Thursday, May 8, 2014

Sharing your faith Wednesday May 7th - Pastor Bob shared in Youth Group

Insights on sharing your faith

1. Arguments are counter-productive. They generate more heat than light, but contending for the faith is important. Jude 1:3
2. Knowing some basics about some false churches and religions and cults is very important.
3. Know basic important things about the Bible.
4. Know how to give your personal testimony in around 3 minutes.
5. Witnessing for The Lord Jesus is mandated, but we cannot do it without the help of the Holy Spirit.
6. Methods in witnessing (best not to argue; if a person does not want to exchange information, then we need to pray for them. We cannot do the convicting work that only the Holy Spirit can do).
      a. Door to door
      b. Personal street evangelism
      c. Friendship evangelism
      d. Group evangelism
      e. Other methods

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Serving Leftovers to God 
April 30th, 2014
(this concept is from Chapter 5 of the book "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan)

How would you feel if your friend invited you out for dinner and  served you scraps from an old Big Mac that they had eaten yesterday and placed half eaten chicken nuggets with some crusty BBQ sauce in front of you for you to enjoy? Not too flattering to say the least...

As we looked at Malachi 1:8-10 on Wednesday night, the priests at this time in Israel's history were sacrificing the worst animals to God so they could reserve the best for themselves. God made it clear that He wasn't interested in their leftovers. He would have rather the priests shut down the whole sacrificial system rather than continue in disobedience and disrespect.

Most times when we're going through the motions of life we justify our half-hearted efforts by asking ourselves "isn't something better than nothing?"  This passage helps us to reconsider tossing God our scraps. When it comes to serving God with our time, money, resources, and priorities, God wants our very best.

How can you give God your best today?