REAL help: Ambassadors

1. Memorize Hebrews 3:12-13 This week.

2. Romans 15:14 says that you, as a believer like the Roman believers to whom Paul was writing, are competent to instruct/counsel other believers. You are competent because Jesus is with you. You are competent because the Spirit, the other counselor is working in and through you. You are competent because of the Word of God which has the message, method and mindset you need to follow. Do you feel competent? Why or why not? What verses other than Romans 15:14 can you think of that speaks to this?

3. Read Colossians 3:16. This is another verse that uses the same word as Romans 15:14 for instructing others. Here—it depends on which English translation you are using—the word may be admonish, counsel or exhort. Here I see the Message, the Method (at least some of them are here in this passage) and the Mindset spelled out. What is the source of the message? What are the methods for getting the message across? What is the mindset we are to have?

4. Read 1 Timothy 4:16. Paul sent Timothy to Ephesus to provide some REAL help. Read 1 Timothy to get an idea of why Timothy needed to help. According to this verse, what was a prerequisite for Timothy to be able to provide REAL help? Why are both of these, his life and his doctrine, so important?

5. Review 2 Corinthians 5. God has truly called us to be His Ambassadors. We are to be ambassadors to the unsaved, and the saved to be reconciled to God. The unsaved are obvious. Why was Paul pleading with the Corinthians to be reconciled to God? You may want to quickly read over the letters to the Corinthians to see all of the warnings and exhortations Paul gave to them. Are we any better than the Corinthians? We all struggle in our Christians lives. We have not yet arrived to being fully sanctified and like Christ. We are still being transformed into His image. Until then, there are areas of our lives where we need to be warned by other believers, and exhorted to be reconciled to God in that area of our lives. Where is God calling you to be reconciled? Begin looking around and ask the Lord to whom He wants you to be an ambassador to encourage to be reconciled to God. Begin thinking through how you can LOVE-KNOW-SPEAK-DO as Jesus did.