Hello Everyone,

Today let’s look at II Timothy Chapter 1:1-7.

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. ⁴ Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. ⁵ I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. ⁶ For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. ⁷ For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Paul is writing in the latter days of his life to his beloved son in the faith Timothy.

Timothy is ministering in Ephesus and dealing with many hardships.

Paul always the spiritual mentor writes from prison in Rome - encouraging Timothy with the foundational principles of life - and calling on him to come to Rome to be with him in his final days.

In this letter Paul shares our next two ingredients for abundant living.

Start with the Spiritual - Paul says to Timothy - “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you …”

If you want to live an abundant life it starts with the Spiritual. It’s amazing to me that we pay such little attention to the Spiritual aspect of our lives.

We spend great amounts of time on work, health (exercise), sports, and recreation - but so little time on the Spiritual side of life.

Cultivating our spirits becomes a job for the time that is left over or at best a job for Sunday mornings.

Cultivating our spirits has become like weight loss drugs - Eat all you want, suck down all the deserts you can hold - go to sleep and loose 150lbs in two weeks with Fatgo - our miracle weight loss pill.

Except it looks like this - live any way you want to live, watch whatever you want to watch, fill your heart with the filth of the world - and in two short Sundays you can look like this on our new miracle spiritual growth formula - Churchgo.

Spend just one hour a week inside these walls and all the trash of the world will fade into history - Just take Churchgo and all your problems will disappear.

Spend ALL the time you want on anything you want and with miracle Churchgo you’ll find the abundant life that Jesus has promised.

Oh nobody would admit that’s the way we live life, but it is.

Everything else in life is more important than the Spiritual things.

God gets what’s left over after everything else is finished.

Greater Things Are Still To Come!

Pastor Phil

Hello Everyone,

This week we are continuing in our series for the New Year – “Having Your Cake and Eating it to” or, ingredients for abundant living.

Remember that this whole series is based on 3 very important principles.
1. God has a plan for your life - Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.

2. There is a battle engaged for your life - Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

3. Too many of God’s people are losing the battle - Marriages, children, finances, life. Matthew 9:36 - “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Over the last 3 weeks we have looked together at our first five ingredients.

• 4 Questions - Who are you? What are you ? Where are you? What do you really want?
• It is your recipe Own It! Take responsibility for and control of your life.
• Embrace Positive Change!
• Make a Plan!
• Work your Plan!

Greater Things Are Still TO Come!

Pastor Phil

Hello Everyone,

David faced other giants before he ever faced Goliath. Here are some of David’s Other Giants

THE GIANT OF COMFORT

I Samuel 17:20 Early in the morning David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.

He Left the Sheep
He left His role of being merely a shepherd
He left his place of security and comfort
He left what he was most experience with

He had to defeat the mentality that said I’m comfortable in my little field.
He had to conquer the giant that said don’t challenge me to do something I’ve never done before.

I got it easy here. I’m doing what I’ve always done why do more?
He had to step out of the average, mundane, the usual, tradition, ritualism.

If you ever really trust and have faith in God-you’ll begin to do things that make you feel uncomfortable- you’ll begin to go places that challenges your faith.

You’ll begin to step out of boats and walk on stormy seas!

WHEN YOU WALK BY FAITH-IT’S UNCOMFORTABLE-IT’S CONTRARY TO WHAT THE FLESH TELLS YOU

YOU WALK BY FAITH NOT BY SIGHT!!

THE GIANT OF FEAR

I Samuel 17:11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

FEAR SEES THE SICKNESS AND NOT THE SAVIOR
FEAR SEES THE DIFFICULTY BUT NOT THE DELIVERER
FEAR SEES THE WIND BUT NOT THE WATER-WALKER
FEAR SEES THE FIRE BUT NOT THE FOURTH MAN IN THE FURNACE
FEAR SEES THE LION BUT NOT THE LIBERATOR
FEAR SEES THE VALLEY BUT NOT THE MOUNTAINS ON BOTH SIDES
FEAR SEES THE MEAN, SCREAMING GIANT BUT NOT THE BIG UGLY FOREHEAD

DAVID NEVER DIGRESSED TO THE LEVEL OF CALLING HIM A GIANT…BUT HE LABELED HIM AN UNCIRMCISED PHILLISTINE

You can glamorize the devil by what you call him
“OOOO he’s a ROARING LION!” “He’s a vicious dragon” “The prince of the air”

Can I set the record straight…

HE’S A LIAR AND THE FATHER OF LIES,

HE’S A FALLEN ANGEL,HE’S A COWARD, A CHEATER AND A THIEF, HIS MOTHER IS UGLY AND DRESSES HIM FUNNY,

AND IN MY BOOK IT TELLS ME I’VE GOT POWER TO TREAD UPON SERPENTS,

HE’S ALREADY BEEN DEFEATED!
GREATER IS HE THAT IS WITHIN ME THAN HE THAT IS IN THIS WORLD!

THE GIANT OF CRITICISM & RIDICULE

I Samuel 17:28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

THE GIANT OF SELF

I Samuel 17:38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.

Greater Things Are Still To Come!

Pastor Phil

Hello Everyone,

Next “Ingredient” - Work Your Plan - A plan is only as good as your commitment to making it happen.

I shared with you a couple of weeks ago a principle I believe in whole heartedly. “Stop letting life happen to you.”

Most people simply drift through life hoping when they run aground somewhere that it will be a good place.

We let our marriages, our children, and our lives just simply drift around hoping for the best - the problem is that it becomes a game of pin the tail on the donkey with people’s lives at stake.

Pin the tail on the donkey is a fun kid’s game but it’s no way to run your life, your marriage, or raise your children. So how do you work your plan?

• Set right priorities - take control of your life - stop living by everyone else’s schedule, rules, and priorities - take control of your life.

It never ceases to amaze me that people want to be strong in Christ - they want a deeper relationship with Him –

but they spend a total of an hour and half on that relationship each week and most of the time they are here they want the service to be over so they can go home.

We want our children to think Christ is important to their lives but we treat sports, band, TV, and everything else in life as more important than worship and Christian training.

We want them to be committed but only if it doesn’t interfere with our stuff.

Stop just living life, wasting time and letting life happen to you and around you - take control of life and set your priorities.

• Make better decisions - Life is an accumulation of the decisions we make. Every decision, from the house we buy and the car we drive to the words we choose and the time we spend.

Every decision either moves us closer to our goals or further away from them.

I talk to people about this all the time. You made the choices that led up to it and you made the choices in the middle of it.

Are you moving toward your goals or away from them?

• Work smarter not harder - sometimes you need to cut back and commit to doing a few things well instead of a lot of things poorly.

THINK your way through life - don’t feel your way through life. Thinking makes good decisions no matter how you feel.

Don’t just add things on to the priority list - make a new priority list. Make a commitment to your goals and live that commitment.

If you want to live a more abundant life in Christ it’s not going to happen by accident - it takes planning and commitment to the goals that He establishes for life.

If you want Godly children, a Godly marriage or to obtain the plan of God for your life - you have to Plan your Work and Work your Plan.

And you have to dedicate your whole self to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Greater Things Are Still TO Come!

Pastor Phillip

Hello Everyone,

In Nehemiah 2:1-8 we seen in our series Ground Zero that Nehemiah was a planner.

¹ In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; ² so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.”

I was very much afraid, ³ but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”

⁴ The king said to me, “What is it you want?”

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, ⁵ and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

⁶ Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?” It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.

⁷ I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? ⁸ And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?” And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.

I love the beginning of this story of Nehemiah. God has called him to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem the problem is that Nehemiah is a slave in Susa, in Babylon, 900 miles away from Jerusalem.

Here are some keys for you in making a plan. These hold true whether you are trying to build an abundant marriage, work with your children, or building a career.

• Know where you are and where you are going. - Nehemiah is 900 miles from where he wants to be - he’s a slave - has NO resources - I’d say the odds are against him.

I told you last week though that if God wants you to go somewhere He will take you there - all he needs is your cooperation.

You have to know where you are and what you want!

• What are your resources - what are you starting with? It may be nothing it may be a lot - but know what your resources look like.
• Count the costs - know what it’s going to cost you - and be willing to sacrifice whatever it takes.
• Prepare - Plan your route - set out the goals, benchmarks, and roadways for success.

For Nehemiah this started in November 1:1 - and he talked to the King in April 2:1 - but when he did he knew everything he was going to need. He planned.

• Wait for God - When He says go - don’t hesitate - go - but don’t get ahead of Him or lag behind.

Greater Things Are Still To Come

Pastor Phillip