• Posted in Gospel, Grace, Holy Spirit, Mission, Sanctification
In some ways, yesterday was a bit like stepping back in time for me. Allow me to explain: God gave me the gift of faith in Christ for salvation 20 years ago under the gospel teaching of this church and the example of the extraordinary love the saints have for one another in this place. Yesterday was for me flashback to those early years, as Phil carefully dealt with the subject of ongoing Christian sanctification from the pages of Scripture.
• Posted in Grace, Holy Spirit, Life in the Church, Mission, Sermons, Service
Clay Shelor has written some excellent discussion questions based on last week's sermon. We looked at the topic of "every-member ministry," an idea that has gripped us as elders over the last year or so.
• Posted in Charismatic, Holy Spirit, Life in the Church, Service, Vision
In this post we want to look at two dimensions of our vision statement, being bible-saturated and spirit-empowered. The Bible gives us the plans (like The Dangerous Book for Boys) and the Holy Spirit gives us the power (like the trial-and-error of my building project). Without these our efforts at building God's church will be wayward, reckless, and probably just wrong.
• Posted in Charismatic, Holy Spirit
J.I. Packer offers a great insight about life in the Spirit in his book, Keep in Step with the Spirit.
• Posted in Charismatic, Holy Spirit
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.