Balancing Ministry N' Work

Paul understood what it meant to live life to its fullest. He focused on the people around him, valuing them, taking joy in them, and by being a witness at every opportunity. If we are going to make the most of our time on earth, we need to be doing the same. Pouring ourselves into our family and friends and being a witness to the world. Living life to the fullest also means we need to be submitting to the Holy Spirit. Letting Him dwell in us, guide us, mold us, shape us, and help us to life a life worthy of the calling placed on us. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control become evident as we submit to the Holy Spirit. Live your life to the fullest, loving those around you, living worthy of your calling, and letting the Holy Spirit guide you every step of the way. As we move to this week’s verses, we need to remember two things. First, we are to be filled with and depend on the Holy spirit and second that as believ...

This is the tenth message in our walk-through Ephesians and Paul has had a lot to say so far. He spent the first half of the letter talking to us about who God is and what He did. Emphasizing things like forgiveness, cleansing of sins, redemption, unity in all believers, and that He believes that we are so important that He has marked us as His own. While we cannot earn our way into heaven, as followers of Christ we have been called to live our lives worthy of the calling that God has placed on us. Living with humility, love, gentleness, patience, and unity. We are to turn away from our old sinful ways and live the life that we were truly created to live. If our thoughts and actions are based on what Jesus has done for us, it should show. People should see His love as we are kind, compassionate, and forgiving. As we saw last week that we need to imitate God as a child imitates their older siblings, parents, grandparents, and teachers. If Jesus loves, we need to love. If He gave ...

Last week we ended with: Ephesians 4:32 “And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.” A great encouragement on how we should strive to live as we Follow Jesus. Keeping Christ rooted in our hearts as we turn from our old ways. A life long journey where we learn what Jesus has in store for us and others can see God at work in us. As we continue to learn to Love God and Love Others, our choices change from earthly things to Godly things. As usual we will pick up where we left off. Ephesians 5:1-2 “ 5  Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2  and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.” Children have a tendency to watch people around them to learn how they are supposed to act. You can sometimes see those learned behaviors and recognize which parent they get that from. Comes up in our house now and again about w...

Last week we started the second half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This part of the letter is where Paul takes all the theology of the first half and guides us on how to apply it to our lives. Paul’s first point in the second half of the letter is for us to live our lives worthy of the calling God has placed on us. Living our lives with humility, gentleness, and patience. He went on to remind us that we are united in Love as one body of believers and serving one amazing God. Paul also pointed out that we ourselves are gifts that have been given to the Church for a reason. We are all uniquely equipped to meet a need as we Love God here at Littleby and Love Others throughout the world. A united church, here at Littleby and in the ‘C’ church, all with different jobs to blanket the world with God’s Love. As we continue in chapter 4, we will see Paul giving us more direction on how to and how not to live our lives. Ephesians 4:17-19 “ 17  Therefore, I say this and testi...

We all have those times when it seems like the world is against us. You know those times you want to find out where Murphy is hiding at work, in your house, or in your car and evict him. Sometimes it might feel like Murphy has some of his cousins helping him out. A couple of years ago when we bought our house it was one of those times for us. Shortly after we bought the house we had to replace the furnace, AC, water heater, clothes dryer, refrigerator, and had to have some repairs done on one of our cars. It felt like every time we turned around another expense was coming our way. For us it was financial hits, for you it may be financial hits, or it could be something else. You might feel like your medical issues are just not getting better. Or it could be they are stacking up on you. As soon as you get through one, the doctors find something else. Maybe it is not you, but a friend or family member, or it might be several of them getting sick one right after another. It can be overw...

Last week we wrapped up the first half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The first 3 chapter are seen as where Paul talks about who God is and what He has done for us and the last 3 are about how we are to apply them to our lives. From last week we saw that we need to have Christ firmly rooted in our hearts. Which allows us to keep Him front and center of our thoughts and actions. If we can do that the rest will fall in place. Remembering how amazing God’s Love is, how He wipes away our sins day by day taking on more burden as we continue to sin. We need to remember that He loves everyone and our job is to emulate Him and love everyone as He does. Then we need to look at the challenges that seem impossible and know that our God can do so much more than we could ever imagine. If He can part the Red Sea for the Israelites, He can take care of any challenge ahead of us, and in ways that we could never dream of. Trust in our God who is so much greater than we can ever comprehend. ...

We will be starting in Ephesians 3:14 this morning. Last week we started 3 rd chapter of Ephesians. Paul talked about his calling, his Damascus road experience, how the Holy Spirit worked in him, the unity that the gift of Grace brings, how the Gentiles have a share in the Messianic promise, and how what is really important above all other things is that each one of us has accepted Christ’s gift of grace and that we share it with others. Ephesians 3:14 “ 14  For this reason I kneel before the Father” For this reason – For all that we have talked about so far in this letter to the Ephesians. For all the blessings that God has poured out. For the fact that we are saved by our faith in Jesus. For the wisdom and revelation that God has poured out on us. For the limitless power available to our Lord to accomplish His will. For how we were once dead in our sin, but through our faith in Jesus we have been given new life. We have been redeemed and set free from our past lives....