One of my all-time favorite things to do as a pastor is water baptism. I love hearing the stories of lives that have been completely transformed by Jesus Christ! This morning the Calvary Assembly of God family celebrated with Crystal as she made her public declaration that she is totally sold-out for God!
Have you tried the P90x workout program? The idea is to work all different parts of your body in different ways: resistance training, cardio work, stretching. This multi-discipline approach is intended to give you a complete workout.
We are getting ready to start an intense spiritual workout at Calvary Assembly of God. This summer we’ll be launching The P119 Workout. We’ll be using the 119th chapter in the book of Psalms to have a multi-discipline approach to stretching and improving our spiritual lives.
Each week throughout the summer we will look at one of the 8-verse segments, and learn how to apply the principles to our daily routines. There will be some “workout instructions” given in our Sunday morning services, and then some on-your-own workout routines to do throughout the week.
I am really excited about the expanded spiritual strength everyone will gain from this. Please join me this Sunday at 10:30am.
If you missed any of the messages in our P119 series, check them out here:
The theme for this year’s Lifewalk for Alpha Family Centers was Baby, I’m On Board! And I was so glad that Calvary Assembly of God was on board to help this wonderful pro-life organization in Cedar Springs! This year our worship team provided music prior to the walk, we had several from our congregation participating in Lifewalk, and our church was a sponsor for Lifewalk 2012.
Here are some pictures of the day —
I shared this poem in my Father’s Day message this morning, and several folks have asked me to share it. I’m happy to do so!
I am thankful for all of the fathers who said they would be courageous enough to be a bridge-builder for their kids! May God bless you as you follow through on this noble calling.
God wants you to be yourself, but not as you can make you. But to be the “you” He created you to be. Part of what He implanted in you was certain gifts, talents, and abilities. To the extent that you allow the Holy Spirit to (1) reveal these gifts to you, and (2) turn these gifts into strengths, you will find more joy in being “you” as your “you” builds up the Body of Christ.
Just before listing some of the innumerable spiritual gifts God reveals in humanity, the apostle Paul says this:
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Romans 12:3)
Does that sound contradictory at all: Do not think…but rather think?
The root word is the same in each usage (phroneo in the Greek), but the prefix is what sets them apart from each other.
The Holy Spirit gives you sophroneo thinking to reveal your God-implanted gifts and talents to benefit others—to benefit the whole Body of Christ. He helps us turn our talents into strengths by using a formula like this:
Pay attention to your passionate responses to situations, as they will reveal to you some of your gifts.
Listen to areas where others say you are talented. This will help you know how God has wired you.
Then you must be obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit in how to use your talents. If you let them sit on the shelf, they will never become strengths. Strengths develop when you passionately and obediently use your God-given talents for God’s glory.
The Holy Spirit wants to help you in all of these areas. Will you let Him?
If you’ve missed any of the messages in the Immersed series, you can find them all here.
The process we call sanctification is usually not a lot of fun. At least not in the moment the Holy Spirit is doing His work on us.
I like to remember the definition of sanctification by saying it this way: saint-ification. Literally, the Holy Spirit is making us into saints.
So why would you or I want to go through that saint-ification process?
Is it so others will admire us? Is it so we will become the example for everyone else to follow? No!
We go through it because it glorifies God when we become saints.
And notice this: the word is saintS (plural, not singular). If you search through the New Testament you will find that this word is always in the plural. There are no singular saints. The Holy Spirit saint-ifies us to bring unity to the Body of Christ.
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5-6)
Think of your physical body. You go through the process of dieting or exercising for the benefit of the entire body. Your tastebuds may really want to savor some junk food, but for the good of the whole body, you go through the discipline of eating the healthy food. Your legs may not want to go for that jog, but for the good of the whole body, you push through your exercise routine.
It’s the same way spiritually: The Holy Spirit helps you become saint-ified for the good of the whole Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit wants you to mature as a saint so that you can help other saintS, and together the unified Body of Christ can glorify God.
So allow the Holy Spirit to take you through the saint-ification process, because other saintS need your help. And God will be glorified as you do!
If you’ve missed any of the messages in the Immersed series, you can find them all here.
As a part of our Immersed series, I handed out a sheet contrasting the sinful nature and the Spirit-led nature, as seen in Romans 8. Several folks have asked if they could have an electronic version of this, and I’m more than happy to make this available.
Click this link to download the PDF version of this graphic → Sinful versus Spiritual ←
If you’ve missed any of the messages in the Immersed series, you can find them all here.
Nope, this isn’t about exercising (although we’ll get a little of that in too). It’s about walking to make a stand.
Confused yet?
I’m talking about the annual LifeWalk for Alpha Family Center in Cedar Springs. I serve the God Who created life, and because I serve Him, I love life like He loves life. So I’m happy to throw my wholehearted support behind Alpha in their Lifewalk.
Can I ask for your help too? Here are some ways you can get involved:
I am especially excited this year that Calvary Assembly of God will be a major sponsor for LifeWalk! We want to do all we can to support life, and I hope you will join with us.
Yesterday in part two of our Immersed series, we looked at how helpless we are in trying to break free from sin’s pull on our lives. That is, we are helpless to help ourselves.
But with the Holy Spirit’s help, we go from helpless to hopeful!
In Romans 8, there are all of these contrasting statements about the sinful life versus the Spirit-led life. Our hope to move into the Spirit-led life turns on this phrase in verse 15: but by the Spirit. It is only by God’s Spirit that we can break free. To help illustrate this point, I read a rather long passage from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Several people have asked to see this, so here it is—
“Now what was the sort of ‘hole’ man had got himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who need improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of a ‘hole.’ This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It mean unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad needs to repent: only a good man can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person—and he would not need it.
“Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off is He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself.”
When we invite Christ into our lives, He places “a bit of Himself” in us: the Holy Spirit. That enables us to be perfectly forgiven.
But then when we allow the Holy Spirit to immerse us in Himself, it’s not just “a bit of Himself” we get, but all of Him. This opens the door to deeper intimacy, greater closeness, and a more God-glorifying life!
I want to live immersed!
If you’ve missed any of the messages in the Immersed series, you can find them all here.
On Sunday we left our church service to go serve our great city of Cedar Springs. It was so wonderful to join with other churches in town as we weeded and planted flowers, sang at the Metron nursing home, delivered cookies to those who were working in businesses on Sundays, and provided full-service to customers at the Wesco gas station
Thanks to Solon Center Weslyan Church and North Kent Community Church for helping serve our city. Here are just a few pictures from Service Sunday (photo credits Delbridge Langdon Jr and Rich Tolar).
Can’t wait to do this again next year (if not sooner!).
Craig T. Owens 