Life Christian Fellowship

Can you guys think of an activity before or after dinner?

We won’t be meeting this Monday, but if enough people want to meet this week, we can meet another day.  If you want to meet this week, what day works for you?

We had a competitive night of bowling and the students beat out the oldies in a close battle.

We will be going bowling in Arcadia at 9:30pm this coming Monday after Bible study. Please bring shoes if you own a pair.

Acts 5:32. “³²We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

What do you think about this verse?

3 John 1:9-11. ” ⁹I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. ¹⁰So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. ¹¹Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good.”

Diotrephes was an outspoken leader in the church with strong opinions. His opinions were so strong that he gossiped maliciously about John and anyone else who disagreed with him. Not only that, he refused to welcome brothers and even went as far as to kick out people from the church who went against him. It is one thing to have opinions, but it is quite another to condemn others who hold a difference of opinion.

John uses an apt phrase to describe Diotrephes — one “who loves to be first.” Evil means I want to be first and I don’t care who I have to hurt to get to the top. Evil is about being power hungry and manipulating people to stroke your ego. It is so easy to imitate evil because we all have that same tendency in us “to be first.” It’s in our blood.

But John’s challenge is to not be that way and to instead imitate good. It is not enough to have good intentions and empathetic emotions. Imitation means we see good and we adjust our lives to conform to that good pattern of living. This requires a lot of self-death and a lot of crying out to God for his mercy and help from the Holy Spirit. Unless we are actively striving to live good lives in a directly practical and visible sense, then we are missing out on a large part of what it means to be Christian.

2 John 1: 4-6.  “⁴It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. ⁵And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. ⁶And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

Truth is not something you simply believe. It is something you believe and because of that belief, you alter the way you live your life. Christianity was never meant to be only a personal, devotional, private faith between me and God. It is a truth so radical that when God says love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself, this is not a side thing or an optional thing, it changes everything about how we live.

That is why John stresses that walking in truth or the command to love one another is an act of walking in obedience to God’s commands. We need less emphasis on feeling God’s presence and spiritual experiences and we need to place more weight on the practical implications of obedience.

Should we go out after bible study? Any ideas?

Hi Ray,

Am I in the right place?  Is this a response to your post or am I in a different part of the blog?

Anyway, I agree with your assessment of our shortchanging the Easter-Pentecost season, and if we go by the traditional liturgical calendar, this Sunday will be the Fourth Sunday of Easter,  May 21 is Ascension day, the day when Jesus ascended to heaven, and May 31 is Pentecost Sunday (the 7th Sunday after Easter), marking the anniversary of the beginning of the church and the giving out of the Holy Spirit in power.  This is actually the most exciting time of the year for those who know Christ.   Let’s look forward with anticipation to how He will pour His Spirit.

When should we schedule the next outreach event following up with the Good Friday/Resurrection discussion led by Daniel? Any thoughts? Should we move toward more of a seeker’s Bible study during that lunch hour?