Pauline brought us a fabulous message at the morning service today. Using the illustration of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38, she explained that we need to spend time sitting at the feet of Jesus, spending time with Him and listening to what He is saying. Mary and Martha both loved Jesus and had different ways of expressing it. Martha’s way of showing Jesus she loved Him was to prepare a meal. Martha had been preparing the meal for Jesus and became burdened and stressed with the duty of preparing it. She wanted everything to be ok and to give her best meal to Jesus. Mary had chosen to go and spend time with Jesus, listening from Him and being ministered to.
If we become burdened by other things, burdened by our the work we do for the Lord, or if the work we do is going to cause us to complain, we need to go and sit at the feet of Jesus. The work we do for the Lord should be fun, done for love and not just going through the motions.
Our love for Jesus must be our motive for doing the things we do for Him. Fall in love with Jesus all over again - He has always loved us (Jer 31:3) and desires us to be close to Him.

In the evening service, we had a great time of worship, spending time at the feet of Jesus, before Carol again continued the theme of Love. Carol reflected on our Get a Life outreach in the park and challenged us with the unspoken messages that we send. As we go about our lives, we need to send a message of love. Mat 22:33-40 tells us that the greatest commandment is to Love the Lord our God, then love our neighbour as ourselves. We are worthy of the love of God and once we receive that love and learn to love ourselves, we can then reach others with that love.
In 1 Cor 13, we are taught the characteristics of love. Love is patient, kind, does not envy, is not proud, is not rude or self seeking, keeps no record of wrongs, doesn’t delight in evil, always trusts, always hopes, protects the other person, perseveres and love never fails. We need to love ourselves, love others and love God in this way. We are all equal and we need to share that love and attitude with everyone.

We definitely have something to think about this week. We have been challenged to love ourselves, love others and love God. We have been challenged to spend time at the feet of Jesus, just loving Him. What will you do differently this week? How will you share the love of Jesus this week?

Have a great week! Keep praying for your REAP targets. Keep doing your SOAP readings. Make sure you get along next week for our Missions Sunday!

Today we had Stuart Rodgers share with us from Col 1:15-23. Jesus has a relationship with God, creation and the church. Jesus is the image of the invisible God and represents the interests of God and all the covenants of God. By Jesus all things were created. He has the power to create and all things were created through Him and for Him. The church is the vehicle that Jesus uses to express Himself to the world. The body, that’s us, needs to be willing to do what Jesus wants. If we want to present Jesus to the world and see people saved, we need to take Jesus to them. He is willing, we need to act and do what Jesus says. Jesus gives us 100%, do we give Him 100%? We also need to work out where we fit in in the church and use the gifts He has given us.

In the evening, we heard from Ron who challenged us to relook at the story of the Prodigal son in Luke 15.
In Luke 15:12, we see the son coming to the father and asking for his inheritance. Only sons can receive the inheritance, so this is something that the father would get excited about - the son realises he is a son, not a servant.
In Ps 115:16, we read that our inheritance is the earth. We have dominion over the earth. Jesus is the King of kings. We are kings. Jesus is our King.
Luke 15:14 shows the son in the pig pen, feeding the pigs better food than he has to eat. The son then began to think of himself as a servant, thinking “if I could go back to my fathers house and be a servant, I will have food to spare”. He was in the pig pen and got into “Pig Pen” thinking by thinking that he was only a servant, not a son. We need to get out of our pig pen thinking and think like a son.
When the son returns, we see that the father is looking for a son to return, not a servant. The Father (God), is looking for His sons to return. The sons get the inheritance.
We see how the father restored the son. However the older brother saw the younger brother as an unfaithful servant. How do you see fellow christians?

Serve God with your gifts and talents. You are a son, use your gifts and talents to honour the father. Serving somebody you love is not being a servant, it’s a son.

Have a great week. Be a blessing and keep up with your SOAP readings and REAP targets.

Friends of God. As John Steele expanded John 15:9-17, he explained what it meant to be a friend of God. We see in John 15:13, that a true friend will lay down their life for you. Abraham was a friend of God. Jonathon and David were friends. John went on to explain that God created a covenant with Abraham in Gen 15. A covenant is binding. The covenant was made by cutting an animal in half and the people walked through the two halves of the animal. They were saying that what happened to the animal would happen to them if they didn’t guard and honour the covenant.
In 1 Sam 18:3-4, Jonathon and David make a covenant with each other to remain friends. Jonathon took his cloak, which represents authority and gave it to David. Jonathon also gave his weapons to David.
God no longer calls us servants, but friends. Jesus has given us His cloak , His weapons and His word. The covenant can not be broken. If it is, God will have to give His life - but He can’t, He’s already done that.
Servants don’t know the masters business, but a friend knows his friends business. If you obey Him, He will ensure that you achieve your life purpose. He wants you to succeed more than you want to succeed.
We are friends of God. Don’t use the word friends lightly.

In the evening, Pauline spoke about the gifts of the spirit. There are three categories of gifts. Motivational gifts, found in Rom 12:6-8, Ministry gifts, found in Eph 4:11 and the manifestation gifts, found in 1 Cor 12:7-11. We all have gifts and we all need to choose to use the gifts that God has given us.
Everyone has a motivational gift (prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership and mercy) and we need to use that for the benefit and blessing of others.
Ministry gifts (Apostle, prophet, pastor, evangelist, teacher) are to equip the saints. God chooses these people to lead the other people and equip the saints. Ministry gifts are not titles, but functions.
Manifestation gifts (prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues) all have a different purpose. These gifts, given by the Holy Spirit are always for a purpose and never for show.
The one common denominator in all these gifts is obedience. You need to break through the fear barrier if you want to see the gifts operating. As John said this morning - God wants us to succeed more than we want to succeed: so God gives us these gifts so we can succeed.
If you life is getting a little bit boring, maybe you’re not using the gifts God has given you.

Alan is currently ministering in Sri Lanka and God is doing great things through him. He has certainly been using the gifts God has given him!

Have a great week this week. Keep up with your SOAP readings and keep praying for your REAP targets. Think about the gifts God has given you and earnestly desire to see them in action. Remember - you are a friend of God and He wants you to succeed!

Easter: The period where the rest of the world joins us in celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ.
Today Alan spoke from Heb 9 and talked about the blood.
The blood:

• Seals the covenant. God makes a covenant with us which only requires us to trust that Jesus has been the sacrifice for our sins. (Ex 24:5-8, Matt 26:26-28)
• Is necessary to enter the presence of God. Jesus offered the blood once and for all for us to enter God’s presence. (Heb 9:7-12)
• Was the price Jesus paid for the church. Jesus loves the church. We say we love Jesus, but do we love the things that He loves? Jesus paid the price for the church with His blood (Acts 20:28)
• Was the price Jesus paid for all humanity (Rev 5:9)

We then apply the blood to our lives. Through the blood we are:

• Protected by faith (Ex 12:13)
• Set free from bondage (Zec 9:11)
• Justified. Any evidence of our sin is gone. (Rom 5:9)
• Redeemed from my old life (1 Pet 1:18-19)
• Cleansed (Heb 9:13-14)
• Released to serve God (Heb 9:14)
• God’s possession. We are His treasured possessions. (Rev 5:9)
• Free to come into God’s presence
• Destined to reign on the earth (Rev 5:9-10)

There was a very gentle presence of the Holy Spirit there today as we remembered the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Today was a great day! We had our community day in the park at Long Gully today, where we had a free sausage sizzle, play dough and games for the kids. Members from our church gathered at the park and had a great time talking with people who had come along to share in the activities. It was great to see most of the members of our church involved in the day in some way, each doing what they could to make the day a success. Best of all, there was one person who gave their life to Christ. Watch out for the next time we hold Get a Life! in the Long Gully park and get ready to see God move in this area!

Earlier that day we heard from Julie at communion, who shared how God uses people who think they are unworthy, nobodies and unlikely candidates for great victories. Gideon was an example of an unlikely candidate who considered himself unworthy and Jesus was unlikely candidate, a nobody by the standards of the world. We’ve all felt that way and we need to press into what God is calling us on to and understand that God thinks we’re somebody worth sending His son to die for.

Alan then shared 3 keys on how to achieve true greatness.

• Servanthood: Mark 10:43-45. Jesus came to serve. True greatness in leadership is not using people to achieve your goals, but serving them. Jesus washed the feet of all his disciples, even Judas who betrayed Him and Peter who denied Him.
• Submission: Mark 14:32-36. Jesus said “please take this cup from Me”, but then realised that was not what His father wanted. If Jesus hadn’t been obedient and submitted to His father, we wouldn’t be saved.
• Sacrifice: Luke 23:44-46. True greatness involves sacrifice. Jesus gave His life. He made the ultimate sacrifice and achieved greatness through it.

If you want to achieve greatness, you need to serve, submit and sacrifice, just like Jesus.

Are you willing to lay down your life, give up your dreams, desires and ambitions to see the will of God outworked in your life?

In the evening, Carol shared on who Jesus is. We need to be able to describe Jesus and who He is when people ask us. We can read all about Jesus, but it’s what we know and experience that shows through. If you really know a person, that shows through. To illustrate this, Carol got some people to share about people that they knew, but others from the church would never meet. This caused each of us to think about how we would describe somebody and accurately portray that person.

We were challenged to go away and think about who Jesus is to us and why He is so important.

It’s Easter next week. Get ready for yet another great day as we launch LifeBlood at the lake in Bendigo.