Hi Everyone,

This Saturday night is our 20th Christian Artist Night (which means we've completed 5 years of promoting the arts).  We have some great bands, singers, dancers, poets, artists, and more.  Please plan to come and bring a friend.  It is both a night of entertainment and inspiration.

Starting on January 26th, for three weeks, we will be examining the question "Why Do Church?"  There are many people, both inside and outside the church, who question the need to have an organized, corporate meeting.  Some promote the value that it is easier to worship God outside of an organized service than it is in one.  People outside the Christian faith don't see any relevance in a church service.  Has the time come to discontinue corporate celebrations?  If there is a purpose to a central meeting and organization, then what is it?  And is the church today fulfilling that purpose?  These are some of the questions we will be investigating starting January 26th. 

"In virtually every study we conduct, representing thousands of interviews every year, born-again Christians fail to display much attitudinal or behavioral evidence of transformed lives.  For instance, based on a study released in 2007, we found that most of the lifestyle activities of born-again Christians were statistically equivalent to those of non-born-agains.  When asked to identify their activities over the last thirty days, born-again believers were just as likely to bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take someting that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at soeone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person's back."

"... among young outsiders (people who do not attend church), 84 percent say they personally know at least one committed Christian.  Yet just 15 percent thought the lifestyles of those Christ followers were significantly different from the norm.  This gap speaks volumes."

"Let me tell you why you are here.  You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.  If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness?  You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage."

"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.  God is not a secret to be kept.  We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.  If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you?  I'm putting you on a light stand.  Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand - shine!  Keep open house; be generous with your lives.  By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven."

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.  If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, 'Jump,' and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.  So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love."

About 4:00 this morning I read the following quote, "Now, it is this God-given agape love that transforms our lives and gives us true spiritual substance as persons."  When was the last time we took time to expose ourselves to God's agape love?  When was the last time that we opened your Bible, not to find an answer, not to learn something, not to gain knowledge, but to experience God's love for us and for mankind in general?  When was the last time we went to God in prayer simply to love Him and allow Him to love us?  When was the last time we find ourselves lost in rapturous wonder as His love exploded in our spirit, soul, and body?

We will not be transformed if we are unwilling to take the time to allow God's agape love to permeate us, break us, and mold us.  And if we are not being transformed, then the world around us has lost the only light that will dispel their darkness, and we will have lived lives that as Paul says are "bankrupt."

Don't let that happen.  Let us encourage one another to go deep into God's love and to allow His love to flow through us and out of us to those around us.  Only then can we really ... ... ...

Live the (transformed) Life,

Bruce

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