Big Idea:
Toxic Religion: Says doing the minimal is enough. As long as you make a “salvation” decision and get baptized, you are ok.”
The Jesus Way says: ”Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me!” Jesus says we must be willing to drop everything and follow him to be his disciple.
Scripture Memory:
Mark 8:34-35
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Mk 8:34–35). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Action Step:
This week identify the ingredients you are leaving out of your life as a Jesus follower and ask him for the strength to put everything under his control.
Random Thoughts:
- What an incredible day yesterday at Church at the Grove! What a crowd! Normally our Sunday after Easter is extremely low, but we had our largest attendance this year besides Easter! You guys are reaching out and bringing your friends and family and that is awesome!
- I love doing baptisms! It is probably my favorite thing we do at CATGrove because you hear the personal stories and it represents the transforming work that God is doing in the lives of people. If my memory is correct, we baptized 11 people yesterday! Awesome! Let’s continue to reach out to our friends and family with the love of Jesus.
- We continued with out “DETOX” series yesterday with part 2: Toxic Religion says doing the minimal is enough where Jesus says we must “deny ourself, take up our cross and follow him.” We must take ourselves off the throne of our heart and allow Jesus to sit on the throne of our heart and be our leader and boss.
- Next week: “DETOX” part 3 on the topic of dealing with suffering and bad things happening in our lives. You don’t want to miss it.
- We were able to have lunch with two middle school boys who were baptized yesterday. DJ & Dylan Dockery and their family. What a work God has done and is doing in that family.
- What a great sports weekend! The Masters is one of my favorite sporting events in all of sports. I loved watching Phil Mickelson embrace his wife and kids after a great win at the Masters. They have been through a rough year battling breast cancer. Watching their family together is quite a contrast to the events of Tiger Wood’s life this past year. Character matters and lack of it has consequences.
- I continue to believe that God will do some amazing things in the life of our church this year! We must continue to move forward! We began to pray in the fall to see 100 salvations by Easter Sunday. By my count we were just short of 50 salvations through Easter Sunday last week. I am not disappointed at all! I am excited that through our stretched faith, we saw many people turn to follow Jesus. Now we must ask God what is next for our prayer and focused ministry efforts! Be praying!
- Today is my wife’s birthday! (April 12) I am so thankful for her! She is an amazing woman of God, mother, and wife. If you read this, I would appreciate it if you sent her an email or gave her a call. ”talkwithjill @ gmail.com
- I am so thankful for our volunteers! You do an amazing job each and every Sunday to make it happen at Church at the Grove.
- Most would not know this, but we could not find the portable baptismal pool yesterday morning! We went to pick it up and it wasn’t there! Craig Calhoun, Steve Ryall, and Scott Nobles went all over Loganville to find it. They made it happen and we ended up being a great morning. Whew!
Keep praying, Keeping investing, keep inviting!
