Another Good Samaritan

You are forever changed. Thank God every day for what He has done in your life. Let His praise overflow, because it can not be contained. Follow the example of another good Samaritan.
Remember Your One

- Make a list of people in your circle of influence for whom you will pray.
- Seek to model a Christ-honoring life before them.
- As you interact with them, attempt to understand their world—their hopes, frustrations and fears.
- Build friendships with them and the significant people in their lives—especially their family.
- Watch for opportunities to serve the people and their families for whom you are praying.
- Seize every opportunity to tell the story of what Jesus has done for you and for them.
Thinking About God

“In his extensive study of youth and religion, Smith concluded that MTD (moralistic therapeutic deism)–with it’s range of variations–tends to be the operative religion of American young people in the twenty-first century. This new reduced Christianity has three features: it isMoralistic–God wants be to be a good person.Therapeutic–God or religion should help me feel good.Deistic–God is a concept to adorn our lives but not an agent who really does anything.”
– Brian
Why These Guys?

“Scripture says Jesus spent an entire night praying before he singled out his disciples. (Luke 6:12-13) On the night of his crucifixion, Jesus reiterated that the Father had chosen the disciples. (John 17:6-7) Jesus did not choose twelve disciples as a matter of strategy. Nor was twelve an optimum number Jesus calculated for pedagogical reasons. He had a dozen disciples for one reason only: that’s how many his Father gave him. Would Jesus have included Judas if he were simply implementing a discipleship strategy designed to multiply his efforts? No. Judas was given to Jesus as a part of God the Father’s redemptive plan. According to Jesus, even the teaching he gave his disciples came from the Father (John 6:49–50; 14:10; 15:15; 17:8).”
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.” – John 17:6-7
Church Family

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul.” – Acts 4:32a
How Does This Happen?

“He does not merely note that humanity is ‘full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, [and] maliciousness,’ (verse 29) then blame all that injustice on society and dream up a utopian political solution the way Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did. Paul does not look at the bad fruit on the human tree and then suggest replanting it in the different soil of some new political ideology. Paul knows that the human tree is so hopelessly sick that whatever soil you plant it in, toxic fruit will form. No amount of political revolution, social engineering, or policy tweaking will stop envy, strife, deceit, and maliciousness from sprouting out of our sick hearts. Why were all the utopias of the modern era doomed to fail? Because the evil did not originate in politics, society, or the economy. It is expressed there, but evil originates in human hearts that ‘exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.’ This, then, is how Paul adds deeper hues to our picture of injustice. Look deep enough underneath any horizontal human-against-human injustice and you will always find a vertical human-against-God injustice, a refusal to give the Creator the worship only the Creator is due. All injustice is a violation of the first commandment.”
“You shall have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:3
EEM 30 Days of Prayer

Righteousness and Justice

Thank You!

As You Go

“In In his classic study, Transforming Mission, missiologist David Bosch reported that the Bible passage called the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18–20, was not understood to be primarily about mission until the early nineteenth century. Before then, the verses were read as part of the rite of baptism. Biblical scholarship has revealed that the mandate ‘Go!’ is not in the original Greek. It is a participle—’going.’ The translation would be ‘as you go.’ Theologian David Augsburger notes how broad the mission is with this simple change of ‘as you go’: ‘As you live, as you go about your daily work, as you move to new settings for service, as you join or create new communities of discipleship, as you fulfill your vocation as a follower of Jesus— you shall be witnesses. This is not a sales strategy. This is not a mandate for mass media. This is not a method for achieving church growth. This is a call to authentic, faithful witness in all of life.’”
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)