![]() The second greatest command tells us to love or neighbor as you love yourself. Now that sounds cool and all, but what if you don’t love yourself all that much. Then it could be rough being your neighbor or your friend, cause you might not treat them so well. We have looked at identity and who we are many times. It is a big deal how you see yourself and what your self image is. It is the number one attack of the thief. Think about it if we don’t know who we are in Jesus than we can’t do much in the battle. So what is the answer to the big riddle? You are third, but that is the coolest thing, and it only works if you follow the proper order. Lets take a look at the order: God First, which means you are in constant connection with God. You know who you are because of the relationship that you have with God. God leads you and strengthens you always. God is your source and your No. 1. So with God as your No. 1 you can serve others and be a person who shows others who Jesus is. You can love your neighbor as yourself because you know who you are because God is your No. 1. If you try to love others without loving God first it will not work. You must love God as your No. 1 to love your neighbor. So who are we and what does it mean to be third. When we are third we are saying that we love what God loves more than anything else. It means that we become the person we are suppose to be because God makes us that great person. Being third does not mean that we don’t count, it means that we count the most, because we are being used by God for great things. When we are third we lead the way in all that we do, because God is always giving us what we need to do whatever we are doing. God provides all the tools and all the knowledge to do anything. When we are third we rise to the top not because we are great, but because we being lifted up by God. You have to see that the world turns everything upside down and twist it all around. If you run after what the world says will make you happy then in the end you will only find broken dreams and sadness. Jesus put it this way to his Disciples. Mark 9:35 “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.” When we become third we become first. As you look at this challenge to become third it is not an overnight event, it is a journey and it has to have a starting point. You have to use your faith in God and allow Him to lead the way. God way is the best way and when you discover that is truth you will never turn back and you will always seek to fight to live the way that He longs for you to live. Keep reading and digging into this Extreme Faith Mag. Seek who you are in Him. Become Third and you will never turn back.
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![]() Take a look at this, right before Jesus was going to betrayed and nailed on a cross, he had dinner with His disciples. That sounds great doesn’t it spending time with the people that you love the most before the end comes. However you may be shocked to know that during this time before dinner was served He washed the feet of His disciples. Jesus the Son of God washing the feet of His disciples, is the greatest from of leadership every shown to man. Lets look at the story for John 13: 2-5 & 12-17 The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. Wow that is awesome, the Son of God washing your feet. I mean we all sort of get the great mission to take on the worlds sin and defeat the thief but to wash our feet. That is pretty awesome step to go to, so that the world would know what it means to be a servant leader. We have been looking at the concept that we are third, God is first and others are second and well we are third. Powerful stuff, for us to grapple with especially when the world tells us that we are suppose to think pretty highly of ourselves. Tonight we are looking at servant leadership, and the fact that we are to love others and show them who Jesus is by being Jesus. Jesus lead people to the truth by being a servant. You can’t be a servant to others if you are always trying to take care of yourself first. Serving others and putting their needs first is a big thing and it makes the world a different place especially for the people that encounter us. So dig into this Extreme Faith Mag. and process what it is going to take for you to learn the concepts of being third. It is a great way to live and when you live that way you will lead like never before! ![]() Have you ever heard the phrase “keep your eye on the ball”… Chances are if you have ever engaged in any type of sport, you have heard this phrase. You might even have heard it in a sport that doesn’t even have ball. The phrase simply put means don’t lose sight of your goals, keep them in front of your eyes. Lets face it we have all had goals and dreams that we wanted to seem to true in our lives. What has caused those dreams to become goals, and those goals to become reality? We stayed focused on the point and in the end we achieved our goal. What happened to all the other goals, well they were forgotten and we took our eyes off the ball. So I want you to think about the challenge that we are putting before you to become third in your life. Putting God first and others second. Sounds great and it is a goal worth going after. Like any goal if we don’t keep our eyes on the ball we will not see it come true. So how do we make this goal happen? Well, we are going to break the goal down into three steps that will help all of us achieve this goal. The first part of this Goal is God becomes number one in our life, and we process everything through God. So lets take a look at the greatest commandment again. Matthew 22:37 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. So how do we keep our eye on the ball? How do we keep a vision on the end point of the first part our goal? For starters you could memorize the first part of this verse, and reference it every day. Put something in your room, that reminds you of this goal, put something in your locker that reminds you of this goal. If you want to achieve something you have to keep it in front of you. You have to see your end point, if you can’t see where you are going you probably won’t arrive. Think about the goal as you look at the verse. What does it mean for you, to love God with all of your heart? What would that look like? You have to think about it and then envision yourself doing it each day if you want to achieve the goal. Goals are important for us, if we don’t have goals that we are running after well we will end up living each day with no real purpose other than just getting what we can. You are better than that you need to have goals so that you can advance the kingdom and grow each day. We need to get out of our comfort zone and grow! What some of our XGT'ers said about 2013 and Goals for 2014![]() What are you going for?Living large, or living small you decide but either way you will have dreams. We all have them the things that we want to see happen in our lives. If these dreams are going to come true we need to set goals and develop plans to make them happen. If we don’t then they will just remain dreams and never become reality. What is the difference between a goal and a dream? A goal has an action plan behind it. A Dream is only a fantasy waiting for action. It is a new year! 2014 has started and you have to determine what this new year will look like. You can make choices that will help you achieve your goals and you can make choices that will cause your goals to just remain dreams. We are the children of the most high King, and we are called to run after the kingdom. We are encouraged to go after goals and we are encouraged to run after dreams with purpose. The Bible puts it this way. Proverbs 21:5 says this “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” So we are to be a diligent people who follow after their plans making their dreams become reality. Psalm 34:7 says this "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Learning how to delight in God is a challenge that is worth going after. When we are with God and love what He loves then we will see that our goals and our dreams line up with the things that he has for us. When we are following God first all the things that we want also follow God. Following God must be our first love and we need everything else that we love to follow God as well. We need to strive to make this happen. As we move into a new year ask yourself what are your goals and what are you setting your mind to achieve. Right now you are in middle school, who will you be in high school, who will you be in college, who will you be when you are out of college? This is key many people think in these terms, but I am calling you to something else, I am calling you to think of who are you going to be through your whole life. Big dreams have big goals. What if your life was lived for the big dreams and not the small dreams what if your life was lived for others. So here is the challenge that we will be looking at over the next three weeks. Live your life with this goal in mind. God first Others second You third It’s a challenge worth going after. ![]() Do you love others or judge others… Who are you cross with? Who just gets on your nerves even when they are doing nothing but being themselves? Here is a better question who do you judge? We all have people who just bug us and we don’t even know why? Could it be that when we feel this way about people we are being a bully? Think about it when we don’t accept people and we judge them we are being a bully to that person. Maybe we think that we have the right to judge, because they are well just different, than us. Matthew 7:1-2 says this: 1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Okay there you have it we are not to judge. Even if we think we have the right, we don’t, if you believe that you have the right to judge, then you need to check who is telling you have the right. God or the thief? It won’t be God so the only other choice is the thief and we don’t want to listen to him, because he is a lier! So what are we to do? How are we suppose to handle the people who in our mind don’t just fit into our world? Check this out John 13:33-34“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” We have a responsibility as Christians and that is to love one another. Jesus does not say love those that love you but we are to love one another, and when we love others people will know that we are His children. Wow that is going to be tuff, but understand this the job that is before you was never meant to be easy. It is tuff and it causes you to depend on Him for the strength to do the job that He has given us to do. On the other side of things what if you are one of the people who are not getting love, and well you just don’t know how to fit in? Well the same thing goes for you, you are to love others. You are to carry yourself as a child of God and love others. The moment that you depend on God to help you with all the problems that are going on in your life, the faster you will find freedom. We tend to accept the labels the world gives us and that causes us to act and behave a certain way. We must rise up and love, others. This will change you from the inside out. We must trust God for all things, and when you do that you will find that loving others will help you more than you ever thought it would. ![]() Take a look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you like what your see or do you want to make changes? How we see ourselves says a lot about who we are and what we think ourselves. Our self image how we view and think of ourself is so important! In middle school it can be hard to like who you are, you want so much to be like this person or be just like everyone else. It is hard to stand out in middle school, when everyone else is saying we should all look and act the same as everyone else! But that is part of the problem isn’t it, we are not like everyone else, we are all different, even identical twins are different. They may look the same but they are not the same person. So what are we to do, if you have struggles with liking who you are, and feeling good about yourself, the way you look, the way you act, the talents you have, it is a big weight on your shoulders. it is hard to think of anything else, because the things that are weighing you down, are things that you can just change over night! Catch this if you are not real pleased with your self image, if you question who you are, then you are likely to be bullied, or bully others. That is just the truth. Bullies will look for those who are not so sure of who they are, and often times bullies are people who are not so sure of who they are and they bully others so that they might have a false sense of power. Knowing who you are and who God made you to be is the first step to freedom! Check out what God says about you. Psalm 139:13-18 says this about you. God, you created all the complex parts of my body, while I was still inside my mother. Thank you, Lord, for creating me, I know you cared when you made me. While my bones were still forming, before anyone else knew who I was, you knew I, was alive. You could see who I was even before I was born, and you had already planned my days on earth before I lived any one of them. You think about me all the time. You love me so much. Every minute, even when I get up in the morning, you are thinking about me. Wow if God made you than you are perfect because all that God does is perfect. God made you and He thinks about you, all the time. He is waiting for you to ask Him what it is you were made for. He did not make you to question why you are this way or that way, God made you for a purpose and to be confident in who He made you. Believe it, you are important and you were not made to be like everyone else. ![]() Look to your left and to your right, who is in front of you and who is behind you? Where are you in the line, where are you in the social order? Look today and then look again tomorrow because you are in middle school and it can change day to day. When we think of where we are located in the social order one of the things we need to remember is this. As Christians we are to live out of Humility. In other words we are not to be snobs and look down on others. I know that many of us at times have been made to feel bad about who we are, and we have been bullied by others. But on the flip side we are not to think less of others. There is a balance that we can live by that allows us to think good thoughts about ourselves and to think good about others. It does not matter where you are in the social order, if you want to you can find someone that is lower than you and you can find ways to attack them and make yourself feel better about how you feel about you. But that is not Humility. That is doing the same thing that someone did to you and that’s just not right. It causes the bullying cycle to continue and never end. Look what we are taught in the Bible, when it comes to what we are to think of ourselves and what we are to think of others. Philippians 2:3-11 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Wow that is a big verse but here is what it is saying. We need to think of others and think good thing of other people. Get this Jesus was God but He did not think more of Himself, He thought more of us. So here is a step by step break down for you: Step One: Know who you are and get your identity from God. Step Two: Know that God thinks good of other people and He loves them so you should think of them as He thinks of them. Step Three: Live to make a difference everyday and when you have humility you will be lifted up by God. Check out this verse Matthew 23:12Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Get with God and make a difference in the lives of those around you! Who We Are "Stop Feeling Small Know Who You Are" How do people make you feel about yourself...11/15/2013 ![]() Sticks and Stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me? We have looked at this before and well. If you believe that rhyme then you are well very special. So here is the deal whether we like it our not people have an effect on what we think about ourselves. We live in community, now just because we live in community, does not mean that we live in a healthy community. I know that you have heard a ton about this, and that they bring it up all the time at school. But we are going to look at it as well. Bullying. So how do people make you feel about yourself? That is the question that we are going to be digging into. I mean we have had it all happen to us where we are having the best day ever and then all of a sudden everything changes. We are now having a crappy day! Why because someone broke a promise, or someone just targeted us and did whatever they could to make us feel like crap. Then all of a sudden we went from feeling on top of the world to feeling oh so small. So who are we? That is another question we will be looking at. Yes we are children of God and God loves us no matter what! We Know that if God is for us who can be against us. But when you have been bullied by other kids, or even friends, that doesn’t always pull us through. So what are we to do? How do we feel better about ourselves when we really doubt ourselves. That’s a tough one and I bet we all can say that we have been there from one time to another. Let’s talk about community, what about your community, do you hang with people that you trust and when you are cut down, and beat up do you turn to your community that will support you? We need this tight community to make it out there. We need to support one another, and watch out for one another. This is XGT, it is a community, look around the room, and ask yourself do you support the people in this room, do you feel supported by the people in this room? Check this verse out, Deuteronomy31: 8 The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” God is with us and we will find His strength in our community, we don’t have to run alone and we can depend on one another. Invest in this community, and learn how to know who you are by what your community says about you, not some stray person, who doesn’t really know you! ![]() We live in a culture where everything happens fast. I mean really fast. If you have the means you can download music, movies, and have them in 30 seconds are less. You can order anything online and have it shipped right to your door next day! The world is moving a a super fast rate. What does that do to us, are we clear from the ever increasing speed of the world around us, or do we try to keep up with it? I say things with my mouth at such a fast rate, I rarely think before I speak. It is something that I am working on, cause when I don’t think, well I say things that I well retreat. Take a look at what Jesus says about our words. Matt. 12:35-37 35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” Wow! This verse is very convicting, cause I mean that I want to say that I have good stored up in me, and that I want to say things that are right and true. But there is a word in this text that catches me. It is the word careless. The words that come out of my mouth most often times are careless. If it is carless talk then it means that I did not think before I spoke. My heart want’s to be good, and my mouth wants to say the right things. But far to many times I forget to think. So what are we to do? Well here is what I am seeking to do. I am shutting up and I am thinking. Step one: I am talking less, unless I have something to say that is good I don’t speak. For me to stop talking well that is a hard one. But it is the first step. Step two: I am thinking more about what I say and before I say it. I ask simple questions. Is this something I want to say? Is this the right thing to say? Will I regret saying this? And finally is this the right thing to say? It has been a process, but I find my mind is clearer and more at rest. My mouth use to lead me and often times get me into trouble, but know my brain is leading me and the mouth follows. I say less, and I regret less. I make my words count, and have importance! Give it a try, think before you speak! ![]() Be True to yourself and to the other people around you. If you wanted to build something that would stand and last the first thing that you would need after the plans are drawn up, is a solid foundation! You have to have a solid foundation one that will stand against everything. Being true to yourself is the starting point of that foundation. Others might say being true to God would be the first point, but to me I believe that they are the same. When we are true to who we are to ourselves we are being true to God as well, because we are comfortable with who He made us to be. What does being true to yourself have to do with honesty? Well let me tell you that when you are true to yourself you really don’t have a need to lie, or deceive people. Another way to look at it is this. When you aren’t true to yourself and you say one thing but do another you are living the life of a hypocrite. For some sad reason this word has been used to identify christians, because we tend to say one thing and then do another. Now we could argue that we do the best we can and our relationship with God goes beyond our failures and that the world just doesn’t understand. But we aren’t going there. Here is where we are going. Do you live out Jesus’s Faith, each and every day that you live? Just had lunch with a very wise man and he summed it up this way. When we accept Jesus as Savior we are living out of our faith. But the next step is to live life with the faith of Jesus. This is the difference between someone who says one thing and then does something else. To the person who does exactly what they say. When we live out Jesus’s faith, we follow up what we say we believe with our actions. We must not say one thing and then do something else. We have back our words with real actions, and a life of being true to ourselves. Jesus put it this way in Matt. 7:3-53 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Living life to follow Jesus we have to live out His faith, and follow through with actions to our words, we have to be honest with who we are and in that be so ever thankful for the love that God gives us each day. Live out your faith, knowing who you are and being honest with yourself and others as you go your way. |
Cover Articles from Extreme Faith MagazineWritten and Posted by The XGT Experience Team of leaders Archives
October 2015
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