New Life Community

Ezekiel prophesized the breath of life into a valley of dry bones, and we see how our God is the God of resurrection. He is able to overcome the worst circumstances to brings his plan to completion. This is why our lives as believers would never be a boring life, but one teemed with assignments, purposes, and ultimately fulfillment. 

Our lives as Christian matter, regardless of whether we are feeling it or not. We learned from Ruth about selflessness, resilience, and faith. We can take hope that living our lives with God would make our lives filled with wonder and interest. 

There were times in our lives when we feel spiritually weary. We do not want to do anything related to God, all activities seem like a chore to us. At such times, it is important for us to understand that it is normal, and we need to respond differently to different causes of weariness. There is an invitation to rest and to rely on God full of love and always in control. 

These traits are proven to break relationships faster and harder than others. Knowing the truth and relying on Holy Spirit can help us resist it. 

Friendship is a God-given precious relationship. As sin enters it, it brings toxicity to all related parties and brings hurt to everyone. 

Insecurities and expectations are the next relationship killers. These traits easily crept in and usually seems like the wrong is on the other side of the relationship. We craved from others things that should've come from God as opposed to men. 

Our selfishness might seems tame, but the sin actually a seed that could derail even the strongest relationship. By being aware of others' interests, make time and budget to help others, and open ourselves to different perspectives and disagreement, we will be able to swim against our own sinful nature of selfishness. 

It is natural to have doubt as believers. Yet Jesus shows that even when we struggle with our unbeliefs, he is there to guide us through.

There are different level of trust, and if we are evaluating our trust in God, we might find that our trust was not rightly built. Outwardly we might seems like a faithful person, but deep within, are we trusting who he is more than what he could do for us?

Peter walking on water is less about a miraculous act and more about dealing with doubt and fear, knowing that Jesus does not mock our little faith but reach out instead to bring us up. 

Living a faithful life does not mean that we live a doubt-free life. On the other hand, we learned from Thomas that all the doubts that we face should not be a dead-end and can be a turning point toward our destinies.

Obedience started with knowing God's will and intention. We learned that even if we regularly go to church or serving the Lord, it does not mean that we have little difficulty living in obedience. However, by evaluating how we live, we can reflect back on how tune our heart is with God's. 

Obedience is one of the first commandment that God gave to us. Living in obedience means that we build our lives on the right and firm foundation.

We learned from James that we need to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. These are the ingredients toward living an obedience lives before God. 

Holy Spirit sanctifies us in our darkest, grey, and even in our winning area. Understanding this crucial roles would help us to live a life that ready to be used by God.

Obedience is the key to be set apart and being used by God. However, we have many different obstacles, mostly from our own self interests that hinder us to live according to God's will. We learn from Saul, how our reputation, our comfort, our desires, and our will can be the main hindrance to obedience.  

It's difficult to obey God when the consequences or the rewards are not clear and straightforward, we don't know what we missed if we chose disobedience. This week we learned from David how to be live in obedience, and treat every single day as a battle toward being Chris-like.

From Jesus Christ we can learn some of the greatest principles relevant to us today. He is always dis always doing his father's will, he shows humility even though he is God, He forgives others - including you and me - he gives assurance whenever we are in doubt, and last but not least, He shows that no one is small enough and everyone matters to Him. 

Jesus gave an example of how we might treat other people in different situations, this new culture of treating others with equality regardless of the social status or position needs some conscious practising. Jesus teaches that the higher our position is the more we need to serve others. 

Throughout Jesus ministry, we see a principle of following Jesus, from fishermen to tax collectors, to a young rich ruler. Each of them was challenged to deny themselves, their dreams, and their sources, to trust God with their future and as their source. If being a Christian today seems boring, we might not be truly a follower of Jesus but merely adding Jesus to achieve what we want to begin with.