Watch the video above and talk about it with a group or mentor. Learn more.
Where do you stand in your pursuit of God? This isn’t just a question to ask once or twice. It’s a question to regularly ask ourselves. You can ask this question by thinking of it in three simple, memorable categories:
#1 Trusting Jesus
Trusting Jesus is about when we first believe or first place our trust in Jesus, but it is also something we never stop doing in the Christian life. You don’t trust Jesus for your salvation but then not trust him with your health, your finances, your plans, and your future. Trusting Jesus is a continuing, active choice.
#2 Honoring God
Honoring God is also a continuing action. It’s not just about getting a bit of the garbage of your life and pressing forward. It’s about always seeking to live for God and to be made more and more into the person he wants you to be. It’s a series of actions rooted in an attitude of trust (#1 above). It’s about honoring God and wanting to honor God.
#3 Helping Others
Jesus wasn’t a self-help guru, though his teachings have helped billions of people live the lives God has called them to live. Jesus was on mission during his earthly ministry, and he’s called his present-day followers to be on mission, too.
Where Are You?
Where are you in this sequence – trusting Jesus, honoring God, or helping others? For our purposes, we organize it as a step-by-step process, but as you may have guessed, these are all “continuous” things. We don’t “graduate” from one to another and leave the others behind. Honoring God requires that we are always trusting Jesus, and helping others requires that we are always honoring God and trusting Jesus.
Once you’ve situated yourself in the sequence, consider these words of Jesus from John 10:
John 10:10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
Whether you’re a brand new Christian or have been following Jesus for a long time, remember that he wants to give us a rich and satisfying life. If you feel that your Christian life is not rich and satisfying, there’s a good chance something is missing in one of the three steps above. Take an assessment of the changes you need to make in trusting Jesus, honoring God, and helping others.
- What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- Where do you stand in your faith? Use the categories in this topic to explain.
- Do you have any questions about Jesus that are keeping you from putting your faith in him? Make a list and talk about each one.
- Read Romans 3:22. Have you ever trusted Jesus alone for your salvation? If so, when? If not, what is stopping you?
- Make a list of habits that honor God in this life. Do you need to grow in any of these areas? Explain. Are there some habits in your life that don’t honor God? How can you break those habits?
- Do you believe you are ready to mentor someone? If so, whom? If not, why?
- Read John 10:10. What does it mean that Jesus came to give us a rich and satisfying life?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
This is part of the Faith 101 series.
