Week 4: There is More

Scripture Passage	Mark 1:35-39, Philippians 3:12-16
Focus Statement	When life gets challenging, we have a choice- to either fall back into the sin that is so enticing and easy for us, or to persevere and trust that when we follow Christ, we will live into even more than we have e ver imagined.
ME	How have you had to learn how to handle difficult situations in your life? What has been an important w ay to refocus or an event that has caused you to refocus in your life?
WE	When things get challenging in our lives, it’s easy for us to slip back into our unhealthy habits. Sin in our lives creates not-so-great coping mechanisms. God’s redeeming work allows for those habits to be broken and for us to find our identity in Christ, not in ourselves. We can create new habits to live into who we are in Christ. What habits and patterns do we tend to fall into when life gets difficult for us?
GOD	Mark gives us this beautiful image of Jesus who has to get away from the busyness and demands on him in order to refocus and re-center himself. It is exhausting to be doing so much for others--even for the Son of God. Jesus models for us what is most important about handling the exhaustion, stress and depletion of our emotional resources--not that we fall back into bad habits, but that we take a step back and pray. Jesus spends a lot of time in deserted places praying--even when people are looking for him. These refueling moments are almost always followed by another period of ministry, works, healings etc. Even Jesus needed to keep himself grounded in his relationship with the Creator. Paul, in Philippians, encourages us to keep going. We are not somehow immediately “cured” of our sin and life is suddenly perfect for us. It is that we are called to persevere, remembering and living into the fact that Jesus Christ has redeemed us! It is not about what has come before, our past sins and habits we have developed over the years. What matters is who Christ raises us to be and the steps we take to get there. Wesley deeply believed that God’s grace was so much greater than our sin. Through the work of God’s sanctifying grace, we can attain total sanctification. It is not an easy process, and we don’t get there all at once. Bit by bit, by pressing on, we attain what Christ offers to us. Paul recognized he only gets where he is by the grace of God. Likewise, we only become sanctified through God’s grace and with God’s presence.
YOU	What healthy habits is God calling you to? In the midst of life’s challenges, how do you find time, like Jesus, to center yourself in God? What do you need to change in your own life to be focused on Christ, not on the shame and guilt of your sin? How do you remember that God’s grace is even more than your sin? What is the next small step in your pursuit of a godly life?
WE	Sin is constantly lulling and wooing us back into the “easiness of sin.” Through Christ’s grace, we are called to more -- to respond to challenges firmly rooted in who Jesus calls us to be. We need to make time to pray, to meditate, to sit in Christ in order that we learn to trust that God will lead us into a fullness of life. We are called to be even more than we ever dreamed we could be apart from God. May we be rooted in prayer and in trust in the one who has saved us all.