For you to discuss and engage in the spiritual life of your children here is what we looked at this week at Calvary Family Ministry.

Topic:

A cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 8)

Synopsis:

God has been merciful and generous to us. He gave us the greatest gift—His own Son. Jesus showed us what generosity looks like when He gave up His life to save us from sin. Because of Jesus, we can be merciful and generous to others.

Talking Point:

Paul had written a letter (1 Corinthians) addressing several sins that were being tolerated in the church at Corinth. The letter had been a risk. The Corinthians may have rejected Paul, but they did not.

Paul wrote 2 Corinthians to celebrate what God had done in the church and to call on them for help. The church in Jerusalem was in desperate need of help, so Paul was collecting money from the other churches on their behalf.

Paul encouraged the Corinthians to be generous. He told them about the churches in Macedonia. Macedonia was an area north of Corinth. The Christians there were suffering, and they did not have a lot of wealth. Nevertheless, they had joy and gave as much as they could to help others.

Paul encouraged the believers at Corinth to give too. Giving is one way we can show we love God. God is generous to us, so we can be generous to others. Jesus was rich; He had glory and honor in heaven. But He gave that up and became poor by coming to earth to help sinners.

Jesus did this so that we, who had nothing, could become rich. Now we have salvation and eternal life in Jesus. As a result, Paul wanted the Corinthians to give generously and joyfully, out of gratitude for what God has done.

We may feel like the churches in Macedonia who had little to give, but encourage them the same way Paul encouraged the church in Corinth. It is not the amount that we give that glorifies God—it is our level of generosity and joy when we give.

Do not give out of duty but out of gratitude. God loves a cheerful giver. There are many ways to give—whether time or money or talents—to advance the work of the gospel in your city, your nation, and the world.

Questions to discuss with your child:

Q: Who changes us?

A: The Holy Spirit changes us to be like Jesus for God’s glory.

Discuss: God is generous to us, so we can be generous to others.

Key Unit Passage:

2 Corinthians 5:17

As a pastor, I am continually thinking about church stuff. I am continually thinking about you. It’s not the past that I dwell on or even the present … what consumes most of my thoughts is the answer to this question:

The future has so many challenges but the things I really want is that I want to be who we are. 

 But I want us to be better.

Better lovers of Jesus.  Better servants outside the walls of our church.  Better lovers of people.  Better worshippers.  Better ‘doers of the Word’.  Better at realizing our weakness and imperfection.  Better at soaking in grace rather than beating ourselves up.

I don’t want better programs, bigger numbers, and professional displays.  I want to walk in unity with broken people who know their brokenness, and live lives that overflow with the Gospel.

I want to be who we are… but better.

I know that I can’t do much… but I can do a little and depend on the Holy Spirit to make things happen…

I’ve stocked my Kindle with new books about living the Gospel as servants in our communities.  I am striving to establish a solid ‘Gospel’ foundation with my elders and my regular ‘counselees’.  I’m reading prayerfully through our next book of study with the hopes that God will present a message and theme to help us be better.  I’m listening to my elders and encouraging ideas.  I’m asking the family for their thoughts.  I’m turning my radio off more often, and when I pray, I am trying to spend more time listening.

I want to be who we are… but I want us to be better.

Depending on the Holy Spirit through prayer and obedience to His Word is the only way. As I take the next few weeks away serving elsewhere this is where my heart will be … seeking God, by His grace, for a better me .. and a better us

This is another one of those “hey I found a great link” kind of post. Sorry about that but … this is really good, particularly for the women in our church. The link below is from a women’s conference that was held by 9Marks ministry (who I greatly respect by the way).

Listen to “9Marks at 9: Women and the Local Church — TGC’s Women’s Conference 2018” on Spreaker.

It’s not very often we have the need to put out a message to the church to ask you to pray and fast so we hope that this post will be unusual enough for you to read and consider our request.

One of our own (as this is a public post we’ll call her “H”) is currently in the Southampton Hospital Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit with what has been diagnosed by doctors as “Psychotic depression”. Her behaviour started a few months back. I remember talking to her on quite a few occasions over the course of a few weeks about her belief that God had abandoned her. She has been in different hospitals for a few months, unable to speak coherently, repeating worrying phrases such as “Jesus is not God” over and over again (seemingly uncontrollably) and turning away those who have come to visit her.

Whilst we don’t believe a Christian can be possessed by a demon (1 John 4:4; 2 Timothy 1:7) we certainly do believe that Christians can be harrassed to the point of exhaustion. We don’t know if this is the case for H but whether or not she is under some kind of demonic attack that has led to her mental state, or whether there are more natural cases it’s really time to pray as a church for H.

This week we’re calling our church members to pray very specific things each day of this week, and choosing one of those days to fast:

1. Monday – pray for our church, that we would rise up in prayer for H, recognising that our battle is not against flesh and blood – 1 Peter 5:8
2. Tuesday – pray for our church, that we would resist the devil’s lie that God does not hear our prayer and by resisting the devil would flee from H – James 4:7
3. Wednesday – pray for H, that her mind would be healed radically and completely and that she would be found “in her right mind” – Luke 8:35
4. Thursday -pray for H that she would discount the lies of the enemy: accusation and deception – Rev 12:9-10
5. Friday -pray for H that she would find joy in her Saviour and that her meditation would be directed towards God and she would believe the “life promises” to be true – Romans 8:5–6

Life Groups will give special attention to praying for H this week. please take one day to fast as you pray these prayers for H.

I was inspired this week as I read a blog post by Pastor Scott Slayton of Chelsea Village Baptist Church. He posted an article called “5 questions I ask of every sermon” It intrigued because he is the teaching pastor of the church that he serves at – so in effect he is self-evaluating his own sermons. A good piece of wisdom there. By the way, for years, on a Sunday afternoon, I listened to the sermons that preached. I think it helped me although it was pretty painful at times! I still, often, listen to the church podcast. Why? I want to deliver to you the best sermons I can. It’s one of my greatest privileges – to bring to you the Word of God every week.

If you don’t preach, you may wonder what this post has to do with you … but carry on reading because we should all want to take God’s Word more seriously – whether we are preaching or listening.

Here are Pastor Scotts five questions:

1. Is this sermon faithful to the biblical text?

2. Is the Gospel message clear in this sermon?

3. Does this sermon contain grace for hurting people?

4. Does this sermon confront Christians in their sin?

5. Does this sermon call unbelievers to faith in Christ?

My prayer is that these questions would not only make me a better preacher but you better listeners.