More than thirty years ago Flip Wilson kept America in stitches with his television

characters “Reverend Leroy,” the friendly, pompous pastor of the “Church of What’s Happening Now,” and “Geraldine Jones,” the sassy African-American woman in a miniskirt (also portrayed by Flip Wilson). Whenever Geraldine would impulsively buy a dress—or do anything she shouldn’t—she excused her urge by uttering the line she made famous,

“The Devil made me do it!”  America laughed at Geraldine for her obviously lame excuse. In fact, to say, “The Devil made me do it,” became the rage all over the country.

Too often we think of the Devil as some medieval foolishness or some Halloween costume.   In the same vain, some people see God as this old man in a white beard, much like Michelangelo painted Him in the Sistine Chapel.  In reality they might believe in a God of some kind out there somewhere, but certainly not in a physical Devil.

True Christians know that God is Spirit, and that He has appeared to us in His Son, Jesus, and now dwells in us via the Holy Spirit.  The One True God is indeed triune.  But too often those of the faith disregard the reality and power of the Devil, or they go to the other extreme, where the Devil is the author of everything bad that happens in their life.  Hence it becomes a joke, whenever we do something wrong, “it wasn’t me, it was the devil”.  There are a lot of bad things that happen due to the fallen world and our own fallen nature, without the assistance of any demon.

Having said that, note that Jesus took the demonic very seriously.  A large part of his ministry was spent in combating them.   The cross itself was like a guided laser strike, a stealth drone attack (catching the Devil off-guard) destroying the gates of death & Hell.  The battle with Satan has eternal & cosmic ramifications.  Just read Revelation and you will see that even though the war has been won, the battle still rages on all around us.   Christians who ignore this are opening themselves up for tragic defeat in the skirmishes of life.  WW2 in the Pacific was truly won after the battle of Midway, but 1000’s of our good soldiers died as we had to conquer one island at a time, right to the door step of Japan.

Paul states it clearly in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.  Peter agrees in 1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober-minded; be watchful.

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”.   Notice the Bible does not say, “Be terrified, obsessed, and fascinated by the Devil”.  We have victory assured in Christ Jesus.

Just remember, the Evil One is not interested in ruining your shirt or dress when you happen to spill something.  He is interested in ruining your soul.

His goal is to coax you into sin. He’ll want to do this with utmost subtlety, like a pickpocket, so that you don’t realize till too late that you’ve lost

your temper perhaps, or your chastity, honesty, or serenity, or your integrity.  It is up to us, (you & me) to prepare for this war & it is war!

Romans 12:1-2 is the key to victory for those who belong to Christ, the children of God.  It is not enough to be born again.  You need to take this new relationship seriously.  “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. “

Martin Luther put it right in his great hymn,

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”

“For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe, his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate,  on earth is not his equal.  If we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing,  Unless God’s Man is on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing.  You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; The Lord of Hosts, His name, From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.”

Consciously choose to commit your life and will to Jesus Christ.

This is the faith that truly transforms our lives.

Veritas vos Liberabit!   Pastor Mike

Was there any word more important to the election of Barak Obama than this word “change”?  It was the word he used more than any other to speak to the hopes and dreams of Americans.  There is no doubt that he has brought change, a fundamental change in the way America sees herself.

In the movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes, where apes are in the ascendancy and humans are slaves, the sensitive scientist Cornelius asks his simian captor, “When may we hope to go free?”

The ape-jailor responds: “You may hope anytime you wish.”

As I continue in my sermon series on “Becoming the New You”, hope is the 2nd step toward liberation from whatever binds us.  Hope is built on the foundation of our salvation.  And what is it that we hope for?   Well, that depends on what you have been struggling with in life.

Our hopes and dreams usually focus around our current life situations.

Some want simply to escape.  Their lives have become so unmanageable that all they want to do is “get out” and have a fresh start.  Others seek to change things in their current circumstance, to make life more to their liking.  That is all well and good when you are talking about in-animate objects like changing cars, houses, furniture, the yard etc.  But most of the time we are focusing on how to change others who are impacting our lives.  And that is exactly where we “hit the wall” in our own personal Daytona 500 sprint through life.  People get hurt.

We do not have the right or the power to change others.  But we do have the right to change ourselves.  God gives us this freedom.  The difficulty in self- change has to do with the power to make the needed changes.   So often we are enslaved to the past, to old habits and customs that are hurting us. Hence Paul’s words in Romans 7:15  “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate… 23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24  Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”

We want to change in our heart, but we continue to fail, trapped by our old nature that is committed to sin and death.  The only power that can really change us is the power of the One Who created us.  This is the Good News of Jesus Christ, whose death set us free from this body of sin and death.  Romans 8 describes the Power of the Holy Spirit which God wants to insert into our lives in order to give us all the power we need to be the new people that we hoped that we could become when we surrendered our lives to Him.

The salvation and full redemption of our bodies is yet to come.  But until then, we press on in these earthly bodies in faith, hope, and love.  And we can do so in God’s grace, mercy, ongoing-forgiveness, and the Power of the Spirit of God which can do the miraculous in our lives.  When Christ walked this earth, He ruled over nature, He cast out demons, He healed the sick, and He raised the dead.  (Mark 4:35-5:43)

Certainly the power is there for self-change if we would but ask.

Veritas vos Liberabit!   Pastor Mike

This coming Sunday, I am beginning a new series about how to bring about the positive changes in your life that you want & know needs to happen.

2 Corinthians 5:17 is the key text we will use for this transformation.

17     Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun! ^NLT

When we became followers of Jesus, we experienced what Jesus called the “New Birth” in John 3:3-7.

3       Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,  you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” …

5       Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

6       Humans can reproduce only human life,  but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

7       So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’

So what is this new birth all about?

What does Jesus mean by being born of the Spirit?

How is this 2^nd creation any better than the first physical creation?

And how to access this new life in the spirit in order to do the changes that I so desperately want in my life?

When the Holy Spirit entered into the lives of the 1^st Disciples they were transformed into new people.  There was a dramatic difference in the lives of the 12 Disciples prior to Pentecost and after being filled with the Holy Spirit.

For most “Christians” in America, who say that they have been “born again”,

it is difficult to see any change in their lives.  They pretty much go on living their lives as before, without any appreciable difference.  They are not aware of any life changing power living inside of them.  In fact they continue to struggle with sin as always, and they don’t experience the victory in their relationship with God or others.

God still feels distant.  The Holy Spirit shows no evidence of being in their lives.  Prayer is something that has no appreciable impact in their lives, so they really don’t do that too much, except in church or just “shooting up”

some quick one liners now and then.  And the really sad part is that no one else sees any difference in them.  We hear about the “Joy of God’s Blessings” in the lives of other believers, but we have not experienced anything like that in their own living.

Most keep these secrets about themselves to themselves.  As they hear about the activity of faith in the lives of others,

they begin to wonder if there is anything wrong with their Faith.

And they certainly have no assurance of Heaven when it comes to dying.

They are still hoping that somehow, God will accept them because of their behavior, (i.e.:  Going to church and being pretty decent otherwise).

But They would be hard pressed to share with you what Faith is or how to use it in life.  They are always wondering about those sins that keep besetting them.  Will God truly forgive them?  They seem to be asking God for forgiveness about the same things over and over again.  “How long will He put up with me?”

This series is all about experiencing the Life-Changing Power of God’s Spirit.

It is about becoming the “New You”, the “you” that you have always dreamed of becoming as a follower of Jesus the Christ.  You say that you want your spiritual life in control, but feel powerless to make it happen.

Indeed, you at a loss of how to bring it about.

So if you are tired of living in the “old life” with your “old nature”, if you are fed up with being “defeated by your sins”, and if you are ready to take some giant steps forward into the Kingdom of God, then this is the series for you.  Building the New you is a series of 12 sermons that will help you access the Holy Spirit in your life, and find the Power of God waiting for you, in order to make the needed changes in your life.

Soli Deo Gloria!  Pastor Mike

Do you ever feel overburdened with the needs of those around you?

Do you feel overwhelmed by life & all that it is throwing at you?

God has a word for you today:

God uses each one of us, given our gifts and talents.  Part of that is our personality.  Maybe you are one of those caring people who can listen to the stories of others, their heartaches and concerns.  People are going to be naturally drawn to you.  The trick is to not let their worries become yours.   So as people share their stories, you need to hold them with open hands.  Consciously give them up to God – He is the one whose business it is to work in their lives.  This is how we are to handle the stresses and strains in our own lives, lift them up to God and trust Him.  We should do the same when our hearts and minds are caught up in the lives of others.  Remember, His yoke is easy and His burden it light.

Matthew 11:28-30

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary

and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble

and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

When we take it upon ourselves, then the burden can seem unbearable.  Remember that Jesus wants to receive those who are weak and heavy laden.  The Holy Spirit can lighten our loads if we let Him, but we do have to let Him. It is claiming that promise of Jesus in our everyday living.  Remember that old saying, “Let Go and Let God”.  You can trust Him.

Corem Deo,  Mike

One of the main struggles that Christian wrestle with is the assurance of their own salvation.  If you were to ask most Christians (which I have done during worship) if they are sure they will go to heaven when they die, they reply with some answer like this, “I hope so, but I’m not really sure.”

There is that twinge of doubt in the mind of the believer.   John Wesley once remarked that his Methodist Followers of Jesus died well.   That is, they approached death with the calm assurance of Paul.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

6       So we are always confident,

even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies

we are not at home with the Lord.

7       For we live by believing and not by seeing.

8       Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from

these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.

9       So whether we are here in this body or away from this body,

our goal is to please him.

We know that Salvation depends upon our faith in God,

not upon the works that we do in this world.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8      For by grace you have been saved through faith;

and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

9      not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So how can we be sure that we have this saving faith?

After all everyone has faith in someone or something.

So what is this saving faith?  And how can we be sure that we have it?

So that when our time is up in this world, we will have the confidence of Paul, that when we close our eyes to this world, we will open them to Jesus in a new world that He is creating for those who love Him.

Let me invite you to worship with us this Sunday, to hear more about Saving Faith and how you can have the assurance of your own salvation.

Pastor Mike Goodyear

January 25, 2013 from Taipei,

         As we finished up our work in Cambodia, the thing that impressed us most was the beauty of the Cambodian people.  Certainly their physical features vary and are beautiful in their own.  But they have a deeper beauty in their heart, that seems  to always produce a smile, no matter what their lot or place is in life.  It is so very refreshing and contagious.  There is contentment with life.  Sure, they want to get ahead like everyone else,  but not at the expense of enjoying what they do have, no matter how humble their life is. 

        The Cambodian people have a lot they can teach us about life and attitude.  Once Christ has been added to their lives, it seems to be a great completion for them.  They have come home to their true Father.  Wha

t a privilege for us to share our faith with them, more with actions, a helping hand, and even using words at times.  We have all experienced a great change in our lives as we look forward to returning to our home and our loved ones.  The stories are endless.

Psalm 62:5-8 speaks volumes about our journey together.

5      Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.

6      He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.

7      My victory and honor come from God alone.  He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.

8      O my people, trust in him at all times.  Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.   

 Sola Fide, Pastor Mike