Last night was another good one at ikon. Our band was finally back together again after i had been a vacation a couple weeks ago and Trevor was gone to Rome last week. We had some great singing and worship even though Trevor was loosing his voice.
Our topic for last night was "living with pain. I gave a message and then we broke up in to our small groups to discuss the topic. Here's a summary a what was talked about:
Ever since Adam and Eve ate from that tree human beings have been living in pain. This pain comes from the sin that we are now all born with which comes along with a separation from God and a longing in our souls to return to him. Sounds pretty heavy right?
Well that was our topic for last night. We live in world that tells us we need to be happy all the time and if we are not, there must be something wrong with us. So we try to make ourselves happy with things, relationships, addictions, prescription drugs etc.. these things may do the trick for a while but after a while they leave us empty again and looking for more. The reality is we can't be happy all the time and it's OK. We have suffering in our lives, but it is how we deal with that suffering that makes us who we are. Romans 5:1-5 says:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
The stunt here is trusting God to help us deal with the pain and suffering in our lives knowing that our future holds the promise of something much better. Jesus is right there with us every step of the way and he has experienced all the pain and suffering that we have. Through this we are able to find true joy for our lives not just the temporary happiness that the world tells us we need.
This topic brought out some great group conversations and i think everyone left last night with a sense of the joy and hope Christ has to offer us.
I hope your week is filled with joy and hope as well.
Peter
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