We sort of worked our way backward through the material this time, looking over the last questions first in order to see how all the wonderful truths in verses 31 thru 39 are made true because of the truth of verses 28 thru 30.

As believers we have encouragement and hope that God will freely give us all things, that we are not condemned, that we are more than conquerors and that nothing will be able to separate us from the love that is in Chris Jesus our Lord – and all this is true because, as believers, we have been called, foreknown, predestined, justified and glorified.

Salvation is the gift of God. A believer is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone.
We then had a passionate yet cordial conversation surrounding the meaning of such biblical teachings as being called, being foreknown and being predestined.
We were not all in agreement as to how these terms should be understood, though we all agreed that salvation is the gift of God, and for that we are all thankful.

For Christians, all things really do work to
gether for what God considers to be good and absolutely nothing can separate us from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!

It’s been a challenging passage each week, however these past 3 were especially piercing and seemed to open the flood gates of conversation. No one could walk away without come kind of challenge for their own life. God was confirming that these struggles, difficulties, pain and suffering are all things that He can work out for His good if we love Him. These things are light in comparison and God can handle what ever is happening. Not a week goes by that we are not reminded of the battle that is being waged for people and the destruction the enemy tries to bring. Praise God, we are more than conquerors.

See you all the 19th at Scotts.

We also appreciated Pastor Willie’s comments regarding our present groanings in relation to the coming glory. As he said, “The greater our groaning, the greater the glory.”

And not only do we look forward to the blessing of the coming Hope but we presently enjoy the abundant life that God has promised us in Christ. It is good to be a child of God, to enjoy the blessings of being adopted into the family of God.

It was great to be reminded of the awesome work the Spirit does on our behalf when He actually intercedes for us in certain times of difficult prayer. Though we don’t fully understand it, we thought it was awesome that the Spirit Himself actually intercedes for us when we go before His throne. And it was comforting to note that when He intercedes for us, we can be assured that this prayer is absolutely “according to the will of God.”

Again, we affirmed Pastor Willie’s observation: “The weaker our spirit, the stronger His support.”

Good to hear that the Wolf pack did a community outreach. Maybe we can purposly look forward to (or perhaps plan) an outreach of some sort towards the end of the next study? We have a Pie Night coming up at the Riverside Juvenile Hall on November 18th., which is a great event to promote.

Lots of good stuff to talk about at our Small Group Leaders’ lunch on Saturday, November 19th here at my house.

One thing we realized tonight was that with a third of our group gone the sharing was a lot more intimate and those who normally don’t talk at all, really shared tonight. People stayed around longer to talk afterwards too.

If we have a way to keep our groups between 8-12 it would ideal. That means praying for more leaders .

Our group also served at Butterfield School on Friday. Many of the activities were run by CrossWinds people and the ‘loads’ of candy that came in supplied enough so they did not run out. It was really fun to be a part of encouraging Jon Black and the teachers and students families at the school.

Blessings
ronaele for the Wolf’s

It was good to be reminded that believers are no longer condemned due to the fact that we have already died to sin and Jesus has paid the price for us – thankful for the grace of God.

Interestingly, we all agreed that questions 3 and 4 were actually misleading for they seemed to imply that a Christian could choose between the options of either walking according to the flesh or according to the Spirit.
We think that in context those verses are actually contrasting the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. After all, to be carnally minded leads to death (v.6) – and this is not true for the believer. And verse 9 tells us that as believers we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.

Obviously Christians can sin and be disobedient, but that is disobedience. It is not walking in the flesh that leads to death.

This then brought up the concept of the “carnal Christian” and the illustration from Sundays’ sermon, in particular the picture of Self on the throne and Jesus at the foot of the throne.

Everyone agreed that it is not possible for Jesus to be off the throne. Jesus is on the throne for both believers and unbelievers. Christians recognize his Lordship, non-Christians do not. But Jesus is still Lord and on the throne whether a person acknowledges that or not.

We understood that we’re all probably making the same point: a believer can walk in disobedience and act “carnally” at times.
We simply didn’t think that the term “Carnal Christian” was a biblical “category” as if there are 3 types of persons in the world – Non Christian, Christian and Carnal Christian. There are only Non-Christians and Christians.

To use the term “carnal Christian” as a category might mislead persons into thinking that they could have raised their hand or walked the aisle or said the prayer (or some similar outward act) at some point in their lives, and their lives could now be indistinguishable from a non-Christian, have no desire for spiritual things, and still consider themselves to be in fellowship with God.

There is no prayer, no fellowship, no reading of Scripture, no conviction of sin towards God but because they did that “outward act” and were told that they could simply be a carnal Christian, then all was okay in the long run.

Instead it would probably be best to advise them as the Apostle Paul did in his second letter to the Corinthians (the people to whom Paul addressed as acting “carnally”) when he said: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2Cor.13:5).

We will be meeting next week in order to enjoy a good Potluck!

The idea that many of us have given our lives to Christ and made Him Lord and yet for a period of time decided to live life our own way, be our own ruler as the illustration from the morning showed.(that illustration was used a lot) The testimony of Gods incredible grace and love that brought us to our knees and caused us to surrender the throne to the Lord once again was a moving night of how much we have been given and how little we deserve. It’s humbling.

We know there is a long standing discussion of whether or not a person is saved at all if they chose a life of sin at some point, however the group attested to Gods redeeming grace and unending goodness from our own life experiences and wayward decisions at times. It was encouraging to hear that no one is too far from the reach of our Father.

That my friends was just a tiny part of the conversation…it was very sweet fellowship.
I can’t imagine that you all won’t have deep discussions about this subject.

Our group decided to not meet this week, instead we are going to go to Butterfields Harvest Party and serve on the 28th.

Blessings
Ronaele

We appreciated what Paul taught elsewhere regarding the role of the law in our lives. He says that it was our “tutor,” to bring us to Christ (Gal.3:24). Now that we are in relationship with Jesus, the law no longer is our master who leads to sin and death, but the law is still our guide that daily shows us our obligation to strive toward obedience.

It was interesting to see how Paul taught (again in Galatians) that those who are under the law can in no way make themselves right with God. Instead, they are all “under the curse” (Gal.3:10) Very enlightening, and humbling, to see that Christ himself became a “curse” for us by hanging on a tree – the cross (Gal.3:13).

Jesus has done it all for us! Salvation is the gift of God.

As for the struggle between wanting to do good and wanting to do evil, we agreed that it was a sign of being a true Believer. Unbelievers do not have the struggle of serving the law of God with their minds and the law of sin with the flesh. For them, it’s all “the flesh.”

With the mind serving the law of God – again, the need to renew our minds daily with the cleansing of God’s Word.

Speaking of the flesh, we enjoyed some delicious carrot cake baked by Mary. Sorry, it’s all gone now.

That being said, my report from this week’s study is that our group is valuing the fellowship. We are using the questions to bring us back from either sharing laughter or sharing tears. We seem to have a similar view on most of the questions, and even though I stir up the possibility of differing opinions, we are usually pretty quick to talk it out and come to the same conclusion.

The ice-breaker question about the teen years led us each down the high school path. Lots of good memories and a few painful ones. We could all see God’s hand in the things we went through and the paths we chose that led us to this study and each other’s company. Real God-sightings!

Good question at the end. “have you ever cried out like Paul does at the end of the chapter?” Absolutely! Still do! And that, we concluded is not something we’re ashamed of but rather proud of. We get it…..

We had to pull ourselves apart at the end of the session in order to get home due to Thursday being a school/work night. Looking forward to more time with these people!