Jesus continually explained how His Father lavishes love on us! Even though I understand grace, my first impulse is to try to buy my way to heaven. At first glance, I treat the parable of the pearl like I was taught to treat life—to be self-sufficient. In the world of sports, we’re taught that if we have a dream to play for a certain team or run a certain distance, we should set a goal and go for it. We should sell out. So I equate my goal setting to my spiritual life and sell out for God. But if I am brutally honest, I have to admit I don’t have much to sell! I fail too often; I can’t really afford the pearl. We will never be able to afford the pearl. Fortunately, God’s economy is different than ours.
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People Bingo
Make several bingo cards with statements about people in each space. Give a card to each person and have a race to see who can fill their card with people’s names matching the descriptions. (i,e. , a Redskins fan, drives a red Camaro, works at Walmart, etc.)
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People Pleasing
Set:Find a sporting event and you’re guaranteed to find its most common companion—the second-guesser. Coach long enough, and you’re bound to make somebody unhappy. The coaching profession, though highly rewarding, can be extremely stressful. The quicker a coach learns that you can’t please everyone, the better. This is often easier said than done. So is there a secret?
Many would advise to “get thicker skin.” Thick skin is fine, but in order to avoid a smug and even arrogant attitude toward the “Monday morning quarterbacks,” let’s examine some spiritual principles to help us.
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Perception vs. Reality
The law of the land is clear that you must have a separation of church and state,” said one Florida county school board member in a recent interview with Boca Raton News. “Any religion should be practiced in homes or places of worship, not in public schools.”
With FCA so widely accepted on high school and middle school campuses, why would a school official, or any other American, feel this way? Perhaps personal opinion and perception do not always reflect reality...
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Perfect?
Set:"Nobody's perfect." A phrase we hear all of the time.
Everyone knows that no one can be completely perfect, so we use it as an excuse when we mess up. We often settle for less than what we are capable of because we think it is impossible to be perfect. But in Matthew 5 Jesus commands us to be perfect, just as God is perfect. "How can that be?" we ask. "How are we supposed to be perfect?"
We know all to well Romans 3:23, that all have sinned and fallen short, and we focus on the fact that humans are sinners. But did Paul not say that God would not tempt us past what we could handle? And did he not say that I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength?
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Perfection
Set:Baseball fans may remember one of the most notable events of last season. It was on June 2, 2010. Pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game: no hits, no walks, no errors. An easy ground ball was hit to the first baseman who tossed the ball to Galarraga, who was covering the first base bag. His catch clearly beat the runner to the bag for the final out of the game, but a veteran umpire called the runner safe, therefore ending Galarraga’s perfect game. This mistake showed that even the veteran umpire wasn’t perfect. And, in reality, none of us are.
Every one of us makes mistakes. We all make misjudgments, bad calls and show our imperfections in a variety of ways. But there was one Man who lived the only perfect life in history: Jesus Christ.
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Perfection
Set:My son, C.J., had an interesting experience. Last year, his fifth grade tackle football team verbalized their preseason goals to be undefeated and un-scored upon. They achieved their goals—a perfect season. This year, they set the same goals and almost achieved them. (One team finally scored one touchdown.) The Bobcats had to “settle” for a second undefeated championship season. In their minds it was not perfect because someone scored on them.
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Performance
Set:The big item of the week has been the surprise firing of Tyrone Willingham after completing only three seasons of his five-year contract as the head football coach at Notre Dame. Kirk Herbstreit, analyst for ESPN's College GameDay, said, "This firing is all about wins and losses … it's about failing to produce wins." The Notre Dame AD said Willingham was an "outstanding coach" with an "impeccable reputation." Indeed, it seems as if this decision all boiled down to one thing: performance.
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Perseverance - Chapel
1 – Here we are at game number ___ of our season.- Let’s take a look back at our season so far.
- We’ve competed at …(tough opponent)
- We’ve endured a… (hard situation)
- We’ve won a hard fought battle with ….
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