emmaus

It's a life changing experience to be called upward by God. Everyone who has excepted Jesus as their savior has began their race. Worldly things and disappointments cause us to take our eye off the mark and dim our hearing. We have to stay in the fold, we can't go wondering off like the lost sheep, surround ourselves with fellow Christians, pray and praise God. We are to live our life in a way brings glory to God's name. We are to be the light for the lost. Our prize will be a crown of glory that will never fade away.

The past gets in the way if we are looking back at it, to know and follow Jesus we must keep our eyes on him. We need to forget our past failures and disappointments and focus on God and Jesus. Thank God, through the bible studies I've done and being patient for him to work in the past 2 or 3 years He has led me to the reconciliation with a loved one.

To know Christ is to have a personal relationship with him. He is someone you talk to everyday, someone you know, love and trust, someone you want to know more about. There must be faith to have a relationship. I feel like I'm on a journey. I've come a long way from where I started, but I have a long way to go unless the Lord comes first.

We only have to ask God to forgive us of our sins and come into our hearts and by faith believe it is true. To receive righteousness by the law we would have to work for it. It would be something we achieved by our own effort. Our congregation believes our works are the fruit of the spirit. If you love God you will want to work for his glory. I can't speak for the rest of the world, I just know you can't earn your way into heaven by your works.

Paul doesn't remain neutral about his religious pedigree because he wants it understood that he doesn't take pride in it. It's of no use because he didn't know Christ. It's important that your religious background includes Christ or else it's worthless. If a person has been taught anything but the true gospel they can become confused and lose their faith.

We are a small country church that doesn't try to please man but to glorify the Lord. We all work together to acomplish what we can for the Lord with his help. There is a sweet spirit in our church that many visiting people have commented on. We praise God for this and give him the glory. I live in a town that has many large churches but the Lord led me to this church many years ago and I continue to go there.

It seems that the Philippian church lacked focus. They needed do as Timothy and love the Lord and do his work rather than think of themselves. Paul wanted them to give us themselves as Epaphroditus had and follow his example.

You do things that you may not feel like doing but that you know to do if you serve Jesus as a slave. If you don't do what you know is right, you have sinned. These are the ones who earlier in this lesson were called saints of God. To do other wise is to serve yourself.

There have been (and are) many women who have been mentors to me. Without their examples I would not be where I am today. I teach the 6 to 8 year olds in Sunday school class, one who is grandaughter. It's important to teach them about Jesus and his love at an early age, it's a foundation that they won't ever forget.

The other leaders were not mature in Christ, they had ulterior motives that hadn't been resolved through Christ's work in them. For myself, I need to be busier, thinking of what I can do for God. Our last revival made me see that I need to support the church and preacher with my attendance on Sunday and Wednesday nights.

My struggles would honor God by the fact that I depended on God during them and he brought me through. Sometimes we make our own struggles and he has to get our attention, but he's there with us either way. It's a lesson I won't forget so it's very valuable to me.

As Christians we have to remember that judgement day is coming for all. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, that is where it starts. It's just a plain simple fact that we know, the churches have to preach so that we can take as many with us to heaven as we possibly can.

You are able to shine as stars in the dark sky when there is no arguing or bickering in a church because you have the love of God in you. The stars signify the reflection of Jesus in us, just as the moon and stars are a reflection of the sun. I am thankful that the church I go to has never had a problem with arguing and complaining.

This is talking about working out your salvation as a group of believers, letting the Holy Spirit work in them so that they become more Christ-like.

Hebrews 6:10 says, "For God is not so unjust as to forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them." I know I can trust God but I have to be careful or I lose my focus on him. It's in those times I backslide.

Jesus was a real human who came to earth to be a servant. It's important that Jesus lived as a man and was tempted but did not sin. The perfect example to try to live by.

Christ made the decision to go to the cross for us. He didn't have to do it but chose to humble himself so that we could be saved. A normal human could not have lived his life and suffered what he did. He had to be divine to accomplish what he did.

We can't put ourselves above others and expect there to be unity in a church. I've went to the same church for 16 years and there has not been a time of division in the church. Everyone is there for one reason, to worship God. If something did come up it was took care of fairly and we moved on. I go to a small country church and I genuinely care about everyone there. We care about each other and love the Lord.

When we die we will be with the Lord. It's a comfort to know that loved ones who knew the Lord are with him now. I want to do the best I can daily so that when I see the Lord he will be pleased.

Fear will cause us to take our eyes off Jesus and then we lose our confidence to witness for the Lord. Again it's our confidence that causes us to fear what people will think or say to us. The life we have with Jesus is so much more fulfilling than the life we had without him. Life with Christ is so much more abundant than without him in it. The fear I have of witnessing is that they just don't want to hear it.

We are dependant on our faith in God when we have problems because there's nothing else strong enough to see us though. If we have our faith then we can cling to that. He knows what's going on and he is in control. We can rejoice in God and stand on that. We have to believe in the promises of God during the bad times. My basis for believing that is what God has brought me through so far. What I've seen him do for others.

When we are having problems but still cling to the Lord it shows our trust and faith in the Lord. It shows that He is who we depend on and have faith in whether the times are good or bad. Paul's witness was powerful because it showed others that if he could do it, they could too.

Paul asks God for discernment for the Philippians so that they would be able to distinguish what is best. By doing what is best they are making the most of their time for God and his glory. When we strive to please ourselves we are not thinking of what is pleasing to God. The good is a distraction from what is the best and therefore not allowing a person to live up to their full potential.

Paul expects God to finish the good work he has started in the Philippian believers. He expects this because he is confident that God is faithful to his promises. We can count on this if we live for Chirst and sincerely seek him.

As a member of a group we have the satisfaction of being able to accomplish more than we would be able to by ourselves. Plus we share the fruits of our labor and have the fellowship of other Christians.