Colossians 2:6-7 (MSG)

My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it!

Psalm 95:1-2 (MSG)

Come, let’s shout praises to God, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us! Let’s march into his presence singing praises, lifting the rafters with our hymns!

Psalm 1:1-3 (MSG)

How well God must like you—
    you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,
    you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
    you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

Instead...

 

John 17:17 (MSG)

Now I’m returning to you.
I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing
So my people can experience
My joy completed in them.
I gave them your word;
The godless world hated them because of it,
Because they didn’t join the world’s ways,

Psalm 119:105 (MSG)

By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path. I’ve committed myself and I’ll never turn back from living by your righteous order.  Everything’s falling apart on me, God; put me together again with your Word.

Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Colossians 1:21-22

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 15th & 16th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The truth found in Jesus the Messiah includes everyone without artificial distinctions that alienate, classify, marginalize, or segregate.

Matthew 16:13

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 15th & 16th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

For followers of Jesus to come together and form new communities in the cities of the pagan world would require the assurance Jesus gives them in Matthew 16.

Matthew 18:18

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 15th & 16th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Togetherness is fostered by fair dealing between Christ followers, through practices that honor the truth and acknowledge the dignity of others who are made in the image of God.

Hebrews 4:9-10

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 8th & 9th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Yes, we must work for God and His kingdom, but we must also allow room for God to work on us, and that is the purchase we have in the Word of the Gospel.

Matthew 6:6

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 8th & 9th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The character of the unseen God, says Jesus, ought to influence the way we pray. In that way we honor the nature of God who dwells in secret, hidden ways, yet from there He brings life to His creation.

 

Matthew 26:39

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 8th & 9th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Would not Jesus have prayed such things before the final hour, when early on he rose in the morning to seek the solitary place?

Mark 1:35

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

From Background Notes [BN] for Nov 8th & 9th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Of course, silence might also become self-indulgent, proud, and offensive. By contrast Christian silence is listening silence, humble stillness, that God can interrupt by His Word. What are the benefits of this sort of silence?