One Person at a Time...

Tomorrow at New Life!

Join us tomorrow as we continue our series "Magnetic Marks of Jesus' Followers!"  Tomorrow's "mark" is TRUSTing the Bible teaching in all Matters of faith and daily living.  The title of the message is "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"  Come take the 5th grade Bible quiz and see!  You'll want to be there as we celebrate and worship the Lord together, here a testimony from Shelby Sell about her recent missions trip to El Salvador, and then, of course, find out whether you're smarter than a fifth grader when it comes to knowing and TRUSTing God's word!

SON-Life-- Genesis and LEAD (Leadership Equipping and Development) meets at 9:00 a.m., then we worship together at 10:00!  We'd love to have you join us!

Next Step #18

Next Step #18 – September 15, 2007

Hi Everyone!

As you may recall from last week’s next step, we’re going to be investing some time in investigating the “FRUIT” of the Spirit.  The Apostle Paul writes the following in Galatians 5:22-23    ²²But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: LOVE, joy, peace, patience,     kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Love comes first in the fruit of the Spirit, and that is no doubt obvious.  After all the Bible tells us that “God is love.”  It doesn’t say God HAS love, or God is loving.  It says God IS love.  (See 1 John 4:8). When the Holy Spirit fills and empowers us, when we are living in the Holy Spirit everyday people will notice that God’s love—which is self-giving, self-sacrificing ACTION, not a feeling, becomes prominent in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit in all its aspects becomes more and more obvious, the more we give control to the Holy Spirit in our lives. Since God is love, and the Holy Spirit is God then the Holy Spirit is love and when we live in the Holy Spirit we live in love. Some will say, “Yes, but….” and then note that some people are difficult, or that circumstances are challenging, or that certain bosses are impossible—and all of these statements may be true. Even so, there is no “Yes, but….” when it comes to God’s love being lived out in our lives. The more difficult and/or challenging or impossible the person or situation, the more we must live in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that the fruit of love will be evident. Start each day asking God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, and ask specifically that you may live out the fruit – all nine aspects in your life. Today, take a little extra time and ask that just as God is love, that you may be empowered to live that love throughout the day and the coming week!

(Note: for this week’s next step, and any prior next steps, you can go to my blog “One Person At a Time,” at www.chrismarshall.typepad.com.)

Magnetic Marks...

Just a reminder:   COMMIT to Jesus with passion and grow in knowing and following Him!

If you were in worship yesterday, you'll know what that's about.  If you weren't then check out the message at www.newlifexn.org.  Click on "The Message" and follow the instructions to get to the message "Where's the Fire?"

LEAD Has Begun!

All summer long we have promoted the LEAD (Leadership Equipping and Development) time coming September 9 at 9:00 a.m.  LEAD is a time for leaders to be equipped for serving in their families, schools, work-places, in and through New Life and beyond!  If you missed our first session, you can get the handouts from it at the church website www.newlifexn.org.  Once you get their just click on "Get Involved" and then SON-LIFE.  We're learning what it means to be "everyday evangelists" in the first five weeks of LEAD, and then we'll be investing seven weeks on "Self-Leadership" based on notes from good friend, Jeff Leake.  Then we'll use the Christmas season to learn way it means to Prepare the Way for Jesus in our lives, our families and our extended families.  If you want to know more about LEAD feel free to respond to this post.

Highlights from yesterday's LEAD class:

• Everyday Evangelism is NOT a program.
• Everyday Evangelism is NOT a canned approach.
• Everyday Evangelism is NOT just for those with the spiritual gift of evangelism.
• Everyday Evangelism IS for every person who trusts Jesus as Savior and Lord.
• Acts 1:8 gives us the "formula" for our approach to everyday evangelism-- Wait. Receive power from the Holy Spirit. GO--locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
• The resources we'll be using for Everyday Evangelism are the Bible, and Bill Hybel's great book, Just Walk Across the Room.
• If you're planning to join us next week read the account of Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), and pages 1-79 in Just Walk Across the Room (I have copies of the book if you need one!

Hope to see you next Sunday!

Next Step #17

Next Step #17 – September 10, 2007

Hi Everyone!

For this week’s “Next Step” (and the next eight or nine “Next Steps”) we’re going to investigate the FRUIT of the SPIRIT. The Apostle Paul writes the following in

Galatians 5:22-23

:

    ²²But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience,           

    kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these

    things!

Note that while we often hear references to the “fruits” of the Spirit (in the plural), Paul tells us that it is the “fruit” of the Spirit (singular). It is one fruit having nine different traits or components. As we look at the “fruit” of the Spirit we see that when the Holy Spirit fills and works in us, our lives will reflect the character of Jesus. Often throughout my life, I have prayed for God to give me patience, or to give me more self-control, and it’s certainly okay to pray for those individual characteristics. What we see here in Galatians 5:22-23, though, is that one prayer will suffice to produce in us nine vital characteristics that Jesus evidenced in His life. That prayer is:  Lord, FILL me with Your Holy Spirit that I may live His fruit in my life. Each day, during my morning prayer time with God, I ask Him to fill me and empower me with the Holy Spirit. Since we’ve already seen in Ephesians 5:18 (Next Step #3) that we need to “be being filled” with the Holy Spirit, it only makes sense that we pray daily for His filling and dwelling. I often get specific in that pray and ask God to fill me with the fruit of the Spirit and then I pray for the specific characteristics:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Next time we’ll start looking at the characteristics one at a time, and consider how we may live them out in our families, schools, workplaces, community and beyond. For today, remember to call on the Lord to fill and empower you with the Holy Spirit that you may live the fruit of the Spirit right now and throughout this week!

(Note: for this week’s next step, and any prior next steps, you can go to my blog “One Person At a Time,” at www.chrismarshall.typepad.com.)

Great Music Resource...

Hey Everyone!  A friend put me on to a great Christian Music Website:  IndieHeaven.  The site includes the "Top 20" Independent Christian Artists as voted by the listeners of IndieHeaven.  The #1 group for today, Bread of Stone, has a drummer who is a young man from Meadville.  Check it out!

Magnetic Marks of Jesus' Followers...

This Sunday at New Life we're launching a new, 5-week series titled "Magnetic Marks of Jesus' Followers.  So often we Christians are identified by the things we're against.  This series presents five, key, identifying marks by which we are known:  passionate COMMITMENT to Jesus; TRUST in the Bible as the Word of God; SEEKING to live a holy life; TELLING others the Good News; and SEEING the needs of others and doing something about them in Jesus' name.  When we live these marks in our daily lives we attract others to Jesus the way a magnet attracts iron filings.  I hope you'll join us for every message in the series and that you'll make it part of your daily prayers for the Holy Spirit to bring things marks to the surface in your life.  That's my prayer for me and for all of us together, because nothing is more important to the health and vitality of Jesus' church than that we who bear His name look and live like Him!

Next Step #16

Today’s “Next Step” is “Living By the Spirit.” The Apostle Paul makes one of the most helpful points in all of Scripture about the Holy Spirit with these words:

¹⁶So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ¹⁷For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.  (Galatians 5:16-18

NIV

)

Just because we have determined that we want to live in the power of the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean that the “battle” is over. In fact, as Paul points out throughout our lives there is a CONFLICT going on between the Holy Spirit and the “sinful nature” or what was often called “the flesh” in earlier translations of the Bible. Paul even tells us that when we don’t do what we want—meaning when we don’t do what we know the Holy Spirit is leading us to do, it’s because we permit the sinful nature to prevail. In this struggle the Holy Spirit can ALWAYS win, but the challenge is He will not coerce us to do His will. The Holy Spirit’s power is ALWAYS greater than the sinful nature in us since birth, but the decision ALWAYS remains with us:  will we listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice; will we DO what the Holy Spirit empowers us to do.

The primary battle for those of us who know Jesus as Savior and Lord, and who desire to live in the power of the Holy Spirit everyday is an INTERNAL battle.  Yes, we will face external temptations on every side, but the victory comes from a simple yielding of the will to the Spirit. Paul tells us that WHEN we are led by the Spirit--and that is the key:  being led by the Spirit-- we are not under the law. In other words, we don’t have to worry about what the law says, whether the law of the land or the law of Moses, because when we yield internal control of our lives to the Holy Spirit, we will do what’s good and right. The first—middle—and last step of every day for us, if we truly want to live in the Holy Spirit is to recognize the battle that is going on, and make the intentional commitment moment by moment to be LED by the Spirit. Then and only then will we win the battle, and live in the Spirit!