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As God has been teaching our church the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, we are reminded that the greatest blessing offered to us in the gospel is to experience the presence of the Creator God. In his short, but profound book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer writes, "To have found God and still pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love."
A bit as an extension of Phil's sermon last week on love, unity, and godly dissent, we added a small button on the right side of our Members Page on the website. The button is labeled "Feedback for the Elders?" and takes you to a page with the statement below.
Ephesians 5:18 says to all Christians, "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." The verb "be filled" is famously a present tense verb which means to do it regularly, continually. Then it is an imperative verb, which means that it is a command and not a suggestion. Last it is a passive verb, which means that while the command is given to us, God is the One who must "fill" us. We put ourselves out there to be filled, but then we must trust Him to fill us.
Last Sunday Walt preached on the sanctity of life. Like many churches, we often choose a Sunday around January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, to reflect on what it means to be pro-life in a culture that often is not. As Walt closed his sermon, he challenged us with some practical ways to engage this fight.
For this first post of our newly resurrected blog, it seemed fitting to follow up on Sunday's sermon. While I said at the outset of the sermon that we wouldn't be able to address all the particulars of forgiveness, a few are worthy of mention before too much time passes.