Spring Break Continued

Spring Break Mission Trip 2011

This years Spring Break Mission Trip to Texas was a blast! Participants got to stay at a beach house in Surfside Beach, TX, volunteer at a homeless shelter in Huston, work at the Huston Zoo, paint fire hydrants for the local Fire Department, paint ticket booths on the beach, help a paralyzed man with house.yard work, and fix up a house that was damaged in hurricane Ike. Check out a few pics below.

Direction by Dan Miller

Below is a blog post recently written by my friend Justin Rabbach. He and I have grown closer through our shared experiences throughout the past two years. To give you an idea of where he’s coming from, Justin travels a lot for our church. Since he graduated from UW-Madison last year, the amount of travel itineraries he has printed is mind-boggling. I don’t even think I could list all the places he’s flown or driven to in that span. So naturally the topic of “direction” has been on his mind ever since God first started him on this crazy path just a few years ago.

After reading this on a blog, I felt it was a message that was applicable to all people, especially to college students. I know I struggle with this all the time, but hearing Bible verses like Psalms 32:8 and John 16:13 really inspires me to hold on to whatever God has put on my heart and know that whatever he sends me out to do is something that He knows I can accomplish. I hope you can find meaning in Justin’s words as much as I did and I pray and hope that all of you reading this can ask for and possess the courage and strength to act on whatever God has placed on your heart.

I own a GPS for my car, and it has come in very handy. It has taken me to places near my apartment in Madison that I probably could have found without it, but it has also taken me places I would surely have never found in the Great States of Florida and North Carolina.

I have become so used to having this technology, and knowing the directions (and the time of arrival down to a minute!) that I almost become nervous or anxious when I head out without a clear picture of where I'm going and how I will get there.

In our faith, I think it is this exact nervousness or anxiousness that God is asking us to overcome through trust in him. I mean, in order for it to be faith, we cannot know the means and the destination at outset. If that was the case, it would be extremely easy to follow God's plan for our lives. So easy, that we wouldn't need God at all!

Think about how God has called you. Is it with an email that has the full itinerary and directions of the who / what / when / where why?

For me, this has not been the case. I often feel a little pull, a little push to get up and get moving in some direction. Some faint idea that I need to act, and then a small, but building sense of peace that I am doing what is right, and what God wants me to do.

It is usually after the fact that I am able to see the powerful way in which God has worked.

God promises to be our "tour guide"

Psalm 32: 8

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you."

John 16:13

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

Will you truly let God be your guide? Will you hit the road without know exactly where you are going and how you will get there?

Questions to think about:

1. What is a time where God has led you without giving you the full picture?

2. Was it hard to do this?

3. Have you ever said no to God because you were nervous about the direction in might take you?

I know that some of my best experiences have been ones that are unplanned. If I only went by the GPS, I would plug in that I want Taco Bell, and I would get the Steak Supreme Chalupa with no tomatoes. If I go off the map and just experience what is around me, I end up "accidentally" at Joe's Crab shack on Daytona Beach with shrimp and crab cakes, and a man who is successfully evangelizing to our waitress (True Story).

Maybe the best time to ask these "5 W's" (What happened? Who was there? Why did it happen? When did it happen? Where did it happen?) is after we have experienced God. I bet the answers to those questions will no longer fill you with nerves, but with excitement over what you just experienced.

God is Good! Trust Him! Let Him be good to you!

We are the Salt by Blake Scharine

Hi folks, It usually takes me a while to get to the point and this bible study will be no exception.

You know we all fall short when stacked up against God’s perfection and so many of us have vices. A vice is just another word for sin and I’m a sinner, just like you and everyone else.

The two most commonly recognized or talked about vices are drinking and smoking. I can happily say I do neither, but I do enjoy eating. Yes, eating can be a vice without question, unhealthy eating specifically. I know folks that eat more when they get nervous, depressed or even bored.

For me, it’s enjoying each and every bite. The flavor of my food is really important, I’ll savor the meal even to a fault. Consequently, I’m usually the last to finish his meal as well.

Even when I was a kid I ate very slowly, although that was because I was always trying to find good spots to tuck away the foods I disliked. We had a dining room table w/little wooden pockets hidden underneath that worked great for that. But, no surprise, I digress…

Our e-Bible study continues w/ Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

This passage is a powerful statement coming directly from Jesus. We are more than frosting on the cake, a bow on the present, lipstick on a pig (ok that was dumb). We are the salt of the earth!

Salt has so many incredible abilities. Salt has the ability to bring out the best flavor of so many foods, it can be used in large quantities to best preserve perishables. In water it creates the best conductivity of electricity. It’s one of the best things to melt the hard glare surface of ice.

Remember the old BASF commercial, “we don’t make a lot of the products you buy, we make a lot of the products you buy better” God has given us this planet to live out our lives and with His grace and strength we can make our days and others the best. Like heaven on earth.

We the “Salt” have been sent out to bring the good news of God’s forgiveness and promise of eternal life to all the world. So will you put your best efforts, your best priority… really, are you prepared to give your very best to honor what God has bestowed to us?

Questions..

1. Can you be too “Salty” with God’s message when you approach others?
2. How can you make God’s promise better? Can that even be done?

Challenge…

Take this next week to begin making God’s grace palatable to each person you come in contact with individually. That means get to know the person you’re sharing with, find out where they are at in their faith walk and be just enough salt while sharing God’s message, that it tastes so good to them, that they want more and more.

Remember, too much salt with drive them away with a bad taste and not enough does them a disservice and doesn’t honor God.

Stay “Salty”

God’s Strength, Blake

We Are the Body by Ceci Sobolewski

I Corinthians 12:27 reads: Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Each scripture I relate to, will be from the NIV

Chapter 12 deals with spiritual gifts, and how we as believers have all been given at least one of them. This is how we are each a part of the body of Christ, each having at least one of these different gifts being brought together into one cohesive body; the body of Christ. It also says in verse 7, how to each one of us, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good of all believers concerning these parts. There is to be no jealousy, or those thinking their part is more important than someone else's part in the body.

In the notes from my New International Version Bible, it states how it seems in the Corinthian church, there were those who thought certain gifts were more spectacular than others, which made those who did not have these spectacular gifts feel inferior. Paul is relating how every gift we are given, makes us all part of the body of Christ, forming one body. We are not to be disjointed from each other by becoming many cut off, seperate pieces, which happens as the result of our unloving hearts for each and every part of the body.

We are all part of the body of Christ linked together, each having our different parts, yet linked fully together. One might be a mouth (evangislist or pastor Eph 4:11) one might be the hand (ability to help I Cor. 12:28) and so on. If the mouth or hand is apart from the body, or cut off (by our own pulling away from the body, or someone else cutting us off) nothing would work very well, and these cut off parts, would most certainly die off, as to being a part of the body of Christ anymore.

We were meant to be together, live together, and work together as a unit, with our different parts in perfect harmony. In verses 12-31 in I Corinthians it talks again of us being this one body, with many parts. It ends with stating the word "Love" and how Paul will show us the most excellent way, as he leads us into chapter 13. Chapter 13 then tells us then of this most excellent way of having, and acting out in "Love" beyond the gifts given us by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible also tells us that "God is Love" in I John 4:16. In this verse, it goes on to say "Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." The first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Glatians 5:22 is love. It is most important then, that we all should be displaying love, along with these Holy Spirit given gifts in the body of Christ. Love is so important that to be without it, we are only as a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbal and gain nothing (I Corinthians 13:1-3) even with these spiritual gifts.

If we are moving together smoothly in love, as the body of Christ, the world will see we are Christ's disciples, and we will ultimately be the light to the world as He wants and desires us to be. Jesus tells us to be in this way, as He stated in John 13: 34-35 : "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." So it seems, by this passage, and the I Crointhians 12:27 passage, to be of real use for our own common good, and a witness to the world around us of Christ, we must come together in our Holy Spirit given gifts, with love being the means to join us together, and keep us together.


Questions:

Do you know what spiritual gift or gifts you might have, to be of use for the common good of all?

If you do know, are you using this spiritual gift "in love", for the betterment of all, to display Christ to the world?

If part of the body is suffering, do you suffer with it. And if part is honored, do you rejoice with it?

Did you know that the bulk of these gifts are listed in the following seven passages:
Romans 12:6-8
I Corinthinas 12:8-10
I Corinthians 12:28
I Corinthinas 13:1-3
I Corinthainas 14:26
Ephesians 4:11
I Peter 4:11

Jesus the True Vine. By Kathy Findlay

Jesus The True Vine by Kathy Findlay

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser... I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing."

John 15:1, 5

Jesus was talking to his dear friends one last time in the Upper Room on the night we call Maundy Thursday. He knew he needed to encourage and strengthen his disciples for what was to be his last hours on earth. The shattering events of Good Friday were only hours away.

Jesus spoke of himself as the true grapevine and his Father as the gardener. The disciples were very familiar with how grapevines grew and how they are cared for. They saw the vineyards on the southern exposures of gentle sloping hillsides in Israel. The ground is a sandy or gravelly loam soil suited for grapes. Being close to the Mediterranean Sea, the climate is temperate and rainfall is sufficient for an abundant harvest of grapes.

How is it that Jesus uses this comparison of Himself to a grapevine? Grape plants are staked to a vertical pole with a horizontal wire running between the posts at about six feet off the ground. The plant is pruned so that there are two main branches that are wrapped around the wire going in opposite directions and are secured with ties to the wire. From these main branches all other fruit bearing branches come forth. Was Jesus trying to show his disciples what was going to happen to him? Is he showing us how important it is to stay in close companionship to Him?

Jesus was put on a cross with his arms stretched open wide. He was and is reaching out to us to come to Him. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. Just as the main grapevine brings nourishment to the branches, Jesus is our life-blood, nourishing our bodies and our spirits.

If we as followers of Jesus Christ are to be the branches, what kind of fruit are we to bear? We can see part of the answer to that question in Galatians 5:22-23. "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!" By remaining in a close relationship to Jesus through prayer, reading God's word, and meeting with other believers, we can grow and become Christ-like.

Our Father God is the vinedresser as stated by Jesus in John 15:1. As the good gardener that He is, He faithfully tends the vines, or us. Sometimes pruning is necessary. According to the Better Homes and Gardens Garden Book these are some reasons for pruning: to remove diseased, dead or broken branches; to renew old plants; to shape for a special purpose; to eliminate suckers and wild growth; to hold plant within bounds; to insure production of larger flowers or fruits. Pruning may seem harsh to a plant, but if done well and at the right time, the plant flourishes and becomes stronger for it.

Is there something God is asking you to cut out of your life?

How is He shaping you to be Christ-like?

What fruit of the Spirit are you producing that others can see?

As long as we each live on this earth God is moving in our lives, shaping us to be more like Jesus. The way may not always be clear or easy, but we are given a promise that we will grow and bear much fruit. "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love." Romans 5:3-5

Who Am I? By Anne Gibson

“Hey! Did you know God wants us to be living dead things?” my friend announced one day several years ago. I looked at her like she was crazy. “How can you be living if you are dead?” I asked. “It’s possible! We are!” she answered. “Look up 1 Peter 2:5!”

I was intrigued, so I wrote down the verse, and later on, opened my Bible to 1 Peter 2:4-5. It read: “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering special sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Living dead things…Living stones? Yes, that must have been what she meant. But I was neither a stone nor a “dead thing”. What did she mean?

We talked about it later on, and the things I learned from her and since that time have made this picture of who I am in Christ a key one for me. Maybe it will be for you, too! J

To understand 1 Peter, we need to step back a few hundred years to the Old Testament. The center of Jewish worship was the Temple, a huge stone structure. It was the Temple that housed the Holy of Holies, which housed the Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling place of the Lord God. It was, therefore, the most holy place in the entire Temple. Only the High Priest, a man from the tribe of Levi, could come before the Lord at the Ark of the Covenant, and only one time a year at that: On the Feast of the Atonement, to sacrifice and sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat (the top of the Ark) to atone for the sins of the people (Exodus 37:6-9). The Temple was completed by Solomon in Jerusalem in 960 BC, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, re-built in 516 BC, and then destroyed again by the Romans in 70 AD. When the temple was destroyed the last time, it sent the Jews into a time of mourning and sadness that continues to this day.

When Jesus came, however, he gave new meanings to the temple, the high priest, and God’s dwelling place. It is in light of this fact that Peter writes about the chosen and precious living Stone, living stones, and later on in verse 6, the chosen and precious Cornerstone. Instead of a physical building, believers are the spiritual house where God dwells (see also 1 Corinthians 6:19), and believers are also a part of the spiritual temple that God is building with all His children. God’s holy presence is among us; not in an ark or a building (Exodus 40:34-38). There are no more sacrifices needed for sin, as Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. There are no more high priests; Jesus is the high priest (Hebrews 4:14), and as believers in Jesus we are a part of the royal priesthood!

It’s in combining the old understanding of the temple structure and the new understanding of the temple meaning that we need to look at 1 Peter 2:5 and the surrounding verses (4, 6-7). Peter uses structural elements to explain Jesus’ character to us: A cornerstone, and the stones that lay on top of it, forming the structure.

Cornerstones weren’t just pieces of ancient structures. They are important in buildings today, as well! In fact, you’ve most likely seen one on campus, at a church, business, or a historical site. In many cases, you’d have no idea which stone was the cornerstone—Others are more noticeable, and although blend in with the structure, have symbolic engraving on them with the year the construction started. It’s appropriate to bring attention to this chunk of stone, for the cornerstone sets the positioning, design, structure, and is the chief foundation for the building; in every structure, it is laid down intentionally and precisely.

Like a cornerstone, Jesus came to earth in the most insignificant way possible—as a tiny baby, born in a feed trough, amongst the animals. He was rejected by the very people he came to save, dying a humiliating death on the cross. Yet there’s a ton of significance in who Jesus was and what he did! Jesus is the living stone that was chosen by and precious to God! Like a cornerstone, Jesus is the chief foundation and structure for our faith!

In keeping with the building analogy, the stones that are directed and shaped by that cornerstone are believers in Jesus—you and me. By following Jesus, we are able to be built into the design and placed in the position God intended His children to be in.

There is a key piece to this, though: The “living dead thing” part. As people, we are physically alive and free to move wherever we want to. But as believers, we are physically alive and free to remain rooted and grounded in Christ’s love (Ephesians 3:17). We offer ourselves as living sacrifices to the Lord (Romans 12:1). What happens to a sacrifice, though? It dies. (Think “dead things.”) If we are alive, both in Christ and physically, what dies? Our own sinful desires. We are fully alive as a part of Christ’s temple, but dead to our own sinful desires and to those things that would knock us off the precious Cornerstone of Jesus. (Romans 6:11).

This is great news! It’s a key piece to who we are in Christ! We can see through this analogy that we do not have to have it all figured out—Instead, we can look to the Lord for direction. We do not have to have the strength to face everything we’ll have to in life on our own—Instead, we can rest on the Lord’s strength and security. We can be happy about being a “living dead thing”—And just as excited as my friend was that one day a few years ago as she shared with me her revelation!

What does being a “living stone” look like in your life? Are you living for Jesus and dying to your will? Are you slanted too much in one direction or the other? (living fully but not submitted to Jesus—or not living fully enough in the ways God has called you to?)

What are some things that could be changed? (If you can’t think of any, take some time now and pray about it. Pray that your life would be more like the living stone, carefully placed on the precious Cornerstone of Christ.)

There’s a song that really has spoken to me about submitting to Christ, and being a “living stone”. It’s called “At Your Feet” by Casting Crowns. Check it out on YouTube or online if you get a chance. It talks about laying it all at Jesus’ feet, our dreams, wanderings, mistakes, and dwelling at His feet. When we are living stones, resting on the Cornerstone of Christ, we are doing just that.

At Your Feet by Casting Crowns

Here at Your feet, I lay my past down
My wanderings, all my mistakes down
And I am free

Here at Your feet, I lay this day down
Not in my strength, but in Yours I’ve found
All I need, You’re all I need

Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet
Oh, to dwell and never leave
Jesus, Jesus, at Your feet
There is nowhere else for me
There is nowhere else for me

Here at Your feet, I lay my future down
All of my dreams, I give to You now
And I find peace, I find peace
Here at Your feet, I lay my life down
For You my King, You’re all I want now
And my soul sings…

‘Cause I am free (here at Your feet)
All I need (is at Your feet)
I find peace
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet

And I am free (here at Your feet)
All I need (is at Your feet)
I find peace
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet
We’re at Your feet

Here at Your feet
I lay my life down