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I would ask that you would consider partnering with us to take the message of God’s unconditional love and grace around the world. Your giving is changing people’s lives, I hear the testimonies and see it on people’s faces all the time. Without the help of generous people like you this would not be possible. There is an interesting principle in the bible that is found in Philippians 4:17 it says that when a person partners financially with a minister preaching the gospel, in the ledger book in heaven, God makes note of it. Not only that; Jesus receives the gift, multiplies what you have given, and gives it back to you. You can click on the link below to give. As you give let’s believe God for multiplication of your gift, and together we can expect an abundant harvest on your behalf.
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Over the last few months God has been birthing something in me that I feel now is the time to share it with you.
At first I wasn’t sure what God was doing; I only felt a holy dissatisfaction. As time passed and I pulled back from the busyness of life and ministry, as if a lightbulb had been switched on, it became clearer what God was trying to communicate to me. I’ll give you the full story in just a minute but first I want to share something that God showed me in the scriptures- it is awesome! It is what the apostle Paul told the elders from the city of Ephesis in Acts 20:32 when he called for them to come to him while he was in the city of Miletus. He spoke words of exhortation to these Ephesian elders and finished it with this statement: “So now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Do you see what that says? I like the way the New International Readers Version (NIRV) says it “Now I commit you to God’s care. I commit you to the word of his grace. It can build you up. Then you will share in what God plans to give all his people.” Understanding the message of God’s grace will encourage you, “build you up” and will transform you to such a degree that the blessings of God will come to you, and through you, effortlessly as your “inheritance.” Come on, how sweet is that?
Religion teaches us that we have to do something for God or live a certain way for God to do something for us or to answer our prayers. In fact, that is very scriptural if you are only looking at the Old Testament Law of Moses. The problem is, that’s not an inheritance, that’s something that is earned. In the Old Testament if you did what was right, followed the Ten Commandments and all the prescribed laws then God would answer your prayer. Even though it was impossible to do, this is what God demanded! So if you wanted your prayers answered then you better do it- and do it perfectly! I’ll say this - thank God that we are not living under that old covenant. You see, Jesus came to this Earth and instituted a new covenant and - JESUS CHANGED EVERYTHING! He gave us an inheritance!!
In the Gospel of John it says: For the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17) Because of Jesus, God is not dealing with you according to how holy you are living or if you are doing what that old covenant prescribed. If you have put your faith in what Jesus did He has already dealt with you and your sin - past, present, and future. As the Apostle Paul told the Ephesian elders, we need to live under the care of God and His grace. I don’t know about you but I want to understand the Word of God concerning His grace because that’s what the Bible said will build me up and give me the blessings God has for me – my inheritance.
Having shared with you what God has led me to understand about the power of living in His grace, I now want to share with you what I feel He is leading me to do...
I believe He has called me to pastor a new church called Charis. Charis is the Greek word for grace and it is defined as: the merciful love and grace by which God turns us to Christ, forgives us, keeps and strengthens us, and increases us in the blessings and inheritance of those who are in faith in Jesus Christ. I believe that the Lord has called me to build a church that will be focused on charis. The message of grace mixed with faith is so powerful that I am expecting to see God move in our services in amazing ways.
We will be meeting (until we grow out of the space) in one of the conference rooms at Toftrees Resort and Conference Center. When you drive up the main entrance road if you park in the first lot to your right there will be signs to direct you. Our first service will be Sunday, February 5th at 10am. Here is the address if you are not familiar with the area:
I would love to have you come and join us as we, together, will feed on the Word of His grace. It will build us up and give us our inheritance. You are a blessing to me and I look forward to seeing you. Remember Sunday, February 5th 10am at Toftrees Resort.
If I were to ask you, "Are you holy?" how would you respond? If after that I asked you, "What makes a person holy?"
What would you say then? The response of most would focus on the person’s actions – how well they are keeping up on a set of religious rules. But that is not what makes a person holy. What makes a person holy as a Christian is that God said you are holy – no other reason. Not because you don’t drink or smoke or chew or go with those that do, but because God has said in His Word that you are holy. As a Christian you have been declared holy because of your faith in Jesus, not by how much you do right. Jesus was born holy, lived a perfectly holy life on the earth, and is living today as God in perfect Holiness. As a Christian your life is hidden in Him. Your actions do not determine whether you are holy or not. You have been made holy and that is the end of it – God has said you are and so you are regardless of how you act. Let’s look at a couple of passages from the bible to see if that is what it really says:
Col 1:12-22 …yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight..."
Col 3:12 "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering..."
"What makes a person holy?" What would you say? The response of most would focus on the person’s actions – how well they are keeping up on a set of religious rules. But that is not what makes a person holy. What makes a person holy as a Christian is that God said you are holy – no other reason. Click on my recent Grace Thought as I share about holiness.
John's "Grace Thoughts" are available here on YouTube. Please consider "Liking" them and Sharing them with your friends.
I think all of us have prayed and not seen the results that we expected. The question is: why?
What stopped our prayer from being answered? Jesus said in Matthew 21:22 that, "... whatever things you ask in prayer believing you will receive." I don’t know about you but I have prayed, and know I was believing when I prayed, but it still didn’t work out as I was believing. So what happened? It’s too easy to just say that the prayer was not God’s will. Some things are God’s will, like living without sickness, yet we pray for healing from sickness and don’t see God’s will come to pass. Why? Now I don’t claim to know every reason why some prayers go seemingly unanswered, but the scriptures do give us some insight on how to see what we are praying and believing for come to pass. Let me show you in the Bible some of the Scriptures concerning asking God to help us in a time of need:
• John 14:13-14 - And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
I would like to ask you a question. Which is greater: God’s grace or sin?
Most of you would quickly say grace of course, and I would agree with you completely.
Let me ask you this – let's say you have a friend who is a Christian, and that person committed adultery, and in fact, was still practicing adultery. Now let's say that person prays and asks God for something according to God’s Word - will God answer his prayer?
How about this - let’s say you drink coffee every morning and you depend on your coffee to wake up. I say to you, "That is an addiction to coffee and you need to be set free – you are dependent on coffee and not walking in faith." Now let's say you pray and ask God for something according to His Word – will God answer your prayer?
If you answered "Sure He would. God loves me and coffee is not a big deal," yet you answered that God would not hear the prayer of someone in adultery, I ask you why is adultery any worse than a coffee habit? Both the person practicing adultery and the person with a coffee habit are in sin. You may say to yourself, “Come on John, coffee is sinful?” Yes it is if it is an addiction. An addiction to anything other than Jesus is sin. The Bible says in Romans 14:23“…for whatever is not from faith is sin.” By you not trusting God to wake you up in the morning instead of coffee then you are in sin.
God’s Grace is infinitely more powerful than sin. He doesn’t respond to you with His grace because of your performance. He responds to you based on what Jesus did and your faith in Him. I am here to tell you that He is for you and hears your prayers and wants to help you no matter how big you think your sin is. We hope you enjoy this short clip about this exact topic.
John's "Grace Thoughts" are available here on YouTube. Please consider "Liking" them and Sharing them with your friends.
I just want to take a moment to encourage you, and to remind you, that God has placed on the inside of you everything you will ever need to live a victorious Christian life.
You may say, “I don’t feel like I have everything,” but the bible says that you do, you have it all! You have all the faith, all the joy, the peace, the holiness, the righteousness, and the power that you will ever need to live this life of faith. You see, when you made the decision to commit your life to God and declared Jesus to be your Savior, He came to live inside of you. When He took up residence in your spirit He did some serious remolding. He took that old man, that old spirit, and made it new. He didn’t just clean it up- He rebuilt it!! Now your spirit man, the REAL you, is exactly like Jesus – ya that’s right- you are exactly like Jesus on the inside. Here is what the bible says in 1 John 5:17, "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is so are we in this world." Did you read that? That verse says that as Jesus is right now in heaven, with all the glory and power residing in Him, that we are the same way here on the earth. That is exciting - you do not have to look any further for God's power than in your inner man! You have everything you will ever need right on the inside of you! In fact, do you need healing in your body? It’s in there! Do you need a financial miracle? It’s in there! Do you need peace? It’s in there! What Jesus did on the cross is so complete that when He took up residence in your heart He brought all of heaven's resources with Him.
John continues to discuss how sin does not stop the power of God from moving in a person’s life. The doctrine that “unforgivness stops God’s power” is not in the bible. All that came to Jesus were healed, He never went through a check list to see if they had any resentment towards anyone. Why does this idea not show up in the epistles – because it’s just not biblical. We hope you enjoy this five minute clip.
John's "Grace Thoughts" are available here on YouTube. Please consider "Liking" them and Sharing them with your friends.
Let me ask you a question: Does unforgiveness stop God’s power from moving in your life? If you answered "Yes," why do you believe that?
Did you find it in the bible or is it something that someone told you? A lot of the Christian church today would have you believe that if you don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling toward someone who hurt you or did you wrong that you have unforgiveness in your life and God is under no obligation to help you in any way. That is just not in the bible – Jesus never rejected anyone - not even someone who hadn’t forgiven someone in their past. We cannot find this doctrine - of God not being able to move if you have not forgiven everyone - in the epistles either. I have even heard it said that if you have not forgiven everyone you cannot pray for people because God won’t hear and will not move on your behalf. That is crazy – show me that in the New Testament.
Does the bible tell us that we should forgive people? Absolutely!! But it does not connect your performance and whether you have forgiven everyone to the power of God moving on your behalf. The unfortunate thing is that this kind of doctrine makes your faith “me” focused instead of Jesus focused. When faith isn’t working as we had expected, and we believe that we are limiting God's power to move in our lives, instead of looking unto the “author and finisher of our faith,” Jesus, (Heb 12:2) - we look at ourselves. And instead of meditating on the promises of God and how He has delivered us – we analyze every aspect of our life trying to find any hidden sin or unforgiveness. Jesus said, “every sin and blasphemy of men will be forgiven men…” in Matt 12:31. Did you see what that said? It said, “every sin.” Yet we make people who are struggling with not having the “warm fuzzy” towards someone out to be some greater sinner than anyone else.
Did you find it in the bible or is it something that someone told you? A lot of the Christian church today would have you believe that if you don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling toward someone who hurt you or did you wrong that you have unforgiveness in your life and God is under no obligation to help you in any way. That is just not in the bible – Jesus never rejected anyone - not even someone who hadn’t forgiven someone in their past. We cannot find this doctrine - of God not being able to move if you have not forgiven everyone - in the epistles either. I have even heard it said that if you have not forgiven everyone you cannot pray for people because God won’t hear and will not move on your behalf. That is crazy – show me that in the New Testament.
