If we don’t grow to know Him as the God who loves His enemies, we will never love ours.

Only when your heart and mine is persuaded that the Father has not left us to save ourselves, will our attempts to save ourselves through our own piety be put to rest

The natural mind, apart from the Holy Spirit, does not have and cannot have a true image of the Father.

If Christ and His work is not laid as the foundation of our new life, we will continue to put far too much weight on our own performance/obedience as the foundation for our lives.

Of course my obedience to God’s direction is important, but what I want to show you this morning is that my obedience is not the foundation of my new life in Christ.

Right the way through the Bible, God’s voice calls life into being.

But that being, is not being an individual, it is being with God.

Everything that religion says God demands from you, He has already supplied in Christ.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ never leaves you in the shadow of your own performance.

In heaven, there is no one trying to become anyone, for all have found their being with God. The Kingdom of heaven is not the realm of becoming. It is the realm of being.

We have lost the wonder of the Gospel.

10 minute excerpt from a talk given to the Ascension Ministries Council of the Apostolic Church UK on "Shifting from Church-centric to Christ-centric discipleship.