Princess Hat
Spiritual Sleep Mode: When I’m not using my computer, it goes to sleep. You have to move the mouse to wake it up. That’s how it is with our spiritual lives… we will fall back to sleep spiritually if we are not constantly, daily growing in our Christian life.
What does this growth look like?
- Wake up early and spend time in prayer and Bible reading every day?
- Share my life with my neighbors, serving them and getting to know them?
2 Peter 1:3-8
Faith, Virtue, Knowledge, Self-control, Steadfastness, Godliness, Brotherly affection, Love
How are you doing with these things?
Why is it so difficult to grow spiritually? What are the obstacles?
Laziness, Apathy, Other things are more important to me, Weakness
Peter identifies something surprisingly different: Forgetfulness
2 Peter 1:9 – Open our eyes and remember our salvation!
We were created to be God’s friends, but sin has separated us (divorced us).
Salvation is forgiveness of sin, but it also has a positive aspect. We are forgiven (negative aspect) and we are declared and made new (positive aspect).
Passive Righteous
Romans 3:20-22 – Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
God doesn’t merely give us a clean up job. He demolished our old lives and has given us a completely undeserved new life–a life through faith in Jesus.
We are declared righteous in God’s sight because of Jesus’ perfect record given to our account.
Adoption
Romans 8:15-16 – Princess Hat–When Laurie is feeling down and out, she puts on her plastic princess hat to remind her that she is the child of a king by grace through faith in Jesus. This gives her the confidence she needs to persevere.
Repent of Performing to impress God with your good works. Admit that you need your house demolished and replaced with Jesus’ house.
Repent of Pretending you’re not that bad and believe you are identified as a son or daughter of the King.
You may think you don’t know how to think about the gospel during the day, but the truth is, you think about the gospel all the time.
We are all looking for righteousness and identity (acceptance, approval, security, and significance)… because we were created to find them in God. So every time you think, “I wish I was in that group, or I wish I was better at sports because…” you’re thinking about the gospel. But it’s a false gospel.
I think about food all the time. Sometimes, I look to food to meet an emotional need… to bring me comfort. This is a trash can, I’m embarrassed to say, filled with candy bar wrappers from today. I believed the false gospel of candy bars today by eating these instead of believing that I am secure in Christ. I looked for comfort from this food instead of looking for comfort in my position as a son of the King. What are your candy bars?
