September 4th, 2011 Community Life Together – Truth Pt2

Continuing a new series on one of Elevation’s core passions…Hang Out. After a while the honeymoon stage of being a church family wears off, but there is incredible power if we stick with it and forge depth and unity in our relationships.  So how do we deal with it when community life together gets hard?

If you want a study tool to go along with the podcast, see Lift Notes here:

Community Life Together: Truth, Pt. 2

September 4, 2011  by Kasey Crawford

We believe there is incredible power in investing in relationships with one another. But how do we deal with it when community life gets hard?  GRACE!!     (See Colossians 3: 1-15)

Within the community of grace there is an appropriate time and healthy way to confront someone with truth! (See Matthew 5:23–24)

Jesus claims that to God it is more important for you to be at peace with your brothers and sisters than it is for you to do personal acts devotion at a worship service.

The way the bible describes community life together, speaking the truth to each other is one of the primary ways we grow!

Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  Ephesians 4:15

But how do we speak the truth?   …speaking the truth in ________!

Here is a motives check of whether or not we are ready to speak the truth in love: (from Colossians 3:13-=15)

Compassion-a ____ ____________ feeling of what they feel.

Before we speak the truth, we put ourself in their shoes to see if that changes our _______________.

Kindness-you really want what is _______ for them.

The truth spoken in love isn’t looking to __________ to someone how _________ they are, but genuinely desires to see them ________.

Humility-___________ that you might be off-base.

The word literally means weak and _______, like the position of a servant.

If a word of truth is spoken in love, it is a word that humbly says: “This is my perspective, this is my take, this is how I _______, but I may be off-base on this, so I’ll share with you and see if something resonates.”

Gentleness-guns are not blazing, no _________ condemnation.

The opposite of gentleness in the greek is a “________ up”, like a temper. So if truth is spoken in love, we are under ___________.

Patience-we are content with _______ progress

Patience _____________ recognizes the long and slow process of _____ _____ growth, and is therefore not unrealistically demanding of how much change should happen at once in someone else.

Forgiveness-Forgiveness comes from a root word meaning a hand opening and ___________  ____ of something.

So what do we let go of?

Our _________to punish, we give that to God.

Forgiving someone doesn’t mean we allow them to __________ treating us like junk.  We are called to let go of the right to punish, but God gives us the right to speak the truth.

So…when you have some truth to speak to someone, hear is your motives check that you take in prayer to the Lord before you speak the truth, to make sure its going to be in love.

Is your truth spoken in this kind of love?

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