God personally invites you to have a relationship with Him. He is calling you out to truly live. God wants to be apart of every detail in your life. He created you not just to simply exist or to be average, but to be unique.
The bible is clear about your calling. We are to glorify Him in everything we do (Isaiah 43:6-7). From eating to drinking we are to bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
What does it mean to glorify God?
To pray, and think, and dream, and plan, and work with God in every aspect of our lives is a way to glorify God. By bringing God into full focus and weaving Him into our every thought and every word and every action.
How does my relationship with God become more personal?
By going to the center and foundation of it all is the only way our relationship with God becomes more personal. Christ and the cross.
Here are some personal stories of my relationship with Christ and how they have shaped my life and have drawn me closer to God.
I’m going to draw this message into focusing on the cross of Jesus Christ. God is personal because he gave His son Jesus Christ to give us life. I’m going to try and make it clear and simple. My main point I want to drive home is this: Glorifying God is our joy and calling and passion and is the reason we were created. And a cross-centered life is a God glorifying life. In short, a relationship with Christ is all that matters.
Hey Jon, it seems like you're focusing us on the personal relationship with Jesus. Are you asking the kids to focus on their own stories? I love your point of "truly" living. Are you focusing also on the salvation and redemption during this life as well (good way to summarize our last series). It sounds ultimately focused, but I'm not sure (back and forth) if you want to focus on just one aspect
ReplyDeleteSorry this is late...
ReplyDeleteMy one thought is this: I really like all the points you make, but I'd like to see you go a little bit deeper into what they mean. I think a lot of your points are really solid, but they feel a bit like Christian lingo. It's language that we often use, but don't always explain.
At this point the kids have a good idea that they're supposed to have a relationship with him and that we should glorify him and that we should have passion and joy and calling. But what does the Bible say about how specifically we are to do that? What does that really mean?
This is a big area of growth for you Jon. You are GREAT at expressing these ideas, but I want to see you take it deeper. My advice would be to take one aspect of being in a personal relationship with God and really hammer it. Choose one focus (as Brett pointed out), and spent your time there.
I love the idea though. God is ultimately personal, and the kids often miss this.