BTLN UPDATE

Congrats Phoenix! This was the first time that Phoenix has ever won the Helmet! It is always fun when one of the guys wins the Helmet for the first time! Luke was there at the end with Phoenix, but was unable to break through on the last round.

We hadn't played Murderball at Btln since the Three B's, so we were long overdue! My team easily won the first game, so we gave Dan's team GeRRald. Before the second game my team looked like we were going to be in trouble, but we managed to pull out the win! In the third game Dan's team battled back to take the win! In the fourth and final game, my team finished the night with a win, giving us a 3-1 series win!

In Bible study this week our title was "Where I Belong".

Ephesians 1:3   Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Ephesians 2:6-7   And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:1-3   Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

The first two passages tell us that we are already blessed and seated in the heavenly realms! The third passage tells us that we should be setting our hearts on things above. If we are blessed and seated in heavenly places then we should think and act as if we are already in heaven.

Philippians 3:20-21   But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Philippians 2:5-8   In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Not only are we blessed and seated in heaven, we are also citizens of heaven! Jesus had to leave heaven, become a man and die on the cross so that I could become a citizen of heaven! Amazing!

2 Corinthians 5:20-21   We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
 

If Jesus made us citizens of heaven, then why has he left us on earth? We have been left on earth to be Christ's ambassadors! Jesus has left us on earth to share the gospel with others that have not already heard or accepted it!

THE CAPTAIN