I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. —Ephesians 3:18-21

Eternal Life = Knowing God (John 17:3-4)

Week 1:

On the day of Pentecost, the Kingdom of God became available for ordinary human beings to live in through the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is where what God wants done is done.

My Kingdom is the range of my effective will where things go the way I want them to go (sometimes).

Heaven is a kind of

where humility, honesty, and generosity are as predictable as gravity.

“Eternal life in the individual does not begin after death, but at the point where God touches the individual with redeeming grace and draws them into a life interactive with himself and his kingdom.” —Dallas Willard

Week 2:

Salvation isn’t about getting you into heaven; it’s about getting heaven into you.

The message of Jesus is not just the forgiveness of sins that allows us to escape the bad place.

Being saved always involves being both saved from something and saved for something.

Week 3:

We have two kinds of problems: problems outside of me and problems inside of me.

Jobs, relationships, bank accounts, a presidential election are outside problems.

Pride, addiction, insatiable desire, envy, jealousy, cold-heartedness, and deceit are inside problems.

The great difference between Jesus and religious leaders was that they regarded exclusion of other as virtue, whereas Jesus regarded such exclusion as sin.

Jesus offered a new way of

who was in and who was out.

“I’m not really born again; I’m in about my second trimester.” —New Testament Professor Dale Bruner

This Week: Awakening and Purging

Awakening is becoming aware of God’s extraordinary

in my ordinary days.

In awakening, we encounter God in our world and we encounter the

about ourselves as we really are.

If we’re not careful or accountable, we can

the wrongs we committed and memorize the wrongs we received.

Purging is

my character defects, asking God to remove them, and engaging in practices that can help free me from them.

“The bad news is you’re a worse sinner than you thought; the good news is you’re more loved than you know.” —Anonymous expression of the Gospel

The more we purge, the more quickly and

we can see our character defects.

“When it comes to the spiritual life, we are always beginners.” —Thomas Merton

Awakening is a

and not an achievement.

We want our minds reformed so that our lives can be

.

Transformation happens through relationships in

.

In 12 Step Communities it looks like this:

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over

that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to

.

Step 3. Made a

to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

What we call addiction, the Bible calls an

.

You are only as sick as your

.

Purging is about

from the compulsion to drink, drug, gamble, buy, or look.

Action Step:

Ask God to help you be honest and seek healing for your sickness

.

“My additional notes:

”.