1. EXTREME WEEK DEVOTIONAL
I think that it is fit that we agree together that this is a week meant to change your life.
Would you like it to? Yes or no (circle one)
If you circled yes, awesome! We’re glad that you’re here! If you circled no…also awesome, we’re still glad you’re
here! We disagree with you, but we’re still glad that you’re here. It is probably good for you to know from the
start that we will do everything in our power to change your mind, but really all that we ask is that you continue
to bring your honest self. And “yeses” you’re not excluded either, maybe you circled yes because you thought that
it was the “right” answer, or it would get you more points or stars or whatever, but maybe you have no intention
of actually being changed. You’re not bad or wrong for wanting to do this (don’t worry I’ve done it quite a fair
number of times), but in my experience God has always been more interested in the honest answer than the right
one. He likes the honest one because your heart is in it, and frankly God is captivated by your heart. We can’t
give God our hearts if we’re not honest, we just give him a thought of what we think our heart should be, and he
can tell the difference. So let’s give up pretending that we are something when we’re really not, let’s just be
honest. And maybe you circled “yes” and you meant it whole heartedly, in that case we’re so glad you came ready
to be changed, and we can’t wait to see how God captures and captivates you.
This book is a place where you can be completely one hundred percent real with yourself and with God. There’s
actually no other reason to use it. Nobody will be checking your answers (unless you want them too) to see if
they are the right ones, so let’s cut the crap and be real.
We will encourage you at some point (probably during small groups) to share about the things that you have
been thinking about, and you don’t have to share the things that you’ve written in here, those things are between
you and the Lord. But, we firmly believe that being known by other humans fully, the raw, uncut, uncensored
version, is part of the path to overcoming shame, depression, guilt, addiction, and hurt. We can’t force you to do
that and nor would we want to. But we believe that part of becoming more fully ourselves comes out of telling
other people about our stuff. We urge you to give it a try.
I, ________________, will be one hundred percent honest and real in this booklet,
Signed: ______________________________________________(This is for nobody but yourself and God)
June 25, 2015 – Naked and Ashamed
Genesis 3: 6-11
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for
gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate
it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves
together and made coverings for themselves.

2. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the
day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man,
“Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to
eat from?”
I remember the first night I got drunk. I went out with a couple friends and they pulled out a bottle of alcohol
and for some reason, I started drinking with them. It was a boring night and frankly the most eventful thing that
happened was that we ate a whole bag of Doritos.
I remember coming home late at night and looking in a mirror. To be honest I didn’t normally like the way that I
looked. But this time I expected to see someone who was more mature, better looking, funnier and just all around
cooler….but I didn’t actually see that. I just saw myself, plain and simple, no new tattoos, or facial hair or flowing
locks, just me except fuzzier.
When we come to the mirror we come with an idea about what we’ll see, pre-conceived notions of who we are,
what we look like and mostly what is wrong with us. So we do things to cover up, maybe we drink like I did, or
smoke, or watch porn, or hide behind our sarcasm, maybe we bury ourselves in our books hoping that if we just
work hard enough we’ll fix all of our issues, or maybe we subject ourselves to any and every relationship that
comes along, thinking that the next boyfriend or girlfriend will be the one that solves it all. But at the end of the
day, the person that we see in the mirror is still just us….except maybe a little fuzzier.
We were not meant to hide, or to cover up, we were meant to be known.
God did not view our nakedness as something special or unique, he just saw us as we were meant to be. We
cover ourselves with secondary identities, to hide how we really feel about ourselves, but it only makes us feel
worse. We label ourselves, black, white, male, female, gay, straight, rich, poor, smart, dumb, pretty, ugly, but God
only sees one label: His.
Sometimes we get so tied to these identities that we don’t even recognize that they are there, this week we will
try to help you understand who you are at the core, and how God has come to redeem you. Walls will fall as we
sons and daughters pick up our identities as children of a King. This week let yourself be known completely and
loved completely, by the only One who can.
Questions:
How do you think that you label yourself?

3. What is something that you’ve never told anybody about? Tell God about it here:
June 26, 2015 – True Belonging is our life with Jesus
Luke 10: 38-42
38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus[a] entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her
house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha
was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has
left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious
and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary.[b] Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not
be taken away from her.”
Memorize it: Psalm46:10
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
I often identify with Martha in this story. Constantly striving and seeking to set the table for the perfect guest,
she would probably never be satisfied with anything less than perfection. I actually think that Martha is convinced
that if she doesn’t throw the perfect dinner party, then Jesus will never come back.

4. On the contrary, I bet Mary thinks “whatever, we’ll just order pizza (or its historical equivalent); this is way more
important.”
We’re probably all a lot like Martha most of the time. We try to throw the perfect dinner party, getting our life in
order, once I graduate I’ll get serious with God, once I get a girlfriend/boyfriend then my life will be better, I’ll be
happy once its summer. We get distracted by the urgent things of life and miss the significant things. It turns out
that we’ve not only learned to procrastinate our homework, but we’ve learned to procrastinate our joy. But joy
was never meant for tomorrow.
Mary is one who has chosen the finer portion. She accepted God’s Holy interruption and chose the significant
thing (being with Jesus) instead of the urgent thing (helping with dinner). While things are seldom that simple
(being a good student is significant, even if homework does not seem to be so), Jesus offers us a life full of
significance and reminds us that when the urgent things don’t get done it’s not the end of the world. And above
all, we don’t have to have all of the urgent things under control to do the significant things, nor even do we have
to have the significant things under control for God to be with us. Jesus is the God that enters into our now, not
just when the circumstances are just right.
Rest (or Sabbath as it’s often called in the bible) isn’t in circumstances that give us peace, but in peace that
informs our circumstances. Rest reminds us what is significant.
What are some things that are urgent in your life?
What are some things that are significant in your life?
Which do you spend more time doing/being?
If rest was meant to remind you what is significant in life, what would you do on a restful day (Sabbath)?

5. June 27,2015– True Belonging is in sharing our pain with God
Genesis 21: 8-21
8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw
that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid
of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so
distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac
that your offspring[a] will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your
offspring.”
14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on
her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat
down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she[b] began to
sob.
17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the
matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by
the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the
boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the
Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
Memorize it: 2 Corinthians 12:9
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

6. My therapist tells me that there are two kinds of pain in this world. Clean pain and dirty pain. Clean pain comes
from all of the things that happen to us that are negative: a family member dies, a boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up
with us, we’re diagnosed with anxiety or mood disorders, clean pain is unavoidable. Dirty pain comes from when
we handle clean pain in the wrong way. We drink to hide pain, cut ourselves to feel it, we gossip about friends to
deal with all the ways that we feel insecure about ourselves, we lie to cover ourselves from unpleasant and painful
realities, we hide from all the ways that we hurt which in turn causes deeper hurt. That deeper hurt is dirty pain,
which is often caused by what the bible calls sin.
Sin is often just our attempt at reordering the world. Our attempt at making things as they should be. We
shouldn’t have to hurt, so often we deal with it the best way that we know how. When we were young we
probably got an injury at some point, and we probably tried to deal with it the best way that we knew how,
maybe we scraped our knee and we threw some dirt on it. When we got older we started to learn how to handle
a scrape on our knee, but we didn’t know how to handle the fact that we didn’t feel like our parents approved of
us until our grades were good enough, so we did all sorts of things to deal with it.
Insert clean pain of your own life here:
What did you do to handle it:
Sometimes I think that our understanding of how God interacts with sin is pretty messed up. It said that Jesus
had compassion (literally co-suffering) for the multitudes because they were like sheep without a shepherd. We’re
just little kids with a bunch of infected wounds and God is our dad who wants to clean them and treat them
more than anything else, but we have to stop pretending that everything is okay, and we have to go to him.
Other things will promise that they will make it okay, but nothing will, God is the only one who knows how to
handle our pain, both clean and dirty.
Describe clean pain in your own words:
Describe dirty pain in your own words:
Ask God what he says about your pain, and write what you hear here:

7. June 28, 2015 – True Belonging is in being transformed by Him.
Philippians 2: 1-11
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any
common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-
minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain
conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to
the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Memorize it: Philippians 3: 8
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.
Often times who we are “supposed” to be gets in the way of who we really are. Growing up in successful families
we are supposed to be successful, diagnosed with depression we are supposed to be depressed, labeled as popular,
we are supposed to be popular. We are teeming with potential, some good and some bad, and the world is
waiting for us to live it.
Like characters in a book, the world has written our story for us, and is waiting for us to go along our way.
There’s only one problem, it’s terribly boring. Our potential seems to often lead us to a life of mundane misery,
where we constantly expect to find our fulfillment in the next thing (car, job, school, girlfriend/boyfriend, etc.)
only to find that we are pulling u-turns in a dead-end street.
I have a friend, let’s call him John, who told me a story about something that happened when he was in high
school:
John was a popular kid, he sat with the baseball guys at lunch and was quite a baseball player himself. He had
likely hopes of playing in college, he loved the game, and the guys that he hung out with. John was also well liked
by most everybody, and he didn’t have to associate with anybody that he didn’t want to. He was living out his

8. potential to hang out with the coolest kids, have the best grades, and play the best baseball, he was living the
good life. John was also a firm Christian who was always asking God how he could do more for him.
There was another kid in the lunch room, lets call him Tim. Tim was lonely and didn’t really have too many
friends, he sat kind of by himself at lunch, and he was always picked on by the baseball guys. It wasn’t always
overt, but he could feel it.
One day, the baseball guys were being particularly rowdy and one of them thought that it would be funny to
throw a piece of food at Tim, so they did. It hit Tim square in the head and without saying anything he got up
from the table and started to walk away. John hadn’t said anything up until that point but at that point he felt a
nudge to do something. So he got up as well scolded the baseball guys for being jerks and went up to Tim and
talked with him for a little bit. He doesn’t remember how long they chatted but it probably wasn’t that long. That
conversation didn’t start a friendship, or really even an acquaintanceship, they just talked and went on their ways,
maybe John said “hi” in the halls, maybe he didn’t, but he did respond to the nudge.
It later came out that Tim was depressed, and that he had been in the middle of the worst season of depression
yet, which was only made worse by the baseball guys. He had left a note in his locker that day saying among
many other things that, “If they pick on me again, I will kill myself”. When he had gotten up from the table he
was going to go straight home to do it, but John talked to him and changed his mind, not by saying anything
special, but by acknowledging him and caring for him.
Tim is alive now because John chose the uncomfortable option. He left a table where he probably could have gone
along in lunch without a second thought, but he chose to forsake his potential popularity for real purpose.
We are the sons and daughters of the King, we have nothing that we need to prove to anybody. We don’t ever
need to worry about how we are “living up to our potential”. Instead we get to live an adventurous and purpose-
filled life today.
What do other people say that your potential is? How do you feel about that?
What is one thing of purpose that you can do today?
Now do it.
How did it feel?

9. June 29, 2015 – True Belonging is in being used by Him.
Joshua 3: 13- 4:7
13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its
waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”
14 So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of
them. 15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached
the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a
heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to
the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite
Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and
stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to
them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a
stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites,6 to serve as a sign among you. In
the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was
cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut
off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

10. Memorize it: Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
I once met a man in a South African prison named Roger Daniels. He, like a lot of former gangsters that I met
was missing his front four teeth. His biological father disappeared at a young age and so as a result most of his
growing up was done in a gang. There was a father figure in the gang who took him under his wing and
eventually Roger considered him his father, and for all intents and purposes, let’s say that he was.
One day Roger was arrested for his involvement in the gangs, likely in a raping or a killing. And he was given a
long prison sentence.
While in prison, Roger had a dream where he experienced the glory of God, angels talking to him, and Jesus
himself speaking to him. He was shown a picture of the world in his dream with angels singing and was blown
away. After encountering Jesus, Roger was genuinely changed by him and starting living a faithful life in prison.
One day his father visited him as he had often done to bring him things and support him, but this time he came
with a request, he wanted Roger to kill his wife and offered to get him out if he did. Roger was a changed man
however, and he told his father that he could not do it. But, his father was persistent wanting Roger to be the one
to do it, so he came back time after time asking him to commit the hit. So Roger decided to pray for this man, he
prayed consistently asking God to reveal himself to this man.
One day his father came back and it seemed just like every other day, except this day he came with another
question. His mother had just recently started reading the bible and Roger’s father started to wonder why his
mom would ever do that, and he started asking about Jesus.
Roger began to explain the gospel to his father, a lifelong gangster, and the next time he came back, he came not
asking about whether Roger would kill his wife, but with more questions about Jesus. So Roger sat, an ex-gangster
talking to another gangster about a God who was bigger than both of them. I don’t know if his father ever made
a decision to follow Jesus, but this much is sure, by living faithfully into the life that Jesus had for him, Roger was
able to change the world around him even while in prison.
We can only change the world to the degree that we ourselves are changed. When we experience a great week
together it is easy to isolate it to a single experience, but we cannot let it be that way. Weeks like this one serve
as a demonstration of the ways that God always wants us to be interacting with him. Indeed often times Extreme
Week seems a little bit like heaven.
But here’s the thing, heaven is not actually meant to be somewhere we go, but someone we bring. When Roger
started praying for that man he was committed to seeing heaven, the same heaven that he experienced in a
dream, come to earth. We must remember the God that we saw and met here, and we bring him with us as we
go back into the world. We bring heaven wherever we go.
What is something new that you have learned about God this week?

11. How does God want to use you back home? If you don’t know, ask Him!
June 30, 2015
Zechariah 3: 1-4
3 Then the angel showed me Jeshua[a] the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. The Accuser, Satan,
was there at the angel’s right hand, making accusations against Jeshua. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “I, the Lord,
reject your accusations, Satan. Yes, the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you. This man is like a burning
stick that has been snatched from the fire.”
3 Jeshua’s clothing was filthy as he stood there before the angel. 4 So the angel said to the others standing there,
“Take off his filthy clothes.” And turning to Jeshua he said, “See, I have taken away your sins, and now I am giving
you these fine new clothes.”
When I was in high school I struggled with self-esteem issues. I thought that I was one of the most worthless,
least loveable, least interesting, least kind people in the whole entire word. And when I heard people in church
telling us how much God loved us, I thought that was great, for everyone else. But how could God love someone
as supremely screwed up as me?
On the outside I looked like I had it all together, a 4.0 student with a good job and good friends, I ran track and
cross country, started a club, was on student government. I was on student leadership at my church and led
worship almost every week, I was even invited to be a student leader on a trip for freshman as a junior, I was
often told that I was more mature than some of the leaders.
But on the inside I felt like I was dying. I was addicted to pornography and nobody knew about it, and I was
overcome with shame. Every time I would look at porn I would feel despair and worthlessness, I would pray and
ask God to forgive me but it seemed that all I heard in return was “you need to work harder you (expletive)”. So I
did, I fought harder and harder, and was harder and harder on myself as I only found myself falling farther and
farther. I started to become companions with shame, thinking that it was what kept me humble. I even thought
that shame was what God wanted me to feel.
And you know what, it was all a lie. When I got to college I got to live with a bunch of Christian brothers who
were going through the same thing, and I started talking about it, and they told me that what I was hearing
didn’t seem like God, in fact it sounded like the opposite.
That is why I love the scripture above, it is one of the most profound and meaningful scriptures that I have ever
read.
In it there is a high priest named Jeshua (which is the Hebrew name often used for Jesus) whose name means “to
save and deliver”. He is the deliverer and representative of Israel (God’s people) before God. In this scene the
Accuser is standing throwing insults and accusations against the representative of Israel. But God says this “I

12. reject your accusations, for I have chosen them, they have been in the midst of sin, but I have saved them from
it.” And then this beautiful thing happens:
God sees that his people are clothed in filthy clothes, I’ve heard it said before that this could be translated as “his
clothes were covered in excrement” and he says, “I’m taking away these clothes and giving you new ones that are
washed clean and are beautiful.”
God rejects the accusations made against us, and instead gives us new clothes and a new identity. He recognizes
the filth that we wear around and he gives us the only clean thing he can, Himself.
Jesus came that we might be saved from sin, past, present and future. And here’s the thing, we have to let
ourselves be changed by him, we cannot hold onto our filth, we have to let God peel off the layers until all that
remains is us, naked before God, and he does not condemn us, but instead clothes us in righteousness. We cannot
let ourselves be allies with shame anymore; we have to give it up.
As for me, I’ve learned that God loves me desperately, that when I fail, he doesn’t stand there condemning me,
but sits crying with me over my own brokenness. He doesn’t tell me to try harder, but offers me friends who love
me, as well as his assurance that he has washed me. He knows that I am weak and I’ve come to terms with the
fact that I need help, that if left alone in this life, I would let my shame control my life and be a slave to all the
ways that I fail. But God is strong, and in my weakness his power is perfected. And in relying on him I have been
stronger in my life than I ever have been before.
We have to admit to ourselves that we cannot do this life alone, we need to do it in community. We were never
created to be independent. We need friends who can tell us what sounds like God and what doesn’t, we need
people to remind us that God has better clothes and a better identity for us than the ones that we are currently
wearing.
But most of all we need God. We cannot do this life without him. He is the only one who can take away our
dirtiness and give us cleanness. We surrender to him daily, because otherwise we will be surrendering ourselves
to our idols and other things that will pass away. But we surrender to the living God, the god who is with us and
loves us. The God with whom we can be naked and unashamed.
To that God, who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine, to Him be the glory, forever
and ever.
Who are some friends that you have that can tell you what is God’s voice and what is not?
How can you surrender to God today?