All Power, All God

Read: Genesis 1 & 2

Reflect: Take a few minutes and reflect on the ways that God’s power is displayed in creation. Write down your thoughts.

Request (Prayer): Thank You Lord for Your creation!

When you look at the account of creation, and all that God had created at that time, you cannot, and should not be able to help but stand in awe of who God is. Why? Because of how God created the universe and everything in it! How did He create it? He SPOKE it into existence! He didn’t have to come up with blueprints or mock-ups of what He thought it should look like, He knew exactly what He wanted it to be, and He just said “Let there be light,” and there it was, after He spoke everything into existence.

Because of who God is and because of what He has done and is doing for us, we should want to worship Him because of that. His only Son, Jesus, died in our place so that we didn’t have to be tortured and killed for our sins, He put that upon Himself to do. That alone should cause us to worship.
(more…)

Attention Getter!

Read: Isaiah 6:1-7

Reflect: Worship is defined as the object of adoring reverence or regard. God is the one who should receive our attention and reverence. Think of different passages of Scripture that point to how awesome and holy God is.

Request (Prayer): God, show me how great You are!

Isaiah had a vision of being before the throne of God. In this vision he realized 2 things.

1. He saw how holy, majestic and amazing God is. His power, His royalty and Kingship were all on display.

2. As he saw God seated upon the throne, he realized the severity of his own sin.

When we see God, we don’t see Him as we want Him to be, whether that be keeping a few things out, maybe not liking a part of God, i.e. His judgment or His all-knowing, but regardless of what we want to see, we see how perfect He is, and we see our own sin magnified by 1,000 times! Our sin should cause us to see how much we need God, and when we see God, we should see how offensive our sin is to God.
(more…)

CRUX Daily: Give It Up!

Read: Luke 14:25-35

Reflect: The most important relationship that you will ever have is with Jesus. What does Luke say here about where needs to be in your life? Where does Jesus rank in your life now? In order for you to be the best husband or wife is by loving Jesus now!

Request (Prayer): Jesus, help me to give You my undivided attention and to make You number one in my life.

Have you ever had to give up something that was so hard to let go of? Just recently, I made a bet that I would not eat sweets for 2 weeks. And it killed me! I had to let go of eating any sweets at all, so that I could win. I couldn’t have any ice cream, brownies, cookies, candy, nothing! It was devastating, I felt as though part of my life had been thrown away…ok not really, I’m just being dramatic.

Giving up something is not easy to do but it is necessary at times. Why? It helps us evaluate whether that thing is an idol or if we can really go on without that thing.

Think about something in your life that you like to do or that you like to have. Now think about taking that thing out of your life and see whether or not you can live without it. Maybe it’s video games, texting, television or the Internet? Can you live without any of those things?
(more…)

CRUX Daily: Purity is the Best Policy

Read: 1 Corinthians 6:18-19; Psalm 119:9

Reflect: Another way to be prepared for marriage now is by committing to purity. Purity is not just in action but also in the mind. In your own words write down what purity means. Discuss that with your parents and pray with them for help in being committed to purity.

Probably an uncommon word in the world is purity and modesty. What we see through the media and read about through peoples Facebook is not promoting purity. Purity is staying away from anything that would defile or stain you. One of the hardest pressures you may face as a young person will be purity. One of the best gifts you can offer your future spouse is being pure. How does one do that?
(more…)

CRUX Sunday- Relate: Relationships Part Two

Pastor Jon wraps up our “Relate” series with the second part of a message on dealing with relationships.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

CRUX Jr. High Announcements- October 23, 2011