We are co-workers with Christ, meaning His mission becomes our mission as the Body of Christ. Our mission is to spread the good news of the gospel and to love God and love others. How can we do that? Jesus layer it out in Luke 4 where he quoted Isaiah 61. In Isaiah 58 God lays it out for us, that we think we know what to do but he calls us to loose the chains of injustice, set the oppressed free, provide for those in need. Are we as the Body of Christ partaking in any of that? Are we as Christ followers, co-laborers partaking in that?

It was a question asked of God near the beginning of mankind, and it's a question many wrestle with still today, but the truth is that we are our brother's keeper. We do bear some burden to help guide those around us to God's saving Grace.

We see, in the story of Esther, God's hand at work even though God Himself is never mentioned. God called Esther for that very time to fulfill a purpose. God was being faithful to His people by bringing someone up who would help save His people from annihilation. God raises us up for a purpose at this time to show His Glory and Faithfulness to His people. We need to listen to God's call on our life and agree to fulfill His purpose for us.

We see in the story of Moses that God will be faithful in taking care of His people. Pharaoh served a purpose in the story and although it didn’t end well for him, God showed that He was God and took a seat over Pharaoh. Pharaoh chose to harden his own heart at first and then God gave Pharaoh over to his own devices and started hardening Pharaoh’s heart. We need to be careful we haven’t ignored God’s direction and hardened our heart. We don’t want to be in the same position Pharaoh was in.

The first church were of one heart and mind, they all came together and moved the church forward by focusing on their mission, loving others. As a church we can move the Body of Christ forward by remaining focused on the mission, spreading the good news and loving others. Our focus should be on the great commission and the greatest commandment not on ourselves.

Prayer is essential to the church. Prayer is a heart attitude more than an action we take. As a church we should pray with one passion. The apostles prayed for boldness in preaching the word. God lead them to boldly love others. If we as a church pray for boldness in preaching the word, God will lead us to what we need to do as a church as well. We just have to be obedient to what God calls us towards.

While God is unchanging He calls us towards change by much as he called the first church to accept into the fold the Gentiles. While I know many of us see the word change as a dreaded “c” word, we need to be open to it when God calls us towards it. The church will only move forward if we move the ways God asks us to.

If we look at the example of the first church as the way church is supposed to be we see a very different church than what we have today. Today we see how the church goes out and fulfills the great commission by loving the way we are asked to love in the great commandment. To be the living Body of Christ that is described in the New Testament we are asked to be in unity moving forward towards what God asks of us.

Annual church business meeting for the 2020-2021 church year.

Jesus is love, and is the fulfillment of the law. And love is the fulfillment of the law. If we aren’t loving those within our church or outside our church with a genuine love we aren’t fulfilling what God asks of us.

In 1 Corinthians 13:8 Paul states Love never fails. Paul is making the argument that it isn’t speaking in tongues and all these trivial fights we get in at church that matter. What matters is how we love. It is the way we love that will continue on in the lives of those we loved, not if we have the “gifts of the spirit”. In the end it is love that never ends, or fails.

This week we are focusing on 1 Corinthians 13:7. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. This poem in the original text was another one of Paul’s ways to show us that love looks differently than we think it should. Love covers others, love has confidence in the goodness of men, love believes in who you can be before you are that person, and love endures through better or for worse. Our love towards others is one way that we can show the world that we are Christians. When our love looks like it is of the world we aren’t showing them anything different.

This week we talk about how love does not rejoice in injustice or unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. That means we can’t rejoice when someone is facing a trial, even the people we like the least. We need to mourn unrighteousness.

We are asked to show love to all, including those who have wronged us. As we look into the passage of the prodigal son we see a Father that runs to reconcile the relationship. The son wants to be a servant but the father accepts him back into the family, fully reinstated as kin. The father was patient, kind, and kept no record of wrongs. Do we love that way?

Love doesn’t envy, is not proud and does not boast. So love is humble and builds others up. Jesus showed love by washing his disciples feet. He even washed the feet of Judas. Jesus gave us a new command which was to love one another. We are asked to show love the way Jesus showed love, and sometimes that means we have to wash the feet of someone we know will betray us.

They will know we are Christians by our love. (John 13:34-35) If 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is what love should look like how close are we to reflecting love as Christians?We are called to reflect the image of Jesus onto this lost and broken world. We are called to love. Love is patient, love is kind. Are you showing love?

Being a parent calls us to be self sacrificing. Jesus asks us as disciples to pick up our cross daily and to lose our life. But that doesn’t mean we are supposed to literally crucify our own bodies. In order to be used by God we have to make sure our basic needs are met. And as Christians we need to be making sure the basic needs of others around us are being met as well.

We are called to imitate Christ. That means we are called to be forgiving. Anger will cause us bodily harm that is why God calls us to let go of anger and forgive. In our humanness that is hard but that is the new life we are called to, to be kind compassionate and forgive others as we have been forgiven.

Proverbs 27:19 states our live is a reflection of our heart. Our life should reflect our Creator and we should be participating in the mission our Creator has given us. Over the next few weeks we will be touching on a few attributes of Jesus that Paul speaks about in Ephesians. These are attributes we should see reflected in our lives.

Proverbs 27:19 states our live is a reflection of our heart. Our life should reflect our Creator and we should be participating in the mission our Creator has given us. Over the next few weeks we will be touching on a few attributes of Jesus that Paul speaks about in Ephesians. These are attributes we should see reflected in our lives.