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!