At Creel we learned about the sovereignty of God. It was very interesting to me because I wasn't even sure what the word sovereign meant, let alone that my God possessed this characteristic. Now that the week is over I am very glad that He does. It was also really awesome to see how this week matched up with our previous week.
So one thing that we saw that we have to realize when talking about God's sovereignty we need to understand the difference between His authority and His power.
God gave us the freedom and the responsibility to follow His authority. Our battle is between our will and God's will. The devil really likes to come and make our will seem like it is better than the will of God. When we are following our own will we are also following the will of satan.
Jesus came to earth not just to be our salvation but also to deal with the disobedience of man, which is the original problem. Jesus had to be obedient until death and had to be trailed in all the ways we will/could be. Jesus' 33 years of life was so that He would crucify His own will.
The opposite of love is not hate but selfishness. We are born into the kingdom of darkness (the enemy) and we are naturally focused on selfishness. When you are in the kingdom of the enemy you are never satisfied, you always want more. When you cross into the kingdom of God the enemy continues to take your mind/eyes off God and put them on yourself, which is appealing. However, to be a disciple of Jesus, we must deny ourselves everyday, take up our cross and follow Him.
When we are in darkness we are in ignorance of the truth. We do not want to do this because the truth will set us free.
When we are in self denial we will be trailed many times in our lives, it's a constant truth, constant road, constant decision. When we decide to believe in God we pass from death to life and death has no authority over us. Our whole battle is to see whether or not we are willing to follow God's will or our own.
Everyday we need to be walking toward perfection. Perhaps we will never actually reach it but when we are walking toward it it is another day, another opportunity to be more like Jesus. Everyday there's another trial, another choice to make. During our suffering we will be able to take our sufferings for joy knowing that God has a reason for it, and, in the long run, it will bring us closer to Him. When we go through a trial we shouldn't be looking for a way out we should be asking God what He wants us to get out of it and praise Him for allowing us to go through it (easier said than done no?) We need to be seeking what will bring the most glory to God, even if it is difficult. We need to be asking God what will bring Him the most glory in our lives and be fine with whatever that answer is. Jesus said that the foxes have holes and the birds have nests but if you follow Me you may have nothing (Matthew 8:20). We need to be willing to do this.
When we are walking toward perfection we are not looking for what we can gain but what glorifies God. This requires a continuous death of ourselves. We also need to be willing to prune the areas of our lives that are no longer producing fruit, prune areas that we need to die to ourselves. God will send tests our way and, sometimes, they are not easy and difficult to understand and some people loose their faith because of this. But God brings difficulties in our lives in order to help us reach perfection. We should strive to get to a place where we can want difficulties. Job is the perfect example of rejoicing in our trials. God will always know how big and how hard the trials need to be in order to work in our lives. Maybe if God is not healing someone He has a plan to glorify Himself in that sickness, sometimes even to the point of their death. Are we willing to die in order to glorify God?
If your Christian life is boring then your Christian life is just going in a bunch of circles. We need to dive into the word of God and ask ourselves if we are really following Him. Our Christian lives were not meant to be boring and, if they are, then we are moving in circles and we need to ask God what we can do in order to move forward again. We need to run toward perfection with the understanding that there is a possibility that we will never get there, but we are running in order to glorify God.
Every trail that we go through we mature a little bit more.
God tests our hearts to see if we want to live by His law or not. There are always two battles of wills going on in our minds. If we give into our own will we cannot continue to walk toward perfection. God brings us through deserts to make us spiritually strong. We need to endure them and rejoice in them. We need to experience the tribulations with all joy and with a deep desire that continually increases to know God.
We are all going to fall sometimes, but we are in an ongoing war. When we loose a battle we need to get up and be ready to fight our next one. The victorious people are the people who stand up on more time then they fall. Sometimes, as Christians, our failures in the past hinder us from our future plans.
We must, however, be careful not to make a god out of our dreams. When God gives us a dream or a vision we need to continuously follow God, even if it may seem like He is leading us away from the vision. God gave us the vision and He knows how He is going to get us there. Look at the life of Joseph for example (Gen 37-52) The road must be lived in constant faithfulness, diligence, and self control. Sometimes it is difficult to see God's exact will in our lives. If we are seeking and searching for God He will be faithful in completing His will in our lives! Do it with your all, make the best of it, and trust that God will take you the rest of the way!
We are to live not a life of receiving but a life of giving! Sometimes we do not understand but God's thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) and we need to let Him reign on our hearts and try to understand.
Our main challenge in life is our character: our willingness to serve, and our willingness to support others, and our holiness. Sometimes God will lead us to something that has nothing to do with what He is calling us to but it is part of our training for what He wants us to do. We need to do everything to the best of our abilities. We need to ask God what He wants to do in our hearts.
When we are in self denial we will be trailed many times in our lives, it's a constant truth, constant road, constant decision. When we decide to believe in God we pass from death to life and death has no authority over us. Our whole battle is to see whether or not we are willing to follow God's will or our own.
Everyday we need to be walking toward perfection. Perhaps we will never actually reach it but when we are walking toward it it is another day, another opportunity to be more like Jesus. Everyday there's another trial, another choice to make. During our suffering we will be able to take our sufferings for joy knowing that God has a reason for it, and, in the long run, it will bring us closer to Him. When we go through a trial we shouldn't be looking for a way out we should be asking God what He wants us to get out of it and praise Him for allowing us to go through it (easier said than done no?) We need to be seeking what will bring the most glory to God, even if it is difficult. We need to be asking God what will bring Him the most glory in our lives and be fine with whatever that answer is. Jesus said that the foxes have holes and the birds have nests but if you follow Me you may have nothing (Matthew 8:20). We need to be willing to do this.
When we are walking toward perfection we are not looking for what we can gain but what glorifies God. This requires a continuous death of ourselves. We also need to be willing to prune the areas of our lives that are no longer producing fruit, prune areas that we need to die to ourselves. God will send tests our way and, sometimes, they are not easy and difficult to understand and some people loose their faith because of this. But God brings difficulties in our lives in order to help us reach perfection. We should strive to get to a place where we can want difficulties. Job is the perfect example of rejoicing in our trials. God will always know how big and how hard the trials need to be in order to work in our lives. Maybe if God is not healing someone He has a plan to glorify Himself in that sickness, sometimes even to the point of their death. Are we willing to die in order to glorify God?
If your Christian life is boring then your Christian life is just going in a bunch of circles. We need to dive into the word of God and ask ourselves if we are really following Him. Our Christian lives were not meant to be boring and, if they are, then we are moving in circles and we need to ask God what we can do in order to move forward again. We need to run toward perfection with the understanding that there is a possibility that we will never get there, but we are running in order to glorify God.
Every trail that we go through we mature a little bit more.
God tests our hearts to see if we want to live by His law or not. There are always two battles of wills going on in our minds. If we give into our own will we cannot continue to walk toward perfection. God brings us through deserts to make us spiritually strong. We need to endure them and rejoice in them. We need to experience the tribulations with all joy and with a deep desire that continually increases to know God.
We are all going to fall sometimes, but we are in an ongoing war. When we loose a battle we need to get up and be ready to fight our next one. The victorious people are the people who stand up on more time then they fall. Sometimes, as Christians, our failures in the past hinder us from our future plans.
We must, however, be careful not to make a god out of our dreams. When God gives us a dream or a vision we need to continuously follow God, even if it may seem like He is leading us away from the vision. God gave us the vision and He knows how He is going to get us there. Look at the life of Joseph for example (Gen 37-52) The road must be lived in constant faithfulness, diligence, and self control. Sometimes it is difficult to see God's exact will in our lives. If we are seeking and searching for God He will be faithful in completing His will in our lives! Do it with your all, make the best of it, and trust that God will take you the rest of the way!
We are to live not a life of receiving but a life of giving! Sometimes we do not understand but God's thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) and we need to let Him reign on our hearts and try to understand.
Our main challenge in life is our character: our willingness to serve, and our willingness to support others, and our holiness. Sometimes God will lead us to something that has nothing to do with what He is calling us to but it is part of our training for what He wants us to do. We need to do everything to the best of our abilities. We need to ask God what He wants to do in our hearts.
When God gives us a dream that is probably not all He has for us. He most likely has MUCH more. If our vision becomes our god then we will be pursuing something way less than what God actually has for us. We need to make sure we are not trying to do the things in our own strength but look at God and His vision and His strength. If God gave you the vision He wants it to happen and He will make it happen in His ways.
So how do we experience the sovereignty of God in our daily lives?
Just because God is sovereign doesn't mean that everything is going exactly how He wants/wanted. It's because He is working through authority and not through power and He wants us to submit to that. It depends on us how much God will reign on this earth. Even though it is hard we need to try. Hopefully when He comes to pick us up He will be able to say "well done my good and faithful servant." I surely hope so!
God desires to train us up and use our lives to bring righteousness to others. He wants to use our lives to set the example and the norm for other people.
God wants us to set up walls. Walls of the laws and rules where God gives us authority. (ex. Parents with their kinds) Also where God gives us influence we are to set the norm for laws and rules.
So no one said this life would be easy, but what are we going to learn from our trials? How are we going to get one step closer to God, closer to perfection?
Okay so that is everything from the class. I am very sorry that it is sort of all over the place. This class was very intense. We covered a lot of stuff in a little bit of time. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, and sometimes it was all over the place, but it was amazing!
Also, in Creel there were a lot of rocks that we loved to climb all over in our free time. It was a lot of fun and a great experience! We had many adventures. One day we went to these hot springs. It literally took us about two hours to get to them and it was completely down hill! I was pretty much dying on the way back up, it was crazy! We also went to a lake and a lookout. It was really awesome. One thing that really impacted me was, when we were at those places, there would always be children who were selling things. They obviously didn't have much and I felt very sad for them. When we were eating they would just look. Some of them would come up and tell us that they were hungry. We gave food to them a couple of times and it made me more happy than anything else that whole week. They really were beautiful and I wish I could have given them more! It was a very long drive there and back and we were exhausted! A couple of times we got to watch the staff's kids while they had their meetings (because it was a staff retreat.) I loved that very much. It was so much fun to play with the children and just have a good time!
We also got to see a lot of God in scenery. It was amazing! God really spoke unity into our group and showed us that we cannot be apathetic about hearing His voice. Great things happened on this trip. All in all it was amazing! : )
So how do we experience the sovereignty of God in our daily lives?
Just because God is sovereign doesn't mean that everything is going exactly how He wants/wanted. It's because He is working through authority and not through power and He wants us to submit to that. It depends on us how much God will reign on this earth. Even though it is hard we need to try. Hopefully when He comes to pick us up He will be able to say "well done my good and faithful servant." I surely hope so!
God desires to train us up and use our lives to bring righteousness to others. He wants to use our lives to set the example and the norm for other people.
God wants us to set up walls. Walls of the laws and rules where God gives us authority. (ex. Parents with their kinds) Also where God gives us influence we are to set the norm for laws and rules.
So no one said this life would be easy, but what are we going to learn from our trials? How are we going to get one step closer to God, closer to perfection?
Okay so that is everything from the class. I am very sorry that it is sort of all over the place. This class was very intense. We covered a lot of stuff in a little bit of time. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, and sometimes it was all over the place, but it was amazing!
Also, in Creel there were a lot of rocks that we loved to climb all over in our free time. It was a lot of fun and a great experience! We had many adventures. One day we went to these hot springs. It literally took us about two hours to get to them and it was completely down hill! I was pretty much dying on the way back up, it was crazy! We also went to a lake and a lookout. It was really awesome. One thing that really impacted me was, when we were at those places, there would always be children who were selling things. They obviously didn't have much and I felt very sad for them. When we were eating they would just look. Some of them would come up and tell us that they were hungry. We gave food to them a couple of times and it made me more happy than anything else that whole week. They really were beautiful and I wish I could have given them more! It was a very long drive there and back and we were exhausted! A couple of times we got to watch the staff's kids while they had their meetings (because it was a staff retreat.) I loved that very much. It was so much fun to play with the children and just have a good time!
We also got to see a lot of God in scenery. It was amazing! God really spoke unity into our group and showed us that we cannot be apathetic about hearing His voice. Great things happened on this trip. All in all it was amazing! : )
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