NO fear: Repentance
February 2, 2010
–We have to think in terms of the deeper causes of what we need to confess in our lives to save us from SUPERFICIALITY in repentance.
–Often we want to escape being specific, so we try to get by with generic one-size-fits-all confessions…
Its hard. To be open and honest enough with yourself and God to examine your life and see your sins. Its no easy task. In my repentance to God I was reminded of something as well. Often we reduce sin to only the acts of commission; things we DO that are sin. Those are most easy to pinpoint. But there are also sins of omission that are often rampant in our lives. Sins of omission are things we don’t do that we should; like loving our neighbors, serving our church and community, etc.
Let me challenge you for this week to do the hard work of examining your life for sins of commission and omission as we continue the practice of true repentance.
~Pastor Robert
iPhone Accountability
February 2, 2010
This week pastor mentioned how easy it is for us to pull up anything on our phones theses days. For those of you who have an iphone and are interested in accountability in this area, there is an iphone app designed specifically for that purpose. Simply goto the App store on your phone and search for the x3 watch app. Or it can be downloaded here:
This app is easy to setup and will automatically email 3 accountability of your choosing a report of your internet activity on your iphone…
There is also a PC and Mac version available through their main website: www.x3watch.com
Heroes
January 28, 2010
Here some statements/quotes/Scriptures from our Tuesday morning Men’s Bible Study. We take all thoughts and directly relate them to men as husbands, fathers, and employees/employers.:
“Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:7 KJV
Firmly rooted means to become stable, be rooted, strengthened with roots and figuratively to be firmly fixed, thoroughly grounded.
The verb suggests stability, nourishment and life derived from contact with Christ.
“BLESSED (HAPPY, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather.
But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night.
And he shall be like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].” Psalm 1:1-3 AMP
Built up indicates the placing of one layer upon another; literally means to build upon, erect a superstructure… for the eternal importance of the correct building “code” and the consequences of utilizing “cheap” building materials.
And established in your faith means to make firm or reliable so as to warrant security and inspire confidence.
Men should inspire confidence in their family and co-workers
The message is clear: be established and keep growing.
As result of the fact that we are rooted and are being continually built up and established, we are to add be abounding with thankfulness.
That means you do not grumble, complain and criticize. You cannot have it both ways. To be thankful means to find something in every situation for which you can genuinely be grateful.
Imagine being given a bowl of sand containing tiny particles of iron, and you are told to remove the iron from the sand. You have two choices. You can pull your fingers through the sand, searching for specks of iron but finding very few. Or you can pull a magnet through the sand and watch it attract countless bits of iron.
Like the fingers in the sand, the grumbling heart finds very few mercies. But as the grateful heart moves through life, it finds countless blessings, just as the magnet finds iron.
Of all the choices we make in life, few affect us more powerfully than our choice between gratitude and grumbling.
Grumbling overlooks blessings, but gratitude finds blessings everywhere—even in dry, sandy places!
Jeff
Naked Fear
January 25, 2010
With all the great preaching on fear, I thought it appropriate to share something I experienced early this month. During a time of personal fasting and prayer, God revealed to me a very deep fear that I was not even aware that I had. The fear of being overtaken. I knew instantly what season of my life that it came from; but being the introspective person I am, I was rather amazed at the fact that a root had been hidden to me for so very long! Good gravy!
I was not chastised by the Lord for having had this fear or for the rather lengthy time it had been there. I was not yelled at or stamped “Reject” but instead… Before the Lord revealed it, He affirmed me with powerful words that told me of His great love FOR MEEE…pointing me out apart from everyone else. He esteemed me! And then gently, quietly, in a whisper allowed the Truth to come to the light.
How did the whole revelation come to take place to start with you might wonder… Well, prayer and fasting surely helped — me pressing in with a zealous determination praying for seemingly unrelated needs…but I think the biggest factor that led to this specific instance was because I asked the question: “Before I ask for any healing for any one else in my personal situation, IF THERE BE ANY WAY IN ME…?”
So, there that fear was – exposed, naked! So I sent that jaybird running! And I gave that perch to Gladness and Joy! Out of my mouth comes: “Gladness and joy will OVERTAKE me, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Isaiah 51:11
May God bless each of you as you release your flocks of fears and exchange them for The Dove!
Michelle
Brit Hume On Tiger Woods
January 23, 2010
UNiTY
January 18, 2010
Pastor Shawn shared with us this weekend on the subject of unity, to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. and everything he accomplished. As I sat and listened to Shawn share about his upbringing, I thought about mine and what it had taught me about race, status, division, and equality.
To be quiet honest its hard for me to imagine a world where racial equality isn’t the norm. I moved all over when I was younger, both my parents worked for Wal-Mart and they had a way of keeping us relocating every few years. I’ve lived as far north as New Jersey and as far south as San Antonio. I’ve lived in many racially diverse areas and seen some racial injustice, but with my generation racial equality was just… well the norm and felt right. I believe its a testament to the God given mission that MLK embodied and fought for and eventually gave his life for. I’m not naive enough to believe that true racial equality exists everywhere in America, but to think about how far we’ve come in a little over 40 years is awe inspiring.
But one area has always stuck out to me as more segregated than it should be, and that has been… churches… I’ve been to large churches, small churches, denominational churches, non-denominational churches, city churches, country churches, and rural churches… and most them do not accurately reflect the racial make up of the city they are supposed to be serving. But I look at TCOC, and I instantly begin to smile. There is something that is just well right here. Looking out at the crowd I love to see how many ethnic and racial groups we have represented at our church, because truly that is not the norm at most. I love how we are unified in Christ and issues like race, socioeconomic status, or gender aren’t things that unnecessarily divide us. I love that Catalyst Youth ministry isn’t a bunch of clones of me. And I love that we can celebrate our diversities together and not feel the need to all wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, or have the same styles.
As TCOC continues to grow, and we continue to “Serve Christ By Serving Others,” let us also continue to be a church of diversity that isn’t afraid to worship with and serve those that may be different than ourselves. Its something that Martin Luther King Jr. fought and died for, and so did our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:28 out of The Message translation puts it this way:
In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ.
~ Pastor Robert Jordan
F e a r Dispelled
January 5, 2010
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
I thought this week I would just share with you a few great quotes from Pastor Jeff’s message:
“Fear is to Satan what Faith is to God”
“Faith does God’s work; Fear does Satan’s work”
“God operates on the basis of faith, which enables believers to resist one of the devil’s chief operative tactics — fear. God has not given believers this spirit of fear.”
“IT SEEMS AS if doubt were doomed to be the perpetual companion of faith. As dust attends the chariot wheels so do doubts naturally becloud faith. Some men of little faith are perpetually enshrouded with fears; their faith seems only strong enough to enable them to doubt.” Spurgeon
If you missed it, you can listen to Pastor’s Sermon
Humility
December 28, 2009
First off I want to say thank you to Pastor Jeff for allowing me to preach this weekend. Second, I pray that those who were able to be in attendance with us this weekend got something out of the message God had laid upon my heart. Who knows it may have just been God dealing with me and how I needed to change, but I would be willing to bet there were others in need a clearer picture of humility. At the end I challenged everyone to examine their lives in response to a picture of Jesus the humble servant in 6 areas, and in case you missed it here they are:
- Jesus is a humble teacher; we should learn humbly
- Jesus humbly forgives; we should humbly apologize
- Jesus is a humble leader; we should humbly follow Him
- Jesus is a humble servant; we should humbly depend on Him
- Jesus is a humble listener; we should humbly talk to Him
- Jesus is humbly willing to be with us; we should humbly come worship Him
But there is one more thing that a clear picture of Jesus being a humble servant should do… it should challenge us to serve. I pray that ultimately as you examine your lives, you’ll find a desire to be SO much like Jesus that you can’t help but serve those around you. That is why each week Pastor closes out the service with our vision statement “Serving Christ by serving the Call, Church, and the Community. Serving Christ by serving you.” It’s a weekly reminder of our duty and privilege to be like Jesus and serve those around us. Please also prayerfully consider this week where you can best serve others…
~Pastor Robert
Family Communion 2009
December 22, 2009
Though quite possibly the shortest service for TCOC in 2009, our Family Communion is by far my favorite. It touches me specifically when I see the men of the home step up to lead and serve their families; and what a teachable moment. I won’t forget watching sons look at their fathers and begin to understand that a mans role in his family is to shepherd. Or daughters watching their fathers and understanding their future mates need to be led by Jesus, like their own daddy. And wives seeing their husbands seeing their husbands in a new light, and letting their guard down and feeling safe…
At the altars as family after family came, I didn’t see fighting, or bickering, or anger… In fact quite the opposite, I saw peace in broken families, I saw hope in the midst of dire circumstance, and I saw tears as families grew closer to each other as they remembered Christ, what he did, and what he provided through his death/burial/and resurrection.
The best part of is that it doesn’t have to be a one time event, and I’m not just talking about communion. There is so many teachable moments that we can take advantage of within our own homes and show our families what it truly means to “Serve Christ by serving others.” I would encourage you to find these teachable moments and use them often. (Reading the Christmas story out of Luke as opposed to “The night before Christmas”; or during Easter one evening reading the Crucifixion and Resurrection; etc.) It will make a difference in your family and a big difference in you.
~Pastor Robert
Heroes
December 15, 2009
Here are a few excerpts, thoughts, quotes, etc. from our Men’s Bible study this morning:
“I say this so that no one can fool you by arguments that seem good, but are false.” Colossians 2:4 NCV
Almost every Bible translations says it a little different, but all very enlightening.
• Some Christians are more affectionate, and less knowing; others are more knowing, and less affectionate; it is well when love and knowledge go and keep pace together.
• While it is true that we must manifest love and approach the Word of God with a non-critical spirit and an open mind, we also must recognize that God’s truth provides absolute boundaries.
• If the target is the truth, there is something alongside it that looks very much like the truth, and these men focus upon that, rather than the truth.
• Professing Christians who hear the Word without obeying it make a serious “spiritual miscalculation”, which causes them to delude themselves.
• Plastic looks like metal. Flowers are made of silk. We are daily touching things that are imitations of the real thing. But imitations have limitations and if you start regarding them as real you are in trouble.
• God’s truth is the best protection against Satan’s lies.
Jeff
