Relate Church

You know what it is to get into a groove? When you know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and have the resources and freedom to do it. When you are immersed in a way of doing something and it is working very well, performing successfully.
“Things calmed down,” after Paul quit hunting them down and persecuting them. They were able to get in a groove of living their lives in a way that was good and productive.
And here are some key things that tell us how they were in the groove:
They had deep reverence, fear for God.
The Holy Spirit was with them.
The Holy Spirit strengthened them.
The results were that they prospered wonderfully.

God gave Saul direction, a path to take. The first sign that you have truly repented is that you will be willing to walk that path.
When you have wronged someone, there is always a path for you to take to make it right. For some wrongs it will take years to walk that path. For more minor wrongs, it can be as simple as flipping a light switch.
And know this: just because you walk that path of repentance doesn’t mean that you will always have an opportunity to be back in their life. But it does mean that you will be able to be right with God.

One of God’s tools to spread His invitation to the world has been to cause, or allow something bad to happen that makes His people scatter.
God will, at times, allow tragedy in your life. But if you will trust Him long enough, He will bring good from it.
God knows that sometimes the only way we get up and go is if our comfort has got up and went.
Often, God’s plan gets set in motion with pain. You can’t just look at your life and see the pain. Look back and see that your pain was God trying to set His plan in motion.

God wants us to be fathers. God wants good people to make more good people. I don’t mean to diminish being an earthly father at all. But I want to challenge you today to take a step into another kind of fatherhood. This kind of fatherhood can’t happen accidentally. It can’t happen without intention. God wants us to be Spiritual Fathers.
The most important men in the Bible weren’t human fathers, they were Spiritual Fathers. 

One of the most important parts of Christianity is “the meeting together.” 
Being with fellow believers, growing, learning, supporting, loving one another, worshipping together, validating God’s presence in each other’s lives, all of it has always been highly important in the Kingdom of God.
The early church was full of commitment and love towards one another. They met together all the time. They prayed together. They worshiped together. 

Walking this life together in the church, it’s all too easy to let our guards down and forget how serious what we are doing. Yes, God wants us to enjoy each other, to relax in His grace, but there are lines that we don’t dare cross.
And as the early church experienced, God is very aware of what His people are doing and how we are functioning together.
God is Truth. And when you go against Him, you are going to hit Truth. 
Satan’s words and thoughts will always cause you to be braver than you should be against Truth. 
When you find out that God doesn’t like something, how do you respond? Are you defiant, or compliant with Truth?

When life and death is on the line, you need to know God is…. A genuine, true, real, experience with God.
The apostles knew their lives were on the line. There weren’t arguments over petty differences. They weren’t talking behind each other’s backs. They weren’t divided over their differences in opinion. 
They prayed and people were healed.
They preached, went to prison, and people were saved.
They prayed and God’s presence and power were revealed.

If you want to change your life, this is the recipe. This is how. 
If you are tired of a bad marriage, this is how to make it good. If you struggle with sin, change your devotion. 
If you struggle with an addiction, shift your affections and life’s dedication from that to God and His people.

Your life, up to now, if you have lived, really lived; if you have tried, really tried; if you have given yourself a chance to go after something that is difficult; your life has had trouble, upsetting, painful and sometimes even disturbing experiences.
The Bible is full of stories about women, some great women, and some not so great women. There were so many things for the women in the Bible to overcome. I hope you are reading about them to be encouraged and strengthened.

When Jesus left, He confirmed that the promise His Father had made would come to them, that He would send the Holy Spirit to comfort and empower His people. 
God’s ways are so huge, we can’t even begin to wrap our heads around what He has done.