The Hole in our Holiness - Week 9

Week Nine is here!  We’re now down to only one week left in our study over The Hole in our Holiness. I noticed tonight while blogging that I definitely forgot to put up a recap for Chapter Eight.  I’m sorry about that, but as it’s been a bit, I’m going to go ahead and skip to “Abide and Obey.”  We were a bit short-handed this week at study, but we happily all had our hands.  Right Tyler?  However, in spite of a small number of peeps, we had some great discussion.   Let’s dive on in!  Hah, get it?  Because we were watching ‘Splash’ before starting?  Oh, never mind.  

The major theme of the chapter this week was pretty self-explanatory.   It was mostly about the concept of Union with Christ versus Communion with Christ.  That Union with Christ occurs when you’re converted and you give your life to Christ.  However, Communion with Christ is the aspect of spending time with Him and furthering and deepening that relationship.   We first discussed whether or not we see the aspect of communion with Christ lacking in our lives.  I believe that the answer for most of us is that we definitely appreciate the ability to have a relationship with Christ, but can see it lacking at times.  It’s up to us to be able to grow and develop that through being obedient to Him.

Dustin then brought up the point of how to engage in communion with Christ.  As Kevin said in the chapter, there are really four ways to do so.  They are through prayer, scripture, fellowship, and the actual act of communion.  As we read the Word, we will often see the lessons contained within permeate into the rest of our lives.  Our prayer life can be a great asset to us in our walk as well.  Through engaging with God on a one-on-one basis, He can open up His plans for us to see a little easier.  It’s also through prayer that our heart is displayed.  Fellowship is so crucial as one cannot stand alone in their pursuit of God.  It’s through encouragement that we are often molded.  Even Jesus had the disciples following Him and engaging in everyday life with Him.  Communion is important because it’s the reminder and the act of acknowledging Christ’s sacrifice for us and also paying tribute to that sacrifice in a way that is honoring to Him.

We also discussed what things hinder our communion with God.  One of the biggest can be how we use our time.  As we’ve discussed before, we all feel entitled to our time and want to spend it as we please.  However, that’s not the only area where we run into trouble.  We also all have a natural independent streak as we are human.  We’ll think that we can handle anything that comes our way by ourselves and don’t necessarily need God to help us through it.  Finally, we have a feeling that we need to prove our faith through some grand gesture.  While this may be nice to shoot for, humble obedience is key.  We need to be disciplined and let God refine our character and mold us.  The only way to extraordinary holiness is through ordinary means as Dustin so eloquently stated.  :D

And now for your moment of reflection…

The Hole in our Holiness - Week 7

Here we are.  Finally, week 7.  We’ve survived ‘Snowmageddon Dos: Revenge of Jack Frost’ or something of the sort.  I’m not sure why exactly I didn’t this week, but I neglected to pen down what people learned this week in their times alone with God.  I regretfully proclaim that I was somewhat distracted this week as Tyler and I had been watching the Mizzou game right up until we started study.  So therefore, it was more difficult to make that transition to being totally 100% ready for study.  It’s ok though, right?  Righto!

The thing that we quickly discovered about Chapter 7 this week was that it was definitely more theology based than some of the other weeks have been.   The basis for our first discussion centered around the term of “union with Christ.”  I believe that everyone has been exposed to this term at one time or another or is at least familiar with the concept.  That union helps us to fix our eyes on Christ and God accordingly and gives us the opportunity to become more like God.  It also sets a standard for us to attain.  For us to be truly united with Christ, we need to be striving for Christ and seeking after Him in all that we do.  Otherwise, we are nothing but fans of Christ instead of being a follower.  Through drawing near to Christ, it gives us the ability to grow in the qualities and virtues of God that are out there.  For some additional information, feel free to flip through Romans 8…at your leisure…in your ‘70’s style leisure suit if you wish…while driving a Vista Cruiser.  

We next discussed the concept of aiming at something you’re not  and compared it to becoming something that you are.  The simplest way to describe is that we can’t become God but we can become like God.  If we try to make ourselves God in our own lives, we are destined to fail.  We can never attain that perfect nature that God embodies and will always fall short.  However, by following the example that Christ set for us, we can strive to become more Godly.  We can see our actions reflect Godliness in ways that we never could on our own.  Food for thought.  Our union with Christ ultimately gives us the ability to become Holy which we would never, ever be able to do on our own.  A take-home point for this week is that a life lived in union with Christ will take on the attitude of being dead to ourselves and the world around us.  Our attitude will then shift to having the desire to become more Christ-like and Holy to boot.  Some more reading material for this week…Romans 6.  

Courtesy of Jen, our special joke of the week…What do you call a bear with no teeth?  A Gummy Bear!

And now for your moment of reflection…

The Hole in Our Holiness - Week 6

Well, if I wasn’t late on getting the recap posted a couple of weeks ago, I’m definitely late this week.  After getting hit by “Snowmaggedon” (and consequently being stuck in a hotel for a couple of days without my notebook), I didn’t really get around to posting the recap until today.  Sorry about that fail on my part.  As it’s been almost a week since we studied this chapter, I’ll try to recap it as best as I can.  We’ll see how it goes.  Ok, ready?  Take a deep breath in and out.  In and out.  In and out.

First of all, props to TT because he weekly comes in with something that he learned in his quiet times with God that week and it corresponds back to what he’s been learning and has been challenged by in the reading of the book.  His point this week was during his time in 1 Thessalonians, he’s been convicted by the questions of “Are we holy enough?” and “Do we trust enough?”  We need to continue to be growing and need to keep working on it.  We also see how we can question what needs to happen in our lives in order to examine our own lives and ourselves more.  

The first part of our discussion this week based around the concept of why we tend to resist the movement of the Spirit in our lives.  We discovered that our major reason for ignoring or resisting the Spirit is because we are in sin.  The Spirit exists to reveal sin in our lives, reveal truth, and reveal God’s glory.  Hence, whenever we sin, we are ignoring the Spirit.  We need to ask ourselves if we enjoy that temporary sin more than our fellowship with God.  We need to be gracious of the Gospel that God has provided us with and that should imbed us with a desire to be more Holy.  Only through that communion with the Holy Spirit can we be strengthened and realize that we can pursue holiness.  Also, when we’re accepting the Spirit, we’re reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ.  All relationships take work to keep from wilting.  If we’re not in prayer or in the Word, then our walk and our love for Christ could decline.  Through that time in the Word, we can continue to grow and develop.  As Chase said, we can definitely take on Godly traits through a type of Osmosis from being in the Word.  

We also discussed how the concept of “Let Go and Let God” has a strong appeal.  The major reason is because it’s just the easier approach.  That means that we’re not exerting ourselves or taking the necessary steps for growth.  We’re more likely just being content where we’re at in our faith and think that God’s got every covered.  This is a detriment to our faith though.  We need to continue pushing ourselves and exerting ourselves in order to properly grow and stretch ourselves.  At least, that was the thought that we all shared.

Verses discussed during study this week include:

• ·         1 John 2:17
• ·         Jeremiah 29:11
• ·         Isaiah 26:3
• ·         Isaiah 60:22
• ·         Galatians 2:20
• ·         Romans 3:28
• ·         1 Corinithians 1:18 – 21
• ·         Galatians 5:24

And now for our moment of reflection...

The Hole in our Holiness - Week 5

Week 5 is in the books and we’re halfway done with our journey through The Hole in our Holiness.  We all seemed to have learned similar things during our time in the Word over the past week.  It’s kind of wicked sweet sometimes how God works like that.  One of the biggest focuses of the week was how to show grace in our lives to the people we come in contact with.  This could involve such things as cutting unholy talk out of our lives or how we interact with people in our workplace.  It’s pretty much easier to be negative than positive sometimes but we need to take steps in grow in that fashion.  As Paul writes to the Ephesians, we need to live as children of light through any means necessary.  Woot!  Well, now that we’ve discussed our personal learnings for the week in full, it’s time to move on to the libro.

The biggest topic of the week revolved around ways in which our pursuit of personal holiness can be slowed.  The two most prevalent issues discussed were through societal expectations and by time-management.  Ironically, I seem to have issues with both of these in my life and was all about learning that others struggled with the same things.  Not because it made me look better (How’s that possible?), but  because it was an encouragement, as well as an accountability tool.  It’s hard to live with a desire to please.  Those feelings can at times stand in the way of our pursuit of God because we’ll create those idols in our lives that we need to please.  In spite of our desire to please, we also need to make certain that’s not standing in the way of God in our lives.  Time-management can also be an issue.  It’s been said before that wherever/whatever we do with our time will show where exactly our heart lies.  For example, I love to play video games.  That’s how I wind down at night and get ready for bed and everything.  I especially love questing to get all the trophies that I can.  At times, I can find myself a little obsessed and focused on just obtaining “1 more trophy.”  Not a good thing.  If I applied those fundamentals to my walk, how much would I grow?  

From there, we began to discuss if our sin stands in the way of our attempts to be holy.  The answer is that it definitely can if we allow it to.  Make sense?  No?  That’s what I thought.  We can’t focus on our sin to the point where we have no desire to try to be holy anymore.  We also discussed the gradiation of sin.  That is, are some sins worse than others or not?  Regardless of how our sins affect us in our life, we can’t find ourselves getting discouraged by those sin issues.  Just as a parent wouldn’t get disappointed in their child cleaning the garage wrong and putting things back in the wrong place, God’s not going to be disappointed by our attempts to be holy.  He may not be fully satisfied, but he’ll be pleased by our attempts.  It’s like taking a trip to Yogurtini and finding that we only have enough money in our pocket for a small.  We begrudgingly get our small despite it not being fully what we wanted.  Even though we may not be 100% satisfied, we’re still going to be pleased that we got some fantastic yogurt (ideally with a cherry on top).  Look no further than David to see someone who screwed up epically, but God still loved Him and was pleased by Him.

Some additional thoughts to remember for this week are as follows:

• ·         It’s easier to convict people than to encourage and that’s not good or Godly.
• ·         There’s a balance in our attempts to be Holy (a happy medium).  While we’re still worldly, we can make strides to please God with our lives.
• ·         Pay attention to how we are being faithful to God.
• ·         Don’t let your faults get you down.  Find comfort in the ways that you are honoring God with your life.
• ·         Chase disclosed that he apparently has a cube for a heart.

And now for your moment of reflection…