Week Nine

DAILY STUDY & TRAINING FOR REFRESH TEAM:

NEED AND PLACEMENT

Our study this week explores how we find what we are to do and when and where we do it in our lives as Christians. As a church family in Belvedere we believe God is asking us to reach out into our community. We believe working in the “Refresh Centre” is part of our response to that belief. We are engaged in a very, very small part of God’s big plan. We are working with God to see His kingdom come on earth as in heaven: what an amazing thought. We are being changed, trained and equipped in the kingdom business.

We can not just do our own thing
There is no independency in the kingdom
Proverbs 19:21

We see the need and want to do something. We want God’s Kingdom to come. Matt 9:35-38. Jesus sees the need. (How much can we relate Jesus’ description to our village?) The need is vast and it needs workers to be sent into (placed in) the harvest field. Think about the need, in what way is the harvest ready in Belvedere? Do we have the ability to meet the needs of the multitudes? Do we have a strategy? As we grow in our faith and begin to see the “need” we need to understand that God has a way to meet that need; His kingdom strategy.

There was another time Jesus saw the crowds, Matt 5:1. What was His strategy? What follows this event is that Jesus gives the manifesto of the kingdom. This is how the job is going to be done.

There is a story about Saul in the 1 Samuel 13:1-15 where Saul saw the need but did not have God’s strategy and got into a terrible mess. What are the important issues we can learn from this?

We have looked at John 5:19-20 before but it is important here to begin to see that if we are to follow Jesus’ example, we must see the need as He sees it and respond to what He wants us to do. Note these references to Abraham. Gen 18:16-19, Is 41:8 & James 2:23 showing the importance of relationship in the work.

What is more important, ministry, meeting the needs of the people or relationship?