The Walk

We started our Life Change series this week. It was an awesome experience with 3 new people giving their hearts to Christ with one re-dedicating their life. AWESOME! This series is based on 1 John.

To experience true Life Change we started with a walk. We are always moving so we need to find out which direction we are heading toward.

We started the walk recognizing who Jesus is. He is fully God and He is fully human. If He were not fully God that died for our sins then His death would mean no more then mine. If He was not fully human, We would not think that He could understand what we go through. the first step in our walk is to know that Jesus is who He said He was, God!

Once we know this it is up to us to admit to Him that we have been walking in darkness. God is light and there can be no fellowship between dark and light.

Next we learned that if we walk in the light, we can have fellowship with God. The Bible teaches God will cleanse us from all sin and we do not have to walk in sin, We can live sinless. You can talk with God and He will communicate with you.

To be true follower of Christ, the Bible teaches we will walk as Jesus walked. He was in the temple teaching and that shows us we should be in church. To say you are a follower of Christ and to say that you don't like church means you have your eyes on the wrong thing. How can you not love church and love God?

We are also told we will love God's people. We do that by worship on Sunday and small groups through out the week. Would you like to join with us? You are welcome!

God's power means we can not sin, but we still have a choice to make. We will be tempted (Christ was tempted) but we do not have to sin.

And the last point was if we do sin, Jesus is in heaven making sure we are forgiven. Have you asked for God's forgiveness for walking in the dark? If not do it now, ask Jesus to forgive you for yous, come and live in your life and then find a Bible preaching church.

More than Power

In this sermon we looked at power. Herod tried to kill Jesus and he was a mighty man. The problem he has was he was running on his own power.

We looked into our own lives to see if we were running on our power or God's power. we looked at three steps to receive God's power in our lives.

Step one was to admit that we need it. God is looking over us and wanting to give us His power but He would never force it on us. He gave us free will and does not over ride it. He is always trying to get our attention so we can surrender to Him.

Step two was to be plugged in. A toaster will not work if it is not plugged into a power source. We must be plugged into God if we want to receive His power. We stay plugged in my being obedient. It is arrogant to think we can receive God's power while we are being dis-obedient to His will. He is not going to bless sin. To say plugged in we need to be obedient to the things God wants to add to our life and remove the things He wants removed.

Step three is to live by faith. Look up Hebrews 11:1 to find the definition of faith. When we start to believe we have heard from God and He is calling us, it is up to us to start to take the steps of faith. He will direct the paths of His children, but we have to take the steps.

Have you admitted you need God's power, ask Him for it.

Are you plugged into God, pray and seek HIM!

Are you walking by faith, what has god spoke to you about that you need to take the first baby step?

Christmas behind the scenes: More than Pagentry

God's presence was awesome today. He showed us much grace.

We started looking at Christmas the way it was on that first Christmas. We looked at different people and what they were feeling.

Joseph, was afraid, the Angel said, "Do not be afraid.

Mary was uncomfortable. Can you image riding on a donkey for 7 days, pregnant?

the Inn Keeper was busy, he had a full house to take care of.

And the first visitors, the wise men and shepherds, were awestruck so much they praised God. the shepherds went into the streets to tell others.

How do we feel today when we hear the name of Jesus? are you afraid to accept Him into your heart? If you have done that are you uncomfortable when you are asked to cahnge your ways and live Christ's way? Ar you too busy? No time for church, for Bible study, or for prayer? Are you awestruck where you have to tell others? Which ever feeling you have, yuo are not alone. The questions is this, will you take that feeling and peel it back and as God to help you find our why?

3 Modern Meanings of Christmas

Today was our Sabbatical Sunday. We enjoyed a wonderful time with God and each other.

The teens started us with a skit about the real meaning of Christmas and then I spoke on 3 meanings of Christmas. The skit was about Christ is Christmas.

The first meaning was that there is a way out of sinfulness. Jesus came to earth that we might have life abundant, not a life of sin. Sin was here before Him and He came to defeat it. With out Christmas there would be no forgiveness of sin and no power to live above it.

Secondly, we looked at God can speak to us in strange places. No matter where we are and what we are doing, God can and will speak to us. Every time we are in church, God speaks to each of us. the question is always, Are we listening? Many people were in church today for many different reasons, and it doesn't really matter why they were there. The questions is did they listen to God? It is my hope and prayer that God speaks to people through our blogs. If you hear from God, please share with us.

Thirdly, Christmas demands an response. Every time we read about God, hear someone speak about God we have a decision to make. How will we respond. There are millions of ways to respond that can be narrowed down to two. Yes Lord or no.

What is your response to the fact that Christ came to earth and died for our sins? Will yo accept His forgiveness right now or say no!

I pray you will say yes to God's will for your life.

We finished our time together with communion and then a meal.

Being Thankful in the Tough Times

What a wonderful day we had learning more about how to be thankful, even in the tough times. We had one new guest and he seemed to enjoy himself. There were several raise their hand to acknowledge that they had received help from God today. What a blessing!

The scripture for today was Philippians 4:4-8. We can find at least 4 steps to being thankful in the tough times.

Step One: Worry about nothing. Easy to say but not so easy to live. With 40 % of worries never going to happen, and 30 % being from our past with nothing we can do about it, and 12 % about health concerns that never happen and !0 % that insignificant issues that only leaves 8 %. Th key is to live one day at a time.

Step 2: Pray about ever thing. Replace worry with prayer. God was not asking us to find time to pray, just the time we were spending on worry, turn to prayer. We learned that we can dump all our problems on Him. No matter what it is, God cares and wants us to drop them on Him. One study says people that go to church live 5.7 years longer, maybe because we choose to dump our worries on Him.
The insight: No problem is too big or small to pray about.

Step three: Thank God in all things. Our goal is a attitude of gratitude. The scripture says we can be thankful in all things as long as we believe that God is in control and no matter what I am going through, God's purpose is larger then the problem, God's power is more powerful then any problem and I can learn for anything.
Insight: Thanks and Giving go together.

Step Four: Think on right things. Instead of reading the newspaper and watching TV all the time, take some time to read the Bible. Put garbage in your brain you get garbage out. Want to be more like God, read the Bible and obey it.

What do you think?

Markings on the Door Post

What an awesome service we had Sunday. God's presence was powerful. In the last two weeks we have seen miracles at work.

This week we looked at Peter's spiritual growth spurts and how we can have similar ones. It all starts with How hungry for more of God are you? The question I asked to start the sermon and then let you answer at the end and asked that you keep in mind as we looked at Peter's life.

Peter moved beyound his comfort zone and put a mark on the doorpost of his life. Anytime we allow God to move us out of our comfort zone we have a growth spurt. Is God trying to move you in to a new area in your life? God does this by expanding our understanding of Him. The more we learn about God the more He changesus. He changes our motivations. He gives us a thought. God starts to change our desires and plans. He does this through preaching, Bible study and small groups among other ways. Then He gives us an oppoutunity. What will your choice be? A growth spurt or saying no to God?

We looked at groth spurts come from spending consistent time with God. I asked everyone in the service to add 5 minutes with God to there calendar. What a difference it will make in your life if you will jsut spend time along with God. This was to be a quiet time. I know you can pray anywhere and at anytime. Many pray traveling the highways and this is good. But I asked to set aside a time to be alone with God and to see how He will give usa growth spurt. If you make this deceision you can put a mark on the door post.

Do you want a spiritual growth spurt? Are you willing to let God help you remove barriors in you life? First, ask God what barriors you have. He will let you know. It could be an action, an attitude, an addiction or whatever He reveals is stoppingyou from getting closer to Him. Are you hungry enough for God to allow HIm to show you and then to be obedient? Which brings us to

Whatever. I hear younger people say this a lot in a negative way. WHATEVER! I ask you this, are you willing to do whatever God asks? Are you willing to give your whatever to God? I had one person let me know that God spoke to her about tithing. He will not start. This is awesome, becsue I didn't mention tithing. That is the Holy Spirt at work in our midst.

Would you like some spiritual markings to put on the door post?

How hungry are you for God?

Fatih needs Works

What a wonderful day we had with family day. the kids helped me to understand that if I have faith that a calculator will give me an answer, I have to input the numbers. With faith and works I was able to find the correct answer

James writers that faith without works is dead. So as we are having growth spurts, we need to learn what our part is. I believe there were some great growth spurts yesterday.

As we develop a Mighty Faith, we need the joy of expectancy. we looked at moving mountains and we noticed we didn't really have enough knowledge to know where to move physical mountains so we focused on mountains we each have in our lives, relationships, finances, etc.

We ofter wait until we can't do any thing but yell help. We today decided we would take our mountains to God expecting Him to answer us we joy. We even decided that we would have faith for those that are struggling right now.

Now that we joyfully expect God to flatten the mountains in our lives we need action of obedience. We will start to be obedient to God in all areas of our lives. No more holding back the financiers, no more holding grudges, no more bad attitudes, basically we decided to do the things we all ready know God would have us to do.

Lastly, we decided we would trust God with the outcome. We understand some things might not work out our way, but that is OK. we trust God.

Is there a mountain in your life you need moved? Are you willing to be obedient to God? Will you trust God with the outcome? If you do that mountain might just be a daffodils.

I Can't Stay Like I Am

We had a wonderful day with the Lord today. His Spirit was with us in a powerful way. He truly blessed as we started looking at Growth Spurts.

We started by looking at all the ways we are nor perfect, like attitudes, or our tongue, or complaining and what we found out is we all have room to grow. We can't stay like we are. If we need spiritual growth spurts, how does this happen.

There are so many ways but we started to look at a few. For us to have spiritual growth spurts we must have the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. So many times we can't grow because we are not willing to wait and pray. Int he book of Acts the apostles were told to wait and pray and they did not do anything until they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Once filled with the HS, they had a spiritual growth that took them out of the upper room and into the world. Have you been filled with the Holy Spirit?

Another spurt we looked at was how we grow when we are around other growing believers. It is important to rub elbows with growing believers. If we rub elbows with those that aren't growing, if we are not careful we will start to become complacent. We can do this best at worship and in small groups. Have you made a commitment to attend church weekly? How about joining a small group where iron sharpens iron.

The last one I want to write about today is how we grow when we are filled over and over. In Acts 2.4 the apostles were filled with the Spirit. In Acts 2.31 the apostles were filled with the spirit. Being filled with the HS is not a one time event. There is a crises event where we give God our all and become sanctified(set apart for God) but even after that we need to be filled daily. I can't imagine going through a day that I did not completely surrender my life to Christ and receive His filling. I need to grow closer to God daily. Do you re commit your life fully to Jesus daily? What difference would it make if you did?

We looked at more ways, but that is enough for now. Let me know how you experience spiritual growth spurts.

Don't miss next week when we look, "At the Marking on the Doorpost"

We area chosen People

We celebrated the Church of the Nazarene's 100th Birthday yesterday. As we looked at the past, we celebrated what God has done and we looked at what He will continue to do in the future. We are a chosen people, we are a Holy people and we are a sent people.

Did you know God has chosen you to be his child?
Did you know God has chosen you to be Holy?
Did you know God has chosen you to be sent?

The Church as the Temple Of God

What a wonderful time we had this Sunday with God pouring out His Spirit on us. We looked at the temple of God being the people in the church. Throughout the sermon we talked about how the church body as a group and as individuals.

The we are the dwelling place of God. If we will be the dwelling place of God, then God must be present, and He was ever so present yesterday. We were challenged to allow God to be present 24/7 and not just at church. If God is present in our church, then guests will know it when they visit.

God must be host if we will be His dwelling place. We so often act like God is the guest and He is welcome in parts of our life. God wants to be host so that He is our life, that every thing we do is what He would love.

Then for us to be His dwelling place we could see that God must be comfortable in our lives. WE do that by living the way He desires and we learn that from the Bible.

Secondly we learned about the church is built with people. God has been building the church with humans for thousands of years. At the same time Jesus Christ is the corner stone. So as God uses people to grow His church, and each day we have to do church differently to reach new people, everything has to go through the foundation.

Lastly we looked at the church is a Holy Temple. We must be Holy because God is Holy. We looked at some scripture to prove to us that we do not have to live in sin.

1 John 2:1 (NIV) My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

Romans 6:1-2 (NIV) What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

We came to the conclusion we can live and not sin. we can live and sin. It is a choice and with the power of God we can chose to not sin. God is more powerful then sin.

Most excitedly we had two people give their hearts to Christ. Praise His name!

Out of One Many, Out of Many One

This starts our Centennial series. We are starting our series with our Sabbatical Sunday with a baptism. The series will consist of these messages: The Church as a Covenant Community, The Church as the Body of Christ (Family Day), The Church as the Temple of God and The Church as a Chosen People.

Sermon Chat

We will post sermons to this blog from now on. Each Sermon series will have a post. You will be able to add commets to the posts.