Springfield First Church of the Nazarene Podcast

The first petition Jesus teaches us to ask in prayer is not for aunt Sally's bunion or uncle Joe's swollen ankle, however much they need prayer. It's to seek first the kingdom of God.

If the first line in the Lord’s Prayer is more about understanding ourselves as children of the Father, we then come to realize that our Father’s name reveals the Father’s character.

As we begin the New Year with a series on the Lord’s Prayer, we look at how Jesus the Son teaches us who are God’s children to intimately address our Father.

Sharing the Word of God this morning is Judith Pothier. She gives leadership to the prayer/healing ministry at our church and serves on the church board. She will also be interviewing for her first District license in the Church of the Nazarene next week. She recently was presented with a special service award by the Housing and Community Services Agency of Lane County for serving as Chair of the HACSA agency.

The good gift of God we receive in Christ is the gift of salvation, which frees us to live the full, abundant, and everlasting life that Jesus offers us.

Of all the gifts that will be exchanged this holiday season, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us by God through an amazing event called 'sanctification" that is the most rewarding.

Ray grew up in the Nazarene church and attended Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho where he and Pastor John met and have been friends ever since. He is currently the pastor of the innovative Renaissance Church, an independent, non-denominational church in east Portland. The church meets in a coffee shop, Renaissance Cafe, which serves as Ray's home base for pastoring the neighborhood. He currently understands his calling as a missionary to the foreign culture of Portland. We welcome Ray and his wife Deidre to Springfield!

In the NIV version of the Bible we read the following 16 words in Mark 16:16, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned" - the starting point for anyone who will follow Jesus; with a special video presentation from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association entitled "The Cross."

Faithfulness in following Jesus is best on display and lived out not when everything is going well but in the darkest and most difficult of circumstances.

Even those with the best of intentions and willingness to faithfully follow Jesus will fall short and fail. And yet failure doesn’t have to defeat us, it can strengthen our commitment.