Lesson (11) Disciple: The Metamorphosis - Willing to Endure Growing Pains?

Am I a Wimp? Yes, but in my weakness God is glorified! My journey must include allowing God to stretch me beyond my comfort zone. This “stretching” gives the Holy Spirit room to work in my life. My life must reflect the ministry that God has given me as His redeemed, as His priest on earth.


Often, however, our patterns of thinking fool us into believing that we are doing a good job of being a Follower, when in fact we are nothing more than a Fan.

Attitudes are patterns of thinking formed over a long period of time – a way of approaching life. We choose our attitudes and get use to reacting a certain way that becomes automatic and in time we cease to see them as actual choices. We may feel trapped in the wilderness of discontentment as the Israelites were. They were sentenced by God to 40 years of wandering and eventually death for their attitude of discontent: murmuring and complaining. We are NOT trapped. We can leave the parched land by filling our lives with gratitude. Get ready for “takeoff” when you decide that God needs to change you.

LOOK UP!

Lord, I want the landscape of my life to change. I want to experience the unhindered joy and blessings that You have promised to those who will leave the wilderness attitudes behind and move into the promised land of attitudes that please you.

Ezra 6:22

For seven days they celebrated with joy the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because the LORD had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.

Romans 15:5

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,

Ephesians 4:22-24 (Definition of what?)

put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness….30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

1 Peter 4:1

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.

GROUP DISCUSSIONS


We have had a handout on the Sanctification Process because we realize from Titus 3:5-7 that God saves us through 2 processes: (1) Washing of Regeneration and (2) Renewing of the Holy Spirit. We hear much about the first process in our fellowship, but not so much about the second process. We want to become more familiar with this process now.

In this lesson there will be Scriptures and Graphics. It is the task of your group to match the Scriptures with the segment of the graphic that makes most sense to your group. If you think multiple numbers apply, then go ahead and indicate all that apply. If you don’t have a clue, put a question mark!

Graphic Handout:
balloon.pdf