“Aren’t you being a little preachy?”
Many Christian teens may never ever realize it, but Biblical preaching and teaching can have a profound impact in our spiritual lives. God has chosen the proclamation of His Word to make a difference in our lives.
It’s kind of like the difference between looking in a mirror and looking at a picture of ourselves. We look in the mirror every day, and that is a perspective of our image that we see a lot. But then sometimes we see a picture that someone else has taken of us, and it’s at a different angle. It can be eye opening…
That’s what preaching does…God uses His Word to be applied to our lives in ways we may never think about. It’s important to put yourself under good, godly preaching.
So today, what did you learn at Sonshine? How can it apply?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
In this mornings service, Pastor Bales made some great points that stuck out to me. He asked the question, “How can we stay positive in a negative enviornment?” Well, God has a purpose for the difficulties we go through. We may not know what God has in store for our lives, and i know i think at times “Why is this happening to me?!” But, i just have to trust God that He knows what He’s doing! Thats why staying positive is so important. I have to have faith in God! (Authentic Faith ;)) God is with us. Always!!
Tonight’s message was very good. God made us to be the body of the church. The church is made up of “eyes”, “noses”, “legs”, “hands”, etc. (Which is us!) We are all diverse and God has brought us together with our different talents to be one body for Him! 3 important points that P.Ben made were: 1) I am an important part of the body of Christ. 2) I need the body. 3) The body needs me. 1 Corinthians 12:11-31 explains this so well, and i’m so grateful that God gave us His word so we could be a body of Christ for Him! 🙂
In this mornings service, Pastor was talking about reasons to be positive. He said that suffering produces three things: Perserverance, Character, and Hope. “There is a purpose behind our problems!” This is so true! I know every problem I’ve ever had, there has been a purpose for it, Most of the time when problems occur, my first instinct is to complain and think, “why is this happening to me…”, but in reality God has a reason for EVERYTHING and He has a purpose for every problem. Four ways I can develop inner joy: to express and have an attitude of gratitude, or thanks to others, giving, helping others, and sharing Christ. I know that I definetly do not thank everyone enough for what they do for me, and there is always something to thank God for so that never should decrease! I can definetly show others how thankful I am for them being in my lives, just thanking them for what they do for me, and continuing to thank God for everything!!!! I give a lot of my time to the church and to people in the church, but my heart is always telling me I can always give more! I’m such a people person and I love doing things for people. God gave me the heart to do this and I know I can always give more! I think I can help others in multiple ways. Pastor said this morning that there are a lot of hurting people within the church. I know this is true because sometimes I can be going through a hard time and I try to hide it so that people won’t notice. I know something that always helps me feel encouraged is by someone just coming up to me and talking to me and noticing the things I do and just saying that I’m doing a good job. I know that I can totally help others by just being there for them and just having a friendly conversation! I’m going to pray that God will push me to do this!! Now that I’m back in school, sharing Christ with others is something that I know I need to do! A major passion of mine is to help people grow in their relationship with God, but how can I help some of my own friends if they don’t even know God.. Bringing the lost to Christ has been a huge burrden in my heart for a long time now and I feel like I’ve finally reached the point in my life that I can do something about this burrden! I can put forth some action and conquer my fears and help bring the lost to the source of their rescue.. Their Savior!
Tonight Pastor Ben’s message was talking all about the church! God is the head of the church and we’re supposed to follow what God wants us to do within the church. We looked at 1 Corithians 12 starting in verse 12. Verse 12 says that ALL the members of that one body, being many, arte one body, so also in Christ. All of us in Sonshine Baptist Church are part of the boy of Christ. God is the head of the body which leads us. Cause like Pastor Ben’s saying, “Without the head, the body is dead.” Without God we have nothing. God is our direction and all of us make up the body. We are all unique and play differerent, but all important roles within the church. I am an important role in the body of Christ! We all are and without each other something would be missing! 🙂
I learned a lot in today’s lessons and I’m not going to let what I learned sit on this little handout.. I’m going to take what’s on my heart and really do something about it!
I wasn’t at church this morning, but I liked Pastor Bens message tonight! He was talking about how as the church we are the body of Christ, and all of us together make the church. Everyone has a different role, but we don’t work quite as well if a part of the church/body is missing (the leg, foot, hand, arm). The main points were: I need the body, and the body needs me! 🙂