Prayer

Guys here are the prayer points from tonight. Really make an effort to pray into each situation like its your own.

Richard - Getting a placement for Bible College and that his mum would find a job

Mark - To put God first in everything and strength to stop swearing

Jonny - Big time exams! Art coursework and IT exam.

DJ - To pray and have compassion for others

Nicky - Healing for his knee which was dislocated and direction for his future

Me - Strength, wisdom and freshness for exam on Monday

Ross - so selfless he didn't want prayer but I think we should all pray for him, and for ourselves, to hear from God and specifically for Ross about what God has for him

Dave - We love you Dave, tell us what you'd like prayer for!

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:22-24)

DJ IS OUR HERO>>>> NAA NAAA NAAA NAAAA

lots of love to our hero

nicky and dave

Chapter 3 - God's Purpose for the Law

Well chaplettes this is abit of a synopsis of chapter 3 although i wont be quite as fluent or poetic as our american bro (jamie's dad) i will give it my best shot.really want to encourage you guys to keep going with the bible even try get some of it done coz it gives you some pure gold, i love golddddd, from the bible and helps us to know where to look when we dont have a clue. so we've been exploring the Old Testament and God's Law and its reference to sin.so it started: 1.sin wasnt counted against us pre - Old Covenant (remember imputed?!) 2.Moses gave the Old Covenant as sin was ruining people and people were pretty bad 3.The Law was inferior alone so Jesus came to earth and presented the New Covenant ie the only way to Jesus So thats what we've been exploring in the first few chapters and in chapter 3 A. Wommack refers to sin and how Jesus has changed how we should view forgiveness and that sin has no power over us. In the first few pages of teh chapter he states if we really understood Gods goodness we should run straight to Him when we mess up........however the reality sadly is we often run away from God as we dont want to be punished or feel "we arent good enough to be a Christian" WELL thats WRONG its such a good thing for us that God loved and loves us so much he sent Jesus to be take on punishment for ALLLLLLLLLL our sins. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin - Romans 6:7 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus -Romans 8:1 read that verse lads if we are for God there is no guilt due to sin as the perfect one forgives us, always! So the purpose of the Law was to give us knowledge of sin but it doesnt give us knowledge of Jesus - Gods true nature....forgiveness and sacrifice for us. Now we have the Holy Spirit as our convicting power that makes us want to not upset God by sinning against Him. Jesus only wants to be close to us so dont run from Him when you sin....just ask for forgiveness and run towards Him and youll reap the benefit of forgiveness. amen bros

Every Young Man's Battle!!

So definitely an interesting last few Bro's smallgroups in which hopefully we have all learned something positive. Seriously guys thankyou for being real with us about the 'stuff' you are all struggling with, I think when we are open and honest about it we all realise that it isn't a challenge we are facing by ourselves and in the words of Michael Jackson, "You are not alone"!

DJ and I have been encouraged that all of you are up for the challenge and ready to pursue the ultimate goal - to become more like Jesus - and in this case that means sexual purity. But how do we do this? We all know it certainly isn't easy. I personally believe it is done in 3 ways

• in realising who God has made us as His children that we overcome sin. Really check out verse 19 below, Paul is reminding us of who we are and what we have been given as Christians. There is a massive difference between trying to live to a certain standard and simply living out of who God's made us to be.

¹⁸ "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?"

1 Corinthians 6:18,19

• In realising we have each other as support and to talk to and to challenge and encourage. That's what our smallgroup is all about!

• Asking for God's strength to be able to say no. "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure." 1 Corinthians 10:13

Guys I'm not gonna say much more except this. Lust and pornography destroy lives and relationships. It may give us a temporary high but in the long run it can really harm us and our relationships with girls. The verse above says, to 'flee'. That doesn't mean we look a few times and then say no, it means you get as far away as fast as you can from this stuff; not the odd peak at a porn site or babecast! Remember Joseph in the Bible? Potipher's wife was trying to seduce him and he literally fled the house as she ripped his jacket off and he didn't even stay to try and get it back. He was like "I'm outta here". That has to be our attitude to staying pure.

Finally well done so far! You can all do it...why? Because the same Spirit that was in Jesus to help him conquer sin is in us, Yeahhhhhaaa!

the bros blog

this is AWESOME!

yeooo

another great night at lads cell i am so blessed to have such great friends like mark that guys a legend wish i was as cool as him really looking foward to next week gona get stuck into my book tonight cant wait to see god move in are wee groupe

love budget

Well well!

Hey Bros and no ho's,

Firstly I must give my apologies for smallgroup being cancelled tonight! I know what you're asking - "Haven't got time for smallgroup but you're blogging!?" You would be right to ask this question, but I have made time for this little recap on Chapter 2, I hope that your anger is slightly appeased! Honestly I have a bit of coursework and some uni stuff to take care of so I had to relegate you guys for the night...Haha I'm just wondering are any of you actually reading these posts!? If you are clap your hands...now Nicky I know you just clapped don't pretend you didn't...Nicky stop clapping nobody can hear you!

Ok so I know you guys don't love reading so I'll try and keep it short. So to summarise chapter 2 and I really hope you've been reading as much as you can:

God's grace in the OT is seen right from the very start of the world. As we've already discussed, God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden to prevent them from eating of the tree of life and living forever in their fallen state...an act of mercy not anger!

What else can we learn from the OT about God's grace? Well grace doesn't mean that sin doesn't still have its consequences. People didn't live as long, there was a fear of God instead of friendship (Eg. Adam and Eve hiding) and people went their own way because they felt inadequate. BUT this was never what God intended for us. GUYS! I'm sure we can all relate to these things but the good news is that even when we do sin, or feel distant from God he isn't offended or he doesn't stop talking to us. Let me ask you, who ran when Adam sinned, Adam or God? You're right it was Adam. And why do we run when we sin? I think it's just like we talked about last week, when we know we owe someone something we avoid them at all costs because we think that affects how they see us or our relationship with them.

BUT, and I'm going to finish on this...What if, it didn't affect how they saw us or treated us?! What if every time we saw that person all they said was, "It is paid for, lets hang out!" Wouldn't it be stupid to keep ignoring them or avoiding them? Yes it would be, especially if all that person had to give and share with us was good stuff or 'an inheritance' to be biblical!

I want to leave you with one of my favourite verses: it's Romans 5:1-2 (message)

^1-2By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him and make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

AWESOME! I pray we'd each be able to understand that verse!

Quick thought for next week and you may be asked in smallgroup...Why did God bring the Law? Try and read chapter 3 - the answers in it!

Love and Peace

Jambo

Chapter 1 - is God schizophrenic

ok lads gonna run through abit of the first 2 chapters coz people have joined and come back from playing pool!!
so we can start off with what is schizophrenia coz its a beast word but luckily Nadia LOVES brains so she highlighted it to me and is there for advice, counselling and general chat at cost of £5/hr payable to me.

schizophrenia - disintegration of thought processes and emotional responsiveness and it
commonly presents as SPLIT PERSONALITY
Many people have argued that they see God as schizophrenic on one hand there is a
CONDEMNING side eg. God orders a man to be stoned to death for picking sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-35)
On the other side there is
LOVE eg Jesus fogives a woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:3-11)

It is essential to read the OT and NT alongside eachother to get true understanding on the nature of God.
An example of this is when Jesus was rejected by the Samaritans and the disciples wanted Jesus to send fire down from heavens just as Elijah had in the OT Luke 9:54
They thought rejecting the Son of God would warrant such actions but Jesus replied:
"...Son of man has not come to destroy lives, but to save them."

God in OT was seen as judgement and punishment but this is only one side and NOT his true nature as we are tole in 1 John 4:8 that GOD IS LOVE and throughout the NT that Jesus is the walking, living Word and Jesus = love ................so therefore God is love.

hope that makes sense and you guys got something from the 1st chapt
peace

Our task is upon us

Well bros over toes.....we've decided to crack on and read through a book together to encourage us to understand Gods word and help us turn to His true word, the Bible.
Weve decided to read The True Nature of God by Jamie's "mate" (i know you thought Fra was his only one) Andrew Wommack -the slow speaking American guy from the DVD. It will hopefully help us understand what God's true nature is and reinforce that it is one of LOVE, HOPE & FORGIVENESS. Im really looking forward to cracking on through this and see where it takes us.

Faith in someone = a point you know someone so well you trust them completely
This is what we are all trying to achieve in our walk with God that no matter what happens
we trust God will guide us and still love us
As we as humans havent really developed an intimate relationship with God it is not
unusual that we dont trust wholly and dont fully get the extent of His love for us as His
children.

So guys as we're reading through this book try get the reading done, i know it can be tough and sometimes will be complicated but talk to eachother and us and keep encouraging! We are going to put some phish food for food on the blog couple of days before so look out for the not so magic gems!
peace

Welcome Boys!

Well boys after much talk and anticipation the LADS blog is up and running! Thanks must go to Dr DJ for his stirling work in getting the project off the ground.

So we would like to officially welcome you aboard and hope that we can share lots of witty banter and hopefully some thoughts, questions, verses and much more! We hope this will be a space where we can all build each other up and encourage each other and so on. Any cyber bullying or cyber sins will not be tolerated and may result in the expulsion of the particular member from cell group!!!

So from Mighty Mark to Jolly Jonny to Rustic Ross to Danger Dave to Notorious Nicky to our newest recruit...better late than never - Reliable Ricky you are the LADS cell and we hope to see you all this Wednesday at the house of trouser!

Love from, Jaunty Jambo and Doctor DJ