Church Discipline and the Power of Fellowship

Last week and this week I have been listening to John MacArthur on my way to work speak about church discipline and how we as the church are called to go to a brother that we know is sinning that we may win him back. I am sure that we all know about this, but I am doubtful that we have done it many times, or ever . He also quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer as saying:

“Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him. And the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession, the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin is brought into the light. The unexpressed is openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted, but God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron”

He also discussed the importance of fellowship/membership to a body. I am blessed to be able to say that within Woodland Hills I have a great body of believers with whom I have fellowship. But also consider my fellowship with you all as an important part of my life and this is yet another reason that I am excited about this blog. Who better to come to me in love for the purpose of restoring me to fellowship than you, and what better way to break the bonds of sin than to confess it to someone who loves you as I love you and you love me. I am thankful for you both.

PASSION

So wow, I am loving Sunday School more every time we go! I am learning more from that hour than I am from the sermon... my mind is usually reflecting on class during the sermon, but I'm trying to focus... This week our focus was on Passion and what are our passions are as individuals and what they should be as married couples. We are in the book of Nehimiah and we are learning about three attributes he had when we found out about the Wall and wanted to rebuild it, Passion, Pray, and Planning. Last week we kind of talked about those things, but I think Todd (the leader), wanted to get back into it.
It is very important to have a passion in your life, to fully enjoy something. Nehimiah's passion was for the wall and the city it protected. Todd asked us what some of our passions were, I mentioned Sandy Cove and then Todd's wife Michele asked me a question... Now, imagine if you found out that Sandy Cove was falling apart, that they were building adult bookstores on the property, or one of the buildings burned down and they didn't want to rebuild... how would I feel? Well ladies, I would be devastated!
Planning was also talked about in class, you have to plan for your passion! If you have a passion and do nothing to contribute to the passion what good is it? And you must pray! God is the one in control of your passions and if you seek his guidance than he will allow you to accomplish your passion!

So ladies.... what is your Passion?
Here are some of mine:
Seeking God
Jeremy
Sandy Cove
Being healthy and active (I'm working on this one :)
Physical Education
My family and friends

Some things...

I wanted to point out one thing on the blog.. make sure you check the comments. I am responding to your post there!

I love you guys so much!

Now to my question... In Ephesians 6, the armor of God section, are we told to put on the armor of God as more of a defensive or should we fight spiritual warfare? Paul tells us we have the sword of the Spirit but is it a defensive tool or offensive tool?

The reason I ask this is because the passage tells us to STAND multiple times... so that would make me think it is defensive. Justin and I were talking about it and he said we should remember the battle has already been won and we are to stand in Victory.

What do you think?

Here I am, I finally made it

I have read up on your blogging of late and I am very excited and challenged by your honesty, so as we blog I will try to be as transparent. I have been reading through the book of Isaiah lately. I am often convicted about how little of the bible I have actually read (especially the old testament). The last verse of Chapter two says "Stop regarding man, in whose nostrils are breath, for of what account is he?"

Far too often I am concerned about what man will think of me if I speak the truth of who Christ is and what I believe about Him. But why should I care? Who is man anyway and what importance does he have in my life compared to that of Christ in my life. When I was in sunday school last week Steve Varner said that we often don't speak because we don't believe that Christ will be victorious. What do you girls think?

I am praying for you both and am very excited about this blog.

Why Hello Friend

Hi... wonder where the other two ladies are... well I imagine Victoria is awefully busy with wedding stuff....

Yes... I was able to read Mon-Thurs (I skipped this morning, I had to be at work at 8 and my body would not get up when I wanted it to)... I started reading in Romans, and I am up to chapter 8 now! I can't believe how powerful His Word is.... Pastor Shada (at our church) stresses Life Journaling, basically writing down one or two verses that really pop out at your during your reading and then reflecting on those verses. Doing that really helps me in my reading because I am then focuses on the Word and looking at the verses and how they speak to me.... the other morning, I forget which verse cause I don't have it with me, I read a verse on judging other and how it is judging yourself... so true! I don't know how many times I judge others without even knowing them, I take one look at them and automatically my mind just puts out an opionion... that's something I would really like to focus on this next week is not judging others!

Well.... continue to pray for Jeremy and I... I wanted to be an honoring, respective, and submissive wife and I blew it Tuesday night.. I won't go into details, but I'm still feeling pretty bad about what I said... and how I went about saying it, and the results of my actions....

Anyway... I hope that you have a great weekend!

How's it going?

Annie, How's it going. We are almost to Friday did ya make your goal of getting in the word?

I did a few days... not like I wanted to. What has been awesome though is I am finding myself spending more time in prayer which is great.

Wanted to check in with you!

been thinking about..

the fear of God?

What exactly does it mean to fear God and the fear of God?

Is it respect or is it truly fear like we would experience when something scares us?

What do you all think?

A Challenge

It's funny that you mention that Kara... a week ago in Sunday School I was really challenged by the leaders about getting in the Word. It was an incredible lesson. John (the guy who led Sunday School) started with Revelation 1:3... Blessed is the one who READS! The verse goes on to say... the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. That verse can be taken two ways... the one who reads the prophecy of the book of Revelation or the one who reads the Word of God and who hear it and take to heart what is written in it. Rebecca (John's wife) gave a huge to both the husbands and wives of the class. The challenge to the husbands was to be the spiritual leader, that wives need to see them studying the Word and living the Word. And to the wives she gave the challenge of just being in the Word and learning from it. John then went on to talk about how we shouldn't just read the Word because we feel obligated to, but we should love the Word of God so much that we just want to read it all the time. Now I've heard that so many times before, but it struck me more that day than it ever has. So I left Sunday School feeling challenged and renewed and I couldn't wait to wake up Monday morning to read the Word. Jeremy and I woke up Monday morning and ran at 6am, and when we got back I just sat outside and read, it was so nice and refreshing.... and I thought hey this is nice, I can do this! But ladies... that's all I did for the rest of the week.... I slept til 8 almost every morning and then got up to watch TV.... I felt aweful everyday... I knew that something was missing.... So here I am again, ready to get up tomorrow (Monday) morning hoping to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to dive into the Word... so pray for me... you all know what a struggle reading is for me, but I really do want to learn what God has in store for me and for Jeremy....

Which leads me to one other thing... pray for Jeremy and I.... I would love to say that God is the number 1 priority in our marriage... but there is so much more we could do... pray that Jeremy would learn how to be the spiritual leader of this family... pray for me that I will encourage him to be the leader... We are both taking baby steps in this... the first step was by getting up and going to this Young Married's Sunday School class which has been such a blessing... Jeremy meets with the Youth Pastor and a couple other guys from the church for breakfast on Tuesday mornings and he's reading a book called The Man in the Mirror... reading is a struggle for him too... pray that we would both seek God in our marriage, and that these baby steps would turn into giant leaps of faith....

I love you all!

Where are we now?!?

It seems life gets very busy and we often forget or neglect the things most important to us. The past 5 weeks I have been reading through the book of Acts. It has taken me 5 weeks! I often found myself watching TV, reading a book or just wasting time online rather than spending it in the word! I have really been challenged lately to seek God anew. Does that make sense? I mean many time I think we get in a rut, I know I do. So to remedy this I am going to do a Bible survey that i found on biblegateway.com it is a 61 day plan that hits the key themes and main ideas throughout scripture! Wish me luck!!

What are you doing to keep your relationship with the Lord fresh? What are you learning during this season of your life?