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!