Enriching Your Devotions: Practical Guidelines

One of the most significant things that can impact our life for good is the practice of Daily Personal Devotions. It cannot be overstated how this can benefit a life over the years and how God has used it to mature and strengthen one's faith and walk with Him. It can be a source of struggle and frustration for many... finding time; what to do if you do find time; wandering thoughts; reading the Bible but feeling like you are not getting anything out of it. This concludes a brief series called Enriching Your Devotions. The goal behind this series is to give you the practical helps needed to have a very blessed devotional life that will bear fruit and yield years of enjoyment in fellowship with God.

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: A Full Orbed Life

Paul's prayers in Colossians are so important to study because they show us what God wants us to be like and how to live a full orbed life of fruitfulness.

Colossians 1:1-12,3:12-4:1
Isaiah 6:5
Matthew 5:21-22,5:27-28
James 1:19-20
1 Peter 3:7

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What attitude did Paul assume his hearers had about their salvation?
• What are the things Paul is praying for?
• What does it mean and how does it look in a person's life when they are filled with a knowledge of His will?
• What are the practical ways this was illustrated, and what are ways this should work out in our lives?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

How Should I Live: Loving God

As Christians how should we live? We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. That's the number one thing. Everything we have is a gift from God. We are so blessed, even when we're not thinking about Him! To know God is to love God.

Isaiah 40
Matthew 22:34-40

She was always best when she was most with God in a corner. She has many a whole day been pouring out her soul before God for the nation, for Zion, and the great concerns of her own soul, when them about her did judge it more expedient that she had been in her bed, by reason of some bodily infirmity that did hang upon her; but the divine pleasures that she took in her closet did drown the sense of pain. Thomas Brooks Strength in Weakness

But the most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless... shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars... I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. C.S. Lewis Reflections on the Psalms

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Why do we not love God as we ought (or Why do we need fixed)?
• Why do people and angels who know God well love Him?
• What are some of the multifaceted ways God is beloved?
• What are the results from loving God?
• How should loving God impact:
  1. our personal devotions?
  2. our praise of God?
• What practical suggestions were given concerning How to love God?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Mark: The Suffering Savior

Jesus suffered for us in so many ways even before the actual cross, as Mark describes this final week our hearts are moved at the love of such a willing and determined Savior.

Mark 14:43-72
Philippians 2:3-11
Galatians 2:20

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• In what ways did Jesus suffer in the passage today?
• Why are these events made more dramatic because of who He is as the Son of God?
• How does knowing about Jesus' suffering for us supposed to impact our lives?
• How does it affect how we approach Him now with these problems in our lives?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Mark: The Top Thing I'm to Be About

What is the most important thing in all of life that God wants us to do? When Jesus was asked a question in Mark, His answer should motivate us to do that most important thing.

Deuteronomy 6
Mark 12:28-34
Numbers 25:1-8
Romans 1:21,8:7,1:30
Nehemiah 9:17

To love God in the way defined by the great commandment is to seek God for His own sake, to have pleasure in Him and to strive impulsively after Him. William Lane The Gospel of Mark

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What is the most important thing we are to do in life?
• What does it mean to love God?
• Give some specific examples of how this would work out in life.
• How can I get to this point in my life
• What needs fixed?
• How can I grow more to love God?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Mark: True Motivation - What's Ahead!

Mark describes that Jesus was transfigured before some of His disciples. The implications are vastly far reaching and immensely encouraging to those who have chosen the pathway of discipleship.

2 Peter 1:16-21
Revelation 1:9-18
Mark 8:27-9:8
John 14:6,6:68
Acts 4:12
Romans 8:17-18

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What does the word transfiguration mean?
• Why is the transfiguration so important?
• What does it teach us about Jesus?
• Why is it such an encouragement after what Jesus just called His disciples to in the context?
• Where are we heading?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Mark: Mission Impossible

To the exhausted disciples feeding the large, hungry crowd surely seemed like mission impossible, but Mark says to the exhausted Jesus it was still mission compassion, providing a glimpse into the Kingdom of God.

John 6:1-15
Mark 6:30-42
Philippians 4:19
1 Corinthians 3:9,3:6
Isaiah 25:6-9

Finally, let us mark the feelings of our Lord Jesus Christ towards the people who came together to Him. We read that He "was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep without a shepherd." They were destitute of teachers. They had no guides but the blind Scribes and Pharisees. They had no spiritual food but man-made traditions. Thousands of immortal souls stood before our Lord, ignorant, helpless, and on the highroad to ruin. It touched the gracious heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was "moved with compassion toward them. He began to teach them many things."

Let us never forget that our Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes. High in heaven, at God's right hand, He still looks with compassion on the children of men. He still pities the ignorant, and them that are out of the way. His is still willing to "teach them many things." Special as His love is towards His own sheep who hear His voice, He still has a mighty general love toward all mankind-a love of real pity, a love of compassion. We must not overlook this. It is a poor theology which teaches that Christ cares for none except believers. There is warrant in Scripture for telling the chief of sinners, that Jesus pities them, and cares for their souls, that Jesus is willing to save them, and invites them to believe and be saved.

Let us ask ourselves, as we leave the passage, whether we know anything of the mind of Christ? Are we, like Him, tenderly concerned about the souls of the unconverted? Do we, like Him, feel deep compassion for all who are yet as sheep without a shepherd? Do we care about the impenitent and ungodly near our own doors? Do we use very means to spread the Gospel in the world? These are serious questions, and demand a serious reply. The man who cares nothing for the souls of other people is not like Jesus Christ. It may well be doubted whether he is converted himself, and knows the value of his own soul. J.C. Ryle

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Death is Gain: Heavenly Rewards

What motivates us? Is it heaven and its treasures? Should heavenly rewards be a motivation for us? What kinds of things will be rewarded? What will the rewards be? Get prepared for some heavenly economics!

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Matthew 5:5,5:11-12,6:1-4,6:19-21,10:40-42
Romans 8:16-18
2 Timothy 3:12,4:6-8
Luke 12:33,18:22,6:35
1 Corinthians 3:8
2 John 1:8
Revelation 11:18,14:13
Hebrews 10:35
1 Peter 1:3-4

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA