CCU Softball Fellowship Devotions
Theme: “UNITY”
Theme verse: Ephesians 4:2-3 – 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (NIV).
As we prepare for another year of softball and fellowship we have decided on the theme of “Unity.” Let our desire be to first find unity in God so that we can live with others in peace. As we look at the topics and subtopics for each month let’s consider God’s characteristics and the qualities that he desires us to have as we commune with him and with people of all nations.
Topic for June: God is Love
Topic for July: God is Immutable (unchanging)
Topic for August: Fruit of the Spirit
The week before your team is to lead the fellowship/devotion time, a leader should be designated by the coordinator of each team to be in charge of next week’s fellowship/devotion time. The leader should see leading as a privilege, as an opportunity to potentially be used by God to lead someone either to Christ or closer to Him. So advance preparation will help the leader to be more effective in that task. The devotion is set up to not require a biblical scholar to do, but rather for anyone that is a Christian and has a Bible to use as a reference.
What would make the devotion time effective is for the leader to come up with a specific example in his/her life as it relates to the topic of the week and share that to the audience. Being open and transparent will help your audience to relate to you the most. Begin each devotion time with prayer, thanking God for the game that has just been played, and asking God for wisdom and guidance for the devotion time. Break the two teams up into groups of 4-5 people and work through the two sharing questions per session. Spend about 5-10 minutes on this. Next, ask each group to share the most interesting thing that came up in their group as they went through the two questions. Then read the weekly scripture in a clear and understandable manner (you may ask someone else to do this, but ask in advance if possible). Next, paraphrase in your own words what the scripture was about. Finally, the most important part, to tie everything together, share your own personal experience as it relates to that particular passage. Try not to use too much Christian "jargon“ as you should assume there might be some in the audience who are either pre-Christian or young Christians who don't understand all the Christian lingo (such as will of God, etc.). Close the devotion time with prayer, asking God for boldness and strength to achieve the topic for the month in each person's daily walk.
General: For the sake of time during fellowship, the scripture passages have been reduced. In order to properly lead the devotion, although it's best for the leader to read the surrounding passages during the week to get the full context of the story mentioned. Once the leader has the full context in mind, it's much easier to paraphrase the story to the audience on the day of the fellowship. Thanks for your leadership and may God bless you with a wonderful experience as you allow yourself to be used to further His kingdom!
June: God is Love
June 4: Love (1 Corinthians 13:4-7; 1 John 4:7-12; Colossians 3:12-14; John 13:34; Ephesians 3:16-19) –
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
13:34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
EPH 3:14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
a. How can you show others love or Christ’s love?
b. How can your attitude of God’s love to others improve relationships at home, work, or school?
June: God is Love
June 11: God will forgive (Romans 10:9-13; 1 John 1:9; Ephesians 4:5)
9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
4 There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
a. What is the difference between confession and repentance?
b. What sins do you need God to forgive?
June: God is Love
June 18: Love God with all your heart (1 John 4:9-11; 1 John 4:16, 19; Deuteronomy 4:39; Deuteronomy 6:5-9; Ezekiel 11:19-21)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1JN 4:16 God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
1JN 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
DT 4:39 Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD."
a. What things do you put before God?
b. What do you need to change to put God first in your life?
June: God is Love
June 25: The image of God (Genesis 1:26-28; Genesis 9:6; Colossians 3:5-11)
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
9:6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
a. What does it mean to be made in the image of God?
b. How do others see God’s image in you?
June: God is Love
Leader's notes: A very common word for love during the times of the apostles was philia. It is the word of genuine affection, heart love. It is seen in the name, Philadelphia (brotherly love). Jesus had this kind of love for his closest disciple, John (John 20:2), and for Lazarus (John 11:3).
It is appropriate that love should lead the list of Spirit’s fruit – for “God is love (1 John 4:8). We are also reminded in 1 Corinthians 13:13 that the “Greatest of these is love.” The noblest form of love is “Agape.” Agape love has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises impulsively in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live by. It is the kind of love that we must have for all people – even our enemies (Matt. 5:44). The Christian must always act out of love, i.e., in the best interest of his fellow human beings. Unquestionably, the most exhaustive treatment of what this kind of love involves is found in First Corinthians chapter 13. Within this context, the inspired apostle gives more than a dozen descriptions, which regulate the operation of agape love and what a challenge they are. To study them carefully is to come to the rude awakening of how far we fall short of measuring up to the divine ideal of concern for others. Divine love is unmerited (Rom 5:8), great (Eph 2:4), transforming (Rom 5:5), and unchangeable (Rom 8:35-39). It is this love that sent Christ to die for sinful men and that perseveres with people in spite of their willfulness and love of sin. Now because the spirit of Christ (who is characterized by love) is living with the Christian, the believer is to show love both to other Christians and to the world.
God made a deliberate choice to make man (Gen 1:26). When Genesis 1 speaks of the creation of man, as it does several times over, it is not concerned with the time at which he was created. What concerns the author of Genesis is mankind being created “In God’s image.” This is repeated several times: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” What does this mean? One thing it means is that men and women possess the attributes of personality as God himself does, but that animals, plants, and matter do not. Animals do not reason like people do, and they do not worship. To have personality one must possess knowledge, feelings (including religious feelings), and a will. This God has and so do we.
A second element to consider in man being created is morality (ethics of goodness). The third element involved in man being made in God’s image is spirituality, meaning the people were made for communion with God, who is a Spirit (John 4:24 - God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth"). Consider that although mankind shares a body with such forms of life as plants, flowers, or with animals, only he (mankind) possesses a spirit. It is on the level of the spirit that he is aware of God and communes with Him. Since we are made in God’s image we are therefore valuable to God and others.”
July: God is Immutable
July 2: The Gift of God (Ephesians 2:4-9; Isaiah 45:22; Acts 4:12; John 14:6)
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.