Wednesday August 28, 2013

Jesus Chellenge

The goals we set for ourselves can cover a multitude of areas. We can make goals for our personal life, our work life, our relationships and even our leisure time.

This week, we will focus on personal goals - goals that sum up who we are as a person.

As a cell, take time to individually share about the kind of person you want to be. This will form the crux of your personal goal. Give time for each person to make some notes as to how to progress from their current state to their desired state. Think about what things need to change and how they can change.

You don’t necessarily have to write out a goal this week. Just think about it and make notes.

Share your thoughts/notes with the wider group. Try to keep each other accountable in making the changes you wrote down.

A Short Note About Goals.

Goals that have the following characteristics are most useful.

Specific: When we are specific in our goals, they are much easier to reach because the pathway to that goal is much easier to work out.

Measureable: With each goal, we need to know what we are measuring or what to look for in reaching that goal. If we cannot measure a goal we will never know if we’ve made it or not.

Accountable: If you make yourself accountable for your goals you will be more motivated to reach them. If you are the only one who knows your goals then apathy could easily set in.

Reasonable: Goals should be reasonable and reachable. Unreasonable or unreachable goals will tend to drive us the other way because we know we are doomed to fail.

Timed: A goal should have a cut off point by which you should have reached your target.

Read Ecclesiastes 1:15-17. 1 Kings 3:4-15

Solomon, more than any other person before or after Christ Jesus, was apt to make a ruling about the usefulness of knowledge or wisdom in finding meaning and value in our lives. God granted Solomon so much wisdom and discernment that there never has been, and never will be, anyone like him.

 

With that God-given wisdom, Solomon sought to understand knowledge as well as madness/foolishness. He learned that this is a chasing after the wind. It cannot produce the desired results.

 

To really understand the foolishness of chasing knowledge apart from God, you need only consider the current state of “science” in the western world. As Ben Stein proves in his recent documentary “Expelled. No Intelligence Allowed”, science is the search to intelligently assassinate God. Science is geared towards disproving the existence of God and hence freeing mankind from the shackles of religion. But what kind of world will such a pursuit produce? Science can do nothing to produce love, other centeredness, kindness and sharing. Science cannot produce the sacrificial love of a mother for her baby. It cannot create the comfort of a father for his daughter with a scraped knee. A world built on ‘science’ will leave us cold, heartless and willing to kill or exterminate those who don’t produce or contribute to society. Rather than putting our aged parents into a nursing home to be cared for, such science will allow these older people to be eradicated for the sake of our own recreation, and leisure time and financial security. Without God in the picture killing babies for convenience is just simply OK.

 

Knowledge without God is a chasing after the wind. It simply cannot fulfil our deepest needs. It cannot fix humanity’s deepest problem - the problem of sin and rejection of God. As Thomas a Kempis said, ‘Every man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.’

 

Prayer:

Write down from your heart at least one prayer point for each category based on the following verse

 

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and His incomparably great power for us who believe.

Ephesians 1:18

Adoration:

 

Confession:

 

Thanks:

 

Supplication:

¥ Pray that God would bless the work of PIM - Presbyterian Inland Mission as they send Padres into the Australian outback. Pray that God would open doors for Padres to share their faith, to make disciples and to encourage the saints in the outback.

¥ Pray that God would work powerfully in the lives of the residents at Teen Challenge - Toowoomba. Ask the Lord to grow these men and women in into a true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and that they might be the start of a powerful harvest within this region.

 

Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. In what way would you say that Jack’s knowledge is meaningless or a chasing after the wind?

2. Let’s assume Jack came to you and asked for your advice. What advice would you give him to help him grow in Christ Jesus?

3. How could Jack change so that his head knowledge became parallel to or in line with biblical knowledge?