Tomorrow night is the first on campus meeting at UC Davis for the fall! Come for free ice cream, worship, fellowship, and to see for yourself what Grace Alive is all about.
Today were passing out flyers for our Bible Study at Sac State on Monday! Hope to see you there.
Faith
From our series Developing Christian Character, here are notes from Mr. Morejohn’s message on Faith.
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.”
Faith is the foundation. Everything is added to it, and it is that which adds the rest. Your prayer should be, Lord increase my faith.
What is faith? From Hebrews 11 we know that faith demands our reasoning, intellectual minds to accept truths we cannot see. Faith believes that humanly impossible things are possible. Where reason cannot wade, faith swims. It goes beyond reason, but not in spite of it.
True faith in Jesus has three components: knowledge (hearing facts about Jesus), mental assent (agreeing with the facts about Jesus), and trust (commitment of your life to Jesus). Faith brings our souls in contact with Christ. Saving faith is not believing that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, it is committing your life to Christ who died on the cross for your sins. It is abandoning all reliance on yourself and saying, “I have nothing, all I am is in you.” Read more…
Spiritual Growth
From our series on “Developing Christian Character”, Mr. Perry gave a word about Spiritual Growth:
Spiritual Growth is growing in grace and truth. Growth can be measured by how much you conform to the image of Christ, and how much you are growing in your relationship to God.
You should be bearing fruit, more fruit, and much fruit.
We are talking about something more than growing in head knowledge; knowledge puffs up- it must be accompanied by grorwth in piety.
2 Peter 1:5 says “make every effort to add to your faith goodness…”. This is sanctification (being made holy)- a work that God does by giving us grace to work. It is 100% God’s work and 100% man’s work. Phil 2:3- “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” If you are not growing, it’s not that God isn’t doing what you expect him to do, it’s that you aren’t doing what he expects you to do.
‘…if you possess these qualities in increasing measure‘…. you have to be growing, this is not a measure that has been reached. First of all you have to have a desire not to be ineffective and unproductive- I want to grow because I want to be productive. Have a dread of being useless.
Who is it that can grow in Christ? Only those who are alive in Christ. Growth is a sign of life- dead people do not grow. You never graduate from growth. Many Christians suffer from infantile regression- going back to the nursery. True growth can only come about by the work of the Holy Spirit.This all begins with your personal devotion to God. Your godliness does not consist of the good things you do. He is the devout man who no longer lives in his own will or in the ways of the world, but lives for God. The Christian is a new creation of God- he is molding you into his image. Seek to grasp God’s vision for your life.
Like a tree, as you are growing upward you are growing downward- at the root level. Like a child, we grow slowly, but surely and steadily. Don’t wait for some experience to vault you up to a higher level of godliness. There are such things as growth spurts, but most real and lasting growth slowly comes by pressing into God. Grow proportionally- it is a bad sign for a baby to have a huge head- look at the whole picture and grow up in all things. Discipline and seeking God in a disciplined way is what sustains your growth.
We had a great retreat this weekend! We built some good fires and chased a few peacocks, and many of us were spurred on by the powerful word and testimonies we heard. God is calling us to a up to a higher level of spirituality and outreach this year- to fan into flame the spirit’s fire instead of dampening it.
Last UC Davis Summer Bible Study
The last bible study of the summer for UC Davis will be tomorrow (Wed) at noon. The meeting spot will be the same as always, by the flag pole at the MU. If you get there late you can go to the upstairs patio of the MU from 12 – 1. Also, there will be a new Bible study time for the fall quarter and it will be discussed at this time. The new Bible study day and time for fall quarter will be posted as soon as it is known.
Grace Alive Retreat
This coming weekend Grace Alive will be having an overnight retreat at the Lake Solano Campgrounds. We will be meeting Friday at 5pm at Grace Valley Christian Center to carpool. There will also be groups leaving later in the evening for those who cannot make it at 5pm. Please come with hearts prepared to worship and pray as we ready ourselves for a new school year of outreach in God’s kingdom.
Christian Work Ethic
This summer in Grace Alive we’ve been studying 2 Peter 1:5-9 in our series called “Developing Christian Character”. This is one of the first messages we heard from Mr. Perry about what the Christian’s work ethic should look like, and it’s a blessing to review it now that school is starting up again! Here are the notes from that message:
It is easy to slip into a sloppy and immature style of work, but we need to leave childish ways behind; God wants you to achieve.
10 keys to Christian work ethic:
1. See your work as your God-given duty
Something should be different about you than the rest of the world, which toils for just for money. This is your service to God. (1 Cor 10:31, Col 3:23.) Sanctify your work- set it apart, because you will have to give him an account.
2. Know that God sees all your work.
He is present with you in the library when you study. ‘Corum Deo’ is Latin which means, ‘before the face of God’. We live Corum Deo. You should work in order to please him. The cardinal vice of our labor is that we try to please men and not God. You are not working in simply in order to please a boss.
3. Hold laziness and wasting time as a serious sin
See it as the way God sees it. Laziness is God telling you to do something and you saying, no, I’ll do what I want to today. (Jer 48:10) ‘A curse on him who is lax in doing Gods work.’ If you are not working hard now, there will be consequences down the road (Prov 10:4).
Read more…
Welcome
Hi everyone! Welcome to the official blog of Grace Alive, the student Christian group based in Davis, CA. This is where you’ll find out all about our upcoming events and can have access to all the awesome messages we hear every week. Check back here for information about what we’re doing on the UCDavis, Sac City, and Sac State campuses this year.
