nov 28

Ephesians 4:3-13
3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.
7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.
8 That is why the Scriptures say, “When he ascended to the heights,he led a crowd of captivesand gave gifts to his people.”
9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world.
10 And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.
11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

Ebenezer Stooge saw a strange figure standing before his bed. Its hair was white, yet the spirit's face appeared as young and wrinkle-free as a skin cream commercial. It wore a long white gown and seemed to hang weightlessly in the air. "Who the Dickens are you?" Stooge asked. "What are you doing here?" The phantom said simply, "I have come to show you your past." The ghostly figure summoned Stooge to follow him. Stooge did, wearing only his oversized Xena, Warrior Princess T-shirt. They passed through Stooge's bedroom door and into a church, though none of the worshipers seemed to notice his sudden appearance. "Look around," the phantom said. Stooge looked around and recognized Carrie, a friend he'd made in Sunday school. Stooge had pretty much ended their friendship after a silly fight they had had in seventh grade. The phantom pointed at another figure. "Remember, in ninth grade you wanted to tell a friend about Christ, but you didn't know how?" Stooge nodded without looking at the figure; the memory was bitter because his friend had moved away soon after, and Stooge had never seen him again. "Carrie had the gift of evangelism, even at that young age. She could have helped you and your friend." The phantom's bony finger next pointed to "Fish," one of Stooge's high school buddies, whom Stooge hadn't seen in years. Stooge had quit going to church because Fish had wanted him to join the choir. "Fish knows how to worship God in a way that few people do. He'd have been good for you, too." Stooge began to feel a sinking sensation in his gut, when the strange figure pointed to the pastor. "You never did like him, did you? He just rubbed you the wrong way. But he could have taught you so much about the Bible." "OK, OK!" Stooge shouted, grabbing the hand of the specter. "I've had enough, OK? I realize that if I hadn't separated myself from so many Christian brothers and sisters over the years, I'd be a much better Christian, a much better person than I am now, OK? If I had it to do all over again, I'd do it all differently." Suddenly Stooge was back in his own bedroom. He no longer held the phantom's hand, but his fingers clasped his bedpost. The figure was gone, but Stooge heard a voice. "You have your wish," the voice said. "Do it differently."

REFLECT: Ephesians 4:13 says that unity with other Christians can help us become mature and full grown in the Lord. How do you think unity with other Christians can help you in this way? Be as specific as you can.

ACT: Reread Ephesians 4:3-13 in your Bible, circling every occurrence of the words one and unity.

PRAY: "God, help me not to separate myself from other Christians. I want to become 'full grown in the Lord'."

similar to previous devotions about the unity in the church. this devotion really spoke to me because as praise team members and the face of the mininstry, we are held responsible for many responsibilities that we are meant to carry out. for us, leading others into praise can help unify ourselves with the other members of our congregation. we are the face of the ministry and we have to kind of step down and not put ourselves higher than the rest of the people just because we are in the praise team. i think that us doing that can make us intimidating rather than welcoming. also, as Christians in general, we shouldnt hold grudges or run away from something that was offered from the church. in the story, Stooge had ended a friendship with Carrie and he stopped going to church because he didnt want to be in choir recommended by his friend Fish. if he had made the right decision and listened to what God was trying to tell him, he would have become a great person. whatever comes at us, is a message from God and we can either choose to ignore it or to listen to it.

man, i have so many projects to finish tonight....I shouldn't have taken art as one of my courses.

Christians support eachother....
many friends come and go at school but friends at church last for quite a long time. We all grow in faith together , see eachother mature in faith as we go through life. People can't always go through everything by themselves, the church is a family that should always be open, to help, and to provide. We all help keep eachother up and help everyone move closer to God. Each and everyone of us help build up the church and make it stronger. And im not talking about the physical church as in a building.
Like how God is always open, we should be open to everyone. When you help others in faith, you help strengthen your faith as well.

~Audrey~

4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

Stood outto me reminding me about the body of Christ and that we are one body. i remember Paster from retreat saying how if we see a rotten fruit on a fruit tree or plant our first reaction would be to cut it off. So if one of our arms were messed would wecut it off? we are one body with Christ.

3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
idk this stood out to me as well beacuse there are always those times when we feel far from God and the time when we dont feel God. In those times are the times where we should be closest to God because we are searching for him. If we dont feel that God isnt near than we wouldnt really be searching for him right?

and form the reflection about what we think about the unity of Christians from another culture? well. Ive beem to my friend's church and its not much different from what we do. they have a youth ministry, but i think that this can help us grow and help us ripen ourselves because we can learn from them and if we like something that there doing we can use it as wel to benefit our church

all i got gnite =)

Hah. Christmas Carol much? I hope you guys do know the movie.

Well, I think something that really hit all of us dead in the eye was when nothing really changed, and the angel said "you have your chance, do it."
It really seeks to explain that our whole life is basically a chance that Jesus has given us to redeem ourselves through him, and find ourselves in Christ's love.

It's really hard to expand on, but the simple line; Our life is Jesus' chance that he gave.

For me, God has shown his glory through people. Mainly through my parents and other important factors in my life. God has a way of kind of changing people generation through generation as his glory and his love spreads among all of us. Unity with other Christian helps each other with their spiritual walk with God. Not saying that it can't be done alone, it's just quite beneficial when you know you have people you can rely on. People that'll listen, that'll understand your situation. How I see it, it's just like church. The community. You don't need to go to church to be Christian but it sure does help listening in to a sermon that God speaks through. His wisdom is reflected upon his creation.

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

I guess you could say Praise team is one of the gifts that Christ gave to our ministry. He chose us specifically to be in this team and it's obviously a huge honour to be on that stage, leading praise. It's also a large responsibility that we have to fully carry out.

With this role in our congregation, we should be helping to show others God's love and leading in whatever we can.

Ok night!

Unity with other Christians is basically like fitting togehter a biggggggg puzzle.
each one of us is a puzzle piece and as we connect more and more, we obtain more knowledge and udnerstanding of God nad what the puzzle is a picture of.
Its key to unite with other healthy christians so that they can help you with your walk with god as well as you helping them.
We were all missing puzzle pieces and one by one, God is fitting us together to make one big puzzle as a unity.!

Really, I've been on every day this week and I've been on this devo and yesterdays on numerous different occasions and I'm still pulling a blank..

So, yes... sorry about that.