1When you sin, what's your response? Do you grieve over transgressing

2God's commands or is it an everyday thing? How you answer this question communicates your attitude toward God's standard and the result of sin. You see, God's commands were given to us so that we might

5live life in the abundance of blessing that God intends. But, when we disobey God's Word we remove ourselves from the place of blessing. Thankfully, we have a holy, righteous advocate, Jesus Christ who died on

8the cross to provide full forgiveness and cleansing of our past sins and the sins that we commit on a daily basis. Pastor Mark gently exhorts us

10today to truly examine our heart attitude about our sin.

1As we're making our way through the Sermon on the Mount...Pastor Mark

2is sharing with us eight ways that God blesses us. In this message,

3Pastor Mark begins with the first way, reliance. What does it mean to be

4reliant on God? Does that mean we simply trust Him for our eternity and

5we take care of the rest of the matters of life? No! Reliance upon God must be one hundred percent! We need to rely on God for everything, eternity, family, church life, and work...EVERYTHING!!! Today we learn that we CAN trust God for each part of life! God always has our best in mind and desires to work His will in our lives.

1God has called us to be different. And no, that doesn't mean that God wants us to be weird or act foolishly in a way to alienate people from the

3church. Today Pastor Mark begins a series of message taught within the

4fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. We've

5entitled these messages Get Ready to be Blessed. In these messages

6Pastor Mark will detail how the Scriptures speak clearly about how Christians should be behaving in almost every arena of life. And don't

8think otherwise, people are watching! Your boss will certainly found out

9if you have someone else clock out for you rather than staying that last

1015 minutes. And how will that affect your testimony?

1Did you just hear Pastor Mark's question? Is following God a boring

2obligation or is it an exciting adventure? How you respond to this question is a clear indicator of your spiritual health. You see if following

4God is just something you do each Sunday when you attend church, than you've missed the point. But, if when you wake up each morning

6excited about the possibilities of God's will for your life that day, then

7you can be sure that you're on the right track! And this course, this track

8is not something that we can dictate to God. We must humbly submit to

9His plan for our lives knowing that He always has our best in mind!

10

1Imagine a basketball team with only three players...it's not likely they'll

2win very many games, right? Well, this Christian life that we live is no

3different. It takes a full team of gifts people to accomplish the will of God.

4Calvary Chapel Melbourne is a great example of this. Since it's such a

5large church, there's a need for all kinds of different people with different

6gifts and talents so that God's will can be accomplished. And as we just

7heard from Pastor Mark, it's not about a single person, it's about a

8collective effort, a team. So, you might not be a Billy Graham or a Mark

9Balmer...but, God desires to use you right where you're at. The question

10is, are you willing?

1There's a fear among people that if they accept the God of the Bible, on

2His terms, through His Son Jesus Christ, that God will automatically

3require them to move to a remote jungle location and begin living and

4ministering to the natives of that land. LAUGH...But, is that really what

5God does? Well, sometimes; yes. But, most of the time God intervenes

6in the lives of people right where they're at. He intends to use you to

7affect this kingdom with the principles of His Kingdom. That means you

8can be about God's will at work, at school, and most importantly, in your

9homes. God is faithful to speak to us as to what He's requiring us to do

10for His will to be accomplished.

We read in the book of first Corinthians chapter ten verse thirteen, '

2No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are

4able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you

5may be able to bear it.' What does that mean? Well, it means that God

6will never allow the enemy to temp you with any sort of sin that God has

7not empowered you by His Holy Spirit to say no to. You can have victory!

8But, that victory comes through a very specific reliance upon God. God

9has given us His Word to guide us and His Spirit to enable us. And the

10bottom line is that God is greater than our adversary and He is in us!

1If you're like most of us, at some point or another in you life, you've been

2on a diet. Maybe you were trying to fit into that wedding dress or get ready for swimsuit season. It never fails, when you embark on a diet, the

4most tantalizing things come your way. Pastor Mark describes that the

5smells that come from the Cinnabun at the mall LAUGH...the point is, when we enter into battle, the battle becomes obvious. The battle that we

7face is the battle against the enemy of our souls and the flesh we live in.

8And the tactics of the enemy are clear, he wants to tempt you with the

9one thing that you can hardly resist in order to cause you to fall away

10from your relationship with God. Today we continue learning about how Jesus defeated the enemy when faced with temptation.

1All believer's in Jesus face the everyday battles of life...there's no getting

2around it! The wonderful hope that we is that Jesus went through the

3very same battles and yet He was one hundred percent victorious! Isn't

4this what you want in your life Christian? To have the victory over the

5sinful desires of your flesh? It should be! Today Pastor Mark begins

6sharing with us the three methods of battle that Jesus used to defeat the

7enemy in the wilderness during His temptation. And as we just heard from Pastor Mark, those three elements are the Word of God, the power of

9God, and prayer. Jesus used each of these things as an example to us so

10that we might have the same victory!

1As we've been learning through our study of the Gospel of Matthew, the

2predominant message of John the Baptist was that of repentance. John

3called all people to repent of the their sins and believe in Jesus. Nothing

4has changed! God is still calling out through His Word and His servants

5for repentance to take place in the hearts of all of humanity. Today we

6learn about just one of the amazing results of this repentance. You see

7when you repent of your sins and receive Jesus Christ as your LORD and Savior, something miraculous takes place, God; the Holy Spirit comes

9into your life and begins working His grace unto holiness. God will begin

10to enable you to obey His Word!