Your Identity in Christ day 16 of 30

Ungodly Competition

Being in Christ liberates us from ungodly competition and helps us celebrate others and their successes.

T-ball can turn into a game more about the individual kids than about the team. If you don't believe it, just watch a game. When a player gets a hit, all the defenders in the area will jump on it instead of allowing the player in the right position to get it. Sometimes they'll even argue over who had the ball first. Why? Because they haven't learned teamwork yet.

Often, in our lives, we engage in the same unhealthy competitiveness - we're just better at hiding it.

Competitiveness is not sinful, but the reason we compete can be. Are you motivated to encourage yourself and other Christians to be more faithful and fruitful for God's glory than ever before? Or do you discourage others from seeking God's best in their lives because you're jealous of their success?

Ungodly competition in the Christian life is when we compete against others. Being in Christ liberates us from ungodly competition and helps us celebrate others and their successes.

Read Ephesians 1:15-16

Paul set a great example for us. He was someone who could celebrate what God was doing in someone else's life. Did Paul compare the Ephesian's work to his own? (No. Paul didn't compare their work to his own or even mention his many accomplishments.)

What did Paul do as a result of hearing about their faith? (He celebrated the evidence of God's grace in their lives by unceasingly giving thanks.)

Do you celebrate the success of others?

Is God convicting you about anyone with whom you wrongly compete? Repent, and start celebrating what God is doing in his or her life.

Prayer

Pray for others in a way that celebrates their successes.

Ephesians 1:15-16 NKJV

15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:

Your Identity In Christ Day 15 of 30 How Do You React To Rudeness?

How Do You React To Rudeness?

God sees everything you do. He knows the sacrifices you make and the work you do.

The next time you're in a lunch line, leaving a game or concert, or getting off the bus, take a moment to observe how people expect you to treat them, and how they treat others. People can be just plain rude. Everyone at one point or another seems to act as if they are more important and that what they're doing has more meaning than anything we do.

No one likes to be treated rudely. Yet we, too, can be rude at times. Have you ever been jealous when someone else won a big award, performed well in a game, or got the latest gadget? How did you act?

We can get frustrated and angry - and even rude -when we're not appreciated for what we do. From work, school, and chores, we can go through the day feeling unappreciated, as if nobody cares. If you've ever felt this way, there's good news for you. God sees everything you do. He knows the sacrifices you make and the work you do. With every good thing you do in Christ, He is appreciative.

Read Ephesians 1:15-16

What did Paul hear about the people of Ephesus? (He heard about their faith in Jesus and their love toward all the saints.)

Because of what he heard, what did Paul do? (He gave unceasing thanks for them and remembered them in his prayers.)

Talk about what you feel and think when someone is rude toward you. Identity up to three ways you can show appreciation to others.

Prayer

Have your family pray and give thanks for the people in their lives. Have them each identify at least one reason they are thankful for others.

Ephesians 1:15-16 NKJV

15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:

Your Identity In Christ Day 14 of 30 Our Blessings For God's Glory

Our Blessings For God's Glory

Our purpose in Christ is to worship God and enjoy him eternally.

Why does God bless us? So we can make a big deal about how great we are? Or does He bless us so that He will be made great?

The entire point of God's blessing is His glory. God blesses us with every spiritual blessing in Christ so that we may enjoy and glorify Him forever. This means that our purpose in Christ is to worship God and enjoy Him eternally.

Read Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14

According to verse 6, what is the purpose of God's blessings? (To bring praise for His glorious grace.)

What is the purpose of God's blessings as found in verses 12 and 14? (To elicit the praise of His glory.)

Discuss what it looks like to live a life of purpose in Christ for God's glory and your enjoyment.

Prayer

Pray through Ephesians 1:11-14.

Ephesians 1:6 NKJV

6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

Mark this reading as completed on YouVersion

Ephesians 1:11-14 NKJV

11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

Your Identity In Christ Day 13 of 30 Loved And Adopted

Tomorrow is another long day for me because of exenuating circumstances... so I am posting early again.. there really is not much I can say on todays topic because I havnt had a bit of time to ponder it, I will attempt to do so in the morning or after work tomorrow nite...

Loved And Adopted

We are His children, and He is our Father.

Steve and Jan were nearing their destination. Their travels began in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle, Washington, and they were en route to China. This day marked the end of a year-and-a-half-long process for them. They were finally adopting their son - a young boy named Lu Hui.

As an adopted son, Lu Hui is a part of Steve and Jan's family. He enjoys all the benefits of a natural-born son, including the amazing love his parents share with him.

Just as Lu Hui was adopted into Steve and Jan's family, we are adopted into God's family in Christ. And just as Lu Hui experiences all the benefits of being a son, we, too, experience the benefits of being sons and daughters of God. We are His children, and He is our Father. We have brothers and sisters in Christ from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

Read Ephesians 1:5

What did God predestine us for? (Adoption.)

What are we adopted as? (We are adopted as God's children into His family.)

How is our adoption as God's children made possible? (Through Jesus Christ.)

How does it feel to be a part of your family? (Parents, relate this to being a part of God's family now that He has adopted you into it through Jesus Christ.)

Prayer

Thank God that you're able to call Him Father.

Ephesians 1:5 NKJV

5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

10-15 table groups recap

Not all of us were there tonight, but we did have a very good discussion around our table tonight. A lot came out. I find myself revealing more about myself to our table members every group about my past and how I feel and am dealing with it and my journey of Christianity.

I just wanted to share.. thanks for reading.
~B~

Your Identity in Christ day 12 of 30

You Are One Of God's Workers

How do you see yourself when you fail, when you completely blow it? Do you spend time thinking about all the ways you failed and that you are only as good as what you didn't do right? What does the enemy whisper in your ear when you've failed? Reminders of how you will never change, never grow? Reminders of the sin you have committed since you became a Christian?

For me, it's the latter again and again: reminders of the sin I have committed since I became a Christian. Even though I have repented of it, the enemy loves to whisper in my ear, tempting me to doubt my salvation, my forgiveness, and my freedom.

Paul has just given the Corinthian church a strong rebuke. He said to them only eight verses earlier that he "could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ." In other words, they are so much like the non-Christian world around them that he can't even speak to them like the people of God, but instead needs to talk to them in baby talk, because they are so immature.

How then could Paul tell these Corinthians that they are God's fellow workers, God's field, and God's building so shortly after? He can tell them this because their identity is not found in what they have done, but what God in Christ did for them. They can be God's fellow workers, field, and building because, as verse 6 says, "God gave the growth.'

God is working through you to build up His kingdom and will use you in whatever way He chooses to be made much of. So, the next time the enemy would seek to whisper lies in your ear, remind him that you have been bought with the blood of Christ and are one of God's workers, a part of His field, and a brick in His building. Jesus will not let the church He is building fail or fall.

By Pastor Ryan Williams

I Corinthians 3:9 NKJV

9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.

Your Identity in Christ day 11 of 30

Who Is Holy?

Jesus takes our sin and replaces it with his righteousness.

Whom do you think of as "holy"? A priest? A preacher? Someone who does a lot of good work?

Those people may be holy, but did you know that if you're in Christ, God considers you holy as well? Because of Jesus' work on the cross for us, we are "holy and blameless" before God. Jesus exchanged our sin for His holiness, and God now sees us as He sees Jesus, righteous and holy.

Jesus takes our sin and replaces it with his righteousness. Not only that, Jesus also gives us new desires to live a godly life and the strength to do so by the Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean we live without sin. But it does mean that we grow and better reflect the holiness of Jesus Christ each day.

In Christ we are considered holy by God and given the desire and ability to live holy lives devoted to Him.

Read Ephesians 1:4

Did God choose us, or did we choose Him? (God chose us.)

Why did God choose us? (God wanted us to be holy and blameless before Him.)

In what ways has God changed you and made you more holy because of Jesus' blessing?

How is God leading you to a life of greater holiness to reflect Jesus more?

Prayer

Take two chairs. Place them several feet apart. Have one family member sit on one chair. This chair represents the person's trust in his or her good deeds for salvation. Now have him or her switch to the other chair. This chair represents a trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Ask: is it possible to sit in two chairs at once? (It's impossible to sit in both chairs at the same time. Similarly, it is impossible to trust in good works and Christ at the same time. We must rely on one or the other. This is what it means to personally trust in Jesus. Faith in Christ and reliance on our good works are mutually exclusive.)

Ephesians 1:4 NKJV

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

My 2 cents on days 9 and 10

In my life I am new at being a Christian as in I have only truely been a Christian since 2010. These last few years have been all about my own personal spiritual journey. I know I am in no ways a perfect Christian, I am no way perfect, I back slide quite regularly. I used to be a real nasty guy that really didn't care about how anyone felt and loved to create strife and pain on a regular basis. I am not that person anymore, I really never want to be that person ever again; hoever, there are times that the person I used to be wants to come out. No matter how hard I try, sometimes the mean old nasty guy shows his ugly face and I end up hurting some one. It is those times that God's love show me that I am still forgiven. Don't get me wrong, there is always consequences for those actions, but it is God's love that is there to show me that I am still loved. God is great and wonderful and mighty and no matter all that I have done in the past, throught Jesus the son of God, I am saved through everlasting love.

For those that don't get it, God always wants us to have what we need.. it took me 20+ years to understand that.. it took me to have children of my own to tottally understand God's love for us all, His children... I know its difficult to understand but it is soooo easy to understand when you step back and just look at things from a diffrent perspective.
I know its a little bit more difficult when you have not had a good relationship with a father figure.. I had a great relationship with my dad, we talked every day, and when I didn't call him, he called me. I know I don't have a great relationship with my kids, frankly it kinda sucks, but I love them more than they will ever understand.

My point being, that is how God loves us, he loves us like our parents love us.. and how we love our children.. unconditionally absolutely unconditionally, even when they tell us they hate us, even when they tell us we are dumb or stupid or even when they say even worse things and try to hurt us.. we love them unconditionally...

Anyways that's my 2 cents on the last 2 days ... catch ya tomorrow

God Bless you all!
~B~

Your Identity in Christ day 10 of 30

You Can't Do Anything

You don't have to do good things for God to love you and bless you.

What makes God love us? Is it when we do good things for him? Some people think so. We can easily believe that if we pray, read the Bible, give a lot of money to the church, or live a good life, we'll make God love us and He will be good to us.

Thankfully, this isn't true. You don't have to do good things for God to love you and bless you. He has already blessed you in Christ.

God loves us even when we're sinners. In His love He saves us through Jesus and makes us new people in Christ. We must simply believe it and accept His gift of salvation. That's faith.

Read Ephesians 1:3

With what have we been blessed? (Every spiritual blessing. These spiritual blessings are from "the heavenly places", and they include our salvation.)

How are we to respond to God as a result of being blessed with every spiritual blessing? (God is to be blessed. This means we are to speak well of him by praising Him.)

We are to praise God for the spiritual blessings he gives us. Discuss how this is like thanking someone who has given us a great gift or done something nice for us.

Prayer

Have each family member thank God for his/her blessings in Christ.

Ephesians 1:3 NKJV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Your Identity in Christ: You Will Be Tempted day 9 of 30

You Will Be Tempted

Jesus himself faced temptations but refused to give in to them by remembering His identity and living out of it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

As a saint, you will be tempted to sin. But temptation and sin aren't the same. To be tempted is not a sin. Rather, temptation is an invitation to sin. As a saint, you'll be tempted to sin. When - not if - you are tempted, you are presented with an opportunity to either disobey God or worship God. Whether or not you sin all depends on how you respond. When you are tempted to sin, remember that you're a saint. Knowing your identity in Christ is the pool key to victory over sin. Jesus modeled this truth for us.

Jesus Himself faced temptations but refused to give in to them by remembering His identity and living out of it in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus' example is a powerful model for us today. In Christ we are new creations, empowered by the Holy Spirit to deny sin and to worship God.

Read 1 Corinthians 10:13

What does the Bible say about the temptations you face? (They're not uncommon to mankind.)

How is God faithful to you when you are tempted? (God will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but will provide for you a way of escape.)

Discuss times when you have been tempted to sin. What was your response?

Prayer

Pray for forgiveness, if anyone in your family has succumbed to temptation. Ask God to give you strength to endure temptation and to help you see the door of escape when tempted.

I Corinthians 10:13 NKJV

13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.