We had a great celebration last Friday for Emmanuel and Ann’s 10th Wedding Anniversary. It was a great time with godly fellowship, awesome food and cake. Fun and games for adults and children alike!
To see the complete collection of photos, go to this page.
The Pharisees in Jesus’ day could watch a withered hand be healed and complain about the day the healing happened. When people lack the hunger for more of God and His full, present effect on humanity, they often become unable to recognize the presence of the Kingdom in what is displayed right in front of them. But for any honest seeker, freedom is easily recognized and celebrated, becoming the measurable effect of Heaven itself. Bill Johnson
Scripture
Jesus replied, “Only an evil and adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Observation
Some scribes and Pharisees come to Jesus and demand a miracle to prove His authority. Jesus refuses, saying that they are evil and adulterous. The only sign that He will give them is His death and resurrection.
Jesus then goes on to say that the people of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba will testify against them on the Day of Judgement for failing to see the greatness and the wisdom of Jesus.
Application
The religious leaders demanded that Jesus perform a miraculous sign to prove that He was the Messiah. This was despite the fact that Jesus had already healed many people, delivered many others from demons, calmed a storm , and fed over 5000 people. John’s gospel is explicitly structured around seven signs which Jesus performed to prove He is the “I Am.”
Faith in Jesus is not dependent on miraculous signs. People who demand proof generally are not looking to be convinced.
Our acceptance of the gospel is not a matter of proof or signs. In fact, many people received miracles but did not put their faith in Jesus.
Most people who come to the Lord say that they “knew” it was right. There is a spiritual connection regardless of intellectual assent.
God speaks to us through our spirit. That may or may not have an emotional (soul) or cognitive (mind) resonance. It does not matter as it is our spirit that relates to God.
The Pharisees, like many people today, were hard of heart and refused to repent and believe that Jesus is Lord.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for the gift of salvation. May I never grow hard- hearted towards you. Amen.
Great testimony from God Reports
Lorena Saylor would get in her car and wind up at some random place, having no idea how she got there.
Depression had taken over her life.
“I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to get dressed. I just basically wanted to be alone,” Lorena says on a CBN video. “There was times I wanted to commit suicide.”
Lorena’s problems started with sexual abuse in her childhood home in Kentucky. Although she was the victim, she was punished. “I was the one that got spanked for it,” she says.
Migraines set in at the same time. She couldn’t concentrate in school and was diagnosed with dyslexia. She also suffered from anxiety and low self-esteem.
Lorena married at age 25, but her problems persisted. Her husband was enlisted in the Air Force and would frequently be sent for lengthy deployments, leaving her and the two children alone for long periods of time.
“This voice would say, ‘Ram your car into this tree. Your family would be so much better off if you’re just gone.’”
She was raised in church, but “the back-stabbing of people talking about people, just the things I had heard and seen within the church, I didn’t want anything to do with it,” she says.
At age 33, Lorena suffered a back and hip injury at work. Unfortunately, her prescription pain medication turned into an addiction. “My body just craved more and more,” she says. “I become a functioning addict.”
She felt unloved. She wanted to be alone but despaired of the loneliness. Whenever she drove, she got lost in her thoughts and direction. The voices would tell her to commit suicide.
“I wanted to die,” she says. “Many times I put pills in my hands ready to take them. This voice would say, ‘Just take it. Your family would be so much better off.’”
But another voice would counter: “Who will love your children like you? Who will raise your children the way you would?”
In 2004, her husband was deployed to North Dakota for five years, while Lorena and their children stayed in North Carolina. She hit bottom.
“I was on 10 medications, and my husband was drinking. I was ready for divorce. My family was falling apart,” Lorena says. “I didn’t know where to turn, I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was. I was in this deep dark place.”
Then something remarkable happened. A co-worker invited her to church, and she accepted.
The praise and worship music moved her deeply.
“I feel the presence of the Lord. I couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “After service was over and everybody was leaving, I found myself in the foyer. I’d hit a point where I was just done. I was finished, and this lady that worked with me had invited me to church and she was standing there with me and she says, ‘You want to go pray?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’
“That day I gave my life to Jesus.”
Then an amazing transformation began. “Something in that moment had changed tremendously inside me,” she remembers. “All my life, I knew of Him, but I didn’t know Him. Knowing Him it became a different dynamic in my life.”
After a year of attending church, she was delivered from the addiction, the depression, the low self-esteem and the pain.
“He didn’t only heal me,” Lorena says. “He delivered me of everything.”
She didn’t even realize until five days later that she hadn’t popped a pill. The migraines vanished, as did the back pain.
“In the days that followed, there was something inside that was like a thirst and a hunger that I’d, never experienced before,” she says. “I said, ‘Holy Spirit, teach me to read.’”
She began to consume God’s word voraciously.
Lorena’s husband, Raymond, and their children also gave their lives to Christ in 2015.
The couple has preached the gospel in Tanzania with Outside the Walls International Ministries.
“I just had to reach out to Him and He was there with open arms,” Lorena says. “Jesus loves you and He has a purpose. He says, ‘I know the plan that I have for you and that it is good.’”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
Ben Lahood studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.
Freedom will only be experienced in the measure to which we see God as being good. Bill Johnson
Scripture
“If I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has arrived among you.”
Observation
A demon- possessed man is brought to Jesus who heals him. The crowd is amazed and asks if He could be the Messiah.
The Pharisees say that Jesus gets His power from satan. But Jesus says that any kingdom divided against itself in this way is doomed.
The only power strong enough to cast out demons is from the one who is stronger than satan, that is God.
A tree is identified by its fruit. The lives of the Pharisees show that there is no good within them. They cannot even tell the difference between good and evil, so they will have to give an account on the day of judgement.
Application
Jesus’ ability to cast out demons was the most obvious sign of the presence of God’s kingdom.
The war for people’s souls is still incredibly strong, but the victory is assured through Jesus Christ. Every time a person, or a group of people, confesses that Jesus is Lord, the kingdom of God is manifest. Every time somebody says “Yes” to Jesus, the kingdom of God grows stronger.
We see satan’s evil shown in all kinds of ways. Lawlessness, violence, lies, betrayal, sin, all represent the power of satan to hold people in bondage.
But just one touch from the Holy Spirit is enough to set free a person who desires liberation. There is no cage that satan can construct that God cannot pull down with just a word.
Prayer
Thank you Lord. Your kingdom is so much stronger than the power of satan. Amen.
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 4:17. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 4:17
“Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.”
Because of the fact that we as christians are being directed and growing up into the fullness of Christ, we must allow Him to change our way of thinking and living. Paul now goes on to describe the implications of living in the light of Christ.
When religious beliefs remain just beliefs, then our faith becomes ideology or dogma. Faith must impact our lives or it remains theoretical ,and shows that we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to change us.
Paul uses very strong language to introduce his exhortation. The words affirm and testify together mean that a solemn declaration is being made. In English we might make a legally binding declaration with language such as “I affirm and testify,” or “I swear and declare.”
The word translated here as testify is the word from which we get the word martyr. The early church recognised the power of testifying to Christ even to the point of death .
Paul himself can testify to the importance of being changed by Christ. Prior to his conversion he was a strong and violent persecutor of the followers of Jesus. Now, as an apostle, he can testify to the power of the gospel to change a life.
So Christians coming from a Gentile or non-Jewish background, similarly must leave the ways of the pagans.
Paul describes the old Gentile ways as “futility of their minds.” They were deceived by their false religion, and so they lived accordingly. The Gentiles are in darkness; satan has blinded them and they cannot even see that they are deceived.
Wrong thinking leads to wrong actions. Paul goes on to list the ways in which the former Gentiles need to change in order to be more like Christ.
We need to recognise that this is not legalism. Paul does not lay down the law, because he knows from experience that legal ism is as futile as Gentile religions. But he does seek to correct their thinking so that it is productive not futile.
All religion that is not related to Christ is idolatry. These Gentiles who received Christ had previously worshipped a multitude of “gods”, but now needed to follow the way of Christ.
The defining feature of idolatry is that we serve a “god” from a desire to control the “gods”. People worshipped weather “gods” such as Baal because they needed weather suitable for crops, or else they starved.
They gave offerings and performed rituals in the hope that the various “gods” would protect or provide. Apart from that, they could live their lives in anyway they liked.
When we come to Christ, there is nothing we can do to make him more amenable to us. He already did everything necessary to atone for our sins.
This is the reverse of the pagan “gods”. People made offerings in the hope that the “god” would do something good for them. In Christianity, God makes the first move, becoming flesh and dying for us, before we even knew about it.
In paganism, humans act and the “gods” respond. In Christianity, God has acted and we respond to his self offering.
What’s response can we make? Paul tells us in Romans that we must present ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1).
Gentile believers, then, move from a religion of little demands made by a little “god”, to a God who gives all and expects the same response in return .
It is no wonder that Paul tells us we must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.
New Life Narrabri 