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.