Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond The Spiritual Exercises is primarily an experience that allows you to discover God’s will for you in your life The Exercises are meant to be very personal –Try to avoid general or abstract language the reading tells us that we need to be good people God is telling me that I need to be more patient with my brother

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond The Exercises give us an experience of grace –In hearing God speak directly and personally with us, we are usually filled with some type of feeling I was excited that God would speak directly to me –Write about your experiences (no matter how strange or irrelevant they might seem) and your feelings

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond Prior to looking at our sin, we saw how God has been present in our life –What was our response to that loving presence? Gratitude –What grace did that gratitude produce or give to us? Generosity

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond We recognize that despite our desire to be generous we oftentimes fail to respond as generously as we would like We feel sorrow for not being as grateful in our actions as our heart desires

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond That sorrow has the opportunity of producing the grace of an intense or renewed desire to respond with greater generosity

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond In addition, it allows us to contemplate the question: –What is God’s response to our sin? Similar to the question: How does God see me? Allow us to experience God’s love in the midst of our sinfulness God honestly loves us (“warts and all”)

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond What is our response to God’s insistence to love us? Do we have the courage to accept God’s acceptance of us?

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond Such questions may lead one to consider that they desire a deeper, personal, more intimate relationship with Jesus Honesty and openness encourage intimacy

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond Rather than letting sin become a stumbling block and keeping us from the love that God desires to share with us it can actually lead to a closer relationship Our friends know our faults and love us anyway

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond Some common graces –I desire a sign or proof of God –I desire for increased trust in God and that he wants to help me –I desire God’s love –God wants to be there for me in big and small things –An understanding that God get’s excited about me! –God loves me with great passion and is willing to make sacrifices for me

Growth in Christ Sin and Beyond Some common graces –God invites me to a spiritual feast –A feeling of being filled with God’s love and happy –A desire to truly believe and to have faith in God –God’s love for me is strong and cannot be damaged or destroyed –I desire to trust God’s plans for me and my life –I want God to calm and soothe me –I want God to be patient with me