Jason Pensa 
Without the power and leading the Holy Spirit the Gospel is just a bunch of words. It takes the conviction and the invitation from God’s Spirit to lead someone to Christ (whether a first-time believer or a long-time disciple). We rely on God for the ministry of Church.
We talk a lot about grace. We insist on how we need to give each other more grace. We even insist on how people ought to give us more grace. We might even tell ourselves that we ought to give ourselves more grace. But is it possible we missed the point of grace? Maybe we got grace wrong.
You know how when you have company coming over to stay you suddenly look around your house and see how dirty and cluttered it is? What might not bother you or your family during the normal routine is suddenly not acceptable when you’re about to have friends or family staying with you. You suddenly go into a furry to clean the house and remove the clutter. Sometimes you look around and you realize you have way more clutter and junk then you need. You realize it’s time to clean house and make more permanent room in your life.
We often have preconceived notions about the what, the why and how of God’s calling. It receives no small attention from Pastors, authors of theology, bloggers, and the Jesus following Church member. I think that’s because it’s almost in no way theoretical and is extremely personal. Within God’s calling we find our guidance, our direction, our source of adventure, assurance and peace.
We seem to be caught in a vortex of articles on the internet suggesting what the church needs to do differently or better, to remain relevant. They often sound vague and like there’s someone, somewhere else that needs to do something differently about the problem. But when we talk about the church, we’re not talking about a building or somebody else we’re talking about ourselves.
Everyone has something to say about leadership. Many people pursue positions of leadership while others actively avoid positions of leadership. We as people each individually need to be led. Whether we know it or not we will follow something or someone because we are creatures who follow.
Think about the time and effort it takes to grow plants in a garden. In order to get the fruit from the plants, the soil needs to be tilled and the plants require water and sunshine. So it is with spiritual growth.
It’s so easy to let your self-worth be based on how you esteem yourself. When we self value and esteem our worth of who we are based on what we think we have the tendency to either think too highly of ourselves or too little of ourselves.
Jesus is resurrected. His body healed, complete, perfect in all ways except one. His scars remained. His scars remain to prove that He went through that awful ordeal on the cross. His scars remained to tell a story. His scars remained as proof, as evidence of who He was and the miracle to top all miracles for all time.
We know that knowledge alone won’t make us better Christians. We won’t love God more by just knowing more facts about Him. We won’t love our neighbors like Jesus by just understanding that it’s something we “should do”. We need to apply the Bible to our lives. We need to live out the Bible. So today I want to give you some keys to putting God’s word into action, to applying the Scripture to your life.