May 17, 2009Wanda Ehalt

To see our homes be the main source of spiritual impact

To see each of us reach out to our community

To see the experienced parents come alongside young parents to support and help them raise their children for God

34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

- John 13:34-35 (NIV)  

10Here's how you tell the difference between God's children and the Devil's children: The one who won't practice righteous ways isn't from God, nor is the one who won't love their brother or sister. A simple test.  11For this is the original message we heard: We should love each other.

- 1 John 3:10-11 (The Message)

11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

- 1 John 4:11-12 (NIV)

16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

- 1 John 4:16 (NIV)

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people.

- 1 John 4:20-21 (The Message)

This is my command: Love each other.

- John 15:17 (NIV)

  4-6If someone claims, "I know him well!" but doesn't keep his commandments, he's obviously a liar. His life doesn't match his words. But the one who keeps God's word is the person in whom we see God's mature love.

- 1 John 2:4 (The Message)

Let love be your only debt! If you love others, you have done all that the Law demands.

- Romans 13:8 (CEV)

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

- Hebrews 10:24 (NIV)

 

Acts 2:42-46 (The Message)

41-42That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

43-45Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.

46-47They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

- Acts 2:42-46 (The Message)

LOVE:

AUTHENTIC,

MAGNETIC,

ENJOYMENT OF EACH OTHER!

1. Always be expecting ….. looking for …. Curious about …WHO God is going to put in your path to LOVE !

Hi Wanda – my husband and I have been attending CDAC sincethe fall. So, one of the challenges we have found is connecting with people.  We realize that we have a part in this as much as all the other people in the congregation, but if you do sit beside a friendly family/person/couple, often you don't see them again to reconnect. Anyways, I have always enjoyed doing lunch after church with people, though I know everyone's schedule is quite challenging. So here is some type of idea:  Before church I can put on a big pot of soup at our place, then we go to church. If a new family/person/couple make themselves known to the welcome desk, then someone could text us during/after service and we can find the family/person/couple and invite them to our home for a meal.

  8 “If you enter a town and it welcomes you, eat whatever is set before you. Heal the sick, and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you now.’ But if a town refuses to welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘We wipe even the dust of your town from our feet to show that we have abandoned you to your fate. And know this—the Kingdom of God is near!’ I assure you, even wicked Sodom will be better off than such a town on judgment day.

- Luke 10:5-12 (NLT)

FAITH ~

MATURITY ~

LOVE ~

RELEVANCE ~

EXPANSION

1. Always be expecting ….. looking for …. Curious about …WHO God is going to put in your path to LOVE !

2. Talk TO people and not about people!

Connection Event

Father’s Day Picnic in the Park!

JUNE 21After the morning service

Bring a picnic lunch

and join the fun!

Forestry farm & Zoo

$2.00 per vehicle

…consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

- Hebrews 10:24

“The love of God is not God's making much of us, but God's saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead people to the only lasting joy, namely, God. Love must be God-centered, or it is not true love; it leaves people without their final hope of joy.”

~ John Piper

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar.

- 1 John 4: 20-21

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us”

- Ephesians 5:1-2

‘the heart is deceitful above all things’

- Jeremiah 17:9

"God does not want obedience as the fruit of our willful determination. God wants surrender as the choice of the heart. For what we long for in our heart we will pursue with the totality of our being - not simply with the resolve of our will."

It is not that we loved God, but that he

loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

- 1 John 4:9-10

“…for it is God who works in you to

will and to act according to his good purpose.”

- Philippians 2:13 (NIV)

__ I want to receive God’s love for the

first time

___ I want to begin a living ‘a new kind of love’

There is nothing like the local church when it is working right, its beauty is indescribable, its power is breathtaking, its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving, it heals the broken in the context of community, it builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the down-trodden and the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addictions; it frees the oppressed and offers belonging to the marginalized of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.

~ Bill Hybels

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

- 2 Corinthians 5:17-21