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…