Preach the Gospel to Yourself

[Jaylen]

I think that this section transitions well from the last topic, at least in it did with the types of things that stuck out to me.

I’ve really been considering the activities of the enemy in the context of missions, especially in our preparation season, we’ve seen a heightened level of “thwarting” in our lives since we began the preparation season. It’s tangible, to say the least.
So the book from Brooks is a great resource because I think as it pertains to the enemy’s schemes knowledge is power. If we understand what the enemy is doing- if we can see and detect his lies and activities -then we have the opportunity to pray/act against it. The enemy does his work in the shadows and does his best to poke little lies into our lives without us noticing.
So Brooks’ suggestions on how to combat the enemy are all surrounded by shedding light on these things and countering them with Godly things. We combat Lies with Truth, we combat death with life, we combat isolation with community, and we combat bad habits with discipline. This battle against the enemy is exhausting and constant, but it is worth every tribulation because at the end of it all we can face God and know that we gave our lives for him as living sacrifices.

[Daycee]

Excellent! find a verse or two that boost your faith and “preach” those to yourself regularly in this area.

[Emma Hodges]

I think an aspect of the gospel that I need to grow in so I can preach the gospel to myself is the element of faith. I liked this quote from the book; "Faith itself has no merit; in fact, by its nature it is self-emptying. It involves our complete renunciation of any confidence in our own righteousness and a relying entirely on the perfect righteousness and death of Jesus Christ. " (pg. 56, The Discipline of Grace). Faith truly is a full reliance and trust in God and I need to examine that more for myself.

Some notes from the books that I took away are:

– Sometimes Christians can fall into the trap of not thinking different then non believers in that we cannot be good enough to get Gods love. We can think that God’s love is dependent on our actions and if we were “good enough” that day, but that is not the case.

-Righteousness is available to everyone on the same basis. It is not based on what we can do or what we have done, but instead is simply based on God’s sacrificial love for us.