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