Women's Mission Trip

We are gearing up for our first Women's Mission Trip! We have about 24 ladies who are traveling up to Williamsburg, Kentucky on April 3 to minister with Friends of Families Ministries. We will be hosting a mini VBS, a Ladies Banquet, taking food to those in need, ministering at the Homeless Shelter, and helping wash clothes for those without a washer and dryer. Please pray for our ladies (and the two men who are going with us) as we minister to those in one of our nation's poorest regions. If you can donate food or school supplies, we would appreciate it. Contact the church office at 770-867-8888.

It's Been Too Long....

Wow, I can't believe it has been over four months since I have updated our blog. So much is going on in our Women's Ministry right now. We have four Bible studies going on - Breaking Free; Here and Now, There and Then; Believing God, and Love and Respect. We have been overwhelmed at the women's response to get into a weekly Bible study and dig into the Word of God. Since January, different ladies have been stepping up on Sunday mornings to teach on a name of God during our LIFE School hour. I have been so blessed by each woman's teaching and God has given me so many nuggets from His Word. If you are not currently involved in LIFE School, please make plans to join our Sister to Sister class. We meet in the church fellowship hall on Sunday mornings at 9:30AM.

The Faith of Martha

For the last two weeks I have been teaching out of John 11 - Lazarus' resurrection. Each time I read this chapter, I get something new out of this timeless, miraculous story. From Jesus' deliberate delay to Martha's extraordinary faith, there is so much to learn about our God and how He works in our lives. Often times, we pray and pray and we don't get the answer we prayed for. What do we do then? Do we give up on God? Do we decide He is not trustworthy or do we continue to hold on to Him even though life has gone suddenly awry. Martha and Mary faced the same crossroad in their relationship with Jesus. Jesus was their friend. They knew Him well. They had listened to Him teach. They had eaten with Him. They had sent for Him when their brother got sick, but Jesus, their good friend, didn't come right away. He deliberately waited until Lazarus had been dead for four days before going to Bethany. Did his delay mean he didn't really love Lazarus, Martha, and Mary? No, Scripture is quick to point out to us in John 11:5 that Jesus loved them all. Surely Martha and Mary were upset that Jesus didn't come to their rescue immediately. They watched their brother die without ever seeing Jesus. They buried him and still Jesus did not arrive. Four days after Lazarus' burial Jesus shows up. Martha goes running to meet him declaring, "if you had been here my brother would not have died." What I love about Martha is she doesn't stop there, she goes on to say, "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." Wow, talk about faith. I don't know if Martha even in her wildest dreams expected Jesus to call Lazarus back to life, but she believed in her friend Jesus. She knew He was "the Christ, the Son of God" (v.27) and just because life hadn't gone as she hoped, she still believed. We could all learn from Martha's example. When you know Jesus, really know him, you will be able to trust Him even when hard times come. Circumstances cannot change who He is. Bad things happen - yes, even to good people, but Jesus is always our ever present help in time of trouble. Take a lesson from Martha - when life goes awry, run to Jesus!

Are you a Faithful Bride?

For the last two weeks, we have been discussing the importance of faithfulness in our relationship with Christ. There is no denying that our bridegroom is faithful to us. Morning by morning, He shows us His faithful ways. Too often, however, we are not faithful to Him. We choose sin over obedience. We choose laziness over discipline. We choose complaning over praise. Every time we choose anything other than Christ, we are being an unfaithful bride. I encourage you to take some time in the Word of God. Read Hebrews 10 and 11 and ask God to give you the courage to be a faithful bride!!
Ladies, the CD of last week's lesson is available. See Stacy Pennington if you would like a copy.

Pour My Love on You

I don't know how to say exactly how I feel
And I can't begin to tell you what your love has meant
I'm lost for words
Is there a way to show the passion in my heart
Can I express how truly great I think you are
My dearest friend
Lord this is my desire to pour my love on you
Like oil upon your feet
Like wine for you to drink
Life water from my heart
I pour my love on you
With praises like perfume
I lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone
I pour my love on you
Is there a way to show the passion in my heart
Can I express how truly great I think you are,
My dearest friend
Lord this is my desire to pour my love on you
Like oil upon your feet
Like wine for you to drink
Life water from my heart
I pour my love on you
With praises like perfume
I lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone
I pour my love on you
(Phillips, Craig, & Dean)

May these words become the cry of our hearts!!

Passionate for your Bridegroom

How passionate are you for Jesus, your bridegroom? We must passionately pursue Christ. He is longing for His bride to seek Him. He wants to be our focus, and He should be our goal. We, as the bride of Christ, must seek Him with all our heart. When we become passionate about seeking Him, then He becomes our all in all. We often hear that there is a place in our heart meant only for God; however, the reverse is also true, there is a place in God’s heart meant only for you. He (God) longs to be loved by YOU. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, “God waits to be wanted.” Can you picture that? The God of the universe is waiting to be wanted by you. So, how does he know that you want Him? For those who are married, how does your husband know that you love him? Mom, how do your children know that you love them? You show them. It’s not just saying the words. It’s following those words with actions that back them up. It’s easy to say "I love Jesus", but how do I show Him that he really is my everything? I show him, by passionately pursuing Him, by seeking His will above my own, by spending time with Him in prayer and reading His Word. Those are just a few practical ways I can show Him that I love him. Part of passionately pursuing Christ is to give yourself to prayer and the Word daily. Just like the bride–to-be relishes spending time talking with her fiancé, so we should relish spending time talking with our fiancé, Jesus. We all know that for any relationship to be meaningful, there must be communication. As a mom, a wife, a woman, your role is too important to not spend time in prayer. Make time for it. With prayer, make time to read your lover’s letter to you. Get in his Word; it is his love letter to you. He wants to speak to you - will you be willing to listen? He wants to show you new insights in his word - will you take time to study? Are you willing to tarry with Him? Will you walk through the valley with Him? Will you endure the fire with Him?
I Peter 1:3-7 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Ladies, the bride of Christ must learn perseverence! Life is not a bed of roses, was it for Christ? Was it for Peter? Was it for Paul? I think the modern church is sadly lacking in the ability to simply persevere. The New Testament is full of Scriptures exhorting us to develop perseverance. Romans 5:3-4; Hebrews 12:1; James 1:3 -4 are just a few. In ministry, I see evidence of this lack of perseverance often -- a woman is really pushing into Christ with passion and fervor. Then something happens - be it tragic or just sad and immediately she is off track. She stops pushing into God, and becomes lazy, apathetic, and discouraged. At the first sign of trouble, what do you do? Please don't become lazy! Now is not the time for laziness. The Bible mentions nothing about Christ coming back for a lazy bride. (See the parable of the ten virgins if you need confirmation - five were ready and five were lazy - the lazy ones didn't make it to the ceremony.) Twice in Revelation, John is instructed to praise the church for its perseverance – the church in Ephesus (Rev. 2:2) and the church in Thyatira (Rev. 2:19). Perseverance is obviously something that God highly prizes. He has even attached a crown to it according to James 1:12.
So what will fuel our passion and our ability to persevere? Our sincere, deep, intimate love for our bridegroom. When we truly love our Lord with ALL that is within us then we will want to pursue Him, and we will be willing to persevere through life's circumstances no matter what. Maybe we just need to fall in love with Christ all over again. If you find your passion for Him is waning and your ability to persevere is lacking, ask God to stir up the flames of love that once burned hot in your life. Dear sisters, be passionate for Him because I promise you He is definitely passionate for you!

Becoming a Holy Bride

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (I Peter 1:13-16)
Holiness - it's a pretty tall order isn't it? Living a life of holiness is not about following a list of dos and don'ts. It's allowing the HOLY Spirit free reign in your life. In the original Greek the word be means to begin to be; to come into existence. As we begin to walk in holiness, the Holy Spirit will come alongside us and aid us in our quest. Holiness is a natural outcome of the life fully surrendered to the Spirit. You won't have to strive for it - the Spirit will produce it in you. I Peter 2:4 says, "As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him - you also like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." Those are some powerful words written by Peter under the direction of the Holy Spirit of God. As I read those verses I thought of the movie Field of Dreams and it's famous line: "If you build it, they will come." God says to us just the opposite: "If you come, I will build you." Wow! If we will come to Jesus, He will build us into "a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.." How do we come to Jesus? We spend time in His word. We spend time in prayer. We obey what He has told us to do. We rid ourselves of things that are standing in the way of our pursuit of holiness.
I Peter 2:1 gives us a list of five things to get rid of in our lives. They are malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. When we read those words, we may not fully understand all that they imply. In the original language, those words carry much more punch. Malice means wickedness as an evil habit of the mind - not only doing evil but being evil. Deceit or Guile (KJV) means to bait; fraud; craftiness; manipulation. Hypocrisy is defined as to pretend, a sin which glories in misleading another by smooth flatteries; averts holiness. Envy means jealousy; pain felt and malignity conceived at the sight of excellence or happiness; bursts of envy. The New Testament dictionary went on to say that this word envy is incapable of good and is always used with an evil meaning. Slander means blasphemy, defamation, condemnation, accusation, blame, indictment. If the bride of Christ would pursue holiness just in these five areas how different would the church look? How about if we just took one thing - hypocrisy - and pursued holiness in this one area? I believe revival would start as a result. No more gossip, no more backbiting, no more pretending, no more flattery, no more masks - can you imagine? As the bride of Christ we must begin to pursue holiness with all our heart. As we come to Him - our bridegroom - He will build us into His beautiful, holy bride. Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. (2 Corinthians 7:1)