Are You in the Faith?
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2 Corinthians 13:1-14
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The Conundrum of Love
Many in our world have a distorted understanding of love. To them, love is irresistible, fun, and delightful. I’ll love you, and you’ll love me. We’ll live happily ever after. There’s a sense in which that can be true. But it’s also true that love is hard work, painful, and exhausting.
Delighting in Your Disability
Think about your own life. Usually, the areas of our greatest passion are areas where we have been wounded or experienced great difficulty. It is just like God to use these areas in our lives to help others going through similar circumstances. This is not us; it is God at work, and Paul sums it up perfectly in this powerful verse: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
“A Fool for God’s Glory”
What matters more than your reputation? What are you willing to do in this life, no matter what others think? Are you willing to be a fool for God’s glory? How can we do this? Let’s go with J Mark to the last half of II Corinthians 11 and learn from this passage.
A Godly Leader’s Judgment
In our last time together, we learned a lesson in leadership from Paul. Today our title is A Godly Leader’s Judgement, someone is probably thinking, “Another lesson on leadership, well this won’t apply to me.” Not so fast, before you go there, think about what leadership really is.
A Leader’s Godly Jealousy
Today our study takes us to II Corinthians 11 where Paul is defending himself before the Corinthians. Here Paul stands up to those who are criticizing him. This takes lots of humility and wisdom. Our title is “A Leaders Godly Jealousy” and J Mark will share three responses of a Godly leader’s jealousy, lets listen and learn together.
What Do You Boast In?
We cannot fully imagine what it meant for Jesus to humble Himself and take on human form. He exchanged His heavenly perfection for the form of a human being and took on the characteristics of an obedient servant. He did it willingly, motivated by His love for you and me. According to Philippians 2:5, we are to adopt this mindset in our relationships with each other.
Engaging in Spiritual Warfare
Today’s teaching is a lot like driving a vehicle. We have got to keep it in the middle, on either side there is a ditch, meaning there is error if we swing too far either direction. Satan does not care which ditch you fall into. He will be happy with either one. Our topic today is “Engaging in Spiritual Warfare” this topic has two extremes or ditches we must do our best to avoid. CS Lewis summarized it well he said, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”
The Graces of Giving
Today is the final lesson on giving. Chapters 8 and 9 in II Corinthians teach us many things about giving. Our first lesson was “The Heart of Giving,” and today’s lesson is titled “The Graces of Giving.” I mention the first one since it is similar to this one. Both address our motives and the reasons we give. We encourage you to think with us about the thoughts and motives behind your actions. Be sensitive to God speaking to you through His Word, have a soft heart, and allow His Spirit to change you for the better. Good things happen when the child of God opens the Word of God and is changed by the Spirit of God.
Guidelines for Group Giving
This lesson will deal with some specifics of group giving. If you remember, the last two lessons were about other aspects of giving. The first one was about the heart behind our giving—what is your motivation? The second lesson gave us three ways we can give generously.
Achieving Excellence in Giving
Last week, we examined “The Heart of Giving.” This was the first of several lessons examining different aspects of giving. Jesus is quoted in Acts as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is directly opposite our human nature, but if Jesus said it, this is how we want to live.