Give Thanks Day 3

Today, I would like to give thanks for the grace of our holy God.  The other day, I shared how I was thankful that God was holy.  That one characteristic is the one that sets Him apart from anything and anyone else.  Because He is holy, God cannot tolerate or be around sin.  That's not a good thing seeing how I (along with the rest of the human race) am stricken by sin (Romans 3:9-18, 23).

Because of the sin that is present in my life, I cannot come before the holy God of the universe much less have a relationship with Him.  Unless... (I love this unless)... unless this holy God decides of His own free will to extend His grace and mercy my way.

When we look at the cross of Calvary, that is exactly what we see.  The holy God did what sinful human beings could not do for themselves: He made a way for them to come to Him and the relationship be restored.  We did nothing to deserve this affection.  There was no spots of goodness that might warrant such a gesture.  God alone by His own gracious love for His creation decided to pour out grace towards us through the cross of Jesus Christ.

It is this grace for which I am eternally grateful.  This grace of God is what has given purpose and meaning to my life.  It is because of this "amazing grace" that I am a child of Almighty God (John 1:12)

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I'm Thankful: Day 1

A neat trend is going all over Facebook during these days leading up to Thanksgiving. People are stating one thing that they are thankful for each day leading up to the holiday. I realize that I'm late in getting into the game, better late than never.

Day 1: A gracious God
I cannot begin to tell how grateful I am that God is a very gracious God. It doesn't take much to reveal to me and others that I am a person that has messed up greatly in life. God extended His wonderful grace to me and grants me an audience.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Have you experienced the grace of God?  If not, please contact me and I'd love to share that with you.  If so, then thank Him for it and let others know of this amazing grace.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-4NFvI5U9w?rel=0&w=480&h=360]

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Weekend Update

We had a great night with the student ministry of FBC Birmingham last night.  We are in the middle of a series called "Bonding with James" where we are taking a walk thru the New Testament book of James.

Message: "Die Another Day" Part 2 in the "Bonding with James" series.  We talked about temptation and how to overcome it.  I really felt good about this message and thought that it came across effectively.  I was bummed out afterwards to find out that our podcast recorder didn't work (again).  Temptations are something that we all face but don't have to give in to.  If we set up guardrails and stand on the word of God, we can find victory over any temptation that comes our way!

Music: "Marvelous Light" - Charlie Hall; "Enough" - Chris Tomlin; "The Savior's Love" - old hymn.  It was good to have Josh, our music guy, back.  It was also his birthday, so we snuck a "Happy Birthday" in there for him.  I'm constantly reminded of how important musical worship is to a person's life.

Student Involvement: We did a game at the beginning of "Guess who's bad decision it is?"  This was a game that we made up.  We had students write down on a card a bad decision that they had made and turn it in.  We read them aloud (they knew we would) and had the group try to guess who's blunder it was.  This made a great icebreaker and lead-in to the message.

What are some ways that you deal with temptation?
How have you creatively taught about temptation with students?

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The Crossroads Recap

We started a new series about the purposes of the church with our student ministry.  It was a series that I had gotten from Simply Youth Ministry a while back called "Welcome to the Planet - What on Earth Am I Here For?" This has been a great series in showing students the reasons that God has created us and what He has in store for us.

Message: "Planned for God's Pleasure".  We talked about worship - what it is, how to know what you worship, etc.

Music: "Our Love is Loud" by David Crowder* Band; "Made to Worship" by Chris Tomlin; "Hosanna" by Brooke Fraser.

Good Points: The whole night fit together well with everything pointing to worship.  The music and message blending into one very well.  Our college worship leader was back to get the year started and had recruited a couple to help make a small praise band.

Weak Points: Many students were out.  Didn't have time to get the PowerPoint game together and going for the night.  That was okay though because we were out of time with the music and message.  It will be good when our time change takes place and we don't have to worry about time constraints.

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Refuge '08 Day 1

Last night was the first session in a get-together called Refuge hosted by the wonderful people at Student Life. It was for student ministers who are using the curriculum that Student Life produces. My favorite part of the whole thing is that it is free. They truly just want to give something back to the leaders of student ministry. That's cool.

Last night, we started off with a little worship led by Chris Tomlin and a couple of guys from his band. The neat thing that I took away from this was that Chris didn't use the whole band. He even asked that they take him off of the screens so that it wasn't like a performance. It was a great gathering of brothers and sisters in Christ just worshipping the Messiah. As we left for the night, we were given free copies of Chris Tomlin's new CD that just came out called "Hello Love". I strongly encourage people to check it out.

After Tomlin, Louie Giglio came and just shared some words about grace with us. It wasn't much like a "sermon," but more like a conversation over dinner. I think that the one thing that I took away most from what he said was...

"God didn't/doesn't need you... but He has invited you to be at the table."

How true that is! God can get by just as good (and sometimes better) if we weren't involved, but out of His great love for us, He has invited us to come and experience what He is going to do. Good stuff...

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