Our Local Assembly

"With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Ephesians 4:2-3

What a gift believers have been given by our Brother and Lord, Jesus Christ. We are blessed to have fellow bondservants in Christ to share in bearing our burdens and helping us up when we fall. Praying for one another as we each struggle with the trials and temptations that come at us in waves daily. Partnering with one another in support of world missions and in the mission at home. Loving one another, and through this love displaying the love of Christ. Sacrificing our own desires and interests for the sake of our church family's interests. Committing ourselves for the long haul to one another as we travel together as pilgrims in a strange land. Provoking one another to love and good works. Living for God's glory in a world that seeks it's own. Sacrificing this life together for the one that is to come. I love my local assembly and have joined myself to it for life. How committed are you to your local church? What does that commitment mean to you? Or is your commitment a shallow and self serving one? Paul uses words like endeavoring, forbearing, and longsuffering to describe the struggle that we must undertake to maintain unity and peace. We must diligently bear with one another in meekness and lowliness motivated by our love for our Savior and one another. Abandoning our church family for selfish reasons is never right, and does so much harm to people we claim to love.


Romans 8:28

St. Andrews Hymns

If you've never heard this group before I encourage you to give them a listen. I love their rendition of "O Father You are Sovereign.

 standrewshymns.com/

Chris
Romans 8:28

Jesus: Our Crucified and Risen Savior

40 Arabic words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOJZRAjvW2U&feature=colike


Romans 8:28

In Christ Alone

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV)


If God were to expose the innermost thoughts of my heart I would be exposed as guilty of many of these sins daily. Some of these sins make their way out of my heart and into practice. The idolatry thing alone would be enough to sink my ship. If this be true, and it is, on what grounds do I inherit the kingdom of God? Paul said explicitly that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom. If it were up to me to refrain from these sins I would be in a lot of trouble. However, I stand solidly on the grounds that Jesus was completely innocent of committing any sin, and His righteousness has been imputed to me. It is for that reason alone I am justified in God's eyes. It is His perfection that qualifies me as a joint heir with Christ and not my ability to refrain from sinful behavior. I am justified by faith in Christ's finished work alone. Praise God and the Lamb forever!!

Chris Connally
Romans 8:28

Trust God's Word NO MATTER WHAT!

"I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no
one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is
looking for power in program, in a methodology, in a technique, in
anything and everything but that in which God has placed it- His Word.
He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is
focused on the Scriptures" -R.C. Sproul

Sola Scriptura - Soli Deo Gloria

Romans 8:28

Prayer then Preaching

"The sermons of the Reformers and Puritans are not that different than ours. We’re saying essentially the same thing. What was so different was their prayer lives. My aim is that we would truly pray in our prayers."

"True prayer is putting ourselves into our petitions, crying out to God Almighty and praying in our prayers. The problem is not that we don’t pray, but rather that seldom we truly prayerfully pray in our prayers. What is this praying? The primary exercise of faith. Private prayerful praying is the work of the triune God. It has more to do with God than with us. It is Heaven’s greatest weapon that we have at our disposal as a minister of the gospel. This kind of praying is supposed to be half of our vocation—giving ourselves to the Word and to prayer."

Joel Beeke (Desiring God 2011 Pastors conference)

Quote Lifted from Kevin DeYoung's blog

The devil’s sage advice to his apprentice in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters:

What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of what I call ‘Christianity And.’ You know–Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform…Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing. The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart–an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, an inconstancy in friendship. (quoted by Michael Horton in Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of Robert Godfrey)

Romans 8:28