Good Morning Trinity,

 

I hope you are having a wonderful week. Just think only 351 days to go until 2016, time really flies doesn’t it. So what are you going to do with those 351 days? Now that your thinking about this coming year I have scripture for you to read.

 

Philippians 3: 7 – 11

 

We need to take a moment and think about what Paul is saying here in verse 7. “But what things were gain to me, these things I have counted loss for Christ.” What you are reading about is someone who is speaking of a change in their life. Who they were, is not who they are now. This is not speaking of a trivial inconvenience like giving up chocolate for lent. This is a night to day time change in one’s life.

 

You can see Paul’s change when you read about him as Saul starting in Acts 7: 54 with the stoning of Stephen until he met the glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9. Saul was a proud man with many accomplishments. He was an educated man, and a Pharisee’s Pharisee who was known for his zealousness for God. He lived for the law and was as he felt, God’s servant in hunting down those menacing Christians to keep them from spreading their lies about this Jesus as being the Messiah. He hated them and he hated Jesus but Saul was a good religious man and he held a prominent position is society.

 

So you see when Paul wrote about giving up what was gain to him for Christ, he was speaking of something special. But knowing Jesus is enough to make anyone lose their religion. Religion made Saul who he was and Jesus made Paul into someone that Saul’s friends and fellow Pharisees didn’t recognize. Don’t think for a moment that Saul’s conversion made life easy for him. I’m sure as far as life being easier, Saul would have been farther ahead rejecting Jesus in his life, but would his life have been better? Hardly, for Paul would later write in Philippians 1: 21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

 

Being a Christ follower is not always an easy path to take. It might be easy when you’re at church when you’re with likeminded believers, but you don’t live at church and you don’t work at church. You live in the outside world and that is where the rub begins. Are you trying to live the life of the old you (Saul) when you’re working or socializing with friends and at the same time trying to maintain the new you (Paul) in your life? That is really a very difficult task to keep up. You can’t live the old life and the new life and be what Christ Jesus would ask you to be. Take a moment and ask yourself this question. I know what Jesus has given me, what have I given to Him?

 

God Bless,

Pastor Dave

 

Announcements:

Wednesday – 12pm Bible Study in the Agape Room
6:30pm Family Night – Come join us in our new home in the Annex Building
7:00pm Bible Study in the Agape Room

Saturday – 9am Men’s Breakfast in the Fellowship Hall – Bring a friend and enjoy friendship, fellowship, and a free breakfast

Sunday – 9am Sunday School for all ages

Sunday – 10:15 Worship begins – Don’t forget to bring someone this week

Sunday – Potluck Luncheon in the Fellowship Hall right after the service – Great time to socialize with all those friends you are bringing with you on Sunday.