First Friday Fellowship

God commands us to, “Go and make believers of all nations.” 

God gave us the machine. He gave us the Holy Spirit. He gave us the horsepower. He gave us words, attitudes, and behaviors that can that can share His goodness to the world. 

So, when we become Christian, when we accepted Christ as our Savior, and surrendered to His will, we were given the keys to that race car. We were given the keys to the kingdom. 

We upgraded our performance in the spiritual realm, to the equivalent of a Formula One race car. 

In essence, the car that God put us in to race in the spiritual world, is built for competition and spiritual warfare. It's built with eternal stakes in mind. 

We are not given the gift of the Holy Spirit and spiritual excellence to sit in our ivory towers, to drink coffee with all the other believers and talk about how broken the world is.

God is the master engineer. He is the pit boss. He is the creator of this whole sport that we call life. 

He is sending us out to engage the world around us, to to share THE GOOD NEWS, and to reach the lost. That is the Great Commission. This is what we are called to do.

The “Go!” means get out of our church, get out of our Bible study, and engage in the world around us. 

Because this race that we're in, this is for eternity.

God only gave Adam and Eve ONE RULE… Don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge; and because we have this really predictable pattern in human nature… We SIN… We RUN AWAY. 

So, when we mess up, don’t hide from it. Don’t avoid the consequences of it. Don't be like Adam and Eve and hide, because we're naked and ashamed. Let's RUN TO our merciful King, and come before his throne, in honesty and thanksgiving.

Ask for his mercy, and be healed in Jesus's name.

AMEN.

#Genesis 3:8-9 / #John 3:19 / #Hebrews 4:15-16

Being a follower of Christ, especially in today's world, is not a place for a lukewarm commitment. 

As a Christian, we are called to take up our cross, and follow Christ. This cannot be done, when we are concerned with pleasing everyone. 

Be truthful, be authentic, and stand up for what you know to be true.

The closer that we draw to Christ, the closer that we draw to TRUTH, Satan ends up taking a much greater interest, and real world dangers RAMP UP.

How do we deal with this? 

The Bible says, to always be ready to make a defense for the joy that we have in Jesus.

Be ready! Know your story! Be ready to share it! Tell people why!

And then speak the truth in love, and in Jesus’ name; Because, there is NO OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN, in which someone can be saved. 

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE!

Jesus is fully God, and He is also fully man. 

So, what would’ve caused Jesus to stall the beginning of His ministry? 

When turning water to wine, Jesus stated to His mother, “My time has not yet come.” 

What do you think He means by this? 

Additionally, how does Jesus turning “water into wine,” connect to the Garden of Gethsemane? 

Could it be that, as human as Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He also knew that with the performance publicly of turning water to wine, the countdown to the cross had begun; that the INEVITABLE, brutal walk to Calvary had begun.

He fully knew that He would soon experience stress and fatigue, maybe even fear, of facing unimaginable physical pain. He knew He would feel every cut, every tear of His flesh through the entire crucifixion. 

Yet, even though His painful, human path was set, He STILL chose to endure… for our sake.

Traditional roles have changed A LOT in our modern world, and in many households, these roles are reversed 180 degrees, and all variations in between. 

But one thing is beginning to show up a little too frequently, and that is we are becoming a lonelier and lonelier population, while ironically, at the same time, engaging with thousand of faceless names throughout the known universe, through all of our social media highways. 

We are becoming more and more isolated, while living under the illusion that we're not, because of our heavy tech dependance and involvement. 

The bottom line is… We need each other. We need REAL relationships, with REAL people.

That's not a weakness! 

Relationships are strength, and Christians are not immune to this problem. 

Christians, are notorious for getting frustrated with all the world's changes, all the rapid breaking of tradition, and societal anchors and… and we end up leaving relationships behind. 

As Christians, we love to stay in our own bubbles, and surround ourselves with people that agree with us. And sometimes those bubbles get very small. 

BUT…

We’ve been commanded, by Jesus himself, to bring THE GOOD NEWS to the world. And unfortunately for our comfort zone, the world is outside the walls of our home, and the safe church family. 

While tech is an amazing tool, , and instead of just sharing the love of God on social media, we can sit down across the table from someone, and show them what the love of Jesus looks like, in a real world engagement.

We no longer live in our traditional world. Very few families just sit around the dinner table every night and talk about their day. People are tied to their phones, and they're tied to their devices, and and we all do it.

A TikTok video, an IG video… It's not the same as a relationship. 

A follower on any of your social media platforms, is not relationship. We need to be face to face with people. 

Show them the love of Jesus face to face. 

God wants to strengthen our faith, and reveal to us that we can trust Him. This would be impossible if we had no needs, no worries, no stress. 

We're going to worry in this world about many things. And as the stress of this world hits, if we're wise, we'll humble ourselves before Him, and seek His hand for help. 

God uses the stressors of this world, to reveal Himself to those who love Him. 

And through it all, His timing is always perfect. He is never late, nor is He early. He arrives PRECISELY, when He intends to.

We’ve ALL done bad things. When we do, HOW is it that we feel bad? Where does that feeling come from? What is it inside of us, that provides that direction?

Most would say, that it’s CONSCIENCE. It’s probably a combination of how we were raised, the influences that helped form us, the series of morals and values that we were taught through school and society, our parents. It formed this framework, or this value system that we grew to live by.

However, I would also consider something else, something that would be even MORE significant to what we have believed framed us.

When we have a better understanding of LEGITIMATE TRUTH, God’s Word in the Bible, then the better-calibrated our internal compass will be, and the better we will be at seeing what is real, in everything around us.

It’s NOT what we believe that makes something true. It is in the testing of our understanding of the world, and everything in it, with the TRUTH of God’s Word.

Once we test what we believe, with the truth of God's Word, then we have to calibrate our inner-compass. And when we spend a lot of our life calibrating that inner-compass with the truth of God's Word, then we’ll have a CONSCIENCE that can TRULY help us navigate this world.

Calibrate your compass with God's Word, and you'll be able to navigate this world, and more importantly, find yourself in the right place, in the next world.

God tells us to be persistent in prayer.

Sometimes it's going to look like the race is won. And sometimes it'll look like the race is completely lost. And in both cases, until the tape is broken, we don't know the outcome, so keep running!When you're winning, PRAY.

When you're losing, PRAY!

Run through the tape, and finish the race.

If things are good for you, PRAY. If things look hopeless, PRAY!

Never quit, until you see Jesus, and he tells you, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” and he's welcoming you into His kingdom.

God loves us. Run through the tape!! Keep praying. Whatever your goals are, whatever your desires are, whatever your heart is telling you, you need, just keep praying.

Sometimes we just have to learn to persist, keep our eyes on the goal and trust God to deliver.

He will deliver.

We're living in a world where TRUTH is being watered down. Everywhere we look, lies are being redefined as truth, and simple truths that have always been understood to be true, are being called lies.

The inputs that we receive are being controlled.

But, we are called as believers, to be the salt of the earth. 

What happens when salt becomes unsalted? It's worthless. 

When the Christian becomes watered down, we becomes spiritually worthless. 

We have to be clear. Jesus is our hope. And if He didn't die, the SINLESS Lamb of God, and resurrect three days later, our hope is in vain.

God's Word is inerrant. Our culture is… full of errors.

God's Word is never wrong. Our culture is… frequently wrong.

God's Word leads to LIFE and PEACE and SALVATION. Our culture leads to… DEATH and STRIFE and DAMNATION.

You cannot be a friend to the world AND a true follower of Christ. They DO NOT not work together. 

The world needs Jesus. The world needs the AUTHENTIC Jesus. The world needs the Jesus that we learn about from a relationship with him, found in the Bible. 

Stand up for THE TRUTH… and it will set you free.