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Message from the pastor:
My family and I had the most wonderful experiences
in our worship services these past weeks. There is warmth, closeness
and a sense of belongingness. I don't have the right words to express
how I feel but it was just great being with God's people. Whether in
the Los Angeles or NewLife congregations, it is always a great blessing
to be with God's people.
And the saying is true, "No person is an island."
Whether we admit it or not, we by nature, long to belong. But for us
fellow believers in Christ, the scriptures tell us that all believers
“belong in God’s household with every other
Christian” (Eph. 2:19). This means church is not something we
go to, rather it’s something we belong to – a
family of God’s people. It’s more than an
organization, more than an institution, even more than a group of
like-minded people.
We are a family built upon the foundation of
God’s love. God's children are “devoted to each
other like a loving family” (Rom. 12:10a). We are to love one
another because we are brothers and sisters. For me, being in a family
means we are accepted, supported, and challenged to fully live out the
purposes of our lives. In the family of God, we care for each other. In
this family, we belong, and we help others belong.
Family is synonymous with a deep, unwavering
commitment to support one another, no matter how rough it may get. You
do things for the members of your family that you wouldn’t
normally do for any one else! And of course, you make allowances for
family members you might not make for anyone else.
Unfortunately, for some of us, this image of
family fails because we’ve never really been in a loving,
wholesome family. My heart cries out when I see this in our society.
We’ve all seen broken models, shattered relationships, and
hurting hearts. But the Good News is that God wants to provide you with
the very things you’ve longed for in a family, and he can do
that in Christian community. God longs for us to be with Him. He does
not want us to be alienated or separated. He invites us to be in his
family. So therefore, stay with God!.... or for some, come back to God.
As we learn to love one another, we can create
the sense of family necessary to trust one another, accept one another,
and serve one another. We learn the power of unconditional love. Church
life is meant to be a Holy Spirit-led laboratory for learning to love
one another deeply and earnestly (1 Th. 4:9; 1 Peter 1:22).
So what? you may ask. Well, we may have learned
unhealthy methods of relating in our physical families, but in our
community of faith we can see models of good relationships.
We’ll learn that it takes honesty, vulnerability, effort, and
a lot of forgiveness to make relationships work.
Character tends to be more caught than taught,
and in Christian community we’re able to see, up close and
personal, the character traits of others. We’ll see maturity
modeled, and we’ll see immaturity displayed, and we may get
to model or display some of that ourselves as we all learn and grow
together.
We’ve all picked up values
intentionally and unintentionally. Some of these values may be right;
some of them may be wrong. By bringing them into the family setting of
our congregations, we’re able to measure our values against
the standards of the Bible and in the context of mature Christian
beliefs.
You may already have seen healthy family
relationships modeled in your home. But there are many of us who grew
up from shaky home environments. The good news is: This is your chance
to belong to a loving family and to start fresh in a relationship where
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (The Triune God) is
right in the center of our relationships.
My friends, that is AWESOME!
Our desire is to share this spiritual community
to everyone seeking for supportive and caring relationships.
If you have no church home yet, we invite you to drop by and give us a
visit. If you are new to what Christianity has to offer, and if you are
wondering how you can receive God's free gift of salvation, please
click here
to find out.
Sincerely in Christ,
pastor Bermie
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