Monday - "Learning"

Greetings Internet Campus,

Acts 2:42 (ESV): 42“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

When it comes to church....what are you devoted to? This week, we're going to look at a few things that we should be getting more connected with when it comes to our weekly time of worship in church.

The first is the teaching...the message. What is your state of mind when you enter the church? Are you coming expecting to learn something? Are the shields of doubt already up at full force? Do you really expect God to be there? I believe that our state of mind when we enter God's house directly determines what we get out of the message. It can affect how "deep" you perceive the teaching to be.

Is the message your only touch with God for the week? For many, it is.... we come to church and spend an hour with God and that's it. For some reason we believe that a relationship can grow and thrive when contact is only made one time per week. If we think about the other relationships in our lives, if we only talked with a loved one for 1 hour a week...how deep would the relationship go? We've got to stay connected to God through daily prayer and quiet time...

The third and final thought about the teaching portion of the church experience is application. If we are going to be truly devoted to God's messages through the Pastor...we have to apply what we learn in real-life situations. I know a lot of people who have beautiful notebooks of every sermon preached for the past 10 years...however they are struggling in life. Why? They have the answers in their teaching notes...but the notes on the paper are not the actions of the body. If we don't use it...we will indeed lose it. We come away from a great message inspired...but it means nothing if we don't somehow incorporate the meaningful elements into our lives.

To recap: Want to be devoted to the teaching in church?
1) Come expecting to hear truth from God.
2) Stay in contact with God throughout the week
3) Apply what you learn

That's it....follow these three and you'll find your devotion to church increase dramatically.

Pastor Brian