Church as a family

Rev 7:9-12

When we call church as a family of God,  we must be aware that the word 'family' has different connotations for some people. As not all families are positive

Ephe 12:15
           2:19
Gal 6:10
       4:4-11
John 13:1-3

Accepting God as Father,means you take hus love but must also take his chastisement Heb 12:7-11. You must let God shape you life and correct you from bad behaviour.  God loves us enough to say No,Stop Change how you're behaving. If you do not allow God to discipline you it means you are illegitimate (ie. God is not your father,but someone else,not in the context of out of wedlock )

Gal 1:1,11
       2:4
       3:15
       4:12,28,38
       5:11,13
       6:1,18
Believing brings belonging Ephe 2:12-19. Open up your friendship circle. Make a conscious effort to befriend multiple ethnicities so that you may bring them to church and make your church more cultural ie.have an All Nations Day every week. The devil uses different skintone, accents as a divider of people, let's not let that happen.

"white people have watches, black people have time"

Love, serve,accept,honour,encourage,instruct,submit,bear one another's burdens

Rom 8:4-9

Thankfulness

1 Thes 5:18

When times are good it's easy to be thankful but it's hard to do when things seem to be going every wrong and it seems God has forgotten about you,be thankful.

Luke 22:17-19
Jesus knew His fate before He was born but He was still thankful to God for the future Heb 12:2 (-11). We may be currently unemployed, currently have financial struggles and or health struggles. But God is always with us, He has paved the future on earth, but especially in heaven. We sometimes go through hardships as a punishment /discipline.  But most times the hardships we go through is to serve a greater purpose which is a wondrous Glory of God!
2 Kings 20:1-6
Gen 50:20
God's Glory can be revealed in ways that to our human hearts and eyes we feel is unfair treatment especially when we believe in God and serve Him loyally. But let us take example from Joseph and Hezekiah, who through all their struggles and torment and anguish, they still always turned to God to be thankful and grateful to Him.

Understanding the times for the restoration of God's Glory

Ephe 5:14-7
Ephe 1:15-18

1) when there is understanding,leadership is established.
2) gives us the ability/advantage to position ourselves.
3) with understanding the church will not be consumed.

God only needs one person to be the remenant <?> of change eg. Martin Luther King. Noah, Esther.
Christianity is a generational thing, but we must rise up now in order to preserve it to hand over to the future generations.  the church is now the remenant, but we need to understand what God wants nd is doing.
4) until the church sees and understands, God cannot do His work.
Isa 59:19 the comma is in the wrong places should be "...when the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit... "
5) when we awake, the Glory of the Lord will restore us and the land.

The Qualities of Salt

Heb 10:20-25 {emph on 22-25}

Psalm 121:1-8
Mark 9:50
You must have salt in you. Do not moan and whine with the rest of them yet say you have faith in God. If you do, then just rejoice in God only. Train your eyes only on him.

Matt 5;13
John 7:37
1 Pet 3:15
You have to show the people around you the hope that you are living in faith that you have in the Lord for God is with us. Don't dampen your spirit because of your situation. God is in you and He won't fail!!

Psalm 121:7
Christians must make a good difference from the corruption around us. Pray for positive change, for folks in parliament who will speak God's truth! Not turn corrupt once in that arena themselves!
We need to raise our faith in God. Believe it that when you pray the Lord hears our prayer. In all things He is Lord!

The Power Of Offence

He who speaks in tongues speaks not to man 1 Cor 14:2-5
Tongues,unknown language is the message to God,we should say Amen in. Interpretation of tongues is not equal to each other. Prophecy is speaking to man,tongues is speaking to God.
For eg. Tongues and interpretation is 2 £10, whereas prophecy is1 £20.

Prov 4:23
Money, sex and ambition can destroy your heart. But so can disappointment and offence 2 Sam 16:23,2 Sam 17:23. Sometimes you may outwardly have absolutely everything but still be so empty that you are so depressed death seems the only answer.  There is always context between events,between statements. But suicide is an act beyond reversing. 2 Sam 15 :12, 2 Sam 16 :20-22/ 2 Sam 27:1-23.
Ahithopel & Absolum were offended by King David 3 Sam 13. Absolum was upset that David their father did nothing to punish the person who raped his sister, his half brother. 2 Sam 15.  2 Sam 23:34-39 { 2 Sam 11:3} allium is is betheshebas husband who was Ahithopel son. Whom David killed so he could bed Bethesheba.

Ahithopel may have felt that David had abused his service by seducing his granddaughter and killing her husband. You too may help someone but they that you like dirt.

He may say, allium his son saw David as a hero,because kids grew up with the story of David vs Goliath. But now there's  different story of the hero and mentor no longer being a solid example.

He may have said David seduced my granddaughter. He didn't rape her but he was good looking, wealthy and King. She is used to being loved, she was bathing after her menstrual cycle meaning she was not intimate with her husband,may have been a fragile woman anyway,used to being loved. There is always a witness to your crimes. The servants even reminded David about who she is connected to.

David also killed Ahithopel's grandson yurai the hittite. Prov 18:19/ 20:22 /24:29 heb 12:15
You can't choose what happens to you and when, but you can choose how you react to things/situations that hurt you deeply. Because there is life beyond your injury,but only if you keep your injury clean. You may have a scar, but you won't be dead

Living under Grace

Gal 2:11-16
James 2:10-12
John 1:10(14)-20
8;46
Gal 3:(1)10-
1:

Moses was given the laws. But in that time if you broke one law, you broke all laws. For that cycle to end,  something had to happen.  Christ came to abolish the law so that we the righteous of God,  shall be led by grace to stay just.

1) you can't earn grace
2) you don't deserve it
3) given for free by God

That which we freely receive from God, by faith. Without earning it or deserving it, therefore cannot boast about being graceful.

Ephe 2;8,9

Mercy is available no matter how messed up you think you. Let your faith take your fear away, from getting closer to Christ. Be like the prostitute who washed Jesus' feet. Let us live a life of freedom and liberty cause Christ paid the ultimate price to save us. Don't let the devil convince you that you don't belong with Christ!

Who is thy neighbour?

Luke 10:25-37
Matt 5:43-48

There's nothing special about loving people who love you or being kind to people who are kind to you. God's love is doing all this when it's nor reciprocal.

John 4:9

Jews always looked down on Samaritans as they worshipped idols and not God like the Jews who felt God was theirs. So they had no dealings with each other.

The priest and the levite who were Jews, didn't help their fellow jew. The priest may have thought it was due to the man's sins that got him in that predicament. The levite maybe thought the thieves were nearby so walked passed, but the Samaritan who had no dealings with Jews,  was the one to help the jew. He showed love and compassion to an enemy, without thought of his own safety.

But it seems that in church we are holding each others tribes,culture,race against each other,  in the church!!!  In the Kingdom of God all those things should not matter. We must use this to undermine each other.

Deut 29:29