PDL 29 (1/23/2017) - Accepting your assignment

  • You were put on earth to make a contribution
  • You were designed to make a difference with your life, to ADD to life on earth, not to take away from it.
    • 4th purpose for life - ministry/service
  • You were created to serve God.
    • Whenever you serve others in any way, you are actually serving God and fulfilling one o your purposes.
  • You were saved to serve God.
    • You are saved not BY service, you are saved FOR service.
    • You have a place, a purpose, a role, and a function to fulfill. This gives your life great significance and value.
    • A save heart is one that WANTS to serve.
    • Minister = servant
      • We are ALL ministers.
      • Once you are saved, God intends to use your for His goals. God has a ministry for you in his church, and a mission for you in the world.
    • You are called to serve God.
      • In China, sometimes they say Jesus has a new pair of eyes to see with, a new pair of hands to work with, etc. Pretty cool lol.
      • Need to be connected to a church family is to fulfill your calling to serve other believers in practical ways.
      • No service is EVER too small.
      • Churches die because Christians don't want to serve.
    • You are commanded to serve God.
      • Jesus came to serve, so should you.
      • Spiritual maturity is never an end in itself. Maturity is for ministry! We grow up in order to give out. It is not enough to keep learning more and more.
      • Most people need to learn to put stuff into practice rather than go to another Bible study.
      • Do NOT look for a church that serves you. Find a place to serve and BE a blessing.
    • If you do not serve others, you will lose your eternal rewards.
      • Life is meant for ministry. God wants you to learn to love and serve others unselfishly.
      • Service is the pathway to real significance. It is through ministry that we discover the real meaning of our lives.
        • What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived, but how you lived.
    • STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND HE WILL USE YOU.
    • QTC: Nothing! Maybe a little bit of time. But really nothing! I'm ready to get started with this small group! Let's f*cking do it! Not sure if God really allows me to curse or not.

 

 

PDL 30 (1/24/2017)

  • You were shaped to serve God.
  • God planned out every day of your life before you were born for a specific purpose to serve Him.
    • He never wastes anything. All of your abilities were planned.
    • "Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed."
  • SHAPE = spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, experience
  • Spiritual gifts
    • You have to be a believer to get them.
    • They are unique to you, planned by God, and given by the Holy Spirit.
    • They are meant to be used to benefit the church. DO NOT WASTE THEM!
    • "Gift-envy" = comparing your gifts with those of others and getting jealous
      • Everyone was given unique gifts. Be thankful for yours and use them to the best of your abilities. No service is too small to be noticed by God.
    • "Gift-projection" = expecting everyone else to have your gifts, do what you are called to do, and feel as passionate about it as we do
      • "There are different kinds of service in the church, but it is the same Lord we are serving."
      • This is a HUGE one for me because I came from a liberal secular background before this. The thinking is that everyone really should care about all the possible things going on and work to support it at all times. It honestly gets exhausting to follow and deal with. I haven't been able to keep up myself right now because I'm focusing on building my foundation in Christ first. It's sad that I missed out on the Women's March and less sad that I missed the inauguration, but what I realized is that I need to focus on my relationship with God first. Once I build on that and work on my relationships with friends and family, fellowship, etc, then maybe one day my ministry will involve serving this country. Until then, being aware is nice, but I cannot effective serve unless everything else is taken care of in the correct order.
  • Heart
    • Your bundle of desires, hopes, interests, ambitions, dreams, and affections.
      • i.e. all of your motivations and what you care about most
    • We instinctively care a lot about certain things and not others
    • Listening for inner promptings can point to the ministry God intends for you to have.
      • Enthusiasm shows that you are serving God from your heart. You enjoy it for what it is.
      • Effectiveness - the highest achievers in any field are those who do it because of passion, not duty.
        • Tapping into your God-given passions will make you extra effective at what you do.
    • "A simple life in the fear-of-God is better than a rich life with a ton of headaches."
  • QTC: Right now, I can see myself passionately serving others and loving it in a small group. Leading people through the lessons I've learned, especially over the past several years so that it benefits their lives in some way. New believers would be great. Younger people would be great. I'd like to be able to talk to people who have questions and are open to learning… so that I can help answers some of their questions, which are probably some of the same ones I struggled with before I came to believe. I have the gift of being super secular previously, and now being a fully devoted Christian. I also want to build faith in God with the patients I have. Will be hard with an aesthetic practice, but who knows. Maybe God will give me a sign and help me work it out somehow.

 

 

PDL 31 (1/25/2017 - 10:03pm) - Understanding Your Shape

  • Only you can be you.
    • No one on earth can play the role God planned for you. If you don't do it, it will go undone.
  • Applying Your Abilities
    • All of our abilities come from God.
      • They can be misused and abused as well.
      • Everyone has tons of abilities - at least 500-700.
      • Part of the church's responsibility is to identify and release your abilities for serving God.
        • I guess that's why Pastor Chris picked me to lead a small group. Crazy how God works.
    • Every ability can be used for God's glory.
      • "There are different abilities to perform service, but the same God gives ability to all for their particular service."
      • 1) Realize your ability came from God and give Him credit
      • 2) Use your business to serve a need of others and to share your faith with unbelievers
      • 3) Return a tithe of 10% of profit as an act of worship
      • 4) Make your goal to be a Kingdom Builder rather than a Wealth Builder
      • It's like this section was made for me, wtf lol.
    • What I'm able to do, God wants me to do.
      • God gave you your abilities not just to make a living, but for ministry! So find out what you're good at and do it for God.
  • Using Your Personality
    • You have a specific temperament and personality, so you must perform your ministry in accordance with the talents you have to make it fulfilling and effective.
  • Employing Your Experiences
    • You have been shaped by the experiences in your life, most of which are beyond your control.
    • Your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.
    • God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.
      • These are the experiences you have resented or regretted most in your life.
      • Only shared experiences can help others.
    • What will you do with what you went through? Don't waste your pain. Use it to help others.
  • QTC: I love to talk my ass off lol. I can offer my personal experiences with Julie and the family environment that I grew up in. It's crazy because it's still unfolding as I type this, but it's already helping to improve so many people and so many relationships. I have already started my ministry.

 

 

PDL 32 (1/27/2017 - 10:05pm) - Using What God Gave You

  • I am going to be the best friggin small group leader the world has ever seen. Or maybe that Saddleback has ever seen. Saddleback Irvine North? Maybe just the classroom we are in. Let's start with that. I thought about it today. I for sure want to make a small group for new believers and younger people in their 20s and 30s.
  • I also want to do something that probably hasn't been done before. I want to have a monthly or bi-monthly thing where I host a small group for nonbelievers who are open to hearing a bit about Christianity and having their questions answered. Even to try to challenge the thoughts that we have, so that I can try to spar with them and maybe get a few new people for God.

 

 

PDL 33 (1/28/2017 - 9:46pm) - How Real Servants Act

  • (read it yesterday, but didn't get to take notes)
  • We serve God by serving others.
  • God measures greatness by how many people you serve, not how many serve you.
    • We were made for SERVICE, not self-centeredness.
    • Our primary ministry is in the area of our shape, but our secondary ministry is in wherever we are needed at the moment.
  • Real servants make themselves available to serve.
    • Give up the right to control your schedule and allow God to interrupt it whenever He needs to.
    • Servants see interruptions as divine appointments for ministry and are happy for the opportunity to practice serving.
      • Remember this when you are on call lol
  • Real servants pay attention to needs.
    • Great opportunities to serve never last long.
    • Do little things as if they were great things because God is watching!
  • Real servants do the best with what they have.
    • M.D. = "make do"
    • "If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."
      • It doesn't have to be perfect for God to use it and bless it.
      • Almost everything we do is done poorly when we first start doing it.
      • Get started with 1-800-PLASTICS and with heavenlyplastics.com
        • God will eventually bless whatever He sees fit lol
  • Real servants do every task with equal dedication.
    • You will never arrive at the state in life where you're too important to help with menial tasks. God will never exempt you from the mundane. It's a vital part of your character curriculum.
    • Nothing was beneath Jesus because he came to serve.
    • Small tasks often show a big heart. Great opportunities often disguise themselves in small tasks.
  • Real servants are faithful to their ministry.
    • Faithful servants never retire.
    • When you are faithful with small tasks, God will give you many more responsibilities.
  • Real servants maintain a low profile - HUMILITY!!!
    • They don't promote or call attention to themselves.
      • If recognized for their service, they humbly accept it but don't allow notoriety to distract them from their work.
      • Real servants don't serve for the approval or applause of others. They live for an audience of One.
    • Many people start off as servants and end up as celebrities. They become addicted to attention (that was me).
    • God will reward His most unknown servants.
    • Do not be discouraged when your service is unnoticed or taken for granted. God is watching!
  • QTC: The biggest challenge in being a servant is being humble about it and taking care of the little things. I usually hate doing the little things - i.e. I do the top 3 things out of a list of 10 things all the time. I need to become better about doing that in service to God, esp when it comes to my patients. And pride, I've already talked extensively about, but the main thing I need to learn is 1) how to graciously accept praise when I am given it and then moving on and 2) how to think of myself less often and think about and appreciate other people for their work and contributions. These two major things will make me a better servant.

 

 

PDL 34 (1/28/2017 - 10:27pm) - Thinking Like a Servant

  • Service starts in your mind (YES IT DOES! LOL… I just got called to big service stuff)
  • God is always interested more in why we do something than in what we do.
  • Servants think more about others than about themselves.
    • Unfortunately, a lot of our service is often self-serving ("What can I get out of this?")
      • This is manipulation, not ministry.
    • Real servants don’t try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
    • Being a servant is challenging because it goes against our self-centered nature.
      • Humility is a daily struggle, a lesson I must relearn over and over.
  • Servants think like stewards, not owners.
    • Servants remember that God owns it all.
    • Living for ministry and living for money are mutually exclusive goals.
      • Money has the greatest potential to replace God in your life.
      • "After I achieve my financial goals, I'm going to serve God." That is a foolish decision they will regret for eternity. When Jesus is your Master, money serves you, but if money is your master, you become its slave.
      • God uses money to test your faithfulness as a servant.
        • Jesus talked more about money than he did about heaven or hell.
    • Kingdom Builders - change the rules of the game. They still try to make as much money as they can, but they do it in order to give it away. They use wealth to fund God's church and its mission in the world.
      • Make a Kingdom Builders' group (when the time is right - not perfect, right).
  • Servants think about their work, not what others are doing.
    • Don't compare with other people or criticize or compete.
    • We are all on the same team. We have been given different assignments, but our overarching goal is to make God look good, not ourselves.
    • No time for petty jealousy between servants.
      • Time spent criticizing others is time that could be spent ministering.
    • It is not our job to evaluate the Master's other servants.
      • It is also not our job to defend ourselves against criticism. Let your Master handle it.
      • Expect to be criticized. The world, and even much of the church, does not understand what God values.
    • Your service for Christ is never wasted.
  • Servants base their identity in Christ.
    • They don't have to prove their worth.
    • They willingly accept jobs that insecure people would consider "beneath" them.
      • Jesus was a shoe-shine boy, but he knew that wouldn't threaten his image.
    • Only secure people can serve.
      • Insecure people fear exposure of their weaknesses and hide behind layers of protective pride and pretensions.
    • When you base your worth in Christ, you are freed from the expectations of others, and that allows you to really serve them best.
    • Servants don’t need to cover their walls with plaques and awards to validate their work.
      • They don't insist on being addressed by titles, and they don't wrap themselves in robes of superiority.
      • They don't measure their worth by their achievements.
  • Servants think of ministry as an opportunity, not an obligation.
    • They enjoy helping people, meeting needs, and doing ministry.
  • QTC: For the last several months, I had been overlying concerned about how to make residency easier for myself. How to make it so that I had to do the minimal amount of work so that I could get out earlier. Granted it was so that I could get more study time, but even that in itself is a selfish purpose. I want to increase MY knowledge while pushing off the "small" stuff to other people. Yes, some of them are paid to do it, but other things are a team issue and should be handled as a team. I need to be a contributing member as much as I can be, and I think I've actually improved a lot in that sense since I became Christian.

 

 

PDL 35 (1/29/2017 - 3:28pm) - God's Power in Your Weakness

  • "I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people." 2 Corinthians 12:9A (LB)
  • God loves to use weak people.
  • Everyone has a bundle of weaknesses. The more important issue is what you do with them.
    • Usually we deny our weaknesses, defend them, excuse them, hide them, and resent them. This prevents God from using them.
    • "God purposely chose… what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful."1 Cor. 1:27 (TEV)
      • God deliberately allowed weaknesses in your life for the purpose of demonstrating his power through you.
      • He is drawn to people who are weak and admit it = being "poor in spirit."
        • It's the #1 attitude He blesses.
    • A weakness is any limitation that you inherited or have no power to change.
  • Admit your weaknesses.
    • Own up to your imperfections. Be honest. Don't pretend you have it all together.
    • The only way to make a proper assessment of yourself and grow is by
  • Be content with your weaknesses.
    • Weaknesses cause us to depend on God. God wants us to depend on Him, so that He may lift us up.
    • Weaknesses prevent arrogance and keep us humble.
    • Weaknesses encourage fellowship between believers.
      • They show how much we need each other.
    • Weaknesses increase our capacity for sympathy and ministry.
      • People will find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.
  • Honestly share your weaknesses.
    • Ministry begins with vulnerability.
      • Vulnerability is emotionally liberating.
      • Opening up relieves stress, defuses your fears, and is the first step to freedom.
    • Pretentiousness repels but authenticity attracts, and vulnerability is the pathway to intimacy.
    • Our strengths create competition, but our weaknesses create community.
    • You must decide whether you want to impress people or influence people.
      • You can impress people from a distance, but you must get close to influence them.
      • The most essential quality for leadership is not perfection, but credibility.
  • Glory in your weaknesses.
    • Instead of posing as self-confident and invincible, see yourself as a trophy of grace.
    • If you want God to bless you and use you greatly, you must be willing to walk with a limp the rest of your life, because God uses weak people.
  • QTC: I'm not hiding my weaknesses anymore. I am opening them up for the world to see. I need to be open and honest about everything in my life to help others.

 

 

Week 4: You were Created to Become Like Christ

Week 6: You were Made for a Mission

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