Saturday, January 13, 2007
Rockford Rescue Mission Commitment
Rockford Rescue Mission
Life Recovery Program
Commitment to Four Life Changing Practices
We as staff welcome you as you join us on the walk into the abundant life of a close relationship with Jesus Christ. , If you have not yet experienced spiritual life in Christ, you are still separated from God and dead in your sin. , We will point you to life discovery through faith in Jesus Christ. He is the life and the only way to heaven .
After receiving Christ, staying close to Him into abundant life is not easy. But being connected and surrendered to Him is much easier than trying to live life without Him.
You must decide if you are going to pay the price for entering and pursuing your own recovery from sinfulness and its life-destruction. If you are not willing to pay the price, you will stay stuck in death. But if you will continue to pay the price, you will be greatly enriched and rewarded.
For us to guide you into life recovery/transformation in Christ, you must join us in the following four-fold commitment:
1. To Remember I am a Child of God
“See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God.”
The Bible says we are all created in the image of God, belong to Him, and deserve to be treated with love and respect. When we received Christ, we became new creatures in Him. To be in Christ is a miracle of God’s amazing grace. Now by identity with Christ we are the children of God. To increasingly understand “God’s grace in all truth” is life transforming.
Therefore, we choose to teach and to encourage one another to know the fullness of our true identity in Christ Jesus. Then we will celebrate the wonder of God’s love and grace in making us His in Christ.
2. To Pursue Christlikeness as My Goal
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
We choose to be imitators of God. As we moment by moment so choose, by the Holy Spirit we will become more like Jesus Christ Who is “full of grace and truth.” He is our standard. We choose to “walk as children of light…trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” and to follow Him into love, faith, purity, and hope.
We as staff will model maturing Christ-likeness to you our residents. And you as residents will follow us as staff as we follow Christ.
3. To Practice Self-examination and Correction
“Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD.” “If we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.”
To change for good is hard. It’s easier to avoid the price and pain of change. We can follow the rules of the authorities over us and so give the appearance of cooperation, while our hearts can remain resistant, resentful, and rebellious to God and to one another. But we choose to not play this deadly game.
We choose to stop wasting time, to be for real, to embrace the truth, and to have the humility and courage to face our bondages. While experiences at the hands of others may have deeply hurt us and greatly influenced us, we confess that we are always fully responsible for our own thoughts, words, reactions and actions.
We invite God to make known to us any hurtful ways in us. We choose to confess our secrets and failures to God and to those we have offended.
4. To Be Mutually Encouraging and Accountable
“But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today’, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
We cannot experience significant personal change alone. We need each other. Before God we are responsible for one another as brothers in Christ and members of Christ’s body.
So we choose to be accountable to one another, to hold each other accountable, and to accept the consequences for our wrong choices. Therefore, we choose to invite one another’s feedback of encouragement and correction, while remembering that it is easier for us to see the splinter in our brother’s eye than to see the beam in our own, to react with excuses, to blame others rather than to accept responsibility, and to be harsh or nice rather than to “…speak the truth in love.”
Through practicing self-examination and correction and mutual accountability, we will ask for God’s grace to learn from our failures and their consequences, to start over, to make better choices, and to change from the inside out as beloved children of God whom He has called to pursue Christ-likeness.
I chose this day, ___________________, to join the staff in this Four- Fold Commitment.______________________________________Signature
Genesis 1:26 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis3:12, 13 12The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” he woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 9:6 6“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 19This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Psalm 84:11 11For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
Psalm 139:23, 24 23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Proverbs 28:13 13He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Lamentations 3:40 40Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.
Ezekiel1 8:4 4For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
Matthew 5:1-12 1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them, saying:3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, or theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 7:1-5 & 12 1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 11:28-30 28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 22:34-40 34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
John 1:12, 14,17 & 18 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John 10:10 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 14:6 6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 15:4-5 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Romans 3:23 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:5-8 5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Romans 12:1-2 1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will
1 Corinthians 11:31 31But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
2 Corinthians 3:18 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:13 & 15 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
Ephesians 5:1, 2,8 & 10 1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ...10and find out what pleases the Lord.
Philippians 2:12, 13 12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Philippians 3:7-16 7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained
Colossians 1:6 6that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.
1 Thessalonians 1:6, 7 6You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia
2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.
1 Timothy 6:11 11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
2 Timothy 2:22 22Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Hebrews 3:13 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
James 5:16 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
1 Peter 2:21 21To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
1 Peter 5:3 3not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
1 John 3:1a 1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Life Recovery Program
Commitment to Four Life Changing Practices
We as staff welcome you as you join us on the walk into the abundant life of a close relationship with Jesus Christ. , If you have not yet experienced spiritual life in Christ, you are still separated from God and dead in your sin. , We will point you to life discovery through faith in Jesus Christ. He is the life and the only way to heaven .
After receiving Christ, staying close to Him into abundant life is not easy. But being connected and surrendered to Him is much easier than trying to live life without Him.
You must decide if you are going to pay the price for entering and pursuing your own recovery from sinfulness and its life-destruction. If you are not willing to pay the price, you will stay stuck in death. But if you will continue to pay the price, you will be greatly enriched and rewarded.
For us to guide you into life recovery/transformation in Christ, you must join us in the following four-fold commitment:
1. To Remember I am a Child of God
“See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God.”
The Bible says we are all created in the image of God, belong to Him, and deserve to be treated with love and respect. When we received Christ, we became new creatures in Him. To be in Christ is a miracle of God’s amazing grace. Now by identity with Christ we are the children of God. To increasingly understand “God’s grace in all truth” is life transforming.
Therefore, we choose to teach and to encourage one another to know the fullness of our true identity in Christ Jesus. Then we will celebrate the wonder of God’s love and grace in making us His in Christ.
2. To Pursue Christlikeness as My Goal
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
We choose to be imitators of God. As we moment by moment so choose, by the Holy Spirit we will become more like Jesus Christ Who is “full of grace and truth.” He is our standard. We choose to “walk as children of light…trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” and to follow Him into love, faith, purity, and hope.
We as staff will model maturing Christ-likeness to you our residents. And you as residents will follow us as staff as we follow Christ.
3. To Practice Self-examination and Correction
“Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD.” “If we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.”
To change for good is hard. It’s easier to avoid the price and pain of change. We can follow the rules of the authorities over us and so give the appearance of cooperation, while our hearts can remain resistant, resentful, and rebellious to God and to one another. But we choose to not play this deadly game.
We choose to stop wasting time, to be for real, to embrace the truth, and to have the humility and courage to face our bondages. While experiences at the hands of others may have deeply hurt us and greatly influenced us, we confess that we are always fully responsible for our own thoughts, words, reactions and actions.
We invite God to make known to us any hurtful ways in us. We choose to confess our secrets and failures to God and to those we have offended.
4. To Be Mutually Encouraging and Accountable
“But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today’, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
We cannot experience significant personal change alone. We need each other. Before God we are responsible for one another as brothers in Christ and members of Christ’s body.
So we choose to be accountable to one another, to hold each other accountable, and to accept the consequences for our wrong choices. Therefore, we choose to invite one another’s feedback of encouragement and correction, while remembering that it is easier for us to see the splinter in our brother’s eye than to see the beam in our own, to react with excuses, to blame others rather than to accept responsibility, and to be harsh or nice rather than to “…speak the truth in love.”
Through practicing self-examination and correction and mutual accountability, we will ask for God’s grace to learn from our failures and their consequences, to start over, to make better choices, and to change from the inside out as beloved children of God whom He has called to pursue Christ-likeness.
I chose this day, ___________________, to join the staff in this Four- Fold Commitment.______________________________________Signature
Genesis 1:26 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis3:12, 13 12The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” he woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Genesis 9:6 6“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 19This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Psalm 84:11 11For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
Psalm 139:23, 24 23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Proverbs 28:13 13He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Lamentations 3:40 40Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.
Ezekiel1 8:4 4For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
Matthew 5:1-12 1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them, saying:3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, or theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 7:1-5 & 12 1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 11:28-30 28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 22:34-40 34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
John 1:12, 14,17 & 18 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John 10:10 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 14:6 6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 15:4-5 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Romans 3:23 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:5-8 5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
Romans 12:1-2 1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will
1 Corinthians 11:31 31But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
2 Corinthians 3:18 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:13 & 15 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
Ephesians 5:1, 2,8 & 10 1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ...10and find out what pleases the Lord.
Philippians 2:12, 13 12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Philippians 3:7-16 7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained
Colossians 1:6 6that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.
1 Thessalonians 1:6, 7 6You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia
2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.
1 Timothy 6:11 11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
2 Timothy 2:22 22Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Hebrews 3:13 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
James 5:16 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
1 Peter 2:21 21To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
1 Peter 5:3 3not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
1 John 3:1a 1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
# posted by Cal Skinner : 2:50 PM
