Prayer

On Sunday, I spent the morning with our men at their camp at a retreat centre outside Parys.

In our regular Sunday service, we continued with our theme of prayer during which time couples had the opportunity to come forward for prayer - awesome!

It is always amazing to me how God uses His church to minister to people wherever they may be.

In fact, I am becoming more convinced that without a church family, we will always have to face life on our own and this is not God's intention for us.

My prayer for you is that your church family is offering God's ministry to your life.

Blessings

Prayer

On Sunday we began our four week series on Prayer, one of our core values.

We shared from Deuteronomy 4:5-8.

This passage tells us that God is near us when we pray to Him.

It may sound simple and obvious but the reality is that we often don't know, appreciate or feel His close presence.

So, bottom line:

- God is present in all our situations.
- He knows our every need.
- We can open ourselves to Him in pray.
- It is His hearts desire that we do so.

I trust you will open yourself to Him because He is every present in your life!

Salt and Light Part 2

On Sunday we shared from Matthew 5:13-16 - being the salt and light.

Interestingly, that the traditional way of understanding this passage is that sin makes us lose our saltiness and we hide our good works under our beds!

However:

- Salt is used for flavouring, curing and preserving food.

- The Greek words for losing saltiness, in this passage, MARINO, actually means: to be foolish, (sin, silly mistakes, repeated bad choices etc).

- The Greek word for light, in this passage, is PHOS. When phosphorous hits water it glows brightly therefore we are to burn brightly for Jesus.

Conclusion:

When we avoid being foolish, we can shine for Jesus in being the flavour of the universe!

Robbing God

On Sunday we shared around our responsibility to faithfully manage all that God has given us - i.e. family, work and church:
(Malachi 3: 6-12).

By withholding out Tithes we compromise the churches ability to fulfil Christ's commission:

- To learn to love God
- To learn to love our neighbours

At North Rand, we commit ourselves to fulfilling God's call on us a church for 2011 as we read our convenental vow!

Managing Our Responsibilities

On Sunday we shared, as part of our annual stewardship series, around God's guidance for managing of our responsibilities.

Now, when most of us hear the word, 'stewardship,' we might immediately think of a sermon or teaching on GIVING!!!

But stewardship is some much more.

It involves our managing ALL things we are to be responsible for:

- FAMILY
- WORK
- CHURCH
- ENVIRONMENT
- UNIVERSE

So, we are given this responsibilty but also the MEANS.

We can chose to follow God's guidelines, as laid out in Scripture, or we try to do it ourselves.

Amazed!!!

We concluded our Worship series on Sunday.

I am always amazed at the POWER of the Word!

We simply shared from the Word in between worshiping and allowed the Word to challenge us.

The altar call at the end was amazing as many folk came forward to receive Jesus' forgiveness.

GOD IS GOOD!!!

Worship

On Sunday we simply allowed Scripture to speak to us a we worshipped in song.

Folks came forward for prayer and we trust that many lives were changed and transformed as they received Jesus(Acts 3:1-10)

I trust that God will transform you as you:

- devote yourself to him
- show Him your devotion
- saturate Him with your all