If you’ve randomly opened the Bible you might have stumbled upon a list of names, a bunch of laws, or some pretty weird stories. You might wonder “what is the point of all of this?” You might have felt a little overwhelmed. There’s no doubt that the Bible can be complicated (as discussed last week), but at it’s core is one simple main point.

The whole Bible is about God’s plan to save the world through His son Jesus Christ. You might think “Really? Even those weird lists? What about the stories hundreds of years before Jesus was alive?” Yep! Even those parts of the Bible fit into a bigger story that is all about Jesus.

So if the Bible is all about Jesus, then what was Jesus all about? Well…YOU! Actually, not just you…in fact, Jesus’ chief mission was to bring glory to God the Father. But he brought glory to God by dying in our place for our sins (so that part’s definitely about you). Because of his life, death, and resurrection, we can be saved: restored to a relationship with God right now and into eternity (check out Romans 5:8 and 10:9-10).

Read the Bible for yourself while seeking God and asking questions, and you’ll begin to see that it all points to God’s plan to save us! It gives insight into our relationship with God and our struggles with sin. Comment on this post and tell us what questions you have!

Last night at Tribe, we talked about how the Bible is kind of like a ‘magic eye’ puzzle. You might look at the Bible and see nothing at first…it seems like a big, complicated, random mess. Maybe you’ve heard other people talk about it, so you think something meaningful might be there, but you just haven’t seen it for yourself. But similar to a ‘magic eye’…with a little bit of focus, the big picture becomes more and more clear.

Last night we talked about on two big things to keep in mind about the Bible:

1. If the Bible is everything it claims to be, we shouldn’t be too surprised that it can take some work to understand. The Bible addresses some BIG topics like eternity, God, salvation, and the most complicated of all: people! We should expect that these topics can be a little complex at times.
2. It’s not hopeless, the Bible can make sense! Most things take time to understand…even riding a bike was difficult for you at one point in time. Millions of people have witnessed that the more you engage with the Bible, the more clear it will become!

That’s why we’re doing this series and challenging you to read your own Bible, so you can experience it yourself! Have you prayed for God to speak to you and opened up His Word yet? Check out youversion.com for some short Bible reading plans: pick a topic that interests you, whether it’s anger, depression, bullying, cutting, dating, death, friends, gossip, temptation…the list goes on!

Leave your thoughts on this topic by commenting on this post!

• Nothing in the Bible has ever been proven wrong or contradictory (although many attempts have been made).
• Out of the hundreds of prophecies the Bible has made, it’s never been wrong…ever!
• The Bible does not disagree with any scientific facts.
• The Bible has never had to be rewritten to conform to new discoveries, etc. (it has only been updated to use our current language).

In light of these amazing truths about the Bible, we are left with the conclusion that either the Bible got really lucky in all these categories (and then some), or it truly did come from an all-knowing and perfect God! The Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all Scripture is God-Breathed”, meaning that although God used human authors, they were writing His message! Sometimes that can be difficult to understand…How can we know for sure? How exactly did that work?  (Click here for a short explanation).

We’ll always have to have an element of faith when it comes to these sorts of things, but there are ways we can confirm God’s truth. The bullet points above definitely give us some reason to believe that the Bible is truly from God…but more importantly, you can try reading the Bible for yourself and experiencing it’s impact on your life firsthand! If you truly seek God and read His Word, the more you read it, the more you’ll see that it’s active and powerful!

Don’t be afraid to ask your parents or someone at Tribe where to start reading, or any questions you have about confusing parts of the Bible…we want you to explore it for yourself!

God gave us the Bible to tell us everything we need to know about our very existence. He tells us why He created us…He tells us about how He loves us…He tells us about how we can be with Him in eternity…and He leads us in our every day life. When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that our God (who created you, me, and the entire universe) decided to communicate with us by giving us the Bible! A good question to ask yourself is if God is real, and He wants a relationship with you, then why wouldn’t you want to spend time reading His Word?

What questions do you have about the Bible? Post them in the comments below or submit them under the “Your Voice” tab at the top of this page!

Along with this series, we’re also challenging Tribers to bring their Bibles to Tribe every week in what we’re calling Operation: Bible Cart. We want you to bring your Bible to Tribe so that you can discover for yourself why God’s Word can be powerful and active in your life!

This is the first person I have known that has done this. I am at a complete loss of words to describe the lost and brokenness that I feel. Maybe some of you have lost a friend or a relative, or at least know someone who has lost someone. Death is a permanent thing in the physical world, there is no coming back from it. All I can do is hope that my friend is now in paradise with God; there is nothing I can do or say that will bring him back. Suicide is hardest on those left behind, we are forced to wonder why, and think about if there was anything different we could have done. I am in a state of helplessness, were all I can do is turn to God and ask him for guidance.

The Funeral is on Wednesday at 2:00 my friend was 22 years old. He had a lot of life to live, but for some reason he thought life wasn’t worth living for. I pray for his close friends and his family that God would help them get through this hardship, I feel completely helpless, I want to do something, but there is nothing to do, what can I do?

If you have ever thought about committing suicide please talk to somebody about it. Don’t keep it a secret. God created us to live in community with each other so that we could share each other’s hardships and burdens. Myself, and I know any of the other Tribe leaders would be more than willing to talk to you about it. Don’t feel like you have to be alone.

As I look through my notes from the retreat, I am reminded of the powerful topics that our speaker, Chad Relffs, talked about.

• The Gospel
• Being a Light in Your Family
• How to Shine Like a Star
• Share the Light of the World

Maybe you remember one of these topics, or remember something else that your small group talked about. There are two of these topics that really stick out to me. I have to question if I am really living up to how I promised myself I would change at the retreat. The two topics that spoke to me the most were: “How to Shine Like a Star” and “Share the Light of the World”. These two topics go hand in hand with one another. A shining star is noticed by everybody who is around it. This idea comes from Philippians 2:12-18. A shining star is a person who is not afraid to show other people the love of God. The second topic that spoke to me was “Share the Light of the World”. Being a star, and sharing the light, almost seem like the same thing. Sharing the light of the world is different, however, in the fact that you have to be proactive about speaking the Gospel. Shining like a star is living a life according to God’s calling on your life, thus, showing the world you are a follower of Jesus Christ. However,  sharing the light of the world is actively speaking it to the people that you are around everyday. Do you see the difference?

As this year goes on and we live everyday, are we committing ourselves to God, in the way that we said we would? Did we really change ourselves like we said we would? I want to hear your voice. What do you remember from the fall retreat? What did you learn that you are living out? What commitment did you make with yourself, or with God, that you forgot about?

Please leave comments!

• Natural talents are something you’re born with…Spiritual Gifts are specifically given by the Holy Spirit and are used to bring God glory.
• Spiritual gifts should cause people to notice God, not you.
• Every Christian has Spiritual Gifts.
• Spiritual gifts are NOT about your natural abilities, but about God using you in spite of your inabilities and limitations.
• Spiritual Gifts require total dependence on God.

• First, you have to be spending time with God. If you aren’t investing in your relationship with Him, it’s going to be hard to know how He has gifted you!
• Second, get input from other Christians. Others can sometimes see how God is working in us better than we can. Talk to a mature Christian and ask them what they think!
• Third, just try it out! Look for where God is working and offer yourself. When we serve God and serve others, we can more clearly see how He has gifted us.
• Last, take a spiritual gift assessment. But before you do, make sure you’ve done the first three steps! Gift assessments can be helpful, but they aren’t 100% accurate, and sometimes they can skew your opinions (by telling you what your gifts are before you’ve tried to discover them for yourself). Here are a few resources for you to check out:

Everybody wants to be loved, and we often look to relationships with others to fulfill us, whether that’s our parents, our closest friends, or a boyfriend or girlfriend. While certain relationships can be bad for us, relationships in general aren’t a bad thing…but what happens when we let our relationships with others define who we are? Well that can be tricky, because when something happens in that relationship to hurt us or let us down, then we feel like a part of who we are is missing. We end up devestated.

Even the best relationships in this world can’t compare with a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus will never hurt us, let us down, attack us, or abandon us. In fact, Jesus proved his love for us by going to the cross and giving us freedom from our sins.

In light of this topic, here are two key questions to ask yourself:

1. Have I put my faith in Christ, asking for forgiveness from my sins and beginning a relationship with Him?
2. Is my identity found in my relationship with Christ more than any other relationship in this world?