• if you’re sick
• if you want to be aware of what is going on in the spiritual world around you
• if you have a friend who needs help and support
• if you need to be forgiven
• if you are worried about something but want to trust God
• if you need to confess and “get right” with God - and want to pray powerfully
• if you want to build, or show thankfulness for your fellow Christians
• if you want to help protect your weaker, hurting Christian friends and support them against the evil forces that want to hurt them and mess with their minds
• if you want to have a good perspective on life
• if you want to be an ACTIVE part of the worship in your Church - praising your God
• if you want to do what God wants you to do and you want to make Him happy

Would you like more reasons than that?  Do you want to know more about prayer? If you do, talk to Rudy, Gayle, or your small group leader and we’ll find them together.

Have you ever heard the story of the Prodigal Son?  If not, CLICK HERE.  If you have… here’s a challenge: a lot of us have probably felt like the prodigal son before, being stupid and wasteful and then running back to God’s waiting arms.  BUT, have you ever considered that we have probably acted like the prodigal’s brother as often as we have acted like the prodigal?  If you remember, the prodigal’s older brother got mad when his father threw a party at the return of his selfish, sexually-immoral brother.  Why did he get mad?  Here’s why: ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

His father (a picture of God) corrected him, and encouraged him at the same time, by replying: ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

So the challenge is this… when you see someone come back to youth group after being gone for a while, maybe after doing some stupid things, do you rejoice and celebrate - or do you complain and whine and gossip about them?  We will all have our opportunity to be the prodigal son, returning to God from our mistakes and sins.  And I assume we have all been like the older brother at one time.  But, BUT, we also all will have the opportunity to be like the prodigal’s father… welcoming the less-than-perfect (aren’t we all) back into our church home, helping them become healthy again…

rescuing them (and US) from our ordinary lives!  

As the Mexico team heads home, here’s a last thought on 1 Corinthians 13.  Why is love “greater” than faith and hope?  Here are two suggestions:

1. “faith” and “hope” are future-based.  You hope for something you don’t have yet, and you have faith in a God you can’t see.  But when we are in heaven, face-to-face with the invisible God, we won’t need faith - the object of our faith (the God we believe in) will be there with us!  And we won’t need to hope for anything - all of our Christian hopes will have come true.  Actually, faith and hope are a prt of Christian love (read verse 7).  But love - love will be forever.  From the beginning of time to the end of time… love will be a part of our lives.  Love will be perfect when we get to heaven: no more apologizing to the people (or the God) we love, we’ll finally know perfect love. 
2. God IS love.  God is forever, He is eternal, so love will truly never die.  Love is truly “greater” than faith and hope. 

The people our Mexico team are working for and working with will be a part of our Christian lives forever, just like our Christian friends back home who didn’t go to Mexico.  This is one of the great joys Christians can hold on to.  It is also what should motivate us to tell people who do not know Jesus as Lord the message of the gospel.  If you have more questions about this, contact one of your leaders, Rudy, Gayle, or just comment here!  WELCOME HOME, MEXICO TEAM!

Love never fails.  for some clarification on this passage in 1 Corinthians, let’s put our Big Greek Thinking Caps on for a few minutes (I promise it will be painless).  In fact, to prove that anyone can do the same thing I am doing below because it’s nothing fancy, I put the links to the webpages I used for the research… just click on the words or verses if you are interested.  OK, Let’s take the three words in reverse order:

• Fails - the word “fails” comes from the Greek ekpipto which means “to fall, or to perish.”  Like a leaf or a flower that falls of, dries out, and dies.
• Never - the word “never” comes from the Greek word oudepote and means “not at any time” but it is not talking about frequency, like: how often does love fail?  never, it’s always successful!  No, it is talking about time or duration, like: at what time will love stop- 6pm?  not at any time!  not when Jesus went back to Heaven, not when He comes back, not ever!
• Love - the lord “love” comes from the Greek agape which means.. well, “brotherly love”  :)  It is a perfect and intimate love, like you would have with your best friend, or close relative.  It’s deeper than saying “I love tacos.”

Love Never Fails.  This verse is saying love will never die.  It will never go away.  Ever.  It is NOT talking about the success of love, or how you will always win at whatever you do if you love… no, Paul is telling us to keep our focus on the right thing.  God IS Love… God is eternal, and since God IS love, love will never die or stop.  We will begin to understand love a lot better when we get to heaven and see love face to face - that’s for sure! - but our job is to love NOW.  What are you doing to love those around you?

Love is not easily angered.  As simple as this is… it is NOT easy.  it is simple because we know as Christians and as people called to love others, we should not be angry or quick to lose our temper.  However, it is not EASY to live this way.  it is tough.  Anger is natural, and not a sin.  It’s what you do with the anger.  Don’t believe me?  Click on the sentences below to see some verses from the Bible that talk about anger:

God gets angry, so it CAN’T be a sin just to get angry (God cannot sin)

However, God is slow to get angry and shows patience, even when anger is justified (think how patient God is with you - and me!)

The Bible tells us to be careful and not let our anger steer us into sin (That’s Paul quoting King David in the Psalms)

HERE’S THE CHALLENGE.  will you act on this verse and be slow to anger, or will you just get angry anyway?