tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8206963474867448562.post-55418106851779176852007-08-31T23:25:00.000-04:002007-08-31T23:25:00.000-04:00Pastor's Page August 25, 2007<BR/>Hello Beacon Light Family,<BR/>Here's something I read this week.<BR/>One Sunday morning a man walked into our morning service with an obscene word printed on his T-shirt. That wasn’t easy for many to tolerate. As I heard later, when people stood to sing the first hymn, many couldn’t get their minds off his shirt.<BR/>But as inappropriate as wearing that shirt was, it was important that we accepted that man in that condition. When the church requires that people clean up their lives, dress, and act a certain way before we will love them, we lose the respect of our culture.<BR/>So I remind our congregation that Jesus showed compassion to a maniac living naked among the tombs. Christ cared about him just as he was. So anything above nakedness ought to be acceptable dress code in our midst.<BR/>How would you respond? What would you have said? What do you think?<BR/>Excerpt taken from Growing your church through evangelism and outreach. 1996 (1st ed.). Library of Christian leadership (36). Nashville. Tenn.: Moorings.<BR/><BR/>Spiritual Cleansing: Please begin preparing yourself for our 21-day fast will be September 8-29, 2008. Prepare by asking the Holy Spirit to start showing you your areas of spiritual immaturity, your areas of private need and your behavior and lifestyle choices that are not pleasing to Him. Why ask the Holy Spirit, because it is His job to “convict the world of sin, and righteousness and judgment.” (John 16:8) We do not want to go into the fast unprepared because it is possible to fast incorrectly and emerge from your fast virtually unchanged.<BR/><BR/>What is Fasting? Four points for this installment.<BR/>1. Fasting can be done incorrectly and without spiritual benefit. Remember the Scribes and Pharisees fasted once and sometimes twice per week. But their fasts did not draw them closer to God. They fasted so that others could know how holy they were, for bragging rights, not so they could know God's mind or His will for their lives.<BR/>2. Fasting must be done with prayer. The sacrifice that we make during the fast should act as an alarm clock for prayer. When we want to eat, watch TV, play a game, or do whatever we have sacrificed for the fast, that desire should send us to prayer and bible study. <BR/>3. If your fast is from TV or some other time consuming habit, use that new found time during your fast to memorize scripture. Quick tip: Read it out loud 7 times and then recite it 7 times and you should have it memorized. If not do it 7 times more.<BR/>4. Finally, the purpose of the fast is two fold: firstly, to make a personal sacrifice to demonstrate to God the seriousness with which you approach what you are praying for and secondly to clear some of the clutter out of your head so that you can hear God.<BR/> <BR/>Wednesday Night Worship: Last Wednesday Night the topic was Counting the Cost of Community. I heard it was a wonderful discussion. I look forward to leading out in the discussion this week and we will be on chapter 3 of our book focusing on Moving Beyond Superficiality. Please make time to be here for this worship encounter.<BR/><BR/>Sermon Synopsis: The Weapons of Our Warfare. We are all “on the battlefield for the lord”, but are we all fighting? We have heard testimonies from the long ago and far away, but what victories are we experiencing in our here and now? Are we surrendered to God? Are we naked on the battlefield? Have we grown so accustomed to defeat that we don't believe that victory is possible? Will we continue on in a defeated Christian experience or are we willing to take the victory that is already assured? The real question is are you ready to put on your armor, pick up your weapons and fight?!<BR/>God Bless,<BR/>Pastor ArringtonBeacon Light SDA Church - Annapolishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16191579934779825897noreply@blogger.com