Working with Children n Young People?

Laying Foundations!

Roman Catholicism believes that if you can win them young you have them for life, so the saying goes? But this is not actually true, because all children have to be confirmed into the Church at a certain age wither they profess a faith or not since this is a religious system that is based on traditions and ritualism!

We must not make excuses in our reaching out to children in Sunday school, youth clubs, house groups and other, believing that the new growth comes only this way? One has to wonder where the power of God is in such places, since these are the ideas of the human mind and not that of the inborn Holy Spirit!

The Apostles the Fathers of the Ekklesia did not preach exclusively to one age group and thus this is the way to progress and continue in under the grace of God! It is good to have a working for every-age within the life of the Church and nothing must be side-lines, even the dotty old dears may hear something and the dynamic power of the Spirit will bring them to salvation?

Matthew 3:1,   Mark 1:4,   Acts 6:2,   15:31,   Romans 1:9,   15:4,   1 Corinthians 9:18,   14:3,   Galatians 1:23,   1 Thessalonians 2:16,   1 Timothy 4:13,   Philemon 1:7,   Hebrews 13:22.

The HARVEST Festival?

Another opportunity to reach  Out!

This time of the year is very traditional for many, especially in the country side, a time is made to give thanks to God for the fruits of hard labour and farming is a very unpredictable profession to be in with many a sad disappointment dependent on the weather and many other factors such as disease?

In the Holy Bible we find that Pentecost or Shavo’ut was also the harvest of the first fruits and the significance of it seems to many lost with the giving of the Holy Spirit to the early Ekklesia? This harvest signifies that believers empowered by the Holy Spirit will produce fruit in winning others to Jesus!

So which ever way we approach the thanksgiving  or Pentecost, we have the opportunity to invite others to receive Jesus into their lives! Much can be done during the Harvest, than just flowers and food and their is the ability to think up new things to keep the valued introduction and much more going?

Genesis 8:22,   Proverbs 10:5,   Jeremiah 8:20,   Matthew 9:37,   13:30,   Revelation 14:15.

Saved by faith ALONE?

German reformer Martin Luther!

Introduced the word alone to emphasise his idea of the doctrine of salvation, which caused the split from the Roman Catholic Church over 400 years ago! But on reflection with modern technology and the easy grasp of Biblical languages today we now know that this is not correct?

Because of two incidents in the New Testament, where people were saved in the moment of belief and no mention of this doctrine exists in the Greeks texts, apart from that of the King James Bible!

The Thief on the cross and the Ethiopian eunuch  made no known confession of faith, but they just believe and were saved?

Today many Christians are not aware of many things and Salvation seems cheap when its a card signed or a short prayer, yet perhaps we should not be quick to Judge since the almighty can do whatever He pleases!

James 2:17,  24,   Greek Kata Strong G2596,   Luke 23:42-43,   Acts 8:27-39.

The Value of Preaching? Two.

The Altar Call?

At one time this was the essential of leading those who were ready to repent to faith in Jesus, despite the terminology it remained an effective tool in Evangelism to lead to the lost to Jesus!

The preaching of Jesus death and resurrection remains essential today in ever increasing hostile and anti-Christian world! Our societies are in a state of moral collapse and the world is justifying sin, since it sees the Church doing the same!

An active Church is one that is preaching and reaching, while also comforting and helping the needy of the believers conscience rather than some far flung government scheme! Prayer must not be used as an excuse not to talk to people and share our faith with them?

Colossians 2:12,   1 Timothy 2:1-7,  2 Peter 1:8,    Revelation 1:4,   11,  20.

Sunday evening Services! Two.

Ekklesia is not like the Kosmon?

What is being lost in not having an Sunday evening service is that of fellowship of believers ahead of the working week! The world is very hostile most of the time to believers, we are attacked for what disagrees with their standards and ours are dismissed as archaic?

A two hour slot of praise, prayer and preaching with an after fellowship of just meeting and talking with folk is the varied ways of helping and leading others to God! When you have worked prior to going into ministry, you are more likely to see the needs in particular loneliness and despair!

God came to save sinners and the Ekklesia is a place for believers to meet together and be built up, its not a club or some unneeded tradition of religious observance! We need to help those who are seeking God and keep our flocks well watered and fed?

Acts 2:42,    Romans 16:8,    Philippians 2:1,    Philemon 1:6,    1 John 1:6.

The value of Preaching? One.

Has the Gospel any real value Today!

What a strange statement to make, but is it not true when every command in relation to sexual sin, except that of abusing children is ignored by most people who claim a faith in God?

But we have a faith in Jesus that is based on being born-again of the power of the Holy Spirit and we know God as our Father more personal than an idea of Him or an entity!

The message of the Gospel is as relevant today as it was nineteen-hundred years ago, because without it people will be lost to the eternal separation from the light of God and burn in the fires of hell!

We wonder what is wrong with our society, why narcotics, why knife and gun crime, but what we fail to recognise is if we deliberately excuse one sin then all of them can be excused by the world who have no knowledge of the truth?

Revelation 14:6,   Mark 9:44-49,   Romans 6: 7-9,   11-12,   Ephesians 3:9-11,   Colossians 1:23.

The Resurrection of Jesus!

Sometimes not fully Understood?

We like to think that all believers understand the fulness of the Easter message as we who have to teach and share it? But many just go along with it as part of the ‘Churchy experience,’ but they do not really believe that it was possible!

It is strange but it is easier to believe that someone, Jesus would die for us to make that final atonement for sin taking our failure on Himself, but at the same time refusing to understand the fulness of what the resurrection means in relation to conquering death and allowing us to enter into the New Life?

More emphasis on this is needed today, so that believers will once more be effective in sharing their faith and not afraid of losing it if attacked by the world? Being active remains an essential of being Born-Again, slackness is the work of the enemy to make the Gospel of Jesus ineffective and our witness non-existent?

Zephaniah 3:8,   Acts 2:31,   Romans 6:5,   Philippians 3:10,   Hebrews 6:2,   1 Peter 1:3.

DAY TWO!

The EASTER Story.

Much has been written about the events of Easter, the death of Jesus on the cross/stake/tree are the essentials of the power of our redemption and forgiveness of failures to the promise of the New Life or being Born-Again!

We also know of the much in connection to the resurrection of Jesus from the grave and again the fulness of the promise of Eternal Salvation, but the hours between these two tremendous events are hardly ever covered in detail?

We get but a glimpse of the burial of Jesus, the torn curtain in the Temple in Jerusalem and the lies that were put in place to dishonour these events! When Easter is over Pentecost is the next episode of the Christian Church, missing out the Ascension of Jesus!

Matthew 27:33-66,    Mark 15:47- 16:1,    Luke 23:55-56.

The Book of Revelation! Two.

Israel and the 144.000?

This is proof that God has not given up on the Jewish people or the restoration of them in the land that He gave them!

Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel are rife today in the European Christian scene, because the roots of the Nazi-German Holocaust lives on disguised as pro-Palestinian issues?

We are in great danger of loosing our salvation, when we allow the world to interfere with our faith in God and our claimed walk with Jesus? Some believers claim they are able to balance this out, but this is not true! One cannot be lukewarm with God, we are either with Him or not!

The Kingdom of Israel will be established and filled with the 144,000 chosen of God, this one thousand year reign on the Earth will be followed by the end!

Matthew 25:34,   26:29,   John 3:3,   14-18,   Acts 17:31,   1 Corinthians 1:20-21,   26-28,  2:12,   3:18-19,   Galatians 6:14,   Revelation 1:6,   5:10,   7:4,   11:15,   14:1,   3,   16:10,  17:17,   19:6,   22:5,

Adultery and Divorce!

A plague in modern Society?

Marriage today has become cheap, being not much more than a fad something to be experienced and then broken up and put aside?

No longer is marriage between and man and a woman, but now it is same sex running contrary to the teachings of the Holy Bible because its based on selfish motives and lust over that of love and forgiveness!

Christians are failing to speak out or to condemn evil practices in our nations and society! The fear of man now predominates the Church were ever it has got a foothold?

There does not seem to be a separation line between faith and the world, something to show that when we are born-again we have become a changed people? We have to live in the world, but the world must not live in us influencing us back to what we were before!

Believers need to show couples getting married in Churches the seriousness of what they are doing, the vows and promises they are making to God first and then to each other! The need to forgive when each will fail, to know that we have to forgive, since He first forgave us!

That same sex marriage is wrong and is an abomination to God, love here is not the question but rather lust which is evil and leads to many other sexual sins!

Leviticus 18:22,   20:13,   Psalm 81:12,   Matthew 5:28,   Mark 10:11-12,   Luke 16:15,  18,  Romans 1:27,   7:3,   1 Corinthians 6:9,   7:2-3,   11:12,   Ephesians 4:32,   Colossian 3:13,  Hebrews 13:4,  2 Peter 2:10.