SCHEDULES OF MEETINGS
Sunday:
Breaking of Bread - 09:45–10:45 a.m.
Fellowship - 10:45-11:00
a.m.
Ministry Meeting - 11:00-12:00 p.m.
Sunday School - 02:30–04:30 p.m.
(Sunday
School is every Sunday afternoon, 2:30 to 4:30, August through May, and is for ages 6 to 18. Program
includes Bible lesson, memory verses, activities, singing, and refreshments. If your children need transportation
for the Sunday School, please let us know.)
Wednesday:
Prayer
Meeting & Bible Study - 07:00–08:00 p.m.
DAILY DEVOTIONAL
FREEDOM TO BE - January 22, 2012
"Having
died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter" (Romans
7:6, ASV).
The law was applied to the natural man, that he might produce; grace is given
to the spiritual man, that He might produce.
"Almost every believer makes the same
mistake as the Galatian Christians. Very few learn at conversion at once that it is only by faith that we stand, and walk,
and live. They have no conception of the meaning of the Word about being dead to the law, freed from the law, about the freedom
with which Christ makes us free (Romans 7:6). Regarding the law as a divine ordinance for our direction, they consider themselves
prepared and fitted by conversion to take up the fulfillment of the law as a natural duty. They cannot understand that it
is not to the law, but to a living Person, that we are now bound, and that our obedience and growth are only possible by the
unceasing faith in His power and life ever working in us (Philippians 2:13)." -A.M.
"Good
and holy and perfect as the law of God is, it is entirely powerless either to justify or sanctify. It cannot in any way make
the old nature better; neither is it the rule of the new nature. The old man is not subject to it, and the new man does not
need it. The new creation has another object before it, and another power that acts upon it, in order to produce what is lovely
and acceptable to God Christ the object, realized by the power of the Holy Spirit." -W.K.
"Not
after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life" (Hebrews 7:16).
DEPENDENT RECEPTION - January 12, 2012
"Walk in [dependence upon] the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).
Those who have thoroughly learned full dependence on Him for justification
will come to understand that sanctification is by the same faith principle. We are to rest in His finished work both for birth
and for growth.
"We are not to overcome the lusts of the flesh
in order that we may walk in the Spirit. We are to walk in the Spirit in order that the lusts of the flesh may be overcome.
The enemy can hold up young Christians on this point for a long time, so that they do not really get started on the Christian
walk. They feel they cannot expect to begin to walk in the Spirit until they have, in some degree at least, dealt with the
lusts of the flesh.
"They wait for some vague time when they
hope they will have reached a more satisfactory position in regard to the lusts of the flesh, and will feel more confident
about attempting a walk in the Spirit. But that is all the wrong way around. If we are to wait until we have, in some degree,
mastered the lusts of the flesh before we venture to walk in the Spirit: if we are to wait until we feel that we can give
some sort of security to ourselves and to God that we shall do a bit better in the future than we have done in the past, then
we never will walk in the Spirit. For until we walk in dependence upon the Spirit we shall not, and cannot, overcome the lusts
of the flesh." -D.T.
"Be filled with [controlled by] the Spirit"
(Ephesians 5:18).
