Learning about Yourself Personally

Monday was a packed day! We did many things and had class in the morning and afternoon. This will be our regular Monday schedule from now on. We all start off splitting up boys and girls to spend time talking over the past weeks precepts that we did individually. We are studying the life of Abraham. We then went into group worship and were presented our Lifeline Topic for the day. Our topic this past week was Body a Temple. We had about 45 minutes to work on our statement to tell what we belief about The Temple Being a Temple. The last part of the assignment is to be given a scenario and talk in groups about how to approach the scenario and then talk in class about them. After lunch we came back to the classroom and got the afternoon to examine ourselves. We spent the afternoon talking about spiritual gifts and personality. We took two tests to discover our top spiritual gifts and search out what we thought of our personality and others as well. My top three spiritual gifts are Administration, Service, and Mercy. We took the DISC test on finding out our personality. I am a S and a closely followed C. I am People Oriented Reserved person. Then I am a Task-Oriented Reserved person.

On Wednesday and Thursday we got the privilege to have Rod Handley come and teach us about Character and Integrity. Here are some of the highlights over the two days.

What does character (integrity) produce? What are the benefits of leading a life of character?

1)     A clear _Conscious _ (Psalm 26:1-2, 11)

2)    It _Delights_ God (Psalm 15)

3)    The inheritance of a lingering _Legacy_ (Proverbs 20:7)

4)     The opportunity of being a _Mentor_ (Proverbs 11:3)

Paul (Training and Equipping You), Timothy (You are Training and Equipping Others), Barnabas (Encourager and Friend)

5)     True __Leaders__ develops (Job 8:20)

E.V. Hill, “If people aren’t following you, you’re not leading; you’re just taking a walk.”

6)    A __Humble__ servant heart emerges (Psalm 78:70-72)

7)    A __Crown of Glory__ awaits the good finisher (James 1:12, this does talk about salvation, however, Ron believes it also talks further about our integrity)

He then gave us Illustrations of Humility from the Bible and gave a principle to go along with it.

1. Matthew 18:1-5  Principle: Humility begins with a teachable spirit

2. Matthew 20:25-28  Principle: Christian humility is simply going down

3. John 13 & Luke 22:14-38  Principle: True humility is drawing close to God

I loved this quote from Ted Engstrom that Ron shared with us, “Accountability is the greatest prize of integrity. Accountability starts with yours truly—with an honest appraisal of who we are, of what makes us tick. It includes a long, hard look at our own ideals and motives. When we give an accurate account of what we think and what we do, then those around us can come to rely on us with confidence.” He gave us this quote after talking about how to sustain character and integrity. Then we went into detail about accountability.

Some of the verses that impacted me about accountability were

Hebrews 3:13 “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ lest anyone of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Proverbs 12:1 “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”

Confess, Prayer, Healing = James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”

Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

We have a huge test tomorrow morning over all that we learned last week from our Bible Overview Teachers. I studied really hard on Wednesday because I knew Thursday would be packed with other things! I am going to study some last little things I need to review one more time!

Be encouraged, Once we become filled with the Holy Spirit we are given a spiritual gift to uplift in the church and the church body. I would challenge you to seek out a test online and take it - they only take 15 minutes. By knowing what your gifts are then you can use them within the church and everyday life to share the gospel! So take a test even if it has been years since you have! It will be really fun to learn something about yourself.

Have an amazing time learning about yourself!!