Much has went on over the past couple of months, which has taken focus away from updating the blog.  Catalyst was on hold for a while, we have it running again with a temporary speaker on the AM, while I focus on a family matter. Here is a short recap of the last session we had on Crazy Love before the break.

The title of this session was “When You’re In Love”

When you are in love you go to great lengths to be with the one you love.  I remember everything I would do when I first met my wife.  The back and forth driving, the late nights…just to be able to spend a few minutes after work with her.  The many times I would phone her in the payphone while working (this was before cell phones and txt’ing).

The question that was dropped at the start of this sessions was “Are we deeply in love with Jesus Christ?” 

Many times, we will just say, “Yes”.  But we need to examine our lives and see if that is really the case.  Even as I type this recap, I am examining some things in my life, and it is gut check time, are there changes to be made, focus to give.  Let’s be honest.

Are we craving a genuine love relationship with Him?

Galatians 5:13-14

Why are the words of Psalm 63:1-5 not an honest reflection of our lives most days?

Are we fooling ourselves? Can we really be in love with God and that it would be the most satisfying aspect of our lives?

God wants to change us, He died so that we could change. But are we letting Him change us?

Revelation 3:20

James 4:8

John 10:10

Not in the future, but in the now.

As we begin to focus more on Christ, loving Him and others becomes more natural.  As long as we are pursuing Him, we are satisfied in Him. It is when we stop actively loving Him that we find ourselves restless and gravitating towards other means of fulfillment.

We can experience closeness with God…these verses can help us communicate with Him.

Psalm 131:2

Psalm 4:7-8

Psalm 16:11

Psalm 28:7

Psalm 90:14

Psalm 119:111

Tell God:

• that you want Him to change you
• that you love to genuinely enjoy Him
• how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in your relationship with Him
• that you want to love Him more than anything on this earth
• that you want to treasure the kingdom of heaven so much that you’d willingly sell everything in order to get it
• what you like about Him
• what you appreciate
• what you struggle with
• what you are angry about
• what causes you to get frustrated
• that you want to experience His love
• how you feel
• what is really important to you
• what isn’t important to you
• that you want Him to change you

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog.  I need to get back into a regular groove. 

In Catalyst we have been going through a series called “Crazy Love”, based on the Francis Chan book of the same title.

This session was November 15. Here is a quick recap.

• Creation is simply amazing. God as creator, made over 350,000,000,000 (est.) galaxies. Generations of people never knew they existed.  What is our response when we look up on a clear summer evening and see the expansive universe?
• Look at the intricate detail of creation.  A caterpillar as 228 distinct muscles in its head.  The precision of the human body on how it all works together when healthy.  For instance, when you study how insulin is produced and regulated in someone without diabetes…when it doesn’t work you have the different forms of diabetes.  Precision.
• Whatever God’s reason are to make such diversity, creativity and sophistication the point of it all is for His glory.
• We are called to worship Him.  All creation echo the truth that He is glorious.

How do we learn to know God? Here are some basic and crucial points about God. Scriptures used somewhere under each point when teaching are in brackets.

• God is Holy – This means He is set apart, distinct from us. Perfectly set apart, with nothing and no one to compare Him to. (Exodus 3:14)
• God is eternal – We all had a beginning. Everything in creation had at one point in time a start to their existence, a specific time.  Everything that is but God.  He always had been, since before there was an earth.  Big bang…only when God spoke into existence the beginning of time, I guess there may have been some sort of big bang (not the scientific theory). (Psalm 102:12, 27)
• God is all-knowing – We can fool some people about who we really are.  Put on the masks.  But that is impossible with God. He knows us deeply and specifically. (Hebrews 4:13)
• God is all-powerful – Colossians 1:16, tells us everything was created for God.  We live though as if God is created for us, to do what ever we what.  Maybe we have watched too many Aladdin movies from Walt Disney. (Pslam 115:3, Daniel 4:35)
• God is fair and just – God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. (Proverbs 8:13)

When we stand in the awed silence before a mighty, fearsome God, whose tremendous worth becomes even more apparent as we see our own puny selves in comparison.

I will be posting recaps of session’s 2 & 3 soon (or at least that is the plan)

Getting this post out late.  Been meaning to get to it all week.

This past Sunday we completed session 3 of 4 that we are doing in Catalyst on Social Justice.

We talked about hope. 

With everything that we have talked about in regards to Social Justice and all the issues and problems ongoing in the world. There are 4 aspects of God character that we can trust in: (I am listing the scriptures we used for each aspect/trait)

1. Justice – Isaiah 30:19, Isaiah 61:8, Ecclesiastes 4:1, Psalm 10:13-14, Psalm 11:5-7, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Psalm 146:5-20
2. Compassion – Psalm 145:9, Exodus 3:7, Exodus 22:26-27, Psalm 9:9-12, Psalm 12:5, Lamentations 3:36, James 5:4, Isaiah 53:3, John 11:33-35, Acts 1:8
3. Morals – Isaiah 59:2+16, Jeremiah 5:28-29, Jeremiah 21:12, Amos 2:6-7, Zechariah 7:8-12, Luke 11:42
4. Rescue – Psalm 10:13-18, Psalm 35:10, Psalm 140:12, Jeremiah 20:13, Luke 4:18

Stayed tuned for the Facebook Event announcements for the Catalyst Meet-Ups. 

This Sunday we close out the series….next series on the horizon, Crazy Love, based on the book by Francis Chan.