Join in on "The Blessed Life"

Jesus said "It's better to give than to receive." Many of us wish we could be more financially generous than we are, there are a couple reasons I believe we are not.

1. We are trapped by debt. We owe we owe so off to work we go. We are a society of impulse and selfish spending. There used to be a huge difference between what we need and what we want, today that gap is too close. Most Americans have more than they need. How many TV's, pairs of shoes, items of clothing, computers do you own?

2. There is too little room between what we make and what we owe. When emergencies/un-expected expenses happen most people living paycheck to paycheck have to use credit cards to pay for it. I have heard that around 70% of Americans live week to week.

3. We are selfish creatures when it all comes right down to it. A simple test is what you do when you get an un-expected bonus or refund. Most people think about what they can buy instead of how they can be generous toward others in need.

Generosity is NOT limited to money, we have talents and abilities, we have time and we have spiritual gifts that have been given supernaturally from God to be used to expand His Kingdom and bring glory to Him. I want to challenge you to come out on Wednesday nights during the month of February from 6:30-8:00 at Southbrook Church for our 4 week Blessed Life Study. If you are in a Life Group you will be going through this study with your group and we are providing a study/discussion guide for you to use. "The Blessed Life" written by Pastor Robert Morris is all about the blessing of being generous. It's NOT a prosperity gospel book or philosophy, it's about being radically and obediently generous, the life impacting kind.

A Simple Discipleship Formula

Sometimes we complicate simple things. Think of jobs or projects from your past where rules and procedures so slowed outcomes down to the point it either robbed joy out of it or caused resentment and caused you to quit altogether. We make up rules and procedures that may look like safeguards but in the end they can easily take us down a path so far away from the original idea that we forget why we are doing what we are doing. Take discipleship, Jesus said in Matthew 28:19-20 that we should go into the entire world to make disciples, baptize them, teach them to obey EVERYTHING He taught and as a promise, He'd be with us always. Looking at His ministry life we know that He spent a full night in prayer just to determine who the faithful followers would be who would become His disciples, God's agents of change. Next, He spent 3 years training, teaching, being with and praying for these guys. If it were an equation it might look something like this; Relationship + Spiritual Truth + Teachable Heart + Time = Transformation In our highly connected, socially savy, information revolution we must remember that there are no short-cuts to building/multiplying Jesus followers. Books, blogs, tweets and podcasts can help as long as they are pointing back to the Bible and not just about it. Authenticity and transparency are critical so that disciplers do not set up disciples with the idea that they personally get something out of the Bible every time they read it, or that great faith prayers are prayed that reap huge results morning, noon and night, and that new converts are won every week. I have had the honor of being poured into and been able to pour into others. Success rates climb really, really high when we take the time to dispense practical Biblical truth, over time to people who are teachable and real. Biblical truth can seem pretty overwhelming but an easy place to start are the Red Letters of the Gospels. What did Jesus say? Most people can quote only a fraction of it. And remember in the Great Commission quoted above in Matthew 28, that Jesus commanded us to teach them everything He commanded. We also have the Epistles of Paul where there is plenty to study and apply. We have the entire Old Testament which is full of great treasures of Truth/Gold. This can easily take you all of 3 years. As I have quoted many times from David Watson's classic book - "Called and Committed" "If a gifted evangelist could win 1,000 converts a night, it would take them about 10,000 years to win the world to Christ, not including any population spikes, but if a true disciple of Christ were to win one person to Christ per year and spend that year training and teaching that disciple to do the same it would take aprox. 32 years to win the entire world to Christ." Amazing! Let's make this simple, if you need to be poured into, ask someone around you whose walk with Christ inspires you and you wished to be like to help you become like them. If you are pretty mature and obviously walking with Christ, than you should be looking for someone to approach and pour into. It's simple!