• We all have the same need: Payment/forgiveness for our sins.
• Jesus came to bring us salvation from our sins, not healing from earthly afflictions.

With regard to Ephesians 5:25 - How are you doing?

The Student, the Fish and Aggasiz (article)
by The Student

1. Being a friend of Jesus doesn't exempt us from storms in life - the disciples went from "All is well, to all is Hell"
2. What was the profession of these disciples? Fishermen; We need him in the greatest place of our competency.
3. The things that threaten me most are under God's mastery - the one who loves me!
4. God's delay DOES NOT EQUAL God's indifference
5. The peace with which we experience storms make people marvel
6. Our sleep is indifference - Jesus' sleep is not.

Camp out in Hebrews 12:12-13

From "Mental Conflict" by John Bunyan

But one day, as I was passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Your righteousness is in heaven; and methought with it all, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me that He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).

Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that, from that time, those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God. So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that sentence, Your righteousness is in heaven, but could not find such a saying; wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my remembrance, He is made unto us of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30). By this word I saw the other sentence true.

For by this Scripture I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as He is distinct from us, as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here therefore I lived, for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ. Oh! methought, Christ! Christ! there was nothing but Christ that was before my eyes: I was not now only for looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of His blood, burial, or His resurrection, but considering Him as a whole Christ! as He in whom all these, and all other virtues, relations, offices, and operations met together, and that He sat on the right hand of God in heaven.

’Twas glorious to me to see His exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all His benefits, and that because now I could look from myself to Him, and would reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence- half-pennies that rich men carry in their purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home! Oh! I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Savior. Now Christ was all; all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.

• The sower was given the seed.
• We were given the light in Christ.
• He reveals to us missed opportunities to let our light shine.
• Don't hide your light!

1. Jesus parallels David
2. Pharisees parallel Edomites

Resting on God:

O God, most high, most glorious, the thought of Thine infinite serenity cheers me, for I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed, but Thou art for ever at perfect peace. Thy designs cause thee no fear or care of unfulfilment, they stand fast as the eternal hills. Thy power knows no bond, Thy goodness no stint. Thou bringest order out of confusion, and my defeats are Thy victories: The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

I come to Thee as a sinner with cares and sorrows, to leave every concern entirely to Thee, every sin calling for Christ's precious blood; revive deep spirituality in my heart; let me live near to the great Shepherd, hear His voice, know its tones, follow its calls. Keep me from deception by causing me to abide in the truth, from harm by helping me to walk in the power of the Spirit. Give me intenser faith in the eternal verities, burning into me by experience the things I know; Let me never be ashamed of the truth of the gospel, that I may bear its reproach, vindicate it, see Jesus as its essence, know in it the power of the Spirit.

Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill; unbelief mars my confidence, sin makes me forget Thee. Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots; grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to Thee, that all else is trifling. Thy presence alone can make me holy, devout, strong and happy. Abide in me, gracious God.

1. Provoke = called forth into action
2. Fast with a true heart, not for public appearance.

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

1. What does following Him today look like for you?
2. What do you need to leave behind?
3. What relationships do you need to invite Jesus to be part of?
4. What's holding you back?

The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

• Declaration - Jesus' profession of Faith
• Dedication - to the mission from His Father
• Demonstration - of Jesus' committment to die on the cross

• Words of Peter as recorded by John Mark
• Thought to be the first of the synoptic gospels written
• Synoptic gospels = Matthew, Mark & Luke
• Written to the gentiles in about 65 AD

• Good Impression - worrying about what others think
• Safety - fear of pursecution
• National (Family) Identity - especially in families from other faiths

1. be subject to rulers and authorities
2. be obedient
3. be ready to do whatever is good
4. slander no one
5. be peaceable and considerate
6. show true humility toward all men

1. Spend yourself (costly)
2. Get out of your comfort zone
3. Show compassion

1. It Always Involves Surrender (5:6)
2. There Is Always Evidence (5:14-17)
3. It Always Has Lasting Effects (5:19-20)

1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
2. The poor know not only their dependance on God and on powerful people but also their interdependance with one another.
3. The poor rest their security not on things but on people.
4. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and noexaggerated need of privacy.
5. The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation
6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependance.
8. The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
9. When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.
10. The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

• God's Faithfulness
• Wholeheartedness
• Overcoming Disbelief

1. Remember who you are
   in Jesus Christ
2. Face your fears
3. Focus on God

1. trouble
2. happiness
3. sickness

1. Stand FIRM.
2. Stand TOGETHER.
3. Stand UP.

1. Don't be greedy.
2. Instead, be generous
3. Godliness with contentment
   is great gain.
4. Value spiritual "wealth."