Thrive: Habits of Grace
Evangelism
John 4:27-42 There is nothing in this world quite like knowing God and making Him known. It beats anything else I’ve ever experienced! Once you’ve tasted of God’s greatness and goodness you have to want anyone else you care about to experience it too. If you don’t, then what you have isn’t very powerful.
Ministry
Romans 12:1-8 Fullness of Life and Full devotion to Christ are one in the same pursuit. When we urge people to become fully devoted followers of Christ we are inviting them to a full life of being a character in & a carrier of the great story of redemption through our Savior Jesus with infinite and eternal implications. God is not in the way of your happiness. He is your…
Worship
Psalm 95:1-11 Everyone is hard-wired to worship. It is what we do and who we are. The world is not divided into people who worship & people who don’t worship. It is divided into people who worship created things and those who worship the Creator (Rom1:25).
Silence and Solitude
Mark 1:35-39 It is unhealthy to always want people around, and unhealthy to rarely want them around. All of us are inclined to one extreme or the other. Without solitude we are active but shallow. Without fellowship we can be deep, but stagnant. Christlikeness requires both. Silence and solitude is learning how to take a break from the chaos of life to behold the glory of…
Fasting
Matt6:16-18, 9:14-15 Few spiritual disciplines go so radically against our gluttonous and self-indulgent American culture like fasting. Yet, Jesus expected His followers to fast. Fasting is an exceptional way to rebel against the Spiritual status quo and to express our holy discontent in this fallen world. (Very helpful resources in this study: Donald Whitney—Spiritual…
Prayer
Matthew 6:5-15 Prayer is an amazing privilege filled with astounding promise (James 4:2; 5:16)! Prayer causes things to happen that would otherwise not happen if we didn’t pray. We have been offered the amazing privilege of engaging with God in such way that we have an astounding promise that our requests can bring to past events in the Universe that would otherwise not…
Meditation
Psalm 1 Beliefs do not automatically produce changed character. Beliefs must be turned into changed character through spiritual disciplines. Meditation is the key to making a Biblical truth real to our heart and the doorway into a deeper more satisfying prayer life.
Bible
Psalms 119:1-11 Habits of grace are activities that are not about earning God’s favor, or twisting God’s arm, but about putting ourselves in the path of God’s amazing Grace and increasing our capacity to enjoying Jesus so that we can THRIVE spiritually. No spiritual discipline is more important than a regular & consistent encounter with God through His Word that involves…
Community
A person who has been saved by the grace (unmerited favor and divine enablement) of God is going to grow in degrees of godliness (Phil. 1:6; 1 Tim. 4:7) and put their relationship with God in a position to THRIVE. This is done through the nourishment of disciplining oneself by the power of the Holy Spirit rightly motivated to do the spiritual disciplines.