As Christians we know that our whole life is a journey of learning more and more of what it is to follow Jesus Christ. Our training is never complete. God is working through His Spirit to transform us and that is to be an ongoing process until we leave our earthly bodies.

Of course to be trained you either embrace it willingly and work at it - or you resist training. Alot of times people resist training when they feel they have nothing to gain by it or that the cost is not worth the effort. Unfortunately - even Christians who recognize God is calling us to be like Him can often ignore the need for training. We get complacent and feel like we are good enough and give up on training.

Paul said to train like an athlete: 1 Cor 9: 24-27 Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! 25 All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. 26 So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. 27 I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

Obviously training is required to live the Christian life. But we have seen that for long time Christians there can also be ReTraining required.

ReTraining invovles looking at what habits you have in your Christian life - that were never as God intended. One big area is how we think about church. For many people in our culture including Christians much retraining is needed about church. The 3 most common ways that many people think about church are: a building or location, a Sunday morning service, a minister or church staff. For too many people Church equates to a combination of those three things. For that reason we must be retrained.

The Bible teaches that the Church is people who are called to join together and live out the mission of Jesus Christ. Certainly organization and facilities and leaders can all play a part in that - but they are all just peices that serve the greater purpose. Christ is the head of the body His church - He is not a landlord of church buildings. Christ calls every Christian to be a part of the body - not just ones with certain skills or training.

Acts 4:13 says: The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.

Lord retrain us to understand that each one of us is called by You. When we are people who walk with You each day - You will use us in powerful ways. May others recognize us as people who are with Jesus!! May our lives point people not to a building or a staff - but to our Hope Jesus Christ.