Preparing to Be the Swatara Church of God

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2 Assurance of Salvation

4 Personal Testimony

8 Personal Bible Study

11 Balancing Your Prayer Life

15 Christ's Lordship

18 Obedience

21 Church Membership

25 Stewardship

29 Church of God History

31 History of the Denomination Quiz

35 History of the Swatara Church of God

36 We Believe Quiz

41 Organization of the Eastern Regional Conference

42 Organization of the Churches of God, General Conference

43 Swatara's Mission and Vision

44 Swatara's Organization

45 Eastern Regional Conference Organization Quiz

46 General Conference Organization Quiz

48 Your Unique Design

48 Spiritual Passion

49 Swatara's Ministries

54 Spiritual Gifts

71 Temperament

77 Your Ministry

78 Membership Vows/Covenant

80 Answer Key

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright
© 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of
Zondervan Bible Publishers.




LESSON 1

ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

1. What does Jesus promise to do in Revelation 3:20 if you open the door of
your life to him?
____________________________________________________________________________
_________

2. How do you know Jesus' promise can be trusted?
a. John 14:6
_____________________________________________________________________

b. John 1:17
_____________________________________________________________________

3. If Jesus is in your life, what else do you possess (1 John 5:11-12)?

____________________________________________________________________________
_________

4. Everlasting life is described in John 5:24 as (circle the best answer):

a. Past b. Present c. Future

5. Eternal life isn't just endless existence. It's Jesus' heart
transplanted into you, a different kind of life altogether. When Jesus
loves, He's just being Himself. His life gives you the ability to be like
Him. One of its characteristics is that it has no end.

6. A car's gas tank feeds the engine and represents the facts. The gasoline
is your faith and the car's trunk is your feelings. Filling up the trunk
with fuel instead of the gas tank won't take you anywhere. Trust the facts
(God's character and promises), not your feelings. Your feelings change,
but the facts don't. Faith believes God's promises and ACTS on them.

7. God's character and promises support your faith. Great faith doesn't
prevent you from breaking through thin ice. It won't hold you up just
because you think it will. Thick ice supports one with weak faith. Why is
faith the foundation for knowing that Jesus is living within you (Hebrews
11:6)?
____________________________________________________________________________
_________

8. 1 John 5:13 says that God wants you to ___________ you have eternal
life. With time you'll increasingly detect in yourself several vital signs
of new birth from God:

Evidence #1-1 John 4:13
_________________________________________________________________
As a result of the Holy Spirit's inner witness, do you have an inner
assurance that you belong to God?
__ Yes __No

Evidence #2-1 John 5:1
_________________________________________________________________

Are you trusting Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection instead of your
own goodness to make you 100% acceptable to God? __Yes __ No.

Evidence #3-1 John 2:3
_________________________________________________________________

Evidence #4-1 John 3:14
___________________________________________________________

Evidence #5-1 John 3:10
_________________________________________________________________


9. Check below all the "fingerprints" of God's nature you now see in your
life compared to your life before you believed in Jesus:

a. __ I'm more interested in the Bible.
b. __ I can forgive others easier.
c. __ I pray more now.
d. __ A weight of guilt has been removed.
e. __ I enjoy being with other believers.
f. __ I have a greater desire to help others.
g. __ I want others to know Jesus too.
h. __ I love others more now.
i. __ My talk is "cleaner."
j. __ I have a new ability to resist sin.
k. Other changes I've seen ____________________________________

10. How do you know that Jesus is in your life and you have eternal life
now?
____________________________________________________________________________
_________

If you aren't sure, would you like to be? __ Yes __ No

To be sure, you must repent (Be willing to turn from sin and self-
centered living to God and his way of life) and believe that Jesus Christ,
God's Son, died on Calvary's cross in your place, was buried, and rose
again the third day.

Believing in Jesus means receiving Him. Ask Him to forgive your sins
and come into your life to be your Savior and Lord. The following is a
prayer you could use:

Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross in my place and taking my
sin, death, and judgment upon yourself. I open the door of my life to you.
I want you to come into my life and take control. Thank you for forgiving
my sins, and making me a child of God. Make me like you. Amen.

Scripture Memory

Revelation 3:20-Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears
my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with
me.














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ASSIGNMENTS

1. Read "My Personal Spiritual Story" and then write your story.
2. Memorize Revelation 3:20.

PERSONAL TESTIMONY

MY PERSONAL SPIRITUAL STORY


WHO? ME? A TESTIMONY?

Perhaps you think you don't have much of a spiritual story to tell. You
weren't that bad before you received Christ, you aren't that good now, and
it's been a struggle! Compared to those who can recount deliverance from
alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, gambling, a life of crime, etc., your
spiritual experience is as boring as watching water drip from a faucet.
Unlike Saul of Tarsus, you haven't seen the risen Christ. You haven't heard
God speak in an audible voice or seen even a five-second mini-vision in
black and white. You're simply a "trust and obey" believer and at times
feel decidedly inferior in even those two basics.

THE WAY WE WERE

Many of us have forgotten or never experienced the relentless single-file
march of an army of unsatisfying days lived out under sin's merciless
control. Nothing changes but the date. No peace. No purpose. No hope. No
fulfillment in this world and no hope for the next. Life is a daily chase
after the butterfly of good feelings. Although occasionally we capture it,
it always escapes through a hole in the net. Tomorrow we must pursue it all
over again. Butterfly chasers aren't happy with life, but don't realize
Christ and his church promise the purpose they've longed for. Believing our
story isn't important adds to the problem.

WRITE FOR INSIGHT

Each of us benefits from thinking long and hard about how God has been at
work in our lives. We aren't yet what we want to be, and our failures, like
facial blemishes, are all too familiar. Nevertheless, we've probably moved
farther from the spiritual starting line than we realize. Writing your
personal spiritual story prepares you to share it more clearly and often.

HOLD THE TESTIPHONY


When we're living for ourselves, we're blind to most of our faults. Now,
like kittens with their eyes open, we see ourselves more clearly, and that
alone is significant progress. God has chosen to pour his living water into
imperfect vessels still under construction. We're cracked, and we leak, but
God can still channel his living water through us to satisfy the
spiritually thirsty. We're a work in progress, and Jesus gets all the
credit for any improvement. Our role isn't to pretend we possess sinless
perfection but to be transparent. Not only can't people relate to Never
Fail Fred or Freda, it just simply isn't true. Any one of us would be
utterly humiliated if Hollywood made a movie based on all our thoughts
during the last year. I wouldn't attend the premiere of my own movie! Would
you attend yours?




YOUR STORY MATTERS



Your story will connect with the people like you. Persons who "aren't that
bad now," and never battled alcoholism, can relate to how Christ has worked
in a "not so bad life" better than how he has worked in the life of a
converted alcoholic.




ONE THEME AND THREE SECTIONS


Your story can help open the eyes of not-yet-believers, but first you have
to write it. Before you can do that, you need to pray and reflect on how
God has been at work in your life. The whole process will probably take
several hours, but the blessings that can result are beyond calculation.
Try to organize your thoughts around a single theme, such as how your
purpose or values have changed.

To communicate your story effectively, organize it into three sections:

1) Describe your life before knowing Jesus personally.
2) Spell out how you came to know Christ, so others will know how to
receive him too.
3) Explain how receiving Christ has changed how you relate to God,