Lesson 1
October 9, 2014
www.WisdomForInspiredLiving.com

You Must Be Born Again (John 3:1-21) 3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again[b] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[c] 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You[d] must be born again.’ 8 The wind[e] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you[f] do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.[g] 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.[h]

For God So Loved the World 16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

DISCUSSION:

ACTIVITY: Write down 2 things you believe are true about yourself, good or bad.

A)       Host: Provide paper, pens, and compile the list into a basket.  Read them out loud to each other. (Explain it is not to shame or embarrass, but to bring our thoughts about our identity to the light to be healed.)

PRAYER OF SALVATION:

PRAYER OF SALVATION Scriptures Provided by: BibleGateway.com Please note: The Salvation Prayer (sometimes referred to as the Sinner's Prayer) below, isn't any "official prayer" but rather a sample prayer to follow when asking Jesus into your heart. You can pray to God in your own words.

 Regarding the location of the Sinner's Prayer in the Bible? Well, there isn't one mentioned; it is only implied. The basis of the Sinner's Prayer comes from Romans 10:9-10. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." praying hands

Salvation Prayer

Dear God in heaven, I come to you in the name of Jesus. I acknowledge to You that I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins and the life that I have lived; I need your forgiveness.

 I believe that your only begotten Son Jesus Christ shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary and died for my sins, and I am now willing to turn from my sin.

 You said in Your Holy Word, Romans 10:9 that if we confess the Lord our God and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved.

 Right now I confess Jesus as the Lord of my soul. With my heart, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. This very moment I accept Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior and according to His Word, right now I am saved.

 Thank you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. I thank you Jesus that your grace never leads to license, but rather it always leads to repentance. Therefore Lord Jesus transform my life so that I may bring glory and honor to you alone and not to myself.

 Thank you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life.

Amen.

 If you just said this prayer and you meant it with all your heart and you have repented for your sins, we believe that you just got saved and are born again.  You may ask, "Now that I am saved, what's next?" First of all you need to get into a bible-based church, and study God's Word. Once you have found a church home, you will want to become water-baptized. By accepting Christ you are baptized in the spirit, but it is through water-baptism that you show your obedience to the Lord. Water baptism is a symbol of your salvation from the dead. You were dead but now you live, for the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed you for a price! The price was His death on the cross. May God Bless You!

Discussion:

2 Corinthians 5:16-18 English Standard Version (ESV)

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;

Discussion:

Matthew 9:14

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast,[c] but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Discussion about living in the world and living for Christ…

The Ministry of Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:

11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Discussion about leading others to Christ and the purpose:

End in prayer each person praying (Learning to pray)

Amen.


Resources: www.Biblegateway.com

I sat with two men considered most intelligent and prominent in our community yesterday, and visited about the Bible.  We continued to reflect on the same conversation.  The direction our world is headed and how do you stop it?

There is always an answer, and there is with this one, but I will tell you that each separate visit with these men started with an overwhelming amount of burden that we ourselves have placed on ourselves as a whole.  

Many people are taking every type of drug in the world, prescription and not, medical or not.   (Have you noticed the amount of prescription drug ads on tv?  Why is it in our faces so much?  Don't you think the Dr's can tell us what drugs we need?  Why the programming and conditioning?")  Many people are entertaining themselves in bars, or in promiscuous relationships, basing love on sex and not being able to distinguish between the two.  Let's give our children protection shots against STD's because we assume that we are a multi-partner society and that our children are going to start between the ages of 11-12.   We live in debt and greed, and fight over property when our loved ones die.

Now I'm not judging you, so tear down that wall now before you build it up.

Sometimes we need to throw a little truth in there to allow ourselves to know that the way we are living may not be the way, and that we don't have to continue that direction.

Colossians 1:13-14 tells us For he (God) has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, (Jesus) in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

That's where my story ads value.

Every conversation I had yesterday was that, we are living in a chaotic world, and that everyone has opinions and ideas, laws, and rules, but when you want to know foundation or truth, go back to the one thing that never fails, and that's the Bible, God's word, which never fails.

I hate Politics, but you don't have to go very far to know that we are completely dissatisfied with our current governmental situation.  Well, did you vote?  Let's take some responsibility.   I remember the election well, I didn't vote for our current President, not because he was "not white" but because I didn't agree with his beliefs and my belly and my conscious was screaming NO!  I remember going on Facebook and sharing my thoughts and being very loudly disagreed with, and accused of being racist.  I smile, because I hate racism of every sort, and anyone that knows me knows it's true.  I have an issue with unfair treatment which drives my passion.  But when we want something bad enough, we will find away to tear others down if they don't.

I don't understand Science much either, but the big topic in our house and has been for years, is that Pluto is now a planet again.  When I went to school, Scientists said, Pluto was a planet, when my children when to school, Pluto wasn't.  Boy did we have arguments over that.  Well the other day Scientists said, it's a planet again.

My point in the last two paragraphs is certainly not to point fingers at our Presidents or our Scientists, but to point fingers at God.  Listen, we need to build each other up, we need to continue to point to truth, to help those that may not know or understand.  A Christian is not meant to look like ISIS or like the world.  A Christian should look a little strange to you, you should call them "different", "bible thumpers" "holy rollers", you should be able to tell the difference between the world and Christ...  You can put the blame on the "one bad cop", the "one bad attorney" "the one bad President" or the "one bad Christian", but until we come together under "one Great God" we will continue to go the same way we are heading.

Sometimes it's ok to stand alone...especially if you are on God's side, he multiplies the two into many....just like loaves of bread and fish.

Give Thanks!  Choose you this day, in whom you will serve...as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord!

 I remembered several years ago, while going through my depression someone said something to me that has been with me ever since... she said, "Ang, I took the medication for depression and my emotions went from feeling sad, to feeling nothing...and the nothing was worse than the sad.

A few weeks ago, I wasn't seeing results like I wanted to with my writing, and I yelled out to God, "God, why did you give me this passion if it wasn't going to be effective.  I wish you would just take it away!"

He did...

I went from feeling frustrated to feeling nothing, and the nothing was worse than the frustration...

Today I asked God for forgiveness and asked him to flood me with His plans for me.  To restore me and build my character.

I share that with you to encourage you.  God has planted gifts within you.  Gifts that are under developed, but under construction.  God is developing you into a masterpiece designed only for you.  It won't look like someone else's masterpiece and it won't work to follow someone else.  God never intended you to be a mass duplication, he intended you to be unique, designed only for your purpose.

Don't give up...

Ask for more!

Tony and I had a great talk last night.  One that was long overdue.

"What do you suppose keeps us from doing what God wants us to do?" I said.   Tony was pretty blunt, but truthful.  "Well," he replied, "we probably get our feelings hurt, get prideful and then we pout."

Do you suppose that's true?  Have you ever laid hands on someone to pray only to wonder if you sound like a complete and utter idiot?  Does God really listen, does He hear, does He answer?  What if He doesn't, then what, are we bad Christians?

Have you ever thought you heard the voice of God speak to you, but you pass it off as your own voice?  If I said "God told me", would I be questioned?  Will someone think I'm strange, I mean really what would they think?  Especially since they know who I used to be?

Do you ever want to just be free, to dance, to sing, to shout AMEN, or to ask questions but don't because people might say something about you, or look at you funny? Maybe it's your own family, spouse, children, best friends. Why do you suppose they do it in the first place.  Do you think they really believe it's strange to be close to God?  Do you ever want to find out what God really wants for your life, but it just wouldn't be "cool" or "professional" to try to find out.

Tony and I have been going to the same loud, outgoing, free church for nearly 9 years.  We've listened to sermon after sermon about being free, allowing ourselves to worship God openly without fear...yet we look around, is anyone watching?

Does it matter?

We had just been to Tony's Grandfather's funeral, and I said, "do you suppose the priest felt silly praying or doing the funeral?  Do you suppose he worried about what people thought of him?"   Tony looked at me funny and said "no".    I said "why not, do you suppose it's because he knows he's a priest?"  Tony was obviously puzzled.  I continued, "Well, what I'm getting at is he knew that his job is to be a priest, to give sermons, to do funerals, to tell people about Jesus.  People don't find it strange because that's his job, he get's paid for it.  He can't just stop doing it, because it's his job.  Well, he could, but then he wouldn't get paid.  But you and I, we are just normal people, we don't have a title, people wonder what it is we preach Jesus for, and it's strange to explain."

Do we know what our title is?  If we really understood Christ, would we have questions like this?

Why doesn't everyone want to talk about Christ?  What is it about Christ that is so controversial?   Something that stands for something so beautiful, has to be such a debate.

It's been a bit of a dry spell for me.  I've been doing a lot of reflecting on the direction I want to take in life.  I do that often, and I won't promise I won't do it again.  I've been checking in on my Facebook and Twitter friends, reading other's blogs, trying to get my "true north" direction.  I've come to one conclusion, as I always do... there's an awful lot of "opinions" out there.  

I have no desire to jump in the rat race, although I've sincerely tried to hang in there.

I have no desire to just simply be a voice and chat, although I've tried that too.

I look at the direction of the world, and I look at my marriage and my children, and every bone in my body is screaming protect them.  Knowing full well, I will never have the ability to do so.  I will never claim to know all the answers, but I will claim to know the One that does.

Will people have issues with me?  Yes of course.  They always do.  They will always have issues with you also.  It's life.  I had an incredible mentor (boss) who showed me a lot...and one of the things is to get your "true north".  Set your eyes like flint on something you believe in, and then never listen to the Negative Nelly's.  They are all over, they include, your family, friends, and people with opinions.  It's called, an opposing force, attempting to stop you from succeeding.   I call Him Satan, and he tricks me often.  It's why my series of books is called, "You've Been Conned".  It happens daily.  But when you know the Truth, the truth will set you free.

What stops us from speaking freely about Christ and His Saving Grace?  What's your story?

I love to write, I love people, and I love to encourage.  Guess what, that gives me purpose.  What are your passions...Are you waiting for a degree to be who you were created?  I wonder where John the Baptist went to college?  I wonder what college Joseph attended to be ruler of the land, I wonder what scholarship David received to get into the best college in the country, I wonder if Abraham taught there?

I will become a top blogger, not because I want to be famous, although at one time, that was true.  I will become a top blogger, because God's word doesn't go out void.  I have determined that worldly success will make me fail quickly.  It knocks me down every time I get a little ahead...and it's only discouraging if I'm looking at me.  If you are looking at me to help you succeed, then I'm missing the mark there too.  Don't follow me because I have the answers, I don't.  Come along side me because together we will discover Truth.

Today I'm taking a new direction, sometimes you have to do that in life.  It's not about excuses, although we can sure come up with a ton.  Grab your passion, set a goal and succeed.  The world is there to challenge you, not to bring you down.  We are American's, living the American dream, and in God We Trust.   It's what we do best!