Filled With Power

Welcome!! I'm looking forward to our time together ... for this season we'll be looking into what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. As a follower of Jesus, God has provided us with the “power” to do His will. This power comes from the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49).

• Who is the Holy Spirit?
• What does He do?
• How do we receive this “power”?

As Romans 12:2 tells us to change the way we think, together we’ll do the digging and press the limits of our current understanding about God, His Power, and the reason He gives it to us. In the format of study, Q&A, and provocative discussion we will see what the Bible says about the most Powerful Force of Creation.

Begins Monday, October 26, 2009
6:00pm-7:00pm Dinner
7:00pm-8:30pm Meeting

Blessings!!

Relational Gradus - Accountability (syn: Responsibility)

In our last session, we shared thoughts on "deposits/withdrawals" and how they compared to agape love (love that expects nothing in return). We discussed the differences between working in a worldly economy of relationships versus a Godly economy of relationships. When we willingly give up our life for a friend, that evidences the greatest form of love (John 15:13 AMP). Finally, I believe we concluded that when one "tracks" or has "expectations" when making deposits, that it generally failed the true agape form of love. Does anybody see this differently?

Our next phase of Relational Gradus will move to accountability.

First, a little history on where I've been. Many years ago, I was taught the definition of accountability meant that I had to confess my sin to my "friend" and then after coming clean, he would check up on me to see how I was doing. The questions asked went something like this: "Did you sin in (fill-in-the-blank) area of your life this week?" Another instance was: "What life dominating sins have brought us to this point?" I don't know about you, but this kind of interrogation from another (frail, sin-inclined, fallen, etc.) human is a little disconcerting to me. Please don't misunderstand me, I don't think it's wrong to confess your sin to another person as we're instructed to do so in the Bible (James 5:16 NLT). However, when that other person "lords" it over you and treats you as if you are the "sinner" and they are the "holy person", then there is a problem.

A healthy relationship is when people mutually respect each other, are caring about each other, and will share their own struggles, sin, virtues, and victories. All of this is a normal part of healthy growth in the Lord. Back to the scripture in James … what I find VERY interesting is that is not only directs us to confess our sin, but it also directs us to pray for each other (versus preying upon each other). Finally, it talks about the prayer of a "righteous person" having great power and producing wonderful results. Now, my own personal opinion of "who" that righteous person is defined as the individual who stands in, and relies upon, the righteousness of God we have in Christ (Romans 3:22 NIV). It is this prayer that works the healing and restoration (see the Amplified version of James 5:16 for an expanded view of all of this).

On the topic of accountability, there is a synonym that can be used as well: "responsibility". I've found that an older definition of responsibility from 1836 is more in line with where we're heading and goes like this: "morally accountable for one's actions". In addition, we can consider the adjective form of accountable, "liable to account for one's actions". So, we can rephrase it like this: "accepting responsibility for your actions and the resulting consequences, both short and long term". We live in a society in which people often shirk their personal responsibility. This demonstrates a continued weakening of our moral fabric, which will result in a complete breakdown.

So, when we take personal responsibility for our actions and the results of those actions, then we are being accountable. That accountability emanates to everybody, including the Lord, as we live a life that honors Him in all we do. At the same time, we'll find people are less reticent to share their own failures, faults, and sins. In a nutshell: Being accountable opens me up and exposes me to another. It doesn't allow me to force another to expose him/herself to me.

Homework assignment for Monday, April 20th
Consider the following and come prepared to discuss:

• What definitions do you find on "accountability" and/or "responsibility"?
• When do you observe YOURSELF being accountable/responsible or not?
• Come prepared to share your observations (at least one for each of the above).
• Let me know if you have questions about this week's assignment.

We are rounding the corner on this part of our journey together. I count it my privilege to have you join me and help our growth in relationships. God bless you as we take the next few steps together toward the grand finale!

Blessings!

PS - You've asked for the next few dinner themes to be posted, here they are:
4/20/09 :: Chicken (baked, fried, etc.)
4/27/09 :: BBQ Picnic
5/4/09 :: Comfort Food (meat & potatoes)
5/11/09 :: Breakfast

If you haven't signed up for a main dish, please bring a salad or dessert to share. See ya!!

Relational Gradus - Compassion (continued)

Ok, we did some role playing and found it somewhat helpful for a few folks. I'm thinking that as we progress that you'll find a greater use for this kind of activity and perhaps your comfort level will increase. At the same time, we can't force somebody to do something they're not comfortable with. Since we all grow at different rates and are at different places in our journey with the Lord, it seems right to let others growth as they can in God while continuing to offer opportunities and encouragements for them. We each have areas in which we are more mature than others … it's ok that we don't look like each other (you should be thankful that you don't look like me!). Our call in Jesus is to look more like Him in character as we grow according to Ephesians 4:13 (MSG or NIV).

Following the role playing exercises, we got together in our small groups to discuss our assignment about where we observed ourselves either being compassionate or not. We closed our time together sharing the highlights from each of the small groups ... a great discussion that we'll continue it next week.

On a slightly different tack … I've heard it said that life is like a bank, that what you invest in it will pay back in dividends. However, I don't think it translates well to relationships because I'm finding it difficult to support the idea with some scriptural foundation (though I haven't done an extensive study). I am interested in having a discussion in our group about the concept of relational "deposits" and "withdrawals".

The agape love given to us from God (Romans 5:5 NIV) is the well from which we draw in our Relational Gradus journey. My reasoning is simply based upon the definition of agape love: unconditional and self-sacrificing. If we attach "withdrawals" to this kind of love, it becomes "conditional" in my mind. What do you think?

When we consider the "dividends" back to God in response to His "investment", I see that we come up short (Romans 5:6-8 MSG). Do you see it differently? How does our thinking on this line up with scripture?

Homework assignment for Monday, April 13th
Consider the following and come prepared to discuss:

• Visualize a spectrum - on one end there is the "deposits/withdrawals" concept … on the other is the unconditional "deposit", without expecting anything in return.
• See what scripture you can find that supports anything on the spectrum either one end or another or something in between.
• How does this influence our thinking on "transparency", "curiosity", and "compassion"?
• How does this affect our living in God's relational economy versus a worldly relational economy?
• Let me know if you have questions about this week's assignment.

Perhaps this next scripture is a little out of context, but I'll risk it: James 4:2-3 (NIV) says "… You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives ...". In James 1:5 (NLT) it says "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking." So, let's ask God for wisdom on this and be prepared to have a blowout discussion!!

Blessings!

Relational Gradus - Compassion

I've heard a saying that goes something like this, "When you're full of passion, you're empty of compassion." At first, I didn't agree with that, but as I've traveled this Relational Gradus pathway, it has become more apparent to me I was mistaken to think that there MUST be something related in the two words. Realizing that they share the same basic word (passion), it seems they would be more related. What I originally objected to in the quote above was the idea that you couldn't have both passion and compassion active at the same time.

My reasoning for this was when I think "passion", I think of our Lord Jesus Christ as He spent His last week - from the last supper with His disciples to the Cross - and how this is often referred to as Christ's Passion Week. I also consider the Mel Gibson movie, The Passion Of The Christ, and though I've owned the DVD for quite some time, the one and only time I've seen the movie was in the theaters. The movie was strong and quite compelling to me. It also set a capstone in my own personal healing of a relational break that occurred more than seven years ago. I'm still processing the healing that God has brought me and have gained greater understanding of my responsibility to Him in all relationships. I'm also getting closer to taking what I believe will be the next step in restoring that broken relationship.

As our group discussion unfolded, we talked about how passion is most often characterized and defined as "self" oriented … with the exception of the final dictionary offering: "Archaic. the sufferings of a martyr." In other words, our society has shifted the understanding of passion as something away from what Christ manifested in dying on the Cross and restoring our relationship with God the Father.

Alternately, our discussion on compassion went most often in the direction of "others minded". Which, if you think of the Passion of Jesus, that's the epitome of what, why, and how He did what He did … for others. That's where my original objection to the above quote stemmed from. Additionally, our discussion revealed that compassion demands action. The word itself is founded on doing something about what you're feeling - to the benefit of the recipient.

We will continue the topic of compassion as we join together again on April 6th along with taking time for some role playing.

Homework assignment for Monday, April 6th
Observe relational interactions with others and note the following:

• Read the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) and refer to the definitions of passion and compassion.
• When do you observe YOURSELF showing compassion or not?
• Come prepared to share your observations (at least one for each of the above).
• ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENT: Come prepared with a real life situation that you would be willing to offer as a role play. We'll do one in the "big" group and then afford time for another one in the small group break out.

Thanks for joining me in this journey!!

"Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will." - William Cowper

Blessings!

Relational Gradus - Curiosity (continued)

Once again, we didn't have opportunity to role play. A question that one might ask is: "What is so important about role playing?" or "What is your obsession with role playing?" Well, first, I have many obsessions, so I don't want to take you down that road. :)

Now, let's think of role playing as trying on clothes at the store. In that process, we ensure they fit properly, we check out our overall appearance, we decide if alterations are necessary, and if our significant other or friend agrees with our assessment. Sometimes, we think we look pretty sharp, only to answer the knock on our door one day to see Stacy and Clinton standing there (What Not To Wear)! The process might be easier with clothes and a mirror. But, when it comes to how we think, talk, and act it's nearly impossible, without help, to get an accurate assessment in our interactions with others. (You may recall that we touched on this "think, talk, act" concept of free will when we had The Garden Model discussion. If you're interested, please feel free to bring it up and we can take a few minutes to review the concept.)

Role playing allows us to consider the mental and perception reflections from others much as a mirror affords the visual reflections. When we hear and consider what folks think and perceive as they observe us, we can learn some invaluable insight. As it has been said, what people perceive you to be is who you are to them. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that we become obsessive (remember, I have lots of those points) about what others think of us. However, we would be remiss if we simply ignored input from others. Okay, enough on that.

In our March 16th session we talked about what genuine curiosity is about. Here is a simple diagram to help refresh your memory. In it we can see that curiosity spans a spectrum from bad to good. The highest goal would be to align ourselves to a thinking that Jesus extols in Luke 18:16 MSG by taking a child-like attitude to our approach to the Kingdom - which is exclusively relational in essence. As the diagram portrays, our curiosity can be veiled in many ways. The more we become aware of our curious nature, the more we can effect positive change of that nature.

Homework assignment for Monday, March 23rd
Observe relational interactions with others and note the following:

• When do you observe YOURSELF showing child-like curiosity or not?
• Come prepared to share your observations (at least one for each of the above)

We are on a learning journey with God. He has so much to teach us and we have so much growing up to do when it comes to relationships. Be challenged to change your thinking to align more with God's thinking (Romans 12:2 NLT). Thanks for reading and joining me in this journey!!

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes


Blessings!

Relational Gradus - Curiosity (continued)

Ok, we didn't get a chance to do our role playing, but we will!! We did, however, begin our discussion on curiosity and its connection with transparency. The theory on the table right now that we're testing is "What Happens When God Asks Why?". I propose, based on my own study, that God asks "why" of humankind for two reasons. One, to turn us from sin, or, two, to reveal the results of sin. I'm encouraging anybody and everybody to look at scripture and see if you understand it differently.

We finally reviewed a few clips from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice in regard to Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. We saw how their relationship evolved and how the transparency and curiosity grew with it. Does anybody have other thoughts they'd like to share on what you observed?

We'll continue our curiosity dialog next week ... keep this in mind: When Jesus said we must be like little children in our approach to the Kingdom, what do you think He meant?

Homework assignment for Monday, March 16th
Observe relational interactions with others and note the following:

• When do you observe the other person being curious OR not curious?
• When do you observe YOURSELF being curious or not curious?
• Come prepared to share your observations (at least one for each of the above)

As we continue our Relational Gradus education, we'll have greater opportunity to allow God to expand us and challenge us in what we're learning. As Albert Einstein echoes Romans 12; "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.", the more we learn, the more we're responsible to live. Allow your thinking to change so that you can become all that God wants you to be for His purpose and His glory!! It's an exciting time to live for Jesus, right?

Blessings!!

Relational Gradus - Curiosity

In our Relational Gradus journey, we've covered the concept and initial exercises for "transparency". For our next meeting on March 9th, we'll wind down the topic of transparency with some role playing. I'm thinking you'll find it entertaining and revealing at the same time because it's amazing how non-transparent we can be in some of the simplest aspects of life. You'll have opportunity to share your perspectives on this as well. Don't worry, it's not that we won't touch this topic again, as we will.

Additionally, we'll be doing another movie analysis as an introduction to the "curiosity" level of our relationships. We'll also discuss what is revealed when we ask "why" in our relationships. It's a packed agenda, if you agree to go there together, and I'm very excited about the journey we're on and looking forward to seeing you all again.

Have a great week and God bless you!