One of the great causes for the lack of joy among Christians is an abiding sense of uncleanness due to past failures and-or present shortcomings. This is made worse by the fact that they hear so little of the word of Christ in the church today. But Jesus says, -Now, ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you- -John 15-3-. In this message we learn to cling to the word of Christ, and to discern and reject the word of the serpent. In Christ alone do we find joy.

Fullness of joy belongs to those connected in absolute dependence upon -The true vine,- Jesus Christ. What is more, the Father, the gardener, ensures ever-increasing fruit and vitality.

The imagery of of Jesus as the -true vine- reveals two very critical realities. The first is that the Christian is utterly dependent upon Christ for spiritual life and vitality, a vitality marked by joy. Second, that the believer is to make a clean, and permanent break with fruitless religion masking as Christianity. Much spiritual sickness and worse, comes about as a result of attempting to mix man-made religion and Christ, even if it is called Christianity. Fruitless religion is the devil's own religion and must be rejected. In Christ alone we have the spiritual life marked by peace and joy. How is your joy level today- This part one of a three part series.

The Holy Spirit is the Believer's source of Help, Comfort, and He is also their resident teacher. By the prophets and apostles He wrote Scripture, and He also illuminates and teaches the believer to understand Scripture. The Spirit also mediates the very peace of Christ to the believer. But the work and ministry is too often quenched in the church today, and grieved by the self-sabotaging behavior of the wayward Christian. This is a call and an exhortation for a renewal and honoring of the life and ministry of the Spirit in the church and in the believer's daily life. The peace of Christ is the believer's spiritual birth-right.

Everyone comes into the world in a personal state of alienation and brokenness. And we all enter a world that is itself alienated and hostile to its Creator, the self, to others, and creation. If you are in Christ you have a new identity. And that identity defines the real you as a member of a new creation within which all things have become new. To know peace, the believer must come to grips with his or her new identity and refuse to allow this present, fallen creation to define them.

The promise of the Helper, or Holy Spirit, is the glorious comfort of the believer in this time of now and not yet until the Lord's return and the final consummation. Jesus is the baptizer in the Spirit and it is the Spirit who continues the work of Jesus to the believer. The Christian is not alone- Christ has not abandoned his own, and we know this by the indwelling Spirit of promise.

This is part 2 of the paper prepared for the 2017 NCT Conference in Seattle. The topic here is a dramatic appeal for the union of Word and Spirit. The Word is far more than popular sound-bites and slogans, and the Spirit is quenched when the Word is limited to confessions and creeds. Only in the union of Word and Spirit is found the healing so desperately needed by God's people.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is more than a set of propositions to be believed,and life in the Spirit is more than subjective mysticism unmoored from objective truth. It is only in the union of both Word and Spirit that the church stands as both, the ground and pillar of truth, and the temple of the life-giving Spirit of God. In this paper written for the 2017 NCT Seattle Conference, Rick Peterson appeals for the church to reclaim her Story and admit how the neglect of that Story has led to a quenching of the Spirit. Spiritual vitality can be restored with repentance and renewal of the union of Word and Spirit.

There is a lot of discussion in some theological circles about the imperatives within the New Testament, and the indicative nature of the believer to obey those imperatives. The problem with the discussions is that most Christians do not understand that language, and this topic is far too important to miss its application to the average believer. In this brief talk, Rick Peterson points to the Lord Jesus Christ as the model for Christian obedience, and the work of the Spirit in producing a joyful, loving paradigm for that obedience.

The spiritual life of most Western Christians is dangerously anemic. And this anemia is rooted the division of Word and Spirit. Jesus said those who worship the Father must do so -in spirit and truth.- This means we must never separate spiritual experience from the truth of the word of God, or vice versa. But the word of God is more than propositions for system building, it is a story, a meta-narrative from within which the believer is to live out the life of the Spirit.