ACTS

No, we did not talk about the book of Acts. Today we talked about prayer. A model that we explained is known as the ACTS model. ACTS stands for adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. Adoration is simply praising God and telling Him who He is. We like to use the alphabet to assist in this process. For example, you can start by saying "God is amazing", then "God is beautiful", "God is caring", etc. Adoration comes first because we need to recognize who God is first. What we want is not as important as who God is. Confession is telling God our sins and repenting for them. We need to recognize who we are before our Savior and King. Thanksgiving is giving thanks for what God has given us and for what He has done for us. Thanksgiving is important because we need to recognize what God has given us and has done for us to have the right view of Him. He is a generous God. Last is supplication. Supplication is asking God for things that we need or want. This comes last so that the things we ask for align with God's heart. Adoration reminds us of who God is, and confession reminds us of who we are. With these things in mind it is easier to know what to ask for. Prayer is necessary in our life and we should do it everyday.

Easter

Today Danny lead us into a discussion about Easter. First of all, what is Easter? John 3:16-17  says “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." God sent Jesus to die for us on the cross for our sins. Easter is essentially about Jesus' deep love for us that he would die on the cross for our sins. The death and resurrection of Jesus is also the basis of Christianity. We discussed how without the resurrection, Christianity would not exist. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 says “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if
there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be
pitied.” Because of the resurrection, there is hope, power, and love.

We also drew the bridge diagram which basically looks like this. There is a chasm that separates us from God. As humans are sinful and no matter how hard we try to do good works to compensate for our sins, we will never make it to the other side. Jesus came to die for us on the cross so he could create a bridge for us to be on the other side with God.

One more thing: Easter is not just a onetime holiday, it should be celebrated all the time. It is the basis of our faith and should carry throughout our lives, not just around Easter time.

Have a great week!

Unity

Hello guys!

Today, we had Grace's pastor come and speak to us today. Pastor Jacob gave a message based on Philippians 2:1-18 about being like-minded as Christ. He gave various examples such as the United Airline, United States, and the United Kingdom to emphasize the importance of unity within Christians. A house divided against itself cannot stand. In the same way, we need to be united with each other. Then, how do we achieve unity? We first individually need to be rooted in our relationship with Jesus. Then we need to "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit..." as verse three says and consider others better than ourselves. We need to humble ourselves and serve others. Though it seems to be the least rewarding job, Jesus said the least will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Pastor Jacob also emphasized how what we do is important. Though it may be unrecognized by others, we are advancing the Kingdom of God. Let's pray that God may move in Roosevelt because he has great plans for it!

If you have any questions, you can contact Pastor Jacob at jacobleeubf@gmail.com .

Oh, and we also got Bibles for TLC. Woohoooo!

My Own Resurrection

by Francis Chan


Hey guys!
We watched eighteen minutes of this video this Wednesday. In case you wanted to finish it, here's the video! After we watched the video, we had a discussion on what Pastor Francis Chan talked about -- krav maga, his wife's soup, and more. During his sermon, he often referred back to 1 Corinthians 1:18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." We discussed God's attributes -- great, almighty, sovereign. As the analogy Pastor Francis Chan used with krav maga, though it is scary that God is all powerful, we find comfort that He's our friend. Whenever we face anything impossible or difficult, God is with us and He has our backs! We really recommend watching the rest of the video. It has some really cool stories. (:

We hope you guys have a great spirit week. About three more weeks 'till Easter!

Relentless

These two weeks, we had the privilege of hearing Praveen and Preethi give their sermons. The overall theme of both messages was to be relentless after God. Praveen compared the Christian life to running and training for a race. He defined what a relentless life looks like. It's a hard life. It's a life full of struggles, sacrifices, but it's also a life filled with incomprehensible peace through it all. To be relentless, we must throw off everything that hinders us (Hebrews 12:1) -- the good and the bad. This requires us to set our priorities straight and make the effort to run after God with everything we have. Let's be relentless after God!

Today, Preethi focused on being relentless after the responsibilities God has given us -- to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). She began her sermon with an anecdote about a suicidal man. There was a suicidal man about to jump off a bridge off of I-95, but then a stranger came up to him and asked him why he was about to take his life. The stranger listened to the suicidal man's stories and in the end, the stranger, not the suicidal man ended up jumping off the bridge. What does this have to do with anything? Preethi compared this to what Jesus did for us. Jesus was the stranger. He took all our sins and problems away by dying for us on the cross. Therefore, now we have the responsibility to go and share the gospel. Even though it's hard, let's overcome the difficulties and be relentless in sharing the gospel with everyone. Though we may be timid, the Holy Spirit will give us words to speak when we open our mouths.

So we want you guys to be relentless. Let's try to encourage each other through everything. (:

Oh, and if you were there three weeks ago when Danny's dad came to speak to us about Lent, let's keep praying for the people we wrote down on our index card!

Lent

So today Danny's dad talked about the season of lent. For those of you that don't know, lent is a time before Easter where you give up something to create more time to follow God. Rather than focus on the giving up part of lent, Mr. Warner talked about who Jesus is and how He saved us. Our sin creates a chasm between us and God which stops us from reaching God. Jesus died and more importantly rose from the dead to bridge the chasm between us and God. Without Jesus we never can reach God; He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life. After we cross that gap it may feel as if we still don't seem to be with God, but that's the point of lent. It brings us a little closer to God. Lent is not what saves us and brings us over the gap we have between us and God; only Jesus can bridge that gap. Lent is just a way to spend more time with God and give Him more of ourselves for Him. We encourage you all to prayerfully consider if you want to give up something for Lent. We also encourage you to think of ten people that are not Christian. Use the time during lent to pray for them, and even consider asking them to go to church on Easter. Think about it.

Testimonies

Last week we discussed the importance of sharing testimonies, and this week, we had the opportunity to practice what we learned! So today, most of us went around and shared our testimonies. It varied from life testimonies to something God did the other day. Nonetheless, they were all testimonies, and we want to thank all of you for sharing! They were encouraging to us, and hopefully to other people as well. God is definitely working through us and in us. Remember to keep sharing wherever you go, not just in TLC!

announcement:
Next week we'll be having a guest speaker.
See you there! 

If you have any  questions you want the speaker to answer, please send them to truthlovecharacter@gmail.com. That way we can get them to him beforehand and he can look into answers. (If there's a lot of questions, he may not get into all of them, but feel free to ask. We'll try to keep ones we don't get to until next time. Questions will be kept anonymous.)

Responsibility!

Today, we had our guest speaker- Preethi's pastor- who came and talked to us about, in short, the importance of responsibility. It's also worth noting that, by some divine coincidence, we happened to be locked out of our room on the only day in February we've ever had nice weather. So we had a great meeting outside.

Anyway, talking about responsiblity is pretty cliche. Of course, there's a reason behind that- it's easy to talk about, usually. But it's a very different thing entirely to be a fully-responsible person. So what does it mean to be responsible?
Most people agree responsiblity is taking the effort to carry out what they're entrusted with. Whether large or small, responsiblities are something we all encounter in every day life- homework, taking care of younger siblings, following laws, making the effort to live for God. Many people dream of a life without responsibility, and wish they could live their life with an "anything goes" attitude. But we all know this doesn't work. Why not? It leaves you feeling empty. When we have responsibilities, and fulfill them, there's accomplishment and satisfaction. Also, if no one had responsibility, society wouldn't function- if there were no standard to be held responsible to, we'd find ourselves in the midst of a violent dog-eats-dog world.
So responsibility is important, and it's everywhere. Whether you're someone who naturally shies away from it, like so many of us do, or who embraces it- it's important to learn how to handle responsibility. Especially as Christians, we all share a specific responsibility; that is, to live our lives in a way that glorifies God, and leads others to him. Sometimes, you might be the only Christian example that someone ever sees- and it's worth asking God to help you become a fitting representative.

Loving More than Just your Neighbor

Today, as a sort of follow up to last week's discussion on Loving God, we discussed the importance of loving your neighbor, and equally as importantly, your enemies. This naturally follows a discussion on Loving God, because one of the best ways to show our love for God is through loving our neighbors.
Naturally, we discussed the parable of the Good Samaritan- and how, regardless of what our gut reaction is towards someone in need, it is always right to help them. Of course, in modern days, we don't often encounter people lying on the side of the road, and so it becomes harder to find those enemies, or even just neighbors, in need of assistance.

So what is loving your enemy?

There's two important things we can take away from our discussion on that, at least. First of all, love is an action. It's not a feeling; it's something we should be able to do whether we find ourselves willing, or only doing it because we know it's what God wants us to do. Also, the best way of doing this, especially with someone you can't easily help day-to-day- is to pray for them. That always works, and often, it opens the door to restorations of friendship and healing of wounds.

Finally, we ended with a challenge- Do it! Try, with God's help, to live the life He wants you to, by loving even those who want to harm you, or don't care about you. That's the only way things can change. For better guidelines on what love is and how to love, read Romans 12:9-21. Memorize it too. It's always true.

Loving God

Today in TLC, we talked about loving God. We sat in our usual circle and discussed what love is. After discussing for a few minutes, we came to the conclusion that  "we love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19) So then, what is God's love and how did he show it to us? While we were his enemies, he dies for us on the cross. Isn't that amazing? Jesus dying on the cross isn't something that just happened 2000 years ago. He is alive and pours his love over us each day. We just have to recognize what he does for us. So, most of us shared how God has shown us his love and answered our prayers. Think about all that God has done for you - all the little and big things and give him thanks! We have received so much from God. His love, grace, mercy, peace, answered prayers, etc. Let's love him back by obeying him and giving him our whole heart. We challenged you guys to love God this week, but we did not get to really discuss how to do that. However, we can love God by obeying him, spending time with him (quiet time & prayer), loving others, or whatever you can come up with. (:

Go love him with your whole heart & be blessed while you take your midterms!


Don't forget - we'll see you at the flag pole at 7:30 on Jan 24th!

What is Trusting God?

Hi Guys! I hope the new year is going well. Today we had our veteran leaders, Jimmy and David, come back and visit and lead us in discussion, and also lead us in a short time of worship. (stay tuned on this- we may be trying to do it more ourselves, as soon as we can come up with the instrument.)

Anyway, the main idea of today was to be an encouragement- more specifically, an encouragement to trust in God in our daily lives. It's very easy to say we trust in God, and maybe even think it, but too often, actually doing it becomes very difficult. So it's an encouragement to think about what it means to trust God, and look at how that fits into life. (or, more importantly, how our lives can fit into a framework that relies on, trusts, and has faith in God.)

It's hard to do, especially in a society and a school that pushes us to be independent, and in which we often have to be independent- homework, scheduling, making time for TLC, etc. But in the end, trusting God is worth it. After all, He alone knows what really matters- so let him lead you through life. And that test tomorrow.

New Year!

Today we sat in our usual circle and discussed these questions:

Name one highlight of this past year.
Name a lesson you learned this past year.
How have you grown this year?
What are you hoping to get out of this year?
Any new year resolutions?

A lot of us shared, but I doubt that we really had time to think deeply about each question. I challenge you guys to go deeper and really think about 2011 and write it out. No one has to see it, but feel free to share it if you want on the facebook group page! (:

Have a good week & see you guys next week!
We'll be having a guest speaker next week. It'll be a good opportunity to bring your friends.