Life At The Ridge

Do you see Jesus clearly? What things in your life or in this world have caused you not to see Jesus clearly? The book of Colossians was written to a group of Christians that were facing the pressures of the culture that caused them to be tempted to give in to the world, Paul wants them to have a clear view of Christ and how to walk with Him. Paul's words to the believers at this church were "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ" Colossians 1:28

This is the first of many messages out of the book of I Timothy. The Elders will be teaching through this book the first Sunday of every month. In this message we learn about Paul's commission to Timothy and what he wanted him to do.

How are we doing with loving one another and practicing forgiveness towards each other? The church at Sardis was told by Jesus..."You have the appearance of being alive, but you are dead..." Revelation 3:1-3 As followers of Jesus we need to remember the importance of love and forgiveness in the body of Christ.

Do we desire truth? The church at Sardis had an appearance of being alive but really they were dead. Do we have an appearance of desiring truth?, walking in truth? or obeying truth? What is truth?

How is your listening? Many of us say we hear, but are we listening? It's important to listen to the truthfulness of God's Word, what He says and act in obedience to His Word. The message that Jesus gave the church at Sardis was you have the appearance of being alive but you are dead… How well do you think they were listening?

Jesus' words to the corpse church at Sardis is "...you have an appearance of being alive, but you are dead....strengthen what remains and is about to die" Rev 3:1-2. What spiritual aspects of your Christian life need strengthening? Has your worship for God become stagnant or non existent? Why? and how can we overcome this?

As we begin the new year, what's important as a follower Christ? In the letter to the church in Sardis Jesus has these words to say "‘...I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent..." (Revelation 3:1-3) Join us for the month of January as we look at some important Biblical truths that we have received, heard and strengthen those truths that remain.

How was it that the Jews missed Messiahs coming? They were looking for someone else. The prophecy found in Zechariah gives us a great understanding of who Jesus is and what we should expect at His coming.

Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” John 19:19-22 Is He the King? How do we know? If He is the King what does His crucifixion mean?

God's Word tells us about Jesus who was not only the King of the Jews but He is the eternal King whose kingdom is not of this world. Have you beheld the King?

When the wisemen came to Jerusalem to seek the Messiah, what did they find? Jesus was born "King of the Jews" yet Herod and all of Jerusalem didn't seem to care and were troubled by this news of the wisemen seeking the Messiah. What is your response to the birth of Christ?

When we look at Psalm 118 we are reminded 5 times about the steadfast love of God. God's love is woven throughout this Psalm. Are we thankful for His love?

In times of distress where do you find strength? What gives you joy? unfortunately many people look for strength and joy in relationships, people, addictive substances and vices but not the Lord. For believers in Jesus Christ our strength should be in God.

In your salvation what are some things that you are thankful for? In Psalm 118 the Psalmist declares giving thanks to the Lord because he trusts in God alone for his refuge and help.

One of our members Jon Sparks gave this message about adoption.

David Russell from SonSet Solutions came to bring us an update about the ministry we support and some helpful reminders about how we can pray and support the ministry.

We can learn a lot, apply and change in our lives to help us to have a more affective prayer life. As we already covered about Jesus’ habits of prayer, asking and receiving, and hindrances to prayer we will look at the mechanics of prayer. The how. Prayer is not just saying all the right words to get God to do something. Prayer is relationship. Relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Over and over we are told in Scripture that God does answer prayer. When we pray we are coming together with God to accomplish His plan, His purposes in this world in us and through us. Prayer changes things, but unfortunately many prayers go up, but yet actually accomplish anything. There are many that have said “prayer doesn’t work” I’ve prayed and prayed, but nothing has changed. So what is the problem. We know it can’t be God, because God is Holy, righteous, powerful. He is loving and good and it’s his desire to hear us and as we saw last week, since he didn’t spare his own son, he will graciously give us all things. There are hindrances to prayer, I’m sure we all could come up with a list of things that may hinder prayers, but we will focus on the big three and we need to be aware of them so we can make sure our prayers are getting through to God.

Prayer is important for those who know Christ as their savior. Last week we looked at the habit of Jesus’ prayer life. He prayed often and through his life we can be challenged that we too need to devote ourselves to prayer. Questions however may arise in what is the purpose of praying? What does it accomplish and How does prayer work? Does prayer work? There are some misunderstandings of prayer and how it works because we have a very unbiblical thinking of who God is and what He says. Your theology (what you believe about who God is and what he says) will affect your philosophy (how you live out your life).

For the month of October we are going to examine the Scriptures as what they teach us about prayer. We find throughout all of Scripture the importance of prayer, all the way through from Genesis to Revelation we find prayer as the outlet of power that puts us in connection with the spiritual realm to accomplish God’s work, God’s way. In the New Testament we see Jesus as the example of prayer and how it should look in our lives. We see these examples all throughout the Gospel accounts. Jesus had a habit of prayer. What is a habit? It is an act repeated so often as to be done involuntarily; that is, without a new decision of the mind each time it is done. This was the prayer life of Jesus. Jesus prayed, He loved to pray. Sometimes praying was His way of resting. He prayed so much and so often that it became a part of his life.