Love That Strengthens
SOAP
Do you have a quiet time? Daily devotions, Bible reading, and prayer are spiritual disciplines that are for the purpose of godliness. Godliness is a synonym for making us more like Christ on the journey of sanctification. Godliness is another name for being a disciple.
One of the methods to journal for the purpose of godliness is called SOAP.
Quiet Time SOAP Chritsian Devotions and Meditation
S - Scripture
O - Observation
A - Application
P - Prayer
Methods matter.
Example of SOAPing
Ralph Rittenhouse, Chairman of the Board of Directors of GDI, wrote this SOAP.
S-"While knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church." 1 Corinthians 8:1 (NLT)
O- Paul had learned a lot in a few years. This is a man who was known for his great knowledge. He had studied with the best. But he was also known for his great violence and hostility toward those who followed Christ, trying to destroy the early church.
Now he had become a man whose values had radically changed. Now it was not about how much you know, but how much you love. Knowledge puffs up. It can make you arrogant and cold. It can make you argumentative and causes division.
That is evidently what was happening in Corinth. But Paul had learned that it is love that builds up. It is love that holds the church together. It is love like a magnet that draws unbelievers to Jesus, melts their defenses and diffuses their arguments, and causes our churches to grow.
A- I preached for many years trying to help a congregation grow in their knowledge of the Word of God--a worthy objective. But, when we started training in disciplemaking, gender-specific MicroGroups, a whole new chapter of my experience as a pastor/teacher began to unfold.
I had chosen three men to join me on my disciplemaking journey, and we signed a covenant to do our homework and prepare for our once-a-week meeting. We committed ourselves to make this meeting a high priority and not to miss unless it was a dire emergency.
We voluntarily put ourselves in a place of strong accountability to each other and to God, saying we would let Him change us anyway He wanted. At the end of each session we shared prayer requests, opening our lives, our needs and struggles in full view of the group. It became a place of safety and honesty.
Then something began to happen. These men quickly became my best friends, and the group became a place of positive encouragement and relational strength for each of us.
We were stronger together.
I have to confess, I am not sure I had ever really loved other men like the men in this group. One of the men in my group was a test pilot for Raytheon, an aerospace company. As I was walking down an aisle in a CVS drug store, my phone rang. It was the test pilot calling me on a satellite phone from the cockpit of his experimental airplane, half way through a 2600 mile flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
An additional fuel tank had been installed on his aircraft to enable him to make this extended flight, but the tank would not engage. This was a dangerous situation, and he called me?!?
I am not an engineer. I do not know anything about airplanes. But he did notcall for mechanical help. He called me because I could give him something the technicians at Raytheon could not supply: prayer support.
We prayed, the fuel tank engaged, and he successfully completed the flight. Another man in our group owned a construction company. There were sometimes strained customer and employee relationships that became a focus of our prayers. And, of course, we all had families who needed our prayers.
These shared troubles and times of prayer melded our hearts together. But this bonding discovery did not just happen in my group. We had started three other groups at the same time, and they were experiencing similar results. Not only were we growing deeper in our knowledge of God and the Bible, we were learning to love in new and deeper ways.
One of the important commitments we made when we joined these groups is that when we finished this curriculum, which could take one to two years, we would then prayerfully consider starting additional groups, with three more men each.
As a result, these groups began to multiply within our church, and we began to see our entire church growing deeper in love with Jesus and with one another. Our strength as a church was rooted in God's love, a love that had become real and evident in our lives.
We had seen a church across town split over doctrinal issues. When many in our congregation became passionate about making disciples, some did not. But instead of dividing us, we developed patience, learning to allow God to do his work in his time, in each individual heart.
P- Father, thank you for demonstrating your kind of love to us, by sending Christ to die for us. Thank you for teaching us to love selflessly, like you do. And, as we continue to grow in knowledge, may we never forget, that it is Your love in us that truly makes us strong.
Greg Ogden
Greg Ogden
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