I Am So Excited About This Sunday!!

I just want to share with you a little preview of this Sunday because...

•  we are going to laugh together a lot... 
• I will be unveiling some new details about many of the transitions we are making as a church... 
• and I promise that we are just going to really enjoy ourselves!

Whatever you had planned to do this Sunday morning... CHANGE THOSE PLANS AND BE IN CHURCH... because you do not want to miss Sunday!! If you do, you will be way behind everyone else... as you engage in conversations you will feel like you really missed out, because you will!! 


And as a little preview we are beginning a new series called....

Isn't it amazing that really the most constant reality of life on planet earth is change... that the most CERTAIN truth about life is UNCERTAINTY!!


Change is inevitable in life... we know that so well because winter is pressing in on us faster and faster... and for some it is a FESTIVE CHANGE and for others this is the season they are most bitter and cold... (in both ways!)... it is a FRUSTRATING CHANGE


Change is inevitable in life... it is a guarantee... and still, we find ourselves fighting it at every turn it seems... 


So don't miss this week!  I promise that if you come with an empty cup God will fill you to overflowing... it will be one of the great and memorable worship gatherings we ever have!!  And who knows maybe even through this series on CHANGE, God might CHANGE YOU!!


p.s. Also don't forget to bring in food with you this Sunday... I saw that Wal-Mart in Cobleskill had canned vegetables, name brands on sale for $.68 a can... that is a steal!! So load up the cart and lets bless our local food pantries this Thanksgiving!


See you Sunday!!

Worship Last Sunday- part 2

So tomorrow escaped me... Tuesday flew by and now it is Wednesday night... and I want to finish some thoughts in Hebrews 6 as a close to my post on Monday...


HEBREWS 6:1-3
So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. ² You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³ And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.


The writer of Hebrews lays out for us that the most "basic teachings" about Christ involve the "fundamental importance of REPENTING from evil deeds and placing faith in God."  That is where our faith journey begins... and then rapidly we move on thinking we are BEYOND that discipline...


I love college football in the fall and it reminds me of something you often hear a head coach say after halftime when his team is getting their tails kicked... the sports reporter puts the microphone up to his mouth to ask...


"Coach, what went wrong the first half that you need to improve on to get back in the game?"


To which you almost always hear something like this... 


"WE AREN'T DOING WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO... WE TOLD OUR GUYS THAT THEY NEED TO GET BACK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS!"


Fundamentals in football are things like good tackling, angle of pursuit, protecting the ball, sustaining your blocks, going til the whistle, and so on... the kind of stuff you learn in pop warner ball... WHEN YOU ARE 8 YEARS OLD! And yet it is those same lessons learned as a child that Terry, Howie, and Jimmie talk about on Sundays 40, 50, 60, 70 years later... the same exact fundamental disciplines of football.


There are fundamentals in the Christian faith too that are so vital to our continued pursuit of Christ... things like...

• Reading the Bible on our own
• Spending time in silence, alone, with God... talking and LISTENING
• Reflection on our behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, and words
• Humility in all situations
• AND as the author of Hebrews reminds us... REPENTANCE

It's amazing to me how effective Satan is at trapping us in becoming busy and distracted so much so that we begin to neglect the FUNDAMENTALS of our walk with Christ... and we get lazy...

That's when the enemy attacks with repeated sin... once we have neglected to practice the most necessary building blocks of our faith.

We are deceiving ourselves if we think that to "move forward to further understanding" means we no longer have to practice the elementary elements of our faith... without those as our constant foundation we will only grow to become self-righteous, indignant, and proud.  God shows us through Hebrews that in order to progress forward in our faith IT REQUIRES A CONSISTENT COMMITMENT TO DISCIPLINES... such as repentance...

For those that participated this last Sunday and chose to cleanse themselves of a foothold that the world has in them... 

• RETURN TO YOUR FIRST PRACTICES when you came to know Jesus
• RETURN TO THE PASSIONS that initially caused your affection for your Savior to grow
• RETURN TO GOD'S WORD with intentionality
• RETURN TO YOUR DESIRE TO SURRENDER to Jesus
• AND WHEN YOU DO, YOU WILL DISCOVER VICTORY fueled by the Holy Spirit!!

Worship on Sundays!

Yesterday was an awesome day of worship!!

The Holy Spirit sure was tangibly present in both worship gatherings as so many came forward to usher in a fresh season of repentance... It is never easy to reflect upon the sin in our lives and it is always unsettling to do so, but without taking that long hard look we will stop changing to become more like our Savior!

It was an awe inspiring moment to see dozens of individuals WAITING IN LINE at the end of the 8:30 worship time to eliminate a stronghold that their sin has had in their life, some for a very, very long time.  If you weren't there we were closing out a series called "CORE" where we revisited the 5 core values of the church... and we ended this series with an intense 2 week look at the most fundamental foundation Christians need for a lifelong, continual, journey of transformation into the likeness of Christ... REPENTANCE!

Today I wanted to post some encouragement for the road ahead primarily for those who chose yesterday to stop allowing Satan to attack them and instead to go on the offensive against him... I believe that some of you who chose to come forward are already facing severe temptation to fall back in to that same sin all over again.

So today I want to offer up some of God's Word as encouragement for the journey ahead.

--> Anytime we CHOOSE to not sit idle in our pursuit of Jesus...
--> Anytime we CHOOSE to surrender another part of ourselves to Him...
--> Anytime we make the DECISION to take action, in faith, that there is something great God has promised that we are currently missing out on because of our allowance of sin to exist...

WE BECOME ENEMY #1 FOR SATAN!!

Because now, you are threatening to give more control to your Father and steal more away from His enemy... the one that Jesus says wants to steal, kill, and destroy all God has blessed you with.

In Hebrews 5 God tells us that a commitment to REPENT is a commitment to mature and choose to "eat meat" instead of remain like a spiritually fat baby that "drinks milk."  In fact, I am going to share a few of my notes with you on Hebrews 5 & 6, but I encourage you to read them on your own as a part of your devotions this week... (ESPECIALLY IF YOU FEEL THAT TEMPTATION IS GROWING STRONGER)


HEBREWS 5:11-14 "WARNINGS ABOUT FALLING AWAY"

• 11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 
• There were a group of believers who had grown so comfortable that they no longer even "tried" to grow in their faith

• ¹² In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 
• They should have "GROWN UP" to the place where they could be teaching others the truth about God, but because of their pursuit of Jesus was nonexistent, they had regressed back to the spiritual condition associated with babe in Christ... what a warning for all of us if we choose to become lazy in our desire to FOLLOW!

• 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 
• ^{Ouch... God says anyone who tries to "lives on milk," meaning someone is trying to sustain themselves on milk alone, which is a really bad... really boring idea... think about it... no steak, no potatoes, no mountain dew, no FLAVOR to life... is ignorant to real righteousness}
• ^{This makes me wonder... What would it look like on a day to day basis for someone who says they are a Christian to intentionally live on MILK in 2011? (this is my list, what would you add)}
• ^{Rarely open their Bible on their own time}
• ^{Rarely pray with a heart of "thanks" and often pray with a heart of "God, I need..."}
• ^{Hoard the money that God has temporarily entrusted to them}
• ^{Go to church whenever they "feel" like going or whenever it is convenient}
• Not take steps of faith
• Resist when others take steps of faith that they don't get

• ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
• This reveals that the biggest distinction between those Christians eating meat and those drinking milk is DISCIPLINE... discipline in personal daily walk with Christ, discipline with finances, discipline with time, discipline with church involvement, discipline in serving... DISCIPLINE IS THE KEY
• The ability to discern between good and evil is a life committed to DISCIPLINE!! That's powerful!!

Tomorrow I will continue this post by adding some thought about Hebrews 6!  See you then!