What I Learned From My Recent Doctrine Series

I wanted to share a few thoughts with you regarding what I learned during this recent message series on doctrine. I know, I know. I’m the preacher and I’m supposed to have it all together and know everything about God, the Bible, and all the Christianity stuff. The truth is, I’m just like you. I’m still building a foundation for my faith. You might be shocked at how long I wrestled with what to say on some of the topics. I can tell you honestly, working on this series strengthened my Christian faith. On the flip side, I was surprised at some of the questions you asked via text messages. Not because the questions were bad, but because I had assumed everyone already understood. All in all, I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about you. So with that in mind, I wanted to share with you some of the things I learned from the doctrine message series. Also, I would love to hear what you learned as well (or even didn’t learn). If you get a chance, jot them done and e-mail them to me or drop them off sometime.

So here’s my list, in no particular order.

· The more I study about God the more he blows my mind. It was so difficult trying to describe God and the more I tried the more frustrating it became, and quite frankly I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I will tell you this, my worship of God increased the more I studied who He is.

· Life is all about Jesus. A question I kept coming back to the forefront as I went through each message week by week. It was this: What do you believe about Jesus? Everything about life hangs on how you answer that question.

· I still don’t totally get the Holy Spirit and maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

· I need to spend more time in the Bible.

· I was surprised at how many Christians struggle with forgiving themselves.

· I better understand the justice of God. God’s holiness, grace, and love are huge but His justice/ranks right up there too.

· My understanding of salvation was reaffirmed as I studied what the Bible says. There is only one way to be saved and that is through God’s gracious gift of Jesus. However, people are not always in agreement on how one receives the free gift of Jesus. The relatively easy exercise of looking at what the New Testament says about the words, “salvation,” “save,” and “saved” was extremely profitable in reaffirming what I believe. If you haven’t had a chance yet, you need to go to www.Biblegateway.com and do a “key word” search on each of those words and compile the verses for yourself. Believe me, you will be glad that you did.

· What you believe about Jesus affects how you live. For example, if you really believe that Jesus is Lord then you would want to serve him in anyway possible.

· I was reminded about my own mortality. I don’t stop and think about it enough. I know that sounds weird, but when I used the coffin for the message on Heaven and Hell it was a powerful reminder about how short life is and it helped me to prioritize my life better.

· The church is literally the body of Christ. We are to carry on his ministry.

· A lot of people are really close to making decisions for Jesus. Whether it’s a first time decision to accept him as Savior and Lord or a decision to be obedient to what he wants them to do.