Wed. Night Impact

I think this was a great Wed. Night. It was a low attendance night because a lot of kids were home studying for finals, and some were sick, but I think we still had a great night. We did 3 worship songs, the last being Empty Me. Jerry spoke about getting rid of everything that was distracting them or keeping them from experiencing God, so that they would be able to hear from God tonight. I think that set a good tone for the rest of the praise and worship time.
I spoke about The Stomach last night. The week before I had talked about the heart. It was really about starvation. It wasn't about feeding the hungry in Africa or anything like that (although I think that is super important). It was about how we spiritually starve ourselves. I said sometimes we see ourselves as this:but God sees us as this:


Reading the Bible and prayer are as vital to our spiritual lives as food is to our physical bodies. If we aren't spending time with God we are starving ourselves. We can put on a good face, like we're spiritually strong, but we've actually starved ourselves. If we are feeding ourselves with regular Bible reading and prayer, then we won't be strong when bad stuff comes into our lives. We'll start to believe people who tell us lies that sound good. We'll fall away, because we are so weak.
We need to see reading the Bible as a way to know God more. It's not a checklist thing, where we can check it off for the day just like we do chores that need to be done for the day. It's to build our relationship. I spent most of my Christian life living this way, as a series of checklists. I read my Bible and prayed for 5 minutes today, so I'm good. I didn't cuss today. I didn't shave any stray dogs today, so I'm alright with God. I think I missed out on so much by living my life that way. So much that God wanted to show me or for things that he could have used me.
I used the passage from Hebrews 5:12-14 that talks about maturing on to solid food and leaving milk. If we spent our whole lives on baby formula, we'll quit growing. If our parents feed us from a bottle into adulthood, we won't grow. We won't learn how to do things. Plus, think about all of the great things that you would miss out on. You'd miss out on pumpkin pie, lasagna, burritos, and spaghetti. If we're still living on what we learn on Wednesdays or Sundays, and that's all the time we're spending with God, we missing out on so much.
I challenged the kids to make it a habit of trying to spend time with God every day, and making that a priority. I challenged them to join discipleship groups that start in February. But mainly, I challenged them to fall in love with Jesus, and show that by getting to know Him and His word deeply.