Good morning Jesus, Lord of my life, Light of my life, Lover of my soul.

This past Sunday, November 27th, we began the season of Advent in the church. A time of anticipation and hope as we await Christmas and the birth of Jesus, Emanuel, “Christ with us.” Advent is also the beginning of the church year, “New Year’s Day” in the church calendar.  And just as we will make resolutions and commitments of on January 1st, the beginning of the secular New Year, I asked for us to make resolutions and commitments to The Church and our faith as we begin the new church year.

 I ask you, I ask us in the upcoming year, as a member of The Church of Christ in the world,  if you are willing to be discipled by, and help disciple others in our church to imitate Jesus, so we in turn can disciple others to imitate Jesus. That for the next year to be obedient to a life of prayer and fasting that is extraordinary. To resolve to spend time in the Bible reading God’s word beyond the ordinary. That you will  commit to join a Band group, an accountability group, and be willingly to become completely open, honest, and vulnerable to each other.  Be willing to become both accountable to, and accountable over each other and to speak love and truth into each other.  To be willingly to go deeply" inward," so we can be a church that leads others deeply "inward", a church that is not superficial.

 I ask this coming year if you would be willing to make The Church the main thing you support with your tithing; tithes of money, time, prayer, and opening of your homes.

 I ask in the coming year as part of The Church "outwardly," to agree to help be formed and form each other into missionaly focused lives.  Who's heart weeps for their neighbors and the lost.  Who's focus is not on themselves, but on others, on serving, on the cross.  To be willingly to be stretched "outwardly," so we can be a church that stretches others "outwardly," and is not complacent in its view of the pain and injustice around them

 I ask in the coming year if you are willing to make a covenant with each other in our  faith, in The Church and with God, that to the best of your abilities and with the help of the Spirit, you are "all in" to the re-birthing and renewing of The Church.  And if It sounds intense and serious to you, that is because it is.  That is because there is an enemy, and adversary, Satan and his minions who are serious and intense in seeing that The Church does not revive and grow, or what does grow is worldly and self-serving church.  The enemy wants nothing more than to see us: good, sincere, talented, gifted, and gracious people get destroyed or wounded, or help in the destruction or wounding of others, because they are trying to do a job they are not in covenant with God and committed to undertake. Trying to achieve this Holy objective without a covenant relationship and support of others, without prayer coverage or founded in God’s Word.. 

 This is why I am encouraging you to start Band groups as they are so vital.  My wife Nancy and I have discussed what blessing it is to help lead the gatherings we lead in churches, in our and others homes, and out in our community in bars, laundromats and to have these become beacons of light in the darkness.  We desire that you start up and help lead in these gatherings of light.  To do so you need to be grounded in Word and prayer. For these beacons of light are also seen by the enemy, who rages against the light, and so he has placed a bullseye over churches, our community gatherings and over our house.  When I pull out of my drive everyday and start to drive off, I always stop, and look back over at my house before I leave, and pray over my wife Nancy, daughters Paris, and Milan, and myself for protection and power.  Satan rages against the light and the Jesus he sees in us. And as you commit to grow God’s kingdom, Satan will place a bullseye over you, as he also rages against the light in you, the love, the Jesus in you for our church and others, and, your participation in the birth of more light.       

 Yet we have nothing to fear if we covenant with God and put on the full armor of God. Because if Christ is for us, who can be against?  Whom shall we fear?  Nothing and no one, IF WE GO “All IN."  "All in" in Christ, "All in" in prayer, "All in" reading the Word,  "All in" Band Groups in supporting each other.  It is when we think that we can play around and go "half in," "most of the time in, "some of the time in," against an enemy that is always "all in," that we are in danger.

 You all have wonderful and amazing gifts and hearts open to God that can and will be used to building Gods kingdom and his church.  I see it in each one of you. God see’s it in you.  He created these gifts in you! The question you need you honestly answer this Advent is if it is The Church, at this season in your life, that God called you and created you into, that you are willing to go “All in” and help build for His kingdom. I pray it is so. If so, you do so knowing that you will experience both the immense joys and  immense pain that is required both is giving birth and in re-birth.  You need to know for certain you will experience both.  They are as certain to happen, yet unknown as the joys and pains parents know they will experience from birthing a child.  Yet they also know and understand the covenant it requires of them in giving birth. 

 Why am I asking for your commitment, why I am asking for these things to be your focus?  Your souls and hence the soul of The Church, since it is made up of us, people with souls,  will be affected.

Everything is coming together to confirm this in me.

And here’s the thing: God is going to grow his kingdom, regardless of what I or we in the church decide.

Plain and simple: He is going to use those things, those people that are all in, and remove those things that are not.

 God will use this same answering machine message towards his churches as He used in Revelations chapter 2 & 3. 

“ʻI know your works as well as your labor and steadfast endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil. You have even put to the test those who refer to themselves as apostles (but are not), and have discovered that they are false. I am also aware that you have persisted steadfastly, endured much for the sake of my name, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have departed from your first love! Therefore, remember from what high state you have fallen and repent! Do the deeds you did at the first; if not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place - that is, if you do not repent.” Revelation (2:2-5)

 Repent: turn, change, what you are focusing on, magnifying, submersing yourself in.

First Love: relationship with Jesus: prayer, Bible, Accountability.

Question: Where is the church of Ephesus today?  Answer: It is gone, erased in the sands of time.  It did not repent, it did not change, it did not return to its first love, it did not go “all in”...it  was shaken

It received the answering machine message of God,  I need to make some changes. So God removed from Ephesus its lampstand, its light, its influence…turned out the lights..

And if this can happen to mighty Ephesus, a church God once used mightily, if God removed its lampstand, its light, its influence, it can happen to any church, including yours.

Ephesus’s lampstand was removed by God, but He did was not destroyed it immediately, like He did with Sodom and Gomora with fire and brim stone or something. Ephesus simply slowly died over time.  There are many examples of a church or ministry continuing on after the initial anointing of God, that birthed that church of ministry departed from it.  Ephesus is an example.  The Temple is another.

My family, so I ask you again, “What are we going to commit to, to go “all-in” with, and what are we going to magnify this year? I pray you seriously discern this, in Jesus’ name.  Please pray the dame for me.  God bless you my friends!