Turkey Coma and Notes for 12/2/09

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!,

I hope that you all have had a great Thanksgiving weekend so far! I had a great time with my family and ate so much that I went into a Turkey coma and forgot prepare and post the notes for you all yesterday evening. So, now that I am awake and alert, I beg your pardon and post these notes for next wednesdays lesson: Notes for 12/2/09.

Thank-you for understanding and dont forget this:

Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayers and won with thanks.

—Thomas Goodwin

Meta and Notes for 11/18/09

Hey Folks,

As you know this weekend is META weekend. Many of you are serving as leaders this weekend for which we are truly grateful. For those of you who are not, we would appreciate your prayers that the Lord would work in a mighty way to help our students understand the value of understanding their identity in Christ as young men and women.

If you would like to join us for the large group services at the church this evening or Saturday morning or evening we encourage you to come out.

Here are the notes for 11/18/09.

Have a great weekend and don't forget:

"When our needs are permitted to grow to an extremity, and all visible hopes fail, then to have relief given wonderfully enhances the price of such a mercy (Isa. 41:17-18)."

—John Flavel

Posture

Posture
by Chris Tomlin

Probably no other lyric that I have set to music has gotten more uncertain feedback than the first line of the chorus in our new song "Unchanging." The chorus states...

So we raise up holy hands
To praise the Holy One
Who was, and is and is to come

I grew up in a church that was very conservative. You only raised your hand if you had a question. And if you did raise your hands in worship to the Lord, you were quite a spectacle. I didn't really understand what it meant to do that.

I Tim 2:8..."I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer..."
Psalm 134:2..."Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord."

I have come to see that raising our hands is a very natural response in our world. You can see it represented in three main references (surrender, victory and to be held).

Surrender...Hopefully you will not relate with this, but what is the first thing that someone does who is caught by the police? They raise their hands in the air in an act of surrender.

Victory...When your favorite team wins a championship, what happens? The team and every fan have their hands in the air proclaiming victory.

To be held...What is the first thing a child does, if he or she wants to be held? Even before they can speak, they raise their hands up to their mom and dad to say, "hold me."

Forgive me for the commonness, but I think it's a lot the same way with us in our posture to God. We raise our hands for the same reasons. We raise them in surrender of our own agenda, our own will. We raise them in victory over sin and death. And we raise them as a child to our Father, to be held by Abba.

Of course, let me make clear that raising up hands to the Lord is not a spiritual measurement. Many times we want to make it one in our minds. But the truth is our worship and devotion to God is not measured by how we perform, or whether our hands are in the air or by our side. Our worship is measured by our lives lived for His glory.

Hopefully, this gives you a clearer picture of the beauty of this posture before God.

From: http://www.austinstone.org/resources/article/posture/