This week while I was preparing for Sunday’s message which is based on Acts 2:42-27 I ran into this great quote:
“A New Testament church is a church in which God is present through His Spirit, and in which He is powerfully at work to glorify Himself by manifestations of His power and grace. A New Testament church is a church where the fruits of the Spirit are as evident as the manifestations of His power. That is the kind of church we desire to be.” (Bible.org)
So many local churches simply don’t look or act like the churches we read about in the New Testament, and especially in Acts, because we just don’t seek and follow God’s Spirit. A New Testament church is a church where God’s Spirit is alive and active, moving in and through the lives of believers…and even non-believers!
When God’s Spirit moves, it is powerful! When the Holy Spirit is active, it is beautiful! And it only happens when we truly desire and seek God’s Spirit in our own lives. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.”
More than anything else I desire for Neel Road to be a New Testament church. For every person to know the God who gives each of us new life each day, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ that is life-changing, and to be powerfully and wonderfully filled with the Holy Spirit!
For the next five weeks or so I will be preaching a series of messages based on the passage mentioned above. The title of the series is called “Getting Church Right.” I hope you can join us.
For Advent this year I am preaching from the prophets.
The primary text for this week is Micah 5:1-4.
Marshal your troops, O city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel’s ruler
on the cheek with a rod.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor gives birth
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
At Christmas we often think of the shepherds who saw an angel proclaiming the news of Jesus’ birth. In this Messianic prophecy in Micah we see Jesus described as a shepherd…as one who will guide his flock…as one who stands in strength and majesty…and as one who provides security for believers to all ends of the earth!
In this passage Micah calls believers to see that Christ, who is the Good Shepherd, will be provide for us, protect us, and give us Peace!
The title of this Sunday’s message is “When Theology and Reality Collide!”
We’ve all had thoughts about God, life or whatever that have left us wandering whether or not they were true. . . whether or not our beliefs were true or just something made up or that someone told us to make us be good.
So what happens when what we believe and what we experience in life don’t add up? What do we do when our worldview or our perspective on life is. . . wrong?
Those of us who are church goers are sometimes hesitant to ask questions about God or to question God directly. But Job’s story makes us ask some really hard questions about what we say we believe and what we actually experience in life.
I’m totally pumped about this Sunday’s message. . . and a little nervous too. But I can’t wait to dig in and unpack Job 5!
This week while I was preparing for Sunday’s message which is based on Acts 2:42-27 I ran into this great quote: 
