Sunday Words of Encouragement March 5, 2023 - Grow Spiritually

Although it creates a longer post, I am including my notes from both Sunday School and Sermon. It happens quite often, without planning, that the messages share elements of teaching! I love seeing God at work in this way through two teachers who listen to the Spirit.

Our Sunday School teacher wrapped up his thoughts from the Asbury revival with a discussion of the new movie, Jesus Revolution. First, he noted the childhood abuse suffered by Lonnie Frisbee, his struggle with sin, and his short time as a homosexual that resulted in the consequence of death by Aids. According to the biographies, Lonnie did renew his relationship with God, as well as having a restored contact with Greg Laurie and Chuck Smith shortly before Lonnie’s death.

Then, our teacher discussed similarities between the youth of the 70s and the youth of today.
The Jesus Revolution was deemed to come from the disillusioned youth of the 70s searching for meaning. Like the 70s, the youth of today are facing much disillusion and isolation. There is a high incidence of suicide among the youth of today. One third of youth aged 18-25 are dealing with mental and emotional issues. There are 3700 suicide attempts daily for high schoolers.

As shown in the movie, Pastor Chuck chose to preach only with the Word, separating Lonnie and the gifts of the Spirit (what Chuck viewed as emotional involvement) from Chuck’s services.
Teaching the Word without gifts of the spirit is educational and leads to knowledge, but it denies the power of God given in the gifts. 1 Corinthians 12:28-31.
Paul warned Timothy to be careful of this in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
We are to be ever learning. God is a God of communication by Logos, the Word in text, and Rhema, the spoken Word. John 6:63.
How much of the Word is getting into you?
We each need a balance of the Word, Spirit, and prayer.

Our Service opened with worship that led to a call to allow God to test our hearts. We also had a testimony of a miracle healing for a child we prayed for early in the week.

Pastor’s message for giving this week was from Malachi 3 where the Lord asks, ‘will a man rob God?’ Verse 8. The Lord goes on to say, “bring the whole tithe into the storehouse” and he will give overflowing blessing and protect the giver from “the devourer...” Verses 10-11.

Pastor started a new series with today’s sermon he called: Becoming Like Stones. The scriptures are 1 Peter 2:1-3 ESV. He reminded us that we are all called to ‘make disciples’. Matthew 28:16-20. But every denomination and every preacher uses their own approach. They each “Season the meat by their own vision.”

Chapter 2 verse 1* opens with “Therefore…” or “So…” That means you need to look back to the concept of the previous verses. The verses 22-25 of Chapter 1 talk about the living and enduring word of God. Things of men change but the Word doesn't change. We can be excited by the Word and the gifts of the Spirit. (See the Sunday School message!)
*(Pastor reminded us that chapters and verses were set out by men for study as they were not part of the original texts/letters.)

Now return to Chapter 2 “in light of God’s word….”

• Rid yourself of Malice…. Put away; Take off the carnal nature. “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Romans 13:11-12. Cast off the works of darkness. There are things in our lives we need to get out of our lives. We all have sins (of commission or omission) that we need to confess. Then we need to repent; change our ways.
• Rid yourself of all Deceit… We need to be people of light not dark and deception. Deception is close to witchcraft. It is an attempt to manipulate the situation.
• Rid yourself of Hypocrisy... Too many people wear a mask instead of being real. We are not to pretend but to be authentic people. We all have issues. Our Image and identity have to line up.
• Rid yourself of Envy… Do not hold spite towards others. Rejoice with those who receive blessings. And acknowledge the blessings we each have from God and that “but for the Grace of God” our lives could have more trouble.
• Rid yourself of Slander… There is enough hateful and hurtful speech in the society without any coming from believers.

Believers need to allow God, through the Word and Spirit, to make us who He wants us to be.

I watched several song videos and liked this one to share today.

Verses for Today:
1 Peter 2:1-3 NIV
2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.


Lord, help me to draw into your Word and your Spirit. Make me who You want me to be.