August 6, 2015 - Comparison: Van
Journal and smaller group: What is one thing you envy about other people? And what is one things you are good at as a woman... friend, wife, or mother, worker, or volunteer?
Group activity: List ways we compare.
Journal and small group: What are some of the fruits of comparison living? What does comparison living steal from you?
Teaching: A New Thought Pattern
Romans 12: 2-8
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Illustration:
The pattern of this world is a ______________.
In God’s vision, we are _____________.
Q.How does this change the way we think about gossip, Facebook, etc?
Q. How do we bloom where we are planted?
Ephesians 2 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
“The competition is between you and the you God wants you to be. If you want to compare yourself, why don’t you ask God about the you he sees you can be.” Nicole Unice
"God does not need to transplant us into a different field, but right where we are, with just the circumstances that surround us. He makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall upon us, and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances, into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. No dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that He will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into His hands, and let Him have His own way with you.” H.W. Smith