How To Live The Life Jesus Planned For You To Live
How do you become a person who...looks back, looks around, and looks ahead at who God was, is, and will always be? By embodying what you have been taught, keeping at it, staying the course, and walking daily.
Look at Jesus. The most compelling thing about Jesus is not only his remarkable teaching, but that his life was a testimony of his teaching. In other words, he taught with his life. Jesus stayed the course of walking with God throughout his life and ministry on earth.
When you spend time with Jesus and with the people who live the patterned life of Jesus, you begin to do the things he did with the support of others. And then, you become the person who models the life and way of Jesus to the people around you!
Read 1 Timothy 4:6-16 in the Message version. What do you discover about Jesus and his way? What do you discover about people in general? This Scripture helps to understand what it means to become a people who stay the course. Staying the course is more about consistency than novelty, more about capacity than content, and more about what you do with what you know than what you know.
Think about the rhythms and practices people at Canyon Ridge train in, practice, and pass on :
The 15-second transformation story (<+>)
What's your story? And what's a transformation story you've heard that has impacted you?
The healthy church football framework based off of Acts 2
How has practicing this helped you to understand what it means to be a contributing part of a healthy church?
What have you continued to practice and pass on out of Discover Canyon Ridge (joining a volunteer team, taking a step in baptism, or starting a group)?
How has having an intentional prayer team grown your own prayer life?
Discover Bible Study (DBS)
How has reading Scripture through the model of discover, do, and share helped you encounter Jesus in his word?
These are all practice-oriented for the sake of implementing habits that form the people we are becoming - people who look to Jesus to look like Jesus. If you haven't heard of these before, now's a great time to explore and discover!
Examine your life. What intentional, regular rhythms do you have, whether in daily time with God and intentional time with his people, regular rhythms and spiritual habits? Keep at it. Remember, practice makes permanent.
The value of training is not learning something once, but rather the continual, active development of daily learning, celebrating, listening, discovering, supporting, trying, and...repeat! 1 Timothy 4:11-14 says, "Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity."
What daily step with the Spirit will you take in staying the course, becoming a person who trains, practices, and embodies the goodness and truth of God with your life?