God calls us to 'make every effort' to add to our faith qualities which will make our faith effective in our day to day lives. Part of this is using our willpower to build positive habits which will align our lives with what God has already done for us. Some habits (patterns of behaviour) are more powerful than others in shaping our lives, keystone habits such as prayer, engaging Scripture and being connected in community with other believers.
Two Enemies of Self-Control - Summer of Self-Control #3
Christian self-control is for the purpose of releasing us to love God and others. Our two greatest enemies to our self-control are our selfish orientation (flesh, sinful nature) and Satan. Both bring temptations prompting us to take short-cuts to what we see as good things. So how can we co-operate with God to stay on His course to His good?
Self Control Isn't About You - Summer of Self-Control #1
Self-control is a key fruit of the Spirit as it provides a basis for the others to grow and be displayed to fuller effect. The goal of self-control is to free us to love God and love others. As we begin this series, we look at the value of self-control and the meaning of self-control as defined by the New Testament.
Living with the end in view
Joe Stanley shares an update on his story of how God has been working and speaking into his life, including the last two and a half years of a severe cancer diagnosis. In sharing his story, Joe shares a number of the insights he has gained about living a life following Jesus in good times and bad, particularly in making life now count for eternity.
Making Room for God
We are naive to think that just because God is at work, others around us will be happy and accepting of it. After being with Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and seeing God give the Holy Spirit to a group of Gentiles, Peter was rebuked by Jewish background Christians. Their attitudes could have stood in the way of what God was doing. Can we be in danger of the same kind of thinking and attitude today?
What Does Our Heavenly Father Want From Us?
Our Heavenly Father is loving, patient, forgiving, kind, a protector and a provider, but what does He want from us out of this amazing relationship?In this week's message we explore how it is God's desire for us to trust and obey Him, to use discernment and be vigilant in this life, and to be available to Him. Tune in as we look at these and other aspects that help grow our spiritual lives and our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Behold, I am doing something new
Cheryl and Donna Pridham share about their past few years experience serving at the school for widows in Nigeria. They continue to see God do new things and challenge us to be open and look for the same in our own lives and context.
For All People - Acts Series #18
God's commission to take the good news message of Jesus to the ends of the earth would inevitably mean that Jewish background followers of Jesus, like Peter, would have to be confronted with their cultural views towards Gentiles. Peter had to get over his discomfort with Gentiles in order to take the message to them. God calls us to 'get over ourselves' in various ways as part of following Jesus. The simple, yet difficult path to doing this is to listen, trust and obey.
Complete 180 - Acts Series #17
Can people really change? We intuitively know people do change, yet we all struggle to believe this when it comes to certain people or certain areas about our own attitudes, behaviour and character. Paul's Damascus Road experience and the events following also give us some clues on how to make God's invitation for change stick in our lives.
Breaking Barriers - Acts Series #16
After the death of Stephen, many followers of Jesus fled from Jerusalem yet continued to talk about Jesus wherever they went. When Samaritans received the message of Jesus and then received the Holy Spirit, the Jewish leaders realized they needed to break their old patterns of thinking to stay in line with what God was doing. Unfortunately, as we see in the example of Simon the sorcerer, old patterns can be hard to break... Yet, Peter and John's response to the Samaritans show that old patterns can break, if we submit ourselves to Jesus.