Jesus... The HOPE of Glory!

As We Begin the 2015 Season of Advent 

The Staff, The Leaders and Volunteers of Faith Fellowship

Wish YOU and YOURS the Most Blessed of Christmas Celebrations!

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Desmond Tutu

The Living Christ is the source of our new birth and our Living Hope. If you have a Living Hope in the Living Christ you can deal with your past pain and present difficulties because of your future blessings and Soon Coming Hope of Heaven!

1 Peter 1: 3-6 – As the weary world moves…we can REJOICE because He came to give us HOPE! Hope gives us confidence and lets us live with inner strength for we know that one day we will be radically different than we are now!

The Birth of Jesus, His Life and Death and Resurrection give us    3 kinds of HOPE…

1.     A LIVING HOPE  - John 1:1 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it!

We LIVE because HE came…Lived, Died and lives forever!

2.     A FUTURE HOPE - This is our story as believers. Through

      Jesus Christ, we have gone from having nothing to having

      everything: new life, new hope, and an eternal inheritance   

            in heaven that nothing can destroy. Being co-heirs with

           Jesus Christ means we have an inheritance reserved or

            kept in heaven (Gal. 5:5) that's beyond anything we can

            imagine (1 Cor. 2:9-10). Jesus said, “I am going to prepare

            a place for you.” What a place heaven will be. What a time

            that will be! That calls for praise on our part, doesn't it?

3.     A PRESENT HOPE - we are kept by the power of God. It’s

not us holding on to Him. It’s Him holding on to us! Romans 8: 37-38 We are MORE than conquerors!

Nothing can separate us from His Love!

The Seven Deadly Sins - Part 7 GREED

“So the un-wanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants or thinks it needs.”

Heb 11:1 Faith is the essence of what we hope for and the evidence of what we cannot see.

Without Faith, it is impossible to see God. Heb. 11:6

Faith > Flesh = Godliness

Faith < Flesh = Separation

Matt 9:16-25 The Story of the Rich Young Ruler. The “hole in his life” was being filled with everything but God. His possessions, his actions and his way of thinking (selfish thinking).

Greed is a sin that infects us to the place where is becomes something that blinds us from the truth that we too need to SELL OUT and turn from the path we are CHOOSING to walk on and give our WHOLE selves to Jesus.

“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves

and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 if MY people who are called by my name will HUMBLE THEMSELVES… and PRAY… and TURN FROM their wicked ways… THEN I will hear their cry and will HEAL their land.

Our Land is “our own heart”. God is calling us to make our Faith GREATER THAN our Flesh. We must pray and invite the Holy Spirit to do what we cannot. We have to CHOOSE (moment by moment) to TURN from the OLD WAY of thinking and doing! We have to TRUST GOD to create in us a CLEAN heart and to renew a RIGHT spirit within us!  Remember though… HIS GRACE IS GREATER THAN ALL OUR SIN! Go and sin no more!

The Seven Deadly Sins  Part 6  GLUTTONY

“A glutton is one who runs to the icebox for a cure to a spiritual malnutrition. That we use our possessions to camouflage a bankrupt emotional and perhaps…spiritual life. Because we seek status and position to camouflage our low self-esteem. We run after anything and everything to camouflage our fear of becoming nothing. “

Frederick Buechner

Joshua 7:9-16 Achan’s Sin of Gluttony not only kills him, but hurts ALL!

Isa 55:1-2 Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Gluttony will kill us. Both PHYSICALLY and EMOTIONALLY and eventually… SPIRITUALLY.

When we think of Gluttony… immediately our thoughts go to over eating!

However… Gluttony is so much more than that! Its tied to ADDICTION.

A glutton is a person who is given to loose and excessive living. In the NT it was used to describe someone who has an uncontrolled or excessive fondness for some specified object or pursuit. Its wanting something so much that it takes control of our lives!

Eccl 2:10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

We “obsess” on things to fill the void in our lives that ONLY Jesus can fill.

John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

Hebrews 12:1-2 We have to THROW off the things that are killing us and fix our eyes on Jesus! We must FORCE ourselves to do this!