God has important work for the church to do, and the leaders of the church have been put in place to equip the church to do that work of ministry. We have all been given spiritual gifts that we can use to serve others and glorify God. When you add that all up, we need to be ready to answer's God's call to be servants--not just spectators.

If we understand our identity, we'll understand our purpose. 1 Peter 2 tells us that every Christian belongs to a holy, royal priesthood. Unlike the old priesthood in the physical Temple, which hardly anyone qualified for, every believer is part of this new priesthood because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

Tonight we continue our conversation on the discipline of guidance with a closer study on God's will, and the role that prayerful conversations with other Christians plans in our spiritual journey. We showed a video clip as an illustration that we are linking to as well.

We tend to overcomplicate Christianity, but the Gospel message is actually really simple. Jesus died for our sins and was resurrection on the third day. The grace he gives us transforms our lives forever, and that gift of grace is a gift that is available to everyone.

God is leading all of us on a spiritual journey. No matter where we're starting from in our faith, our ultimate goal is to become more like Jesus. But since we're all coming from different places, each of us has a unique path to follow on the way. The discipline of guidance is when we seek God's will by having prayerful conversations with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Paul teaches us to "do everything in love." In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul helps us understand why love is so essential to the Christian faith--and what real love looks like in practice.

Worship is a spiritual discipline. It's something we intentionally choose to do to place ourselves in God's presence so that God can transform us into a better reflection of Jesus. Of course, we can go through the external motions of worship without ever really worshipping him in our hearts. In tonight's class we discuss worship from the point of view of our ongoing spiritual formation.

Every Christian has received a gift from God. These gifts of the Spirit are meant to be shared in a way that blesses others.

Last week, we began a discussion about the spiritual discipline of confession. Tonight we continue that conversation with an in-depth look at a few prayers of confession in the Bible: Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9, David's prayer in Psalm 51, and Ezra's prayer in Ezra 9-10. These prayers give us an example we can follow when we talk to God and others about the sin in our life. Here's a few of the things we highlighted in these prayers:

1. An attitude of humility.
2. A clear admission of wrongdoing--for oneself and the community.
3. A recognition that discipline is warranted.
4. An appeal to God's love and mercy.
5. A pledge to live a transformed life.

The church in Corinth wrestled with some tough questions. Not everyone agreed on the best way to practice the Christian faith. When divisive issues threatened to split the church into various factions, Paul emphasized the need to seek unity and put the needs of others above ourselves.