Thursday, July 9, 2009
Recent Message
Hello dear friends! I hope you are enjoying your summer and thanking God for every little bit of joy He brings our way. These are a few thoughts from my recent message called "Three Essentials of Discipleship". Part of following Jesus Christ means ABIDING in Him so that we will bear fruit for God. John 15:1-5 The sinful parts of our lives cannot bear fruit and require His discipline. If we respond by turning from our sin God will cleanse us and place us in fellowship with Christ ( The Vine ) so we can bear fruit. He will never throw us away! Never! But He will burn up the sinful parts of our life.
When we bear fruit He will PRUNE us. What is that? Pruning is not about sin at all! Pruning is about removing "GOOD" things so that we focus on the "BEST" things and bear MORE FRUIT!! For those who serving in various ministries this can mean that God will prune even service to Him when it means we are burning out and lack time to sit quietly at His feet and be refreshed in His presence. Pruning is not discipline but it might hurt us unless we understand God's motive and release Him to prune as much as He desires. Pruning is all about producing more fruit!
Another ESSENTIAL in following Jesus is RENEWING OUR MIND. Romans 12:2 Before we trusted Christ our mind was programmed by an Enemy to do sinful things. But Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to REPROGRAM us! Every time the Spirit shows us a scripture we must apply and we obey it we are RENEWING our mind. But God desires that we have fully RENEWED minds so we can understand His will in ALL things. We call this having a BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. Only one out of five believers has a FULLY RENEWED MIND. This means that Jesus wants us to understand MORE than Who He is and what He has done for us. He will show us His thoughts on every area of life and society so we can impact our world for Him! This includes being "LIGHT" ( the Gospel ) and "SALT" ( preserving our society by moral influence). America is suffering because so few of us have renewed our minds. Our Founders had renewed minds. The principles they used to establish America came directly from God's Word! How many of us understand this? We have elected wicked and vile people to rule over us! PROVERBS 29:2 If we do not know what we stand for we will fall for any vain philosophy. Please RENEW your mind fully and take a stand for RIGHTEOUSNESS!! PROVERBS 14:34 pastor Bill
When we bear fruit He will PRUNE us. What is that? Pruning is not about sin at all! Pruning is about removing "GOOD" things so that we focus on the "BEST" things and bear MORE FRUIT!! For those who serving in various ministries this can mean that God will prune even service to Him when it means we are burning out and lack time to sit quietly at His feet and be refreshed in His presence. Pruning is not discipline but it might hurt us unless we understand God's motive and release Him to prune as much as He desires. Pruning is all about producing more fruit!
Another ESSENTIAL in following Jesus is RENEWING OUR MIND. Romans 12:2 Before we trusted Christ our mind was programmed by an Enemy to do sinful things. But Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to REPROGRAM us! Every time the Spirit shows us a scripture we must apply and we obey it we are RENEWING our mind. But God desires that we have fully RENEWED minds so we can understand His will in ALL things. We call this having a BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. Only one out of five believers has a FULLY RENEWED MIND. This means that Jesus wants us to understand MORE than Who He is and what He has done for us. He will show us His thoughts on every area of life and society so we can impact our world for Him! This includes being "LIGHT" ( the Gospel ) and "SALT" ( preserving our society by moral influence). America is suffering because so few of us have renewed our minds. Our Founders had renewed minds. The principles they used to establish America came directly from God's Word! How many of us understand this? We have elected wicked and vile people to rule over us! PROVERBS 29:2 If we do not know what we stand for we will fall for any vain philosophy. Please RENEW your mind fully and take a stand for RIGHTEOUSNESS!! PROVERBS 14:34 pastor Bill
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1 comments:
Thank you for this post :-)
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