Holy Spirit in Real Life

Posted on by

We desire for God to be so evident in our lives that He shines through with unmistakable evidence that He is real and involved in our lives. Besides an incorrect theology that speaking in tongues is evidence of the Spirit in our lives, how can we know He is there?

Quotes:

So it is when our spirits (small s), as distinct from our souls, that the Spirit (big S) comes to live. Our spirits have direct communion with God’s Spirit as we cultivate the spiritual life. — Jerome Daley

The Holy Spirit establishes the righteousness of heaven in the midst of the unrighteousness of earth, and will not stop or stay until that is dead has been brought back to life and a new world has come into being. — Karl Barth

It is through the Word, and the Word alone, that the Spirit teaches, applying the general principles or promises to our special need. And it is The Spirit, and The Spirit alone, who can really make the Word a light on our path. — Andrew Murray

Top 10 Implications of the Spirit’s Activity in Your Life:

  1. You find it unrepentantly easier to be patient and kind (Galatians 5:22).
  2. You sense a sudden urgency to pray for a friend or family member.
  3. You long to spend time with God and be in His presence.
  4. The Bible makes sense to you like never before.
  5. Scriptures to encourage others pop out of your mind.
  6. Your appetite for God’s Word gets stronger and stronger.
  7. You recognize that the Spirit has gifted you in a certain way to allow you to serve God with a certain ease and effectiveness.
  8. You may develop dreams that illuminate God’s heart.
  9. You sense God’s nearness and comfort when you are grieving.
  10. You feel an inexpiable peace in the midst of stressful circumstances.

Spiritual Relevance

Posted on by

There is a Christian culture that is complete with its own language and traditions; and most of lost America has no clue how to connect with or understand us. Christianity is some ancient or foreign ritual that has no relevance in modern culture. But the gospel is relevant to every person in any culture, we just have a public relations problem.

Quotes:

Few people articulate a redemptive message using relational terms. We believe in logic, science, lists, and formulas. God’s doesn’t use any of those. — Donald Miller

Our failure to impact contemporary culture is not because we have not been relevant enough, but because we have not been real enough. — Sally Morenthaler

The test of the vitality of a religion is to be seen in its effect on the culture. — Elton Trueblood

Your life is not your own, it belongs to God. To “be yourself” is not just to be anything you want to be. To “be yourself” is to be and do what God wants you to be and do, knowing that God created you for a mission and knows you and your mission better than you do. — Leonard Sweet

Top 10 Ways to Be Spiritually Relevant:

  1. Filter religious jargon from your language.
  2. Do not filter your authentic spirituality.
  3. Be respectful of other people’s convictions.
  4. Do not hide your own convictions.
  5. Tune in to the felt needs of your culture.
  6. Do not limit your spiritual gifts to the church.
  7. Offer advice, not judgment.
  8. Expect God to work miracles in your workplace.
  9. Do not hide your struggles and failures.
  10. Never move in fear; always move in love.

Ways to Influence People

Posted on by

Leadership can be defined as exerting influence over people; which puts just about all of us into a leadership position. We influence people all the time; thus making us leaders. There is an art and a science to leading others; and the best example of leadership is Jesus himself.

Quotes:

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. — Henry Drummond

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have–for their usefulness. — Thomas Merton

Top 10 Ways to Influence People:

  1. Respect other people’s time, space and values.
  2. Listen beyond words to someone’s heart.
  3. Ask questions in order to get to know someone.
  4. Be vulnerable with people closest to you.
  5. Make time for people, not just projects.
  6. Spend time in prayer with people you love.
  7. Go beyond chit-chat to real issues.
  8. Know your friends’ real dreams and intimidations.
  9. Take a road trip to build a friendship.
  10. Have fun together in spontaneous ways.

Connecting in Prayer

Posted on by

Prayer is often misunderstood. It is more connecting with God than it is a formula for getting answers or even stuff from God. Sometimes we think that God is like a genie waiting to grant our wishes if only we would ask Him. The fact is that the more we get to know God, the more our prayers are changed. We ask differently when we begin to realize the sacrifice of Christ. When we go through the pit with Christ, that experience changes our prayer life. Oswald Chambers once wrote something like, prayer is God’s avenue of change in us. When we pray, God will change our hearts and will often use us to bring about a solution or an answer to our prayers.

Quotes:

Prayer is not a means to an end. In so many ways, it is the end itself. — Beth Moore

Prayer lays hold of God’s plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit’s prayer. — Elizabeth Elliot

Work, work, from morning until late at night. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer. — Martin Luther

Top 10 Steps to Connecting in Prayer:

  1. Inward – reflect, breath, prepare.
  2. Noise – declutter anxious and distracting thoughts.
  3. Let go – inhale the nearness of God, exhale hindrances.
  4. Hurts – acknowledge and confess your brokenness.
  5. Distractions – focus thought and life upon your Source.
  6. Holy space – be, receive from your heavenly Father.
  7. Outward – freely you have received, freely give.
  8. Self – savor the gift of God that is in you.
  9. Planet – feel the passion the Creator has for His cosmos.
  10. Others – call forth the purposes of God in your relationships.

Expressing Passionate Faith

Posted on by

Passion is generally defined as intense emotion; and when we have passion for God, we live differently than simply living a casual existence, just simply getting by. We develop purpose and meaning and direction. We are then motivated to serve because it is the right thing to do, not out of guilt or for any rewards or recognition that might come. Imagine pursuing God with the same passion we had for our wives, before we got married.

Quotes:

I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain. — C. S. Lewis

There is no emptiness of soul ever for those whose life is devoted to God. — William Lawson

Few delights can equal the mere presence of One whom we fully trust. — George McDonald

Top 10 Expressions of a Passionate Faith:

  1. Worship freely: let your body mirror your soul.
  2. Pray continually: speak with feeling and intensity.
  3. Share openly: Do not filter your spirituality around unbelievers.
  4. Live intentionally: fill every day with Kingdom content.
  5. Serve radically: lead your family into spiritual connection.
  6. Love deeply: love for and respond to people’s urgent needs.
  7. Listen carefully: take time to hear people’s true hearts.
  8. Protect vigilantly: know the enemy’s schemes and cut him off.
  9. Speak honestly: Don’t mask your soul in religious veneer.
  10. Rest thankfully: invest wisely in Sabbath renewal.

Money and Materialism

Posted on by

The Bible has a lot to say about money and materialism. Jesus spoke more about wealth and riches than heaven or hell. It seems that the way we respond to wealth is a good indication of our priorities. Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also (Matthew 6:21). The heart follows our treasure; the treasure never follows the heart.

Quotes:

Money will buy a bed but not sleep, books but not brains, food but not appetite, finery but not beauty, medicine but not health, luxury but not culture, amusement but not happiness, a crucifix but not a Savior, a temple of religion but not heaven. — Anonymous

It is not the persecution of China that I fear. The church has always been able to weather persecution. My fear is the love of money in the church. — A Chinese Pastor

You are rich if you had a meal today. –Billy Graham

Top 10 Warnings of Materialism:

  1. You subtly resent giving your tithe in church.
  2. You need to work overtime just to buy the latest fashions.
  3. You find it difficult to give generously to your friends and family.
  4. You constantly talk and think about money.
  5. You secretly want others to admire your possessions.
  6. You like to show off your best toys.
  7. You label people who are poor as being lazy or unmotivated.
  8. You pride yourself in buying only the best products.
  9. You respect wealthy people and value their opinions more than the opinions of others who are less well off.
  10. You extend yourself to help others only when it profits you.

Loving When It’s Hard

Posted on by

We are called to love God and love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39), and by our love all men will know that we are His disciples (John 13:35), and we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), but sometimes it’s pretty difficult to do all this. Isn’t it great that God doesn’t leave us to do it on our own? He wants to live through us (Galatians 2:20).

Quotes:

Our love to God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the love it displays. — Andrew Murray

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. — Mother Teresa

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? — Abraham Lincoln

Top 10 Ways to Love When It’s Hard:

  1. Pray regularly for that person, even if he feels like an enemy.
  2. Look for practical ways to serve him, even if he doesn’t know.
  3. Be available; time is the most precious gift you can offer.
  4. Take opportunities to honor and speak well of that one.
  5. Include him, when appropriate, in special activities.
  6. Sometimes a hug or brief touch can communicate what words cannot.
  7. Take the risk to share your heart with that person; be the real you.
  8. If possible, worship or pray together or in a small group.
  9. Journal your desire for God’s good in his life.
  10. Thank God for changing your thoughts about that person.

Intimacy with God

Posted on by

Christians talk about the presence of God, and I suppose it sounds rather odd to those who are not followers of Jesus. When we talk about Jesus being alive today, and that He walks with me and He talks with me, it’s the realization that we do not go through this life alone. It is an understanding of Christianity is all about, the resurrection and the Holy Spirit taking up residence in the life of a believer. God really does walk with us through the dark valleys of life. For many believers, getting closer to God is a heartfelt desire and worthwhile goal, but how can we draw nearer to God?

Quotes:

During those times you sit in the presence of God and your heart sighs for him, what is it you are sighing for? Understand that your sighing originated in his heart. — Graham Cooke

It is when we notice the dirt, that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of his presence. — C. S. Lewis

Whenever we move into a new spiritual dimension of our calling and ministry, we must take the time to upgrade our relationship with God. — Graham Cooke

Top 10 Ways to Draw Closer to God:

  1. Each morning when you wake up, start thanking God for the new day.
  2. Sing or say words that tell God how big and beautiful He is.
  3. Take one whole day to just be with God; to journal, pray and listen.
  4. Read books that draw you closer to God and enlarge your view of Him.
  5. Practice sitting quietly with your mind clear and free of other thoughts, to listen.
  6. Memorize a new verse each week from God’s own writings.
  7. Pray the Bible; let its truths examine you and lead you to the Truth.
  8. Carry on a conversation with God throughout the day.
  9. Let Jesus carry your heavy thoughts, complex issues and unsolvable problems.
  10. Learn God’s love language called “pursuit” (Jeremiah 29:13)

Heaven’s Aroma on Earth

Posted on by

Many say that God is nowhere to be found, with no evidence of His existence. I submit to you that this top 10 list is not the result of a society of people who evolved through the “survival of the fittest.” Morality, compassion, kindness and forgiveness are qualities that are passed down from a personal Being with a plan for His special creation.

Since all we know and experience is this creation that is fallen and under the curse, just imagine what heaven will be like. Beauty, kindness, and love that we see here, as marvelously as we have experienced it, is still cursed. How much greater it will be when we are in God’s presence in eternity?

Quotes:

He is the end of our search, not the means to some further end. Our exceeding joy is he, the Lord–not the streets of gold, or the reunion with relatives or any blessing of heaven. — John Piper

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. — C. S. Lewis

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. — G. K. Chesterton

Top 10 Evidences of Heaven’s Aroma on Earth:

  1. Hope in the midst of cynicism.
  2. Contentment in the midst of adversity.
  3. Genuine care for others in a self-centered world.
  4. Willing sacrifice of all the world holds clear for unseen reward.
  5. Unified community in an angry, fractured culture.
  6. Courage to gamble all of life upon a spiritual vision.
  7. A tenacious joy that is inexpiable in worldly terms.
  8. Supernatural healing of body, mind and spirit.
  9. Love for enemies.
  10. Forgiveness.