Church Notes 01-31-10

Bruce Hempel

Pray for Kairos ministry – planning to go into a new prison in one year – pray for God to raise up what is needed for this to succeed.

Blessing – how can I be a blessing?

A disciple is someone learning to be like Jesus – do you want to become like Jesus?
Jesus is very clear, that He is Lord, He isn’t just Friend or buddy. He has a claim on your life.
He is very clear that following Him will bring division, rejection from friends and family. He wants us to count the cost before we say Yes.
He is saying “I am the central thing” – we must decide to live our lives that way.
He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life will find it.

When I see my own life, if I love it I will lose it
People see Jesus when someone dies and rises again in new life. (compare to seed in passage)
Our lives are to be seeds for Christ
When we find sin in our lives, if we have faith we will be glad and see it as part of the process of being cleansed from sin. (If we never saw it we would never be free.)
Where is the frontier in your life (the border between where we have victory and where we don’t) – where are the areas where we find our own life?
It is a good thing when we find our own life (not the sin, but that we found it) – we then have an opportunity to die to ourselves
Brother Billy Wade said to pray “Lord where am I wrong?”
If we live loving our own life we will lose it.

Do you want to be His disciple? Then you must be willing to take up your own cross.
Have you counted the cost of being His disciple? Or are you just hoping that you can get the blessings, and avoid the cost?

Psalm 37: A related word to ‘fear’ is ‘fret’ – this is another thing that should be cast out of our lives.