Campus Community | Deeper Week 1

Overview:

Would you say your relationship with Jesus is deep or shallow? What do your relationships with others look like? Are they deep or shallow? God is calling us to grow up. To stop being miles wide and inches deep. Some of you may have been a Christian for 10 years but you are still a 1 year old Christian. 10 years with your toes in the water…Let’s go deeper with God. Spiritual formation isn’t about doing deep things, but knowing God deeper. Spiritual disciplines are diving gears gifted to us by God Who is inviting us to experience the beauty and depth of an abundant life. He wants us to go deep with Him. God isn’t playing Hide and Seek with us. God says “Welcome”. He says “come” and discover Who I really am and discover who you really are. When we get God, we also get godliness. There is healing in the ocean of God. There is hope. Joy. Peace. Real purpose. Real victory. Awe struck wonder and so much more.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me and I will answer you, and reveal to you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Psalm 42:7 “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls…”

Temptation: Colossae – Colossians 1:9-10

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,

10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

Immaturity: Corinth- 1 Corinthian 13:10-12

10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Division: Ephesus- Ephesians 4:13-15

13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

15 Instead, 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.

Quotes:

Spiritual disciplines are diving gears gifted to us by a God who is inviting us to experience the beauty and depth of an abundant life.

“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people” (Richard Foster)

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

The classical Disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm. They urge us to be the answer to a hollow world.

“Shallow men want shallow women”

“Spiritual formation isn’t about doing deep things but knowing God deeper”- John Mark Comer

Questions:

1. When was the last time you discovered something about God that took your breath away?

2. God wants to deeply connect with each of us. What in your life holds you back from growing in deeper intimacy with our God?

3. There are countless distractions of this world that can easily keep us from seeking after the Lord. Are there things in your life that you have prioritized over your walk with Jesus? Things you need to spend less time with?

4. Trust plays a big part in going deeper, are there areas in your life where your trust has been broken and not mended?

5. What is a practical step that you can take this week to go deeper with God?