Pastor Postiff taught from Romans 12 and spoke frankly about some matters that our church has to address. In particular, he challenged those who are members (part) of the church to take up a regular ministry. He also taught on the general idea of membership in the local church and how people who are associated with the church should take up a formal association with the church for the honor of God, the good of the church, and their own good.

Our teacher reminds us from a number of texts about the true peace from God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you don't have peace in your mind or heart or life right now, listen in!

We saw a couple more character traits of Ezra tonight. He was a man who feared God. He was also a man of humility, prayer, and confession. Next time, we will see that Ezra's repentant prayer was followed immediately by the fruit of repentance--action

Scripture reading tonight was in 1 Samuel 3. Then we resumed, from the morning meeting, our study in Mark 10. After completing an exposition of the first 12 verses and 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, we continued on in the chapter, up to 10:22. We learned about the regulation of sin in the divorce law, and very importantly also, about the hardness of heart that was the underlying reason for the regulation. We saw how strict the Lord's teaching about divorce was.

After reading Genesis 29, our message this morning covered two topics. Pastor Postiff shared first how we should think about our overall ministry plan. In light of the mission of church, we started at the ultimate aim of everything--to glorify God. From this, we derived a statement that emphasized to accomplish that, we hope to be a growing church that carries out the Great Commission and exhibits the Great Commandment. Clear definitions of terms like church, and growing are an important part of understanding what our church life should be about.

Then, a pressing matter was brought to our attention from our series in Mark on Sunday nights. Having arrived at Mark 10 in that series, Pastor Postiff shifted over to the evening series for this morning meeting, and shared about the matter of divorce (starting at 38:50). Pastor added a postscript that those who have experienced divorce can repent and be restored to a harmonious relationship with God, and not have a special stigma attached to themselves by the church (57:40-end).

Our teacher stressed again that we have the Word of God before us in the book of Zephaniah. He made another great point that we cannot sin against another person without sinning against the Lord. We also read in 2 Chronicles 20:1-15. King Jehoshaphat determined to seek the Lord and ask for help from God.

We looked at a number of additional ways that Ezra was identified in the book by his name. We saw that he was not only a man upon whom God's good hand rested, but he was also serious about his relationship with God, he trusted God in hard things, and he was a man of integrity. Next time we will see that he feared God, and a number of other characteristics as well.

After reading 1 Samuel 1-2, we studied Mark 9. Jesus leads us through the familiar accounts of the Transfiguration, healing of a demon-possessed boy, Jesus fortelling His death, the key virtue of servanthood, and the horrors of Hell.

This message really consists of three separate messages. The first was a brief summary of the gospel, compressed from all the gospel preaching in Acts that we examined two weeks back. The second message was a list of questions that are meant to be checkpoints as to whether we are truly saved. As Pastor Postiff indicated in the message, this was no "to do list" to achieve salvation. It is meant as a check of the evidences of eternal life that are and should be present in your life if you are a Christian.

The third and longest portion of this morning's message had to do with our ministry and life aspirations. The key question was this: "What are you aiming for? What is your life goal?" We examined this from both a church-wide or corporate perspective, as well as from an individual perspective. Although much more remains to be said,

The unsaved world thinks the Christian message and Christians are stupid. But we understand that God has chosen to do things a very different way than the world would. In the end, this will result in God's glory in all of creation.