Sunday, May 15, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Living Toward Sanctification (Chris)

This lesson is based on the October 20th passage from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers: What is the purpose of our lives?  Our Salvation has been won by Christ.  We are promised eternal life with Almighty God.  What about here and now?  Is life just a waiting room where we bide our time until paradise arrives?  Not according to Scripture and not based on the life of Jesus.  Sanctification is our purpose: growing closer to God and becoming more like Christ.  It is what we are asking for when we pray, "Thy will be done."  Sanctification is striving, active, living faith.  This lesson considers how to pursue it as true disciples.

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Sunday, May 1, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: What Do You Want? (Randy)

What do you want? We spend a lot of our time and mental energy trying to answer that question. Our wants and needs vary widely, but in the end, we typically want something for ourselves.  God offers a different answer to that question, and when we embrace his answer, he blesses us with far more than we ever thought we wanted. Join us as we wrestle with this timeless question and how our faith informs the answer.


Sunday, April 24, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Temptation and Deliverance (Chris)

Temptation is a constant in life.  We are lured in ways large and small away from the light and love of God and towards sin and darkness.  Even Jesus was tempted.  Oswald Chambers asks a provocative question: "Is there good in temptation?"  He also contrasts our typical, worldly temptation with the more advanced versions overcome by Christ.  This lesson explores how we should address temptation in our discipleship and how it can serve as a gauge of progress in our spiritual journeys.

Sunday, April 10, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Christ's Agony and Our Access (Randy)

The night before Jesus gave himself up for us, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed earnestly to God. A great spiritual battle took place as he agonized over what was to come the next day. What happened that evening, and why does his anguish give us such confidence in our access to God? In this lesson, we explore the decision Jesus made to go to the cross and why it makes all the difference in our lives.

Sunday, April 3, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Loving Christ (Chris)

"Jesus loves me."  This truth is the foundation of our faith from earliest childhood, but it is difficult for us to comprehend the magnitude of Christ's love.  Jesus loving us enables us to love him fully and to be connected to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in the process.  This week, we will use C.S. Lewis's "Four Loves" (affection, friendship, romance, sacrifice) to explore just how wonderful and miraculous Christ's love is, and how we can be spiritually transformed by it.

Sunday, March 27, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Friendship with God (Randy)

We continue our study of select passages from My Utmost for His Highest by early 20th century Scottish evangelist Oswald Chambers. In his March 20th entry, Chambers challenges us to recognize and delight in the true friendship we have with God through Jesus. Despite the call to invest deeply in this friendship, we often treat our relationship with God transactionally instead. What does a true friendship with God look like, and what does it mean for how we understand God’s will when we pray?

Sunday, March 20, 2022

My Utmost for His Highest: Who You Are, What to Do (Chris)

As we continue to study passages from My Utmost for His Highest, Chris will explore the passage from June 21st, “The Ministry of the Inner Life.” Identity and activity are linked directly.  Who we believe we are drives what we do.  This program explores that connection in light of Christian Discipleship.  It further seeks to answer the question, how do we live the Abundant Life in Christ to which we are called in a world of scarcity, difficulty, and darkness?