Congratulations on completing the Traction adventure and collecting all 14 Trophy Insights!

What you actually trust determines what will feel right to you, which in turn will strongly influence what you do. So, if you find yourself not doing what you think God wants, then perhaps that means you really don’t trust God to have your best interests at heart in that matter. (Prov 23:7)

When you suspect this is happening, would it be helpful to stop and have a conversation with God about this?

Goodness is inherited from the character ofthe good God who created good things to reflect His good character. As a Christian, you are good because Jesus is good and God has placed you

in Christ; people ARE NOT good because of the good things they do. (Gen 1: 4, 10, 12, 18, 21,25; Matt 19:16-17, Gal 2:20)

What’s wrong with thinking that you are being good when you do good things?

Did you notice how much help and encouragement came from your climbing- team-members

as they shared their Scripturally based insights with you? That is an important part of what real Christian fellowship looks like. (Roman15:2; Phil 2:4; 1 Thess 5:11)

Could you see having more conversations to encourage your Christian friends like the ones Maggie, Mark, Jen, and Tyler have had with you?

Righteousness is being right in God’s sight. Being right with God never comes from doing good

things. If you are righteous in God’s sight, then that means God does not condemn you for things you do or fail to do. (Rom 8:1; Matt 13:49; Matt 25:37-46; Luke 18:9-14)

Why do you think we sinful humans have such a strong tendency to assume God’s view of us is dependent on our behaviors?

Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross really is enough. And there’s nothing else we need to do to

be completely right with God. To be pleasing to God, one does not need anything more than what

Jesus has already accomplished on your behalf. Jesus has provided EVERYTHING you will ever need to be perfect in God’s sight. (Heb 7:18-19; Gal 3:1-5; Gal 5:4, Col 2:14)

In what ways do you think you can improve on the finished work of Jesus Christ?

You cannot pay for the same debt (sin) twice because once the debt is paid (once the guilt of the sin has been appeased), there is no more debt to pay for. (Col 2:14)

If Jesus has completely paid the price for all your sin, what else is there for you to do?

Because Jesus exchanged His righteousness for your sin, God now sees you covered with the

righteousness of Christ. You have all the favor in His sight that Jesus Christ deserves, which is not

diminished by the things you do.

(2 Cor 5:21, Gal 2:20)

Are you as righteous as Jesus Christ?

Even when you do bad things, God is not angry with you. One of the things Jesus did for you is to remove God’s wrath that you would otherwise deserve. (Rom 5:9)

When you feel like God is angry with you, are your feelings telling you the truth?

God has created Good works for us to walk in them (Eph 2:10, Gal 2:20). These Good Works are God’s love gifts to us. They help us more joyfully walk with Jesus on this earth as we live out our new identity in Him. They are NOT for the purpose of making us “more good.” God creates good works for us to do so we can experientially share in the joy of His goodness.

The grace and mercy of God is not license for us to do evil, but it provides us with the freedom to live according to our new identity in Jesus Christ as a child of God. If you are a Christian, then God sees you as perfectly righteous even when you do bad things. However, your bad deeds DO obstruct the vibrancy of your fellowship with God. When that happens, God tells us that He wants us to be

honest with Him about when we break fellowship with Him. Then He will clear out all the obstructions

and restore our dependence on Him (I John 1:9–10, Gal 2:20).

If you really see that your identity is who you are in Jesus Christ, will you want to act contrary to your identity?

God says that we are not able to be righteous, even when we are doing the very best we can do. Any attempt on our part to improve our righteous standing in God’s sight is a rejection of the completeness of Jesus’s work for us, and therefore, an insult to God. It is a false perception, due to the fault of our human nature, to think that God’s approval of us is due to whether or not we do good or bad things. (Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:10-20)

If you were looking for food and already had a tasty piece of fruit, would you trade it away for a dirty mud clod?

What’s our primary focus: Source or Outcomes? The default of our fallen nature is to focus on outcomes we think we have caused (whether they are good or bad). Focusing our life on outcomes feels reasonable to our fallen nature—but it also results in lots of feelings of guilt when we fall short. (Gen 1-3:7, Matt 6:33)

What would our lives look like if we stopped obsessing about our outcomes and focused on the source behind all things? What would be different if we quit looking at our efforts and outcomes and focused instead on God’s goodness and what He was providing in any situation?

The mind of Christ vs. our Fallen Nature (what naturally feels right to us). It’s all about us choosing what we think is best instead of trusting God for what He says is best. It is never right to substitute what we think is best for what God

says is best—no matter how noble we think we are being. We are not being noble, we are being rebellious by rejecting what God chooses to provide. provisions come through the wisdom of His Word. Wanting what we think is best instead of what God says is best is what the Bible calls “sin”.

(Gen 3:1-7; Judges 21:25; Matt 7:21-23)

The question here is, “Would I prefer to trust my own judgment and get the credit for my own best efforts, or would I prefer to trust God’s provisions and let Him have all the credit for what happens in my life?”

In our natural (fallen) state, we can only really believe in the physical realities, and we deemphasize (or completely ignore) the spiritual realities. But the truth is the spiritual realities of God are more permanent and substantial than physical things which are temporary in this fallen world. (Matt 6:10; Matt 6:19-21; Gal 2:20)

How much sense does it make to value physical things that will never last more than spiritual things that will never disappoint or

perish?