You wish you never sinned, in your heart your greatest desire is to never sin, but so often you find yourself in sin. So often you mess up, and you know that every time you sin, you can go to God in repentance, and receive grace. But don’t you wish you could stop sinning? Well obviously no one can ever be completely free from sin, this side of glory. There is something however, that Scripture reminds us off that will help us put to death that sin that lives in us.

Before we dig into what Scripture tells us on how we can kill sin in our lives, we need to remind ourselves of one thing. When we choose to sin, we are making ourselves a slave to that sin, we are obedient to it rather than God. That is what sin is…

Romans 6v14 says:

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

Here it is, here is our motivation to kill the sin in our lives. This is great news; Sin doesn’t have to have dominion over you! Dance, and celebrate, this is amazing! We can please God more often, with this, we can be more joyful with this. This is what can help us in killing sin in our lives.

Why shouldn’t we sin? Because we are not under law, but because we are under grace! Do you see how huge this is? The reason that you don’t look with lust is not because there is a rule that says you mustn’t, but because you live under the grace of God. The reason the we don’t discriminate, is not because the Bible tells us not to, but because God didn’t discriminate against us, He showed us grace. The reason that we shouldn’t sin, is not because there is a rule saying we shouldn’t, but because we live under the grace of God. Christian, you are not under law you are under grace. The reason that we desire to keep God’s moral law, is not because it is a law, but because we are under His grace…

Remember this when you are about to sin, when God provides a way out for you before you sin, take it, not because you’re going to be breaking a rule by sinning, but because you will be abusing His grace by sinning!

His grace is given us freely, but Christ paid a dear price for it on your behalf. Praise God!

Romans 6v14:

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

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It’s time to make a decision to passionately follow Christ! It’s time to put our offensive team on the fields and to make some ground for our Lord and Saviour. We have taken stock of what God has done for us and  learn’t how to prepare our defenses against sin. Now we need to actively, with purpose, seek to extend God’s kingdom.

Isaiah 43 reminds us how precious we are to God (vs.4) and how he will be with us in every situation we find ourselves (vs.2). The passage goes on to say in verse 10 that we are God’s witnesses and servants who He has chosen, and that our task is to know Him and understand Him.

Think for a minute about why verse 10 is significant. God is asking us to witness for Him by believing in Him and understanding Him. If we as Christians focus on God and understanding Him, the side effects are so potent in our witness to others. We become people who are in tune with the one true God. We will become more discerning, more loving, more faithful, more humble, more honest and more like the people we need to be in this world.

In order to witness in this world it will take a commitment from us – a commitment to seek God above all else. To put all our resources into knowing him more.

In my personal experience I have found the following helpful in drawing near to God:

1. Daily time alone with God – find a place and time in the day when you can read God’s Word and pray without interuption;
2. Involve yourself in a Church – don’t just attend to gain, but rather choose to serve and love others with the gifts God has blessed you with;
3. Be bold – don’t be afraid to trust God! He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

My challenge to you is to trust in God, be corageous, and live each day with a love for Christ that will serve as the perfect witness to the world we live in. You will be amazed at what God can do through a willing, trusting and corageous heart.

Isaiah 43

1 But now, this is what the Lord says— 
he who created you, O Jacob, 
he who formed you, O Israel: 
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; 
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, 
I will be with you; 
and when you pass through the rivers, 
they will not sweep over you. 
When you walk through the fire, 
you will not be burned; 
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the Lord, your God, 
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; 
I give Egypt for your ransom, 
Cush and Seba in your stead.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, 
and because I love you, 
I will give men in exchange for you, 
and people in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you; 
I will bring your children from the east 
and gather you from the west.
6 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ 
and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ 
Bring my sons from afar 
and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
7 everyone who is called by my name, 
whom I created for my glory, 
whom I formed and made.”
8 Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, 
who have ears but are deaf.
9 All the nations gather together 
and the peoples assemble. 
Which of them foretold this 
and proclaimed to us the former things? 
Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right, 
so that others may hear and say, “It is true.”
10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, 
“and my servant whom I have chosen, 
so that you may know and believe me 
and understand that I am he. 
Before me no god was formed, 
nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord, 
and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed— 
I, and not some foreign god among you. 
You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.
13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he. 
No one can deliver out of my hand. 
When I act, who can reverse it?”

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1. Love each other – Intro
2. Take stock of life

Sin in your life is not something that should be taken lightly. It is, plain and simple, a slap in the face of the Saviour who loves you. The saddest part is that most Christians believe that they cannot escape this sin that traps them in a lifestyle of guilt. The truth is that Christ died so that we could live in Him and not in sin.

Romans 6: 7-14

Because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Sin has a way of blinding us from the hope that we have found in God. We need to make a decision to remind ourselves constanty that we are saved by Christ and that sin has no hold on us! When we truely believe this we will approach sin differently. Our approach will not be of shame and defeat (which leads to submission to the temptation) but rather of faith and hope in a God who has already conquered sin!

Remember that you are under grace and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you through Christ Jesus (Matthew 28).

In order to grow spiritually we need to be courageous enough to stand up against the sin that holds us back and see it for what is really is. Our sinful thoughts and actions keep us from living a life of JOY in Jesus Christ

Remember Jeremiah 29: 11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”

Victory over sin allows us to move forward in our relationship with our loving Father.  Knowing Jesus Christ is the key to joy, life and a new beginning.

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As Christians we are called to be the light of the world, to live like Jesus Christ lived. Paul encourages us to take continual stock of our lives in Christ, and to make sure that we are moving in the right direction.

Today’s message is a simple but tough one. Look at Philippians 2: 1-11 and take stock of your life according to the example He set. This can be a very sobering process but it is important to know why we seek to follow His example. It’s because of His amazing love for us that we are saved. Being obedient to His Word and following His example are just two ways of showing that we love Him.

Philippians 2: 1-11

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like‑minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, 
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, 
taking the very nature of a servant, 
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, 
he humbled himself 
and became obedient to death– 
even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 
and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father.

By placing God’s way as the central focus of our lives we will bring Him glory. This video shows a prayer that you may like to echo:



Lord, make me an instrument of peace
Where there is hatred, let me bring love
Where there is wrong, let me bring forgiveness
Where there is discord, let me bring harmony
Where there is error, let me bring truth
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith
Where there is despair, let me bring your hope
Where there are shadows, let me bring light
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy
Lord grant that I would seek
Rather to comfort, than to be comforted
To understand rather than to be understood
To love than to be loved
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds
Its is forgiving that one is forgiven
It is by dying that one awakens eternal life
AMEN

(St Francis of Assisi)

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We are making a big deal about this whole love thing, but how much of an issue is it really to the Christian life, how important is it that we understand this, and live it?

Firstly, let’s have a look at one of the most famous scriptures on love, 1Corinthians 13:

1Corinthians 13v1→3: ¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1Corinthians 13v13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Does God take love seriously? YES!!!

In the letter that John wrote called 1John, John lays out several tests that one can do in order to check your spiritual health. He says in 1John 5v13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. You see his desire is that we know that we are saved, if you ever question your salvation; “Am I really a Christian?” go and have a good honest read through the book of 1John and compare yourself to the questions that he asks.

One of the tests that John puts forward is this; Do you love other Christians? John sets out to polarize people, he makes it a black and white issue, a light and dark issue.

1John 2v9+10: ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.

John lays it out like this; if you do not love other Christians, you are not a Christian. If you hate other Christians, then you are not saved yourself. What we tend to do is we look on a macro scale, and we say, I do not hate all Christians, in fact I really get on with most of them, as long as they don’t irritate me… But this is not what it is about here, John isn’t talking about just getting along, or liking most other Christians, he is rather asking; “Do you have a deep compassion, love, and connection with other Christians?” and “Are other Christians really like brothers and sisters to you?”

Do you love other Christian? Is this issue important? Yes, it is a litmus test for your salvation, no love, no salvation!

1John 3v14: We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

If we get back to our key scripture, we read that Jesus said: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So is loving each other important? Yes it is, not only is it a litmus test of our salvation, it is a demonstration of who we are. Do Christians really look all that different from the rest of the world? The divorce rate is essentially the same among Christians as among the rest of the world, how can the world know that we are Jesus’ disciples? We must demonstrate the love of Christ to each other, that the world may look and see!

1John 4v19→20: ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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This week we will have a look at how Jesus came as a servant, the King of kings came to earth and served. Jesus’ example – Mark 10v43→45: ⁴³Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus here is teaching those that will be leaders the manner in which they are to lead, that being servant like. Again Jesus came and gave the example of His love, when God referred to Christ during His time on earth He called Him as servant. This is the attitude that Jesus came with, His very attitude was that of a servant. Jesus was the highest authority ever to walk the earth, He was the single person that was most worthy of respect, He deserved to be worshiped whilst on earth (an indeed was worshiped), yet whilst Jesus was on earth here He demonstrated His love by washing His disciples feet (John 13)!

And us – How can we follow Jesus’ example in this and love each other with the attitude of a servant? You need to look around and seek out opportunities where you can serve each other in love. Jesus didn’t wait until someone gave Him a suggestion, He sought out the opportunities to demonstrate His love in service. We need to do the same; is there someone who is always serving, how about you serve them for a while. Is there a need that no one wants to do because it is not very glamorous, or not seen, why not be a servant and fulfil that need. Do you think of yourself higher than Jesus, or are you more worthy of being served than Jesus was? Remember Jesus example:

Philippians 2v5→8: ⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

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Last week we saw that as Christians we should love other Christians, the reason tat we should love other Christians is because God loves us. Now over the next few weeks we are going try and get very practical in how we should love each other, as Christians. We are going to look at three ways that we should love each other, each week we will first look to Jesus’ example (how He loved like this), and then we will focus in on some of the ways that we can begin to love like this, following Jesus’ example.

The fist way that we get to love other Christians is through sacrifice. Sacrifice is a taboo word in our culture today, to most people it is the opposite of success. Yet Jesus, the single most well known figure of all history, not only spoke of sacrifice, He lived it, and loved through it. Let’s have a look:

Jesus’ example – Ephesians 5v1+2: ¹Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Jesus laid down His life as a ransom for you and for all those who call on His name, He suffered at the hands of the Romans, He endured the wrath of God that should have been poured out on you, He took it on your behalf. Jesus sacrificed His very own self for you, He stepped down from eternity in time, He constrained Himself to time and space, the very King of all of everything clothed Himself as a human, He lived among us, and then died for us. Jesus knew what it was to sacrifice in the name of love. That is the example that He has set for us.

And us – How then can we imitate Jesus’ example in sacrificial love? We can give, our time, our talents, our money to others. If Christ sacrificed His very own self in love for you, is it then too much to ask that you sacrifice some of yourself for your fellow believers? You have been given so much, can you not sacrifice some of it for those that you love?

1John 3v17+18: ¹⁷If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

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John 13v34+35: ³⁴“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This is the Scripture that we are going to focus on for the next few weeks, the main topic surrounding it is the whole idea of loving other Christians.

“Christians should love each other.” Is this true? And if it is true, why should Christians love each other?

If we begin in John 13v34 we see that Jesus said; “A new command I give you: Love one another…” So obviously it is true that as Christians we must love other Christians. The question then remains; Why should we love each other?

Simplicity would tell us that we must love each other because Jesus told us to, but we are given more motivation than that in the Bible, let’s have a look at some of the reasons that we as Christians should love one another.

The first and primary reason that we love each other is because we are loved. Understand this, make sure that this makes sense to you, your whole Christian life very well depends on you understanding this fact: God loves you.

1John 3v1: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

1John 4v10: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God loves you; in the cross we learn many things, one of these things that we learn is that we are loved by God. If God never loved us He would never have sent His Son to die for us. If you ever doubt that you are truly loved, look to the cross; see how much you really are loved. God loves you!

Only once you understand and believe that you are loved by God can you ever hope to begin to love others. We do not love other Christians so that God will love us, we know that God loves us therefore we love other Christians.

1John 4v11+12: ¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

So therefore the answer to the question why should we love each other is this; we should love each other because we are loved by God.

1John 4v19→21: ¹⁹We love because He first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

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What a statement, Paul here writing to the Galatians explains the way that he lives. In this part of the letter Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia, he is speaking about how he challenged his friend Peter on the way that he was living. So Paul is talking here about how we relate to the law of God, and how grace doesn’t cancel out the law, but that we are not saved by observing the law.

When Paul says this statement; “…I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” He is giving us a filter through which we must, as Christians, live our life. The fact that Jesus lives in you is the defining aspect of being a Christian, there is no non-Christian that has Christ living in them, and there is no Christian that does not have Christ living in them. So if the fact is that as Christians we have Christ living in us, why do we not live that differently to non-Christians? Many would say that the primary difference between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians don’t get to sleep in on Sunday morning.

I think that the place where we as Christians miss the mark, in this whole thing is not that we don’t accept the fact that Christ lives in us, but rather that we don’t live out the first part of this statement. “…I no longer live…” if we accept that Jesus lives in us, then we must believe that we have died to ourselves, you cannot be a Christian if you do not desire to die to yourself. It is impossible to live for Christ and to live for yourself, the call that Jesus has on every single Christians life is this; “Die to yourself, live for me, and be truly satisfied.”

So how do you die to yourself? Well this is a road that I want to walk together with you through these next few posts. I feel that this is the place in my own life that I am missing the mark, and as we seek together to die to ourselves, my prayer is that we will be able to live as if we really believed that Christ lives in us. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t intend to pretend that I do, but I want to just share with you what I learn as over the next few weeks we actively begin to seek to live a lifestyle where one day (by the grace of God) we can say with Paul; “…I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Please feel free to comment, and share any insights that you have in this area of our Christians life, as well as any prayer requests. Pray for us as we pray for you.

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Today we wrap up our study on worship. I hope that you have been challenged and that you have been inspired to worship God more.

To conclude the study the most important point to remember is that pursuing satisfaction in God leads you to a God focused worship. By choosing to satisfy yourself in God always leads to focusing on God.

Its not possible to be satisfied in God without looking at Him and seeing who He is, what matters to Him, what drives Him. When you learn more about God He will lead you along a journey of self discovery where you will begin to understand that you were designed to worship a Father in heaven.

Take Note:

• Worship is not about singing
• Worship is not about music
• Worship is not about service
• Worship is not about quiet times
• Worship is not even about a lifestyle

All of these things flow from a deeply satisfied person. A person who is completely satisfied in God. The end result of worship should be complete satisfaction in God.  When God is the source of your satisfaction your natural response to Him will be to know Him more and worship Him more.

Thats why worship is such an amazing experience – because it is so satisfying.

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