Wednesday Night 9/13/06

BECOMING CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST

HABITS: PART 1

We had a great night last night with the students. The praise band did an AMAZING job this week job kicking us off with My Glorious. (the two electric guitars were great!)

We continued to talk about how they are created for a purpose. That they are not the result of a cosmic accident. Tonight we looked at we are created to become like Christ.

Ultimately being a Christian is not just about the destination. (heaven) It is also about the journey. The journey to have a relationship with Him so we can know Him more and become like Him.

Read Romans 8:29
The word in this passage is "Eikon" which means to be made in the image or replication. So how do we become like His Son?

In every relationship we must commit time to get to know someone. It is the same way with Christ. As believers we can't expect to grow if we are only going to get fed 2 times a week on Sundays and Wednesdays. (just like we can't grow as people if we only eat two meals a week.) We must learn to feed ourselves. We must develop HABITS (or spiritual disciplines) in order to know Christ and as a result of knowing Him we can look more like Him.

We will use the acroustic HABITS to talk about how to develop our relationship with Christ.

H- HANGING OUT WITH GOD

For many of us this is called a quiet time. But it is our chance to open the Bible and hear God speak to us individually. We become like those we hang out with. Just like our friends influence how we live because we spend time with them, Christ influences how we live when we spend time with Him.

A- ACCOUNTABILITY WITH ANOTHER BELIEVER

We cannot grow in isolation. We need others to spur us along toward love and good deeds.

James 5: 16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

B- BIBLE MEMORIZATION

We memorize Scripture because is keeps us from sin (Ps. 119:11)

But also it is the words of life to us.

Next week we will look at the rest of the word HABITS. Below are the small group questions.

Small Group Questions:
1. Did you follow through with your “next step” last week of protecting the unity of the church? How did it go? (Focus on what we have in common instead of differences, be realistic in your expectations, choose to encourage rather than criticize, refuse to listen to gossip, practice God’s method for conflict resolution, or support your pastor and leaders.)

2. Tonight we talked about 3 of the habits necessary to grow in our faith and learn to walk on our own. (Remember it is about the destination AND the journey!) What is one habit you could focus on as a step toward becoming more like Christ?

Please be praying for our students. There is a lot of strep and sinus infections going around.